A Historical Novel

War Of The Wing-Men, XX.

"The evolution of intelligent life on Diomedes is still largely conjectural; there has been no time to hunt fossils. But on the basis of existing biology and general principles, it is possible to reason out the course of millennial events." (p. 143)

"Drak'ho's Fleet was one of several which have now been discovered by traders. They may all have originated as groups living near the equator and thus not burdened by the need to travel; but this is still guesswork." (pp. 146-147)

In these passages, a fictional narrator addresses his contemporaries in the Solar Commonwealth and Polesotechnic League period of Technic Civilization. This narrator is not omniscient. He cannot present the mere facts of Diomedean evolution. His remarks are "conjectural" and guesswork." And he knows nothing of Technic History after his own period.

So how did this non-omniscient narrator know what Wace and some Diomedeans were thinking in earlier chapters? He did not know. But he is writing historical fiction. Hloch, the Avalonian Ythrian compiler of The Earth Book Of Stormgate, informs us that this historical novel about Nicholas van Rijn was published either on Terra or on Hermes, that a different author and date are cited in each case and that he, as editor, did not consider this matter worth pursuing! Thus, the ultimate author, Poul Anderson, indirectly dismisses this edition that I am reading entitled not The Man Who Counts but War Of The Wing-Men. I am probably reading the Hermetian edition.

That ultimate author informs us in the AFTERWORD in The Technic Civilization Saga that the wellsprings of the novel, and presumably of Nicholas van Rijn, include Falstaff, Long John Silver and some real Renaissance figures. I read Treasure Island over sixty-six years ago and remember only a murder committed by Silver.