Showing posts with label "Supernova" by Poul Anderson. Show all posts
Showing posts with label "Supernova" by Poul Anderson. Show all posts

Tuesday, 18 November 2014

Supernova

After eight introductory short stories, Poul Anderson's History of Technic Civilization divides into:

a van Rijn series of five installments;
a trader team series of five installments;
one other short story set in the same period.

I argued earlier that "Lodestar" concludes the trader team series and that Mirkheim is a sequel but obviously there are two ways to look at it.

Van Rijn:

cameos in the first trader team story, where he explains the trade pioneer crew idea to team leader Falkayn;
is absent from the second story, "Supernova"/"Day of Burning;"
thereafter, shares the spotlight with the team in each succeeding story because of the gravity of the situations that they face - which will eventually lead to the dissolution of the Polesotechnic League.

When I have completed other tasks today, I will reread "Day of Burning."