Longer Term Questions

A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows is a pivotal novel for two main characters in Poul Anderson's History of Technic Civilization. Flandry of Terra loses his son and his fiancee. Aycharaych of Chereion loses his planet and his heritage. Flandry carries on. We do not know what happens to Aycharaych. Two volumes later there is a hint that he might have survived but that is all.

Was Aycharaych killed in the bombardment of Chereion? He could have escaped but might not have wanted to. If he did escape, he would have had no reason to continue working either for Merseia or against Terra. Might he instead have worked against Merseia? Could that be why, when the Empire falls, its space is not filled by an expanded Rhoidunate?

How could the Ancients/Chereionites have become extinct? If they are not, then where are they and could Aycharaych have joined them (although his anguish in the face of Flandry's questions does strongly suggest that he is indeed the last Chereionite)? (1) Another science fiction writer might have planned and presented a multi-volume series raising, then answering, these questions. Instead, Anderson wrote a long sequence of stories and novels about various characters living and working in many different well conceived planetary environments.

Longer term questions about history and the Ancients form the background for these works but do not become the prime subject matter. Thus, we get an approximation to real history. What is the later course of the career of Flandry's daughter? What will Fr Axor discover when he continues to examine Ancient ruins? Since the League and the Empire fell, will the Commonalty fall also? Such questions could have been answered if Anderson had just written this one series and had not devoted such attention to details in individual works but had instead concentrated on an Asimovian perspective of big galactic events. However, I think we should be very grateful that Anderson followed the course that he did.

(1) Anderson, Poul, A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows, London, 1978, p. 215.

Merseia

Astronomical:

in the system of the Sol-like star Korych;
four moons - Neihevin, Seith, Lythyr and Wythna;
lethally close (about one parsec) to the supernova, Valendary.

When visited by a ship of the Grand Survey:

an industrial revolution starting by the Wilwidh Ocean in the northern hemisphere;
scientific method invented;
heliocentric astronomy;
post-Newtonian, pre-Maxwellian physics;
chemistry beginning;
a well-developed taxonomy;
speculations about evolution;
steam trains;
political power fragmented among the Vachs;
scientists, engineers and teachers each under the patronage of a Hand of a Vach.

When visited, two hundred years later, by the trader team:

the Vachs have confederated;
in the social dislocation following the industrial revolution, the baronial tradition survives as the Gethfennu, organised crime;
the most powerful Vach, Dathyr, is based in Castle Afon in the city of Ardaig;
other Vachs - Hallen, Ynvory, Rueth, Isthyr, landless Urdiolch;
the Republic of Lafdigu in the southern hemisphere;
interplanetary travel;
inconclusive space battles;
a Gethfennu colony on the planet Ronraud;
Star Believers regarding galactics as divine;
Demonists regarding them as demonic;
Adzel addresses a Believer gathering of clients, commoners and city proletariat. 

When visited, several centuries later, by Ensign Dominic Flandry:

the capital planet of an interstellar empire, the Roidhunate;
unified under the Roidhun, who is of Vach Urdiolch;
Brechdan Ironrede, current Hand of the Vach Ynvory, is Protector of the Roidhun's Grand Council;
twin capitals, ancient Ardaig on the bay of the River Oiss on the Wilwidh Ocean and modern antipodal Tridaig;
Castle Afon, the Roidhun's official primary residence, and the newly built Admiralty House are in Ardaig.

When Flandry is an Admiral:

his opposite number, Tachwyr the Dark, has become Hand of the Vach Dathyr and Protector of the Grand Council.

Sources: "Day of Burning"; Ensign Flandry; The Game of Empire.

Something Is Rotten In Technic Culture?

Poul Anderson's History of Technic Civilisation presents several alien races in conflict with humanity: Shenna, Baburites, Gorzuni, Merseians. However, these are not all one-dimensional space opera villains. On the eve of the Baburite War, David Falkayn says:

"I have this gnawing notion that something in us, in Technic culture, is responsible." (1)

It is. The Polesotechnic League has divided into the Home Companies, the Seven in Space and the independents. The Home Companies are in cahoots with the government of the Solar Commonwealth. The Seven in Space have secretly armed the Imperial Band of Sisema on Babur and are not dealing fairly with them either. (Benoni Strang organises the Baburites. Bayard Story represents the Seven. The initials are a clue. They are the same guy.) Monopolies, cartels and state-business mergers strangle freedom. The days of the League are numbered.

A human being working for the Baburites tells Falkayn:

"...not many League people seem to understand what a cosmos of enemies it's made for itself over the years." (2)

The example he cites is the aristocratic party on Merseia resentful that the League dealt not with them but with Merseian organised crime. But Falkayn already knew that there were problems. Breaking his oath to the leading independent Nicholas van Rijn, he had secretly helped an alliance of Wodenites, Ikranankans, Gorzuni, Ivanhoans, Vanessans, Cynthians and human colonists who were being left behind by a Technic civilisation that would not invest in helping them onto the interstellar stage. The source of wealth that Falkayn had found and passed not openly to his employer but secretly to the deprived races is now to be fought for by the Baburites backed, although Falkayn does not know this yet, by the Seven.

Falkayn began his search for a supernova-generated source of supermetals immediately after visiting the planet Tametha where local tribesbeings (beaked with long, thin legs), brutally exploited by a League company and now rising against their oppressors from Over-the-Mountains, had nearly killed Falkayn and his crew as well.

Thus, Anderson while clearly approving of the free enterprise and ostentatious wealth of the early League, does a good job of showing us the inequalities, dissatisfactions, injustices and conflicts that destroy freedom and that eventually destroy the society that generates them.

(1) Poul Anderson, Mirkheim, London, 1978, p. 98.
(2) ibid., p. 72.

Life on Aeneas

Anderson does not just tell us that his characters are on another planetary surface but presents enough colorful details to evoke an exotic environment.

Environment

Year nearly twice Terran; rotation: 20 hours, 19 minutes, a few seconds.

Little rain; no snow; dead seas; drought; cold; hurricane winds; drifting dust; scouring sand; water rare and precious but some rivers, canals, marshes and salt lakes.

Plants

The Aenean equivalent of grass, fire trava, is "...onyx tinged with red and yellow..." (1) Its daytime odor is "...flint and sparks..." (1) It curls into a springy mat at night. There is also bloom trava and sword trava as well as starkwood and daggerbushes. Trees are "...native delphi and rahab, Terran oak and acacia, Llynathawrian rasmin, Ythrian hammerbranch." (2) 

We are told that:

"True blossoms had never evolved on Aeneas, though a few kinds of leaf or stalk had bright hues." (2)

Beside a spring, "Plume trava nodded white above mossy chromabryon; spearflies darted silver bright..." (3)

Animals

Horses and green, six-legged stathas were imported for agricultural use. Terran-descended but gene-modified and adapted cattle are a new genus. Small, three-eyed "lucks," kept as pets or mascots by tinerans, are extra-Aenean but pre-human. Tinerans also keep big, well feathered neomoas. An ula flaps overhead. There is a native tadmouse. Hazards on the Ironland plain include spider wolves and catavales. On the river, "...long-bodied webfooted brown osels..." are used to herd "...fat, flippered, snouted chuho - water pigs..." which "...browsed on wetcress." (4)
 

There is more. As with Avalon, Anderson evokes not only a planetary environment but also the adaptation to that environment of human beings and their imported species.
  

(1) Poul Anderson, The Day Of Their Return, London, 1978, p. 9.
(2) ibid., p. 37.
(3) ibid., p. 79.
(4) ibid., p. 120.

Hermes

The planet Hermes:

is in the system of the star Maia in Sector Antares;
has two moons, Caduceus and Sandalion;
has one large continent, Greatland, with an arid interior;
was colonized early mainly by northern Europeans;
was developed by private corporations which became the basis of the Hermetian state;
began as a Grand Duchy with a stratified society;
gained stewardship of the industrially valuable planet Mirkheim after the Babur War;
at that time also became an ordinary crowned republic while remaining nominally a Grand Duchy;
during the Troubles, developed a military-oriented society with authority concentrated in the executive and rule by whoever commanded the greatest armed force;
lost Mirkheim when Hans Molitor became Emperor;
rioted against forced demilitarization under Molitor and was pacified by the Marines;
prospered under Grand Duke Edwin Cairncross who reclaimed the interior with canals, landscaping, imported species, urbanization, commerce and a castle on an extinct volcano.

Greatland divides the Auroral Ocean to the east from the Corybantic Ocean to the west. The city of Starfall is on the east coast where the Palomino River flows into Daybreak Bay. Tilirras sing from millionleafs and there are colorfully winged, trilling nidifexes.

When Hermes declared independence from Terra, its new constitution recognized the Kindred as the Thousand Families controlling the "domains": either landed estates or corporations. The presidents of the domains elect the Duke or Duchess of Hermes from the Tamarin family which must not own a domain. Ancestors of Kindred and Tamarins were the first to arrive from Earth but, instead of founding a corporation, the Tamarins free lanced as scientists etc. "Followers," holding entailed shares, are junior partners in domains, each holding a single vote in domain affairs whereas Kindred have ten. "Travers," hirelings or unaffiliated business people, descended from latecomers, are not taxed and have no vote. The Liberation Front demands full rights for Travers who, as a result of "Libby" campaigns, gain a vote in choosing municipal officers. Travers bow to the Duchess, Followers salute, Kindred shake hands.

The Asmundsens, Followers of the Runebergs and tenants on the Brightwater estate, manage the Runeberg's copper industry. A younger Asmundsen, who explores and develops other planets in the Maian system, is obliged by custom to give preferential promotions to fellow Followers but acknowledges that his strike-threatening Traver employees have legitimate grievances which he tries to address by negotiating in person with their leaders and offering compensations like extra vacations. Hornbeck, the estate of the Falkayn domain, is on a plateau jutting from Mount Nevis in the Thunderhead Mountains. Sam Romney, independent ship-owner, fisherman and loyal Traver, does most of his business with the Falkayns. 

Baburite invaders appoint Benoni Strang, an embittered Traver, as High Commissioner for Hermes. Strang, as Bayard Story of the Galactic Developments company and the Seven in Space cartel, had secretly armed Babur. As Commissioner, he intends to impose a social revolution, democratizing the domains and obliging them to conduct all operations through a central trade authority. Through Duchess Sandra Tamarin-Asmundsen, he announces that a Grand Assembly to draft a new constitution, as provided for in the existing constitution, will be held when procedures for the election of delegates are in place. Christa Broderick, the Liberation Front leader welcomes Strang's proposed social reforms but Strang bypasses the Front, many of whom oppose the invasion, and his Traver supporters form a new party.

Broderick's city and farming followers snipe and sabotage while guerillas operate in the Arcadian Hills and the Thunderheads. Both groups attack Starfall while the returned Ducal Space Navy engages orbiting Baburite craft. After the liberation, the Duchess receives a petition. Revolutionary terror has weakened the domains and the Liberation Front has gained confidence. It is agreed that a constitutional convention must await a firm peace but then Hermes, while remaining nominally a duchy, will become in practice a republic. Later, Cairncross is not a Tamarin though he is remotely descended from the Founder of the Empire, Manuel Argos.

Hermes, like Avalon, Aeneas and Vixen, is an entire inhabited planet imagined in detail by Poul Anderson.

Sources: Mirkheim and A Stone In Heaven.

Children of Empire

The Flandry series begins with three novels written retroactively as a "Young Flandry" trilogy. Flandry is an Ensign at 19, a Lieutenant at 21 and a Lieutenant Commander at 25. Because of an emergency, the 25-year old receives his brevet commission as full commander and becomes Captain of an escort destroyer. The first novel, Ensign Flandry, introduces not only Dominic Flandry but also:

Max Abrams, who gets Flandry into Intelligence;
Persis d'Io, with whom Flandry has an affair;
Dragoika, of the land-dwelling species on Starkad.

The series also ends with three novels although these were not written as a trilogy and the third is definitely an afterthought. The first two round off the career of Captain, becoming Admiral, Flandry and the third, with cameo appearances by Flandry, introduces a team who could have launched a new series. Each of these novels begins with a son or daughter of a character who had been introduced in Ensign Flandry:

A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows begins with a conversation between Flandry and Dominic Hazeltine, his son by Persis;
A Stone In Heaven begins with Miriam Abrams, daughter of Max. (Max had looked at a picture of his family, including "...Little Miriam...," on Starkad.) (1);
The Game of Empire begins with Diana Crowfeather, who turns out to be a daughter of Flandry;
she in turn is friendly with Targovi, son of Dragoika.

What happened to these four "children of Empire"?

Hazeltine became a traitor and was left brain-dead after a hypnoprobing ordered by Flandry;
Miriam married Flandry;
Flandry offered to fund interstellar voyaging by Diana and Targovi although we are not told whether they would be traders, explorers, scientists, artists or Intelligence operatives. (This last is possible since Targovi had already been simultaneously a trader and an Intelligence operative.)

Flandry also offered to fund the archaeological research of the Wodenite, Axor. Since Axor had travelled with Diana and Targovi in The Game Of Empire, he might continue to do so. In that case, Diana's new team of a human female, a Starkadian male and a Wodenite convert to Jerusalem Catholicism would parallel David Falkayn's earlier team of a human male, a Cynthian female and a Wodenite convert to Mahayana Buddhism. The Game of Empire ends with the feeling that the adventure continues, although of course there is a limit to how much of it Anderson can tell us.

"Children of..." is a cliche sequel title and Anderson did not use it here but it would be appropriate for these three novels presented as an omnibus conclusion to the series about Dominic Flandry, Agent of the Terran Empire.

(1) Poul Anderson, Ensign Flandry, London, 1976, p. 15.

A Missing Ancient Race

In some works of fiction, an older, wiser race intervenes benevolently in the destinies of less evolved beings.

(i) In EE Smith's badly written Lensman series, the Arisians organize the Galactic Patrol against the Eddorians.

(ii) In the Green Lantern comics, the Oans became the Guardians of the Universe who organize the Green Lantern Corps against the Qwardians.

(iii) In Julian May's Galactic Milieu Trilogy, the Lylmik organize the Galactic Milieu.

(iv) In Poul Anderson's Time Patrol series, humanity will evolve into the Danellians who will organize the Time Patrol against Neldorians, Exaltationists and chaos.

(v) Isaac Asimov's humans only galaxy did not allow for any older race but the mentally powerful Second Foundation usurped its functions, guiding history to a greater goal.

(vi) In Poul Anderson's History of Technic Civilization, many believe that the Ancients Went Beyond and Will Return.

However, Anderson maintains a credible ambiguity about the Ancients. Their expected Return is merely a belief, a fiction within the fiction. One version of the belief even divides the Foredwellers into consciousness-affirming Elders and entropy-embracing Others. But that is merely a ruse by an agent of a foreign imperialism who is trying to foment strife and even to incite an Empire-destroying jihad.

The agent, Aycharaych, is the last surviving member of an ancient race, the Chereionites, who, he privately claims, were indeed the Ancients whose ruins are found on many planets. It seems that they have departed not into transcendence but into extinction, leaving Aycharaych the sole heir of their technologically preserved heritage. But why should that have happened?

It seems that Anderson created Aycharaych as a telepathic opponent for Dominic Flandry merely to give Flandry the problem of how to lie to a telepath. However, Aycharaych, like Flandry himself, was a sufficiently interesting character that he returned several times. It became necessary to provide him with an origin and appropriate to locate that origin on an ancient, dying world. It was then logical to identify the ancient Chereionites with the Ancients. But that was sufficient for Anderson's story purposes. He did not present surviving Ancients secretly guiding or guarding galactic history. Instead, he left the idea of the Ancients as a myth in his characters' minds so that, in the last Flandry novel, a Wodenite convert to Jerusalem Catholicism seeks among Ancient inscriptions for evidence of an extraterrestrial Incarnation. We do not think that Fr Axor will find such evidence but it is plausible that he and others continue to look for it. While Flandry engages in Imperial conflict, his fellow beings continue to believe in Christianity and other religions. That is what we expect. This reads like real history.

Added, March 2012: 

There is always more to be said about Anderson. I am reminded that in "The Horn of Time the Hunter," a spaceship of the Kith interstellar traders travels at a relativistic sub-light speed ten thousand light years to the fringes of the galactic nucleus and back in search of "...the Elder Races that must dwell somewhere..." but does not find them. (1)

In Tau Zero, another relativistic spaceship, accelerating uncontrollably, survives this universe and settles on a planet in the next universe. A character comments:

"...I'd like us to become - oh, the elders. Not imperialists; that's ridiculous; but the people who were there from the beginning and know their way around, and are worth learning from. Never mind what physical shape the younger races have. Who cares? But let's make this, as nearly as possible, a human galaxy, in the widest sense of the word 'human.' Maybe even a human universe.
" I think we've earned that right." (2)

They have not. To me, "a human universe" does sound imperialistic. But here we see a potential Elder Race in an early universe.

(1) Poul Anderson, The Horn of Time, New Jersey, 1968, p. 16.
(2) Poul Anderson, Tau Zero, London, 1973, p. 186.

Ansa and Avalon

In a "future history," stories are set in successive periods so that the events of earlier stories inform the background of later stories. By this criterion, one small part of Poul Anderson's Technic History, just four stories and one novel, is a miniature future history: 

the planet Avalon is colonized in the late twenty fifth century;

the Terran Empire is founded near the end of the twenty sixth century;

the Empire annexes the colonized planet Ansa in the twenty eighth century

but fails to annex Avalon in the twenty ninth century.

Hence, a Hegelian triad:

thesis - colonial freedom;
antithesis - imperial annexation;
synthesis - settling of border disputes, later followed by continued trade and cultural influence.

Dates are given not in the stories but in a Chronology compiled by Sandra Miesel after consultation with Poul Anderson. At the very least, we should understand that several centuries elapse between the twentieth century and the Polesotechnic League and a comparable period between the League and the Empire, then several millennia before the Commonalty. Some dates seem arbitrary. Thus, Dominic Flandry is said to be born in 3000 so that he is a nineteen year old Ensign in Ensign Flandry, said to be set in 3019. Nine volumes of the History cover only forty five years, till Flandry meets his illegitimate daughter, but events important to the Empire, like civil war and usurpation, occur in this period. Works set during the post-Imperial "Long Night" have round number dates: 3600, 3900, 4000 and 7100. The Long Night, three stories and one novel, is a second miniature history.

Returning to the first mini-history, "Sargasso of Lost Starships," about Ansa, originally published in Planet Stories in 1952 but not included in an Anderson collection until 2009, is definitely part of the History because it refers to Manuel Argos who founded the Empire that same year in Planet Stories. It also includes alien races known to Flandry. One of the Terran ships attacking Avalon in the later novel is called Ansa. No future history has ever comprised its author's total sf output. However, a future history may contain stories of variable quality from different periods of its author's career. The fantastic and implausible space opera of "Sargasso of Lost Starships" contrasts sharply with the scientific and political realism of the Avalonian stories. All that matters for the Technic History is that the Empire forcibly annexed Ansa. Whether Terrans and Ansans then encountered psychically powerful humanoids in a "Black Nebula" is another matter. Baen Editor Hank Davis added a fictitious introduction suggesting that this part of the story is early Imperialist propaganda, thus a fiction within the fiction. (1) From its title, I had expected "Sargasso of Lost Starships" to be hard sf about abandoned spaceships orbiting together, not a fantasy with alien characters resembling ancient kings and queens.

Anderson had already presented "The Star Plunderer," about Manuel Argos, not as a straightforward, presumably accurate, narrative but as an excavated text that may be either "...a genuine record..." or "...historical fiction..." (2) The stories included in The Earthbook of Stormgate are retroactively presented as narratives published on Avalon that may or may not be true accounts of the events described. This recognition of the stories' textuality would have enabled Anderson to write, for example, a longer account of Manuel's career without any obligation to remain consistent with Admiral Reeve's account in "The Star Plunderer." The History gains authenticity from the fact that readers may regard some of its parts as inauthentic.

(1) Davis, Hank, Introduction IN Anderson, Poul, The Rise of the Terran Empire, Riverdale, NY, 2009, pp. 263-264.

(2) ibid, p. 235.

Anderson’s Technic History

A Chronology of the Writing of the Technic History

Jan 51	“Tiger by the Tail”	3032
May 51	“Honorable Enemies”	3033
Jan 52	“Sargasso of Lost Starships”	28th C
Sep 52	“The Star Plunderer”	c2700
Summer 54	“The Warriors from Nowhere”	3042
Sep 56	“Margin of Profit”	2416
Feb-Apr 58	The Man Who Counts	2420s
Mar 58	“The Game of Glory”	3025
59	“Hunters of the Sky Cave”	3040
Mar 61	“Hiding Place”	2420s
61	“A Message in Secret”	3037
61	“The Plague of Masters”	3038
Jun 63	“Territory”	2430s
63	The Night Face	3900
63	“The Three-Cornered Wheel”	2423
Apr 66	“A Sun Invisible”	2420s
66	Ensign Flandry	3019
Jan 67	“Day of Burning”	2430s
Aug 67	“Starfog”	7100
Dec 67	“Outpost of Empire”	3027
Feb 68	“A Tragedy of Errors”	3600
May-Aug 68	Satan’s World	2430s
Dec 68	“The Sharing of Flesh”	4000
69	The Rebel Worlds	3025
Feb 70	“Esau”	2420s
70	A Circus of Hells	3021
Jul-Aug 71	“The Trouble Twisters”	2430s
Aug 71	“The Master Key”	2430s
Aug 71	“A Little Knowledge”	2430s
Apr 72	“Wings of Victory”	2150
Feb 73	“The Problem of Pain”	24th C
Feb-Apr 73	The People of the Wind	29th C
Jul 73	“Wingless”	26th C
73	“Rescue on Avalon”	26th C
73	“Lodestar”	2446
73	The Day of Their Return	3028
Dec 73	“The Season of Forgiveness”	2420s
74	“How To Be Ethnic In One Easy Lesson”	2416
Sep-Dec 74	A Knight of Ghosts and Shadows	3047
77	Mirkheim	2456
79	A Stone in Heaven	3061
Feb 81	“The Saturn Game”	c2055
85	The Game of Empire	3064

Sandra Miesel compiled the “Chronology [which is also a bibliography] of Technic Civilization.” (1) From this Chronology/bibliography, I have abstracted the above chronology of the writing of the Technic History from 1951 to 1985.

The History comprises two complete narrative cycles. The first begins in 2150 with human-Ythrian first contact on the planet Ythri and ends, seven centuries later, when the human-Ythrian joint colony on the planet Avalon successfully resists Terran Imperial annexation. The second cycle begins in 3019 with Dominic Flandry defending the Terran Empire and ends, four millennia later, when descendants of rebels exiled by Flandry contact a post-Imperial civilization. “The Saturn Game,” preceding the first cycle, introduces the Jerusalem Catholic Church and thus anticipates both The People of the Wind, the last volume of the first cycle, and The Game of Empire, the last volume of the Imperial period, because members of that Church play important roles in both of these works.

The Game of Empire, set in the Empire, “A Tragedy of Errors," set during the Long Night between the Empire and the Commonalty, and “Starfog,” set in the Commonalty period, are potential series. Each introduces a character who could have become central to later works but Anderson had more to write than this one series.

In “Hunters of the Sky Cave,” Flandry reveals that the Empire he has defended in “Tiger by the Tail,” “Honorable Enemies,” “The Warriors from Nowhere” and “The Game of Glory” is the same Empire that the leader of a slave rebellion, Manuel Argos, had founded in “The Star Plunderer.” In “A Plague of Masters,” Flandry reveals that Manuel’s Empire was preceded by the Polesotechnic League of Nicholas van Rijn’s period as described in “Margin of Profit” and The Man Who Counts. Since mercantile expansion was later followed by imperial decline, the combined series is about social change.

Mirkheim, a good political novel, shows how the League had declined and sympathetically treats a revolutionary character despite Anderson’s conservatism. Van Rijn, old but not pathetic and still energetic, makes an anti-cartels speech into the sunset.

“Day of Burning” reveals that the Merseians from whom Flandry defended the Empire had owed their earlier survival to van Rijn’s protégé, David Falkayn. “Lodestar” shows why inequities within the League made Falkayn break his oath of fealty to old van Rijn. When the League declines, van Rijn leads an expedition outside known space but Falkayn leads the colonization of Avalon. Works set after The Game of Empire show us what happened after the Empire fell. Flandry, an Intelligence officer, worked hard to prolong the Empire so that he could continue to enjoy its decadence while he lived. Near the end of A Stone in Heaven, the reader is led to believe that Flandry will die in space but his faithful retainer rescues him and he is last seen, in this book, in an autumnal scene. He cameos in The Game of Empire, about his daughter who is embarking on a new series of adventures.

(Added later: on re-reading A Stone in Heaven, I realize that I had misremembered one scene. Chives does not rescue Flandry. Instead, Miriam Abrams rescues both Chives and Flandry. But I prefer my memory. Flandry should have been alone when reminiscing before an expected death in space.)

I think that the elderly Flandry should have become Emperor in a palace revolution. A novel called Emperor Flandry could have book-ended the series with Ensign Flandry. Also, as the Lancaster sf book seller Peter Pinto suggested to Anderson, Flandry’s opponent Aycharaych should have returned but in an Aycharaych, not another Flandry, novel. I used dialogue between Flandry and Aycharaych on death when working as an RE Teacher. The aristocratic Flandry thinks that death is “…not quite a gentleman…” whereas the alien Aycharaych sees it as a “...completion.” (2)

Van Rijn stories are curious combinations of frivolous action-adventure fiction and serious scientific speculation. We are supposed to admire and enjoy van Rijn’s profiteering, ostentation, apparent benevolence and confounding of the bureaucrats. At the same time, the canny trader van Rijn survives, prospers and profits only if he continues to understand ever new examples of alien biology and psychology and Anderson can imagine these as genuinely alien by reasoning from the basic premises of different stellar and planetary environments. Van Rijn’s deductive processes resemble Hercules Poirot’s. He works hard at thinking out new situations even while lounging and drinking beer but is physically powerful and skilled enough to handle himself in a fight with an alien warrior if necessary. How would he have coped with a situation where he had to choose between private profit and the greater good? The moral of his stories seems to be that he can always profit from the greater good although he is persuaded to hold his peace at the end of “Lodestar” when Falkayn has become more prominent.

This article is occasioned by the fact that Baen Books are currently issuing the entire Technic series in chronological order of fictitious events for the first time ever. They are therefore having to break up earlier collections including the omnibus The Earth Book of Stormgate but they are preserving the Earth Book introductions to stories, “written by” an Avalonian Ythrian. The Earth Book about Terrans who walk the Earth is a companion volume to the Sky Book, which we do not see, about winged Ythrians.

This complete publication of the series means that many of us will read for the first time the previously uncollected “Sargasso of Lost Starships” which, I believe, has to be regarded as a slightly inconsistent account of the early Empire. A reference in “The Star Plunderer” to Manuel’s Empire as the First Empire fits with a similar reference in Anderson’s earlier, Psychotechnic, History. Thus, this represents a period in the writing when the Histories had not yet been differentiated.

Disagreeing with Anderson, I would include “Memory” (July 1957) as a post-Empire Long Night story because that is how it reads. If it were included in the Long Night section of the History, I do not think that readers would notice any discrepancy. It may be that the characters anticipate a different subsequent history than the one revealed in later stories but that is what happens in history.

(Added Feb 2012: After carefully re-reading "Memory," I now agree with Anderson that it is not set during the Long Night after the Fall of the Terran Empire.)

The Chronology of Technic Civilization

c2055	“The Saturn Game”	Feb 81
2150	“Wings of Victory”	Apr 72
24th C	“The Problem of Pain”	Feb 73
2416	“Margin of Profit”	Sep 56
2416	“How To Be Ethnic In One Easy Lesson”	74
2423	“The Three-Cornered Wheel”	63
2420s	“A Sun Invisible”	Apr 66
2420s	“The Season of Forgiveness”	Dec 73
2420s	The Man Who Counts	Feb-Apr 58
2420s	“Esau”	Feb 70
2420s	“Hiding Place”	Mar 61
2430s	“Territory”	Jun 63
2430s	“The Trouble Twisters”	Jul-Aug 71
2430s	“Day of Burning”	Jan 67
2430s	“The Master Key”	Aug 71
2430s	Satan’s World	69
2430s	“A Little Knowledge”	Aug 71
2446	“Lodestar”	73
2456	Mirkheim	77
26th C	“Wingless”	Jul 73
26th C	“Rescue on Avalon”	73
c2700	“The Star Plunderer”	Sep 52
28th C	“Sargasso of Lost Starships”	Jan 52
29th C	The People of the Wind	Feb-Apr 73
3019	Ensign Flandry	66
3021	A Circus of Hells	70
3025	The Rebel Worlds	69
3027	“Outpost of Empire”	Dec 67
3028	The Day of their Return	73
3032	“Tiger by the Tail”	Jan 51
3033	“Honorable Enemies”	May 51
3035	“The Game of Glory”	Mar 58
3037	“A Message in Secret”	61
3038	“The Plague of Masters”	61
3040	“Hunters of the Sky Cave”	Jun 59
3042	“The Warriors from Nowhere”	Summer 54
3047	A Knight of Ghosts and Shadows	Sep-Dec 74
3061	A Stone in Heaven	79
3064	The Game of Empire	85
3600	“A Tragedy of Errors”	Feb 68
3900	The Night Face	63
4000	“The Sharing of Flesh”	Dec 68
7100	“Starfog”	Aug 67

1. Miesel, Sandra, “Chronology of Technic Civilization” IN Anderson, Poul, The Technic Civilization Saga: The Van Rijn Method, compiled by Hank Davis, 2008, Riverdale NY, pp. 445-450.
2. Anderson, Poul, Agent of the Terran Empire, 1977, London, p. 93.