Noah Arkwright

See "Territory" for discussion of the introductions in Trader To The Stars. The introductions in the following volume, The Trouble Twisters, are more whimsical.

(I) Vance Hall, commenting on the Philosophy of Noah Arkwright, points out that four discoveries:

uranium fission

lasers

artificial gravity

the quantum hyperjump

- confounded expectations. (Sf ideas are made to seem plausible by showing them as coming after already existing technologies.)

Then Hall presents humorous laws of humanity, starting with Parkinson's Laws.

(II) Noah Arwright, introducing Sophontology, presents a helpful account of inter-species interactions in Technic civilization. This is the most useful of these three introductions.

(III) Urwain the Wide-Faring presents a barely comprehensible account of his meeting with - guess who - Noah Arkwright.

The Technic History has a multitude of historians. It is not only future history but also future historiography. Hloch of the Earth Book is followed by Donvar Ayeghen of the Galactic Archaeological Society at the mid-point of the Saga, Volume III.