Anderson's History of Technic Civilization, which features Ythrians, is what Isaac Asimov's Foundation series and Frank Herbert's Dune series should have been: a detailed history of interstellar civilizations with a vast cast covering multiple periods. What matters is the details of personal lives in planetary environments, not political manipulations by powerful cliques. James Blish's Cities In Flight, Volume III, Earthman, Come Home, shows us the Mayor and City Manager but not the population of New-York-in-flight but Blish - partly - made up for this in the later-written Volume II, A Life For The Stars.
Cities In Flight, like Robert Heinlein's Future History, would have matched the Technic History if lengthened whereas the Foundation series and the Dune series would have needed total rewrites. Thus, this blog ranks sf works.
Blish's major disadvantage vis a vis Anderson is a much smaller output.
2 comments:
Some authors are just more prolific. I take about a year to write a novel, for example.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling and Paul!
Mr. Stirling: Ha! I immediately thought of Anthony Trollope and how some of his more hoity toity critics sneered at him for being a very prolific writer, adhering to a strict daily writing quota, and admitting he wrote in hopes of getting paid well.
Paul: I don't entirely agree with this fixation you seem to have for the minor details of everyday life. Some, yes, to provide color, background, contextuality for whatever stories we might be reading. I recently finished rereading Anderson's ORBIT UNLIMITED, and I think he provides enough details about the decadent Earth we see there and life on Rustum, the colony founded by the Constitutionalists there. Sufficient details, without overwhelming the story.
Ad astra! Sean
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