What Happened Earlier

Poul Anderson's Nicholas van Rijn series begins either with "Margin of Profit" or with Trader To The Stars depending on the order in which we read his Technic History. It is good to read an entire series in the chronological order of fictional events but it is also good to read to the end of a series, then to learn that there is more to be told about what had happened earlier. Characters who had grown old or died can be re-presented as young again in later written or later published prequels. Adzel, the Wodenite planetologist in van Rijn's first trade pioneer crew, is a student on Earth in The Earth Book Of Stormgate published on Avalon shortly after the Terran War, therefore long after the Polesotechnic League and van Rijn's Solar Spice & Liquors Company. Adzel is also remembered in the later Imperial period when Axor, another starfaring Wodenite, can be regarded as a successor although he had converted to a different Terrestrial religion. Such religions have a long history. Dominic Flandry's martyred fiancee, Kossara Vymezal, is canonized by OrthoChristians on Dennitza. Axor seeks evidence of the Universal Incarnation. And there are also alien religions. The history continues into a remote future beyond our ken.