Bite-Size Books?

Although Baen Books has rightly collected Poul Anderson's History of Technic Civilization into seven omnibus volumes of equal length, an opposite way to present the series would be in bite-size volumes each to contain only a single novel or at most four short stories. The new reader would thus be introduced to apparently disconnected stories each presenting a few of the essential building blocks for what turns out to be, after several volumes, a substantial fictitious history.

Volume I
"The Saturn Game"
"Wings of Victory"
"The Problem of Pain"
"How To Be Ethnic In One Easy Lesson"

- introducing:

the Jerusalem Catholic Church;
Ythrians;

the planet later called Avalon;
the Polesotechnic League;
Adzel;
references to the planets Cynthia, Gorzun, Woden and Aeneas.

Volume II
"Margin of Profit"
"The Three-Cornered Wheel"
"A Sun Invisible"
"The Season of Forgiveness"

- introducing:

Nicholas van Rijn;
Martians;
David Falkayn;

Falkayn working for van Rijn's Solar Spice & Liquors Company;
the planet Ivanhoe.

Volume III
The Man Who Counts

- introducing:

the planet Diomedes;
van Rijn's disreputable connection with Falkayn's home planet, Hermes.

There are probably more salient details here that I have missed.

The Technic Civilization Saga

This has been a long time coming. I finally have Baen Books Technic Civilization Saga in its entirety. One volume had to be reprinted before the bookshop could get it. I already had all but one of the collected stories but this series is definitely worth buying. (Referring to another Anderson series, I bought an identical  new copy of The Shield Of Time when my original copy began to crumble into dust through over-use, then patched up the original and continued to use it.)

Hank Davis' Introductions to the Volumes are worth reading, also his entertaining new Introduction to one old story that definitely needed it. The Volumes can be critiqued for their covers, contents and titles. I do not want to be comprehensive right now but here are some main point, not in any order.

Volume I, cover: excellent image of van Rijn;

Vol III, I agree with contents and cover but not title - should be Late League, Early Empire or, better still, just League And Empire;

Vol IV, I agree with contents and title but not cover;

I think the last three Flandry novels should be a Volume called Children Of Empire;

Flandry should be absent from the title, cover and contents of the concluding Volume, which should be Long Night And Dawn, although that is a good image of an older Flandry;

Flandry does not look quite aristocratic enough - the illustrations in the Ace Books edition of The Game Of Empire are truer to the physical descriptions in the texts.

Long Night And Dawn?

I now accept that Poul Anderson's History of Technic Civilization should be published in seven omnibus volumes but there is still room for disagreement about which works should be in which volume and what the titles should be. I now suggest:

I The Polesotechnic League (9 works)
II Star Traders (9)
III League And Empire (6)
IV Young Flandry (3)
V Flandry And Empire (9)
VI Children Of Empire (3)
VII Long Night and Dawn (4)

The Technic History is two consecutive future histories. A future history covers a period longer than a single life time. Nicholas van Rijn and David Falkayn both appear in Volumes I-III as proposed above but Vol I starts long before their births and Vol III ends long after their deaths so these three volumes alone do constitute a future history. Vol III moves the History from late League to early Empire and Vol IV introduces later Empire. Vols IV-VI all feature Dominic Flandry so do not in themselves constitute a future history. However, Vol VII starts long after Flandry's death and covers three historical periods, thus constituting a miniature future history in its own right.

Children Of Empire would be so called because each of its three novels starts with the grown up son or daughter of a human character introduced in the first Young Flandry novel and its third novel also features the grown up son of a non-human character introduced in the first Young Flandry novel.

Readers of the Flandry series know that he fears a future period called "the Long Night." The proposed title for Vol VII would convey both that this period does come and that it is not the end. In this version, every volume except Vol VII contains either three or a multiple of three works. The richness and dynamism of the series mean that it is possible to keep rethinking how best to present it. The current Baen Books Technic Civilization Saga is a good start.

Reading A Series In Chronological Order

Baen Books' The Technic Civilization Saga presents Poul Anderson's major future history, the History of Technic Civilization, in chronological order of fictitious events. The History is two long consecutive series. The pre-Flandry period of the History comprises the entire contents of Trader to the Stars, The Trouble Twisters, Satan's World, Mirkheim, The Earth Book of Stormgate and The People of the Wind plus three other stories (also War of the Wing Men but this was already incorporated into the Earth Book under its preferred title, "The Man Who Counts").

Merely rereading all these works in chronological order in uniform editions greatly enhances appreciation both of their contents and of their interconnections. It is like reading a new series. I am beginning to see the sense of the way the volumes are divided up but still dislike some of the volume titles. I now suggest that the pre-Flandry series could be collected as:

Beginnings, 9 stories including those introducing Nicholas van Rijn and David Falkayn;
Star Traders, 9 works covering the careers both of van Rijn and of his trader team led by Falkayn;
Late League, Early Empire, 6 works from the brief revival of the team to the pre-Flandry Terran Empire's war on Falkayn's colony, Avalon.

Latter Days?

In Sandra Miesel's Chronology of Technic Civilization, "Esau" (1970), featuring Nicholas van Rijn, is placed just before "Hiding Place" (1961), also featuring van Rijn. In "Hiding Place," van Rijn is out in space whereas in "Esau" he is back on Earth receiving an employee's report so I would have guessed that "Esau" was set later in van Rijn's career.

When "Hiding Place" was collected in Trader to the Stars in 1966, a newly written fictitious Introduction commented:

" 'The world's great age begins anew...' " (1)

and:

"We do not know where we are going. Nor do most of us care. For us it is enough that we are on our way." (2)

Thus, this story heralds a new age.

When "Esau" was collected in The Earth Book of Stormgate in 1978, a newly written fictitious Introduction commented that the philosophy and practice of the Polesotechnic League

"...already...were becoming somewhat archaic, if not obsolete." (3)

Thus, this story occurs later in the History?

(1) Anderson, Poul, The Van Rijn Method, compiled by Hank Davis, Riverdale, NY, 2009, p. 555.
(2) ibid., p. 556.
(3) ibid., p. 517.

Baen and Beyond

The Technic Civilization Saga published by Baen is a well presented series. I do not always agree with the way the volumes are divided up but I suppose they have to be of comparable length? Rise of the Terran Empire and Young Flandry are appropriate titles for omnibus volumes. Influenced by the Baen editions, I now propose the following way to present the series:

The History of Technic Civilization

The Earth Book of Stormgate: Expanded Edition
I Beginnings and Nicholas van Rijn
II Trader Team and Latter Days

The Terran Empire
III Rise of the Terran Empire
IV Young Flandry
V Flandry and Empire
VI Children of Empire

VII After the Empire

Rise of the Terran Empire must describe the pre-Flandry Empire in conflict with Avalonians including members of the Stormgate choth so this is an intermediate volume, both a sequel to the Earth Book and a prequel to Young Flandry. Similarly, After the Empire is both a sequel to the Terran Empire and, potentially, a prequel to subsequent history. If Anderson can write in Valhalla...