its opening story is set during the first Grand Survey;
its concluding story is set during the second stage of the colonization of Avalon;
its middle eight instalments, including one novel, are about different merchants (van Rijn, Adzel, the trader team and others) of the Polesotechnic League;
for those who have already read the Polesotechnic League Tetralogy, the Earth Book presents an entire second League series of comparable length;
it collects five stories about Ythrians at successive stages of their history;
its dozen introductions and single afterword are fictitiously written after the Terran War on Avalon, thus during the early Terran Empire period;
it explains Merseian hostility to humanity, a major issue for the Empire;
thus, a summary of the Earth Book refers directly or indirectly to nearly every period of Anderson's Technic History.
Meanwhile, in 2025, John Grisham's The Widow is amusing.
4 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I would not put too much stress on "Day of Burning" satisfactorily explaining why the vachs of the Wilwidh Ocean became so hostile to humans and the Terran Empire. Anger over how Falkayn strong armed the United Vachs and other Merseian nations into agreeing to let the Gethfennu be the agents for preparing the planet for the Valenderay super eruption seems a weak basis for a grudge lasting so many centuries. But intelligent beings don't need rational reasons for holding grudges!
Ad astra! Sean
I suppose the main reason for becoming hostile was that they got their noses rubbed in the technological superiority of the interstellar visitors.
Right.
Kaor, Jim!
I forgot about that--I think you are right.
Dang, I realized something, what happened to the star Valenderay was a "supernova," not a "super eruption."
Ad astra! Sean
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