As A Series Grows...

 

As a series grows, there comes to be a story behind the stories. Thus, in Poul Anderson's Time Patrol series, a friendship, then a relationship, between Manse Everard and Wanda Tamberly grows over the course of:

"The Year of the Ransom"

("Ivory, and Apes, and Peacocks")

The Shield Of Time

"Death And The Knight"

(The Shield... is an immediate sequel to "Ivory..." which does not feature Wanda.)

"Star of the Sea," written later, was deliberately set shortly before "The Year of the Ransom" so that its single-instalment relationship between Everard and Janne Floris could begin and end before Everard met Wanda. "Star..." refers back to the events of "The Sorrow of Odin the Goth," thus making "The Sorrow..." earlier than "Star..." in Everard's career. Relationships between stories were rearranged as the series proceeded.

In Anderson's Technic History, a curse placed on Dominic Flandry by the psychic Djana in A Circus Of Hells adversely affected Flandry's relationship with Kathryn McCormac in The Rebel Worlds and also his relationship with Kossara Vymezal in A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows although he eventually settled down with Miriam Abrams in A Stone In Heaven and The Game Of Empire. Also, Flandry's relationship with Persis d'Io in Ensign Flandry had major repercussions in A Knight... We realize that these relationships have become a story in themselves.