The Man Who Counts, Chapter II

Eric Wace is the Solar Spice & Liquor Company factor on Diomedes, a post held by David Falkayn on Garstang's and by Emil Dalmady on Suleiman. Because Nicholas van Rijn promotes by results, Falkayn becomes a trade pioneer team leader and Dalmady becomes an entrepreneur so what will become of Wace, whose progess is less rapid? He expects an eventual executive post back on Earth.

We have here a variation on the cover of The Van Rijn Method, with a slightly different image of van Rijn. SSL is PLC 2987165 II. PLC could mean Public Limited Company but here means Polesotechnic League Company, I think. The three people on the sinking skycruiser (see previous post) are Wace, van Rijn and Lady Sandra Tamarin from Hermes, Falkayn's home planet. The plot thickens, somewhat.

These are details soon forgotten after reading a novel but my present purpose is to note as many interesting and interconnected details as possible while simultaneously reading the second Modesty Blaise novel. See here.

Analyzing The Earth Book

Of the twelve works in The Earth Book Of Stormgate, the first two are about early human-Ythrian contact and the last two are about the human-Ythrian joint colony on Avalon. Thus, only eight of the stories are about the Polesotechnic League. Further, two of these feature neither Nicholas van Rijn nor any member of his trader team.

The remaining six works begin with the first appearances of Adzel and of van Rijn and end with "Lodestar" - which is the last trader team story. The team does re-appear in the following volume, Mirkheim, but that is a sequel, set several years later with much water under the bridge. The characters have parted. Their lives have moved on. The old team is re-assembled, but with some difficulty, for one last time and not for its original purpose. "Lodestar" was written as, and is, the conclusion of the original series.

We are left with, in this volume, only three intermediate works about the Solar Spice & Liquors Company, two featuring van Rijn and one featuring the trader team. However, this is also the period of seven other works to be read, originally, in three separate volumes.

League and After, Empire and After

To those who have read Poul Anderson's History of Technic Civilization, imagine a new Complete Edition structured as follows:

Volume I, an introductory collection of nine stories from "The Saturn Game" in the twenty first century to "A Little Knowledge" in the twenty fifth century, with intermediate stories introducing Ythrians, van Rijn, Adzel and Falkayn, who will re-appear in later Volumes;
II, a Star Trader (van Rijn) omnibus, starting with The Man Who Counts;
III, a Trader Team (Falkayn etc) omnibus, ending with Mirkheim;
IV, an Avalon and Empire collection, ending with The People of the Wind;
V, a Flandry and Empire I omnibus, ending with The Day of Their Return;
VI, Flandry and Empire II collecting all seven shorter works about Dominic Flandry;
VII, Flandry and Empire III, ending with The Game of Empire;
VIII, The Long Night, including The Night Face.

Of these eight proposed volumes, three would each include one novel plus shorter works. Another three would include two, three and four novels respectively. Thus, the entire series comprises twelve novels plus thirty one shorter works, my point being that the Technic History is long and substantial. In this respect at least, it surpasses Robert Heinlein's original Future History which comprises two novels and twenty three shorter works. The Technic History also covers more space and time than the Future History. Heinlein's characters take four stories to get off the Earth and four volumes to get out of the Solar System whereas Anderson's characters start in the Saturnian system and are well outside the Solar System in their second story. In very general terms, the two Histories follow a common pattern of economic expansion followed by political collapse and dictatorship but later progress towards a stabler culture.

The first four Volumes of the proposed Complete Edition correspond to the expanded The Earth Book of Stormgate (See here). Unfortunately, Anderson did not devise any corresponding narrative framework for the later Imperial period or its aftermath. The Technic History can be described as "League and after, Empire and after." We can add "Commonalty" but this third form of interstellar organization appears only once in the concluding story and we do not see its aftermath.

  I hope that by the twenty ninth century, humanity will have transcended imperialism but Anderson helps us to appreciate human, and vividly imagined alien, life whatever its social structures.

"Where the mighty Sagittarius flows into the Gulf of Centaurs, Avalon's second city - the only one besides Gray which rated the name - had arisen as riverport, seaport, spaceport, industrial center, and mart. Thus, Centauri was predominantly a human town, akin to many in the Empire, thronged, bustling, noisy, cheerfully corrupt, occasionally dangerous. When he went there, Arinnian most of the time had to be Christopher Holm, in behaviour as well as name." (1)

(Holm is human but has joined an Ythrian choth where his name is Arinnian.)

Two centuries later, on another planet:

"Life spilled from narrow streets and surged between the walls enclosing the plaza..." (2)

Flandry's daughter sees shops and booths selling, among many other exotic items, "...miniature computers of the inner Empire..." and illegal blasters "...doubtless found in wrecked spacecraft after the Merseian onslaught was beaten back." (2)

Life remains vivid and colourful despite the persistence of military conflict.

(1) Anderson, Poul. The People of the Wind, London, 1977, p. 57.
(2) Anderson, Poul. The Game of Empire, New York, 1985, p. 3.