Stories, Sequels And Series

I don't think that I could get into any sf author who just wrote a large number of short stories with no sequels or series. A completely new fictional background for every short narrative? No ideas or characters developed beyond just one story? (I realize that I might be describing Harlan Ellison and someone who is more familiar with his works might want to respond?)

When I first read Poul Anderson's "The Game of Glory," I saw of course that this story was about a character named Dominic Flandry but did not yet know either that there was a Dominic Flandry series or that this series covered one period of a future history series - one of several such series by the same author. I learned that Flandry's enemies, the Merseians, had existed in the period of the Polesotechnic League when I read a reader's letter in an sf mag. Imagine if the only work ever to have been set in the Technic History timeline had been the first Flandry short story!

In Planets And Timelines, we refer to:

Poul Anderson's "The Queen of Air and Darkness" and "Time Lag";

James Blish's "A Case of Conscience," A Case Of Conscience, "Seeding Program" and "Watershed."

We have seen how the two Anderson stories connect with others of his works.

"A Case of Conscience" was incorporated into A Case Of Conscience which is Volume III of After Such Knowledge and one volume of the Haertel Scholium. "Seeding Program" and "Watershed" are Books One and Four of The Seedling Stars. All of these works are bettered by becoming part of something bigger.