Hloch And Sandra Miesel

Five future historical volumes by Poul Anderson are enriched by interstitial material:

The Psychotechnic History
The Psychotechnic League
Cold Victory
Starship

The Technic History
The Earth Book Of Stormgate
The Long Night

Sandra Miesel's insterstitial passages pull together the Psychotechnic History and inform us, as we would expect, that the interstellar Nomads carry seeds of knowledge through the Third Dark Ages, enriching the later Galactic civilization.

Hloch of Stormgate Choth on Avalon edits the Earth Book and greatly increases our knowledge of its contents.

The Long Night collects:

the one story about the Founder of the Terran Empire;
one story set during the Flandry period of the Empire;
one set during the Long Night after the Empire;
one set during the subsequent Allied Planets period;
one set during the much later Commonalty period.

Miesel's comments make this volume read like a coherent overview of much of the Technic History. She refers to:

the seminal figures, van Rijn and Flandry, although neither appears in any of these works;

the colonized planet Vixen, invaded in Flandry's time, that founds its own colony, New Vixen, which in turn is flourishing millennia later when descendants of rebels expelled by Flandry return to civilization.

There is a sense of historical depth and continuity.

Fifty Thousand Years

According to the Chronology of the Psychotechnic Series prepared by Sandra Miesel, the Third Dark Ages begin in 3200 and "The Chapter Ends" is set post-4000. Miesel's interstitial note introducing "The Chapter Ends" reads:

"By the uncertain dawn of the fifth millennium, Earth's farflung children had all but forgotten her." (Starship, p. 252)

However, "The Chapter Ends" itself says:

"'The Sirius Sector has been an isolated, primi - ah - quiet region since the First Empire fell, fifty thousand years ago.'" (p. 263)

The time scale and also the references both to a fallen First Empire and to Sirian Sector planets inhabited by peasants place this work more in the milieu of Anderson's "Flight to Forever." Again, the reference to Sol City as the capital of the First Empire (p. 272) prima facie links this work to Anderson's "The Star Plunderer," although that pulp short story was instead shoehorned into the author's later Technic History.

The political units in the Psychotechnic History are Unions (Solar and Stellar), not Empires. We are told enough about the First Empire to know that it is not the Stellar Union remembered under a different name.

What links "The Chapter Ends" to the Psychotechnic History? References to psychotechnicians, an Integrator and a trained nervous system. Also, in The Peregrine, humanity is expanding towards the Sagittarii. In "The Chapter Ends," the bulk of humanity has migrated to the Galactic Center and one, visiting Earth, says:

"'This part of space means nothing to us any more; it's almost a desert. You haven't seen starlight till you've been by Sagittarius.'" (p. 262)

A concluding note on an unfamiliar word:

"...he went with the Nomads through that abatis of woods." (The Peregrine, Chapter XX, p. 178)

Seeds Of Knowledge

"...as Trevelyan had wisely foreseen, the self-sufficient, enterprising Nomads bore various seeds of knowledge through the Third Dark Ages. The antecedents of our own civilization were among those who reaped what the Nomads had sown."
-Sandra Miesel, interstitial material IN Anderson, Starship, p. 252.

Does Trevelyan explicitly predict that the Nomads will bear seeds of knowledge through the coming Dark Ages? I will find out by continuing to reread The Peregrine. The following story, "The Chapter Ends," describes a later civilization although it does not indicate any Nomadic influence.

However, the idea that such a group would survive and would preserve something of value is entirely consistent with everything that Poul Anderson wrote, for example in his Technic History. And not just surviving groups - the Bronze Age and the Roman Empire also leave legacies.

"He found the Nomads' closeknit, tradition-laden ways more satisfying than the atomized, cerebral existence considered normal on Earth." (ibid.)

Really? I would be quite happy with an atomized, cerebral existence - but I also recognize the value of traditions. And it makes sense to think of Trevelyan, after a career in Coordination, joining a Nomad ship. According to the Chronology, the Third Dark Ages were then less than a century hence.

Remember Wells

The Great War was renamed the First World War when there had been a Second. The Third World War is a concept and a possibility though not yet history. HG Wells predicted the Great War and called it The War in The Air. This novel is narrated from the perspective of a later scientifically based peaceful world civilization, a perspective that is echoed in Sandra Miesel's Foreword to Poul Anderson's The Psychotechnic League:

"From the standpoint of our mature integrated culture, World War III was a painful childhood illness of our race."
-Sandra Miesel, Foreword IN Poul Anderson, The Psychotechnic League (New York, 1981), pp. 10-11 AT p, 10.

Miesel's Foreword also echoes the Time Chart of Robert Heinlein's Future History, which culminates in:

"...the end of human adolescence, and beginning of first mature culture."
-Robert Heinlein, The Man Who Sold The Moon (London, 1963), pp. 6-7 AT p. 7.

Wells' The Shape Of Things To Come outlines the emergence of a scientifically based peaceful world civilization.

In his Author's Note to The Psychotechnic League, Anderson cites Heinlein and Olaf Stapledon as earlier future historians. Wells preceded both:

Stapledon combines the Wellsian themes of space travel, time travel, Martian invasion and future history in a single volume;

Heinlein has the same four themes in separate works - if we change "Martian invasion" to "alien invasion," - including three "first men in the moon" stories;

 the title character of the title story of The Man Who Sold The Moon somewhere mentions having read Wells, Verne and Smith;

the suspended animation company in Heinlein's The Door Into Summer distributes Wells' The Sleeper Wakes as promotional literature.

Anderson indirectly acknowledges Wells in There Will Be Time - and even less overtly in "Time Patrol" by sending Manse Everard to the year of publication of The Time Machine. I recently discussed references to communism in The Time Machine and Anderson's "The Sensitive Man."

"Remember Wells" is a continual refrain on this blog - but also appreciate Poul Anderson as a major successor.

Time Rovers

Recently, I posted about "Time Patrol Collections" but neglected to mention that The Guardians Of Time (New York, 1981) also includes "Of Time And The Rover," an Afterword by Sandra Miesel, although I had mentioned this Afterword here and here.

Miesel starts by observing that Anderson had roved past, future and alternative time for over three decades. We must now say for over five decades.

She uses the phrases, "Translation in time..." (p. 245) and "...time transit..." (p. 246), convenient labels for different treatments of time in fantasy and sf, e.g., she mentions, among other examples:

"The Man Who Came Early" (time travel);
Three Hearts And Three Lions (travel between timelines);
Tau Zero (space travel but with time dilation).

These three works are respectively historical sf, heroic fantasy and hard sf.

Miesel argues that:

temporal transitions challenge fictional characters;
"...response to challenge is Anderson's quintessential theme..." (p. 245);
both space travel and time travel "...offer the extension of mastery through knowledge and the enlargement of being through experience..." (ibid.);
also, Anderson saw "...the supreme knowledge [as] that gained through experience." (ibid.);
whereas archaic societies ignore or deny history, modern civilization searches for roots and speculates about growth;
Anderson's historically based fiction addresses this need.

I try to paraphrase but sometimes Miesel's succinct prose is already a summary. I merely summarize because I do not disagree. For discussion of James Blish on his quintessential theme of "knowledge," see here.

In one paragraph on p. 248, Miesel compares Anderson's Time Patrol series with five time travel works and with two parallel timeline novels. Of the five time travel works, I value only Ward Moore's Bring The Jubilee. For discussion of inconsistencies in some time travel fiction, see here. A better comparison for the "Two characters [who] escape to the more congenial nineteenth century..." would have been with Jack Finney's nostalgic time travel fiction.

The parallel timeline novels are mentioned in order to compare Anderson's Time Patrol with Piper's Para-Time Police and Norton's Crosstime Service. However, the Patrol polices pastwards and futurewards travel along a single mutable timeline whereas the other two organizations police present-moment sideways travel between many parallel timelines. Norton's title, The Crossroads Of Time, is unusually evocative and it would be good to read a novel worthy of such a title, e.g., a narrative about two intersecting timelines or an account of a real historical turning point like World War I but with insight into how events could have taken a different course.

Miesel lists four of Anderson's works that have "...Holmesian aspects..." (p. 250) but, of these, "Time Patrol" is surely the best both in its presentation of Holmes on a case mentioned but not recounted by Watson and as a new work in its own right. This single story must introduce the variable timeline, the Nine, the Danellians, the Patrol, its Academy, its Temporal language, Manse Everard, his first trips to the past, our first sight of a time criminal, Everard's promotion to Unattached status and his New York apartment that will become a familiar setting as the series progresses.

Miesel also writes:

"Besides composing interesting alternate history scenarios, [Anderson] achieves the subtler feat of historical transubstantiation: in 'Brave to Be a King' events remain the same but the reason they occur changes." (p. 249)

Well, recorded history remains the same although many unrecorded details differ: another man plays the role of Cyrus the Great. "Historical transubstantiation" might better describe some of the stunts pulled in There Will Be Time, with its invariable timeline. A time travel group recruits a handful of prospects, including Havig and Boris, in Jerusalem on the estimated day of the Crucifixion. Later on his world-line, Havig works against that group and sends Boris to Jerusalem to infiltrate it... Thus, we might say that, in Havig's experience, Boris' presence in Jerusalem is transubstantiated. No discernible detail can be or has been altered but the significance of Boris' trip to Jerusalem is inwardly transformed.

Reasons for traveling to the day of the Crucifixion:

to witness the Crucifixion;
to try to prevent it;
to meet other time travelers;
to recruit time travelers;
to infiltrate the group recruiting time travelers.

Boris turns out to have the fifth, not the first, reason.

Miesel rightly states that, although The Guardians Of Time "...is only one book...it reflects [Anderson's] essential principles..." (p. 251) - as also does There Will be Time, which she mentions but does not have space to discuss here:

the Patrol conserves whereas Havig's group liberates;
the Patrol prevents Neldorians, Exaltationists, individual time criminals and quantum fluctuations from changing the past whereas Havig's group prevents the Eyrie from dominating the future;
Patrol agents ride streamlined updates of Wells' Time Machine whereas Havig shares the Time Traveler's experience of external events flickering past;
Patrollers can change past events whereas Havig cannot but instead must ingeniously change their significance;
the Patrol leads to the Danellians whereas Havig's group leads to the Star Masters;
Everard learns that the Patrol, even though it too changes the past, is "The Only Game In Town" (story title) while Havig's recruits learn that "...Havig's was the only game in town." (There Will be Time, New York, 1973, p. 156)

Miesel characterizes Anderson's four time travel volumes to date:

the Time Patrol employs well-briefed agents;
The Corridors Of Time shows "...unprepared people hurled into strangeness..." (p. 246);
There Will Be Time shows time travel by "...psi talent" (p. 247);
The Dancer From Atlantis "...recreat[es] a real historical milieu..." (pp. 247-248).

The Dancer... is more directly about unprepared people hurled into a strange past and The Corridors... also shows well-briefed agents of time traveling organizations. Five time travel stories are mentioned among several other "time transit" works. Thus, "Of Time And The Rover" is a brief but comprehensive survey.

The Chaos

"...in the twenty-first century...recovery from a violent period of global unrest unknown as the Chaos."
-Sandra Miesel, "Chronology Of Technic Civilization" IN Poul Anderson, The Van Rijn Method (New York, 2009), pp. 611-619 AT p. 611.

Did the period later called the Chaos begin as early as 1914, as recently suggested by American correspondent Sean M Brooks?

In "The Saturn Game," Francis Minamoto, writing in 2057, reminds us of mid-twentieth century adult psychodrama both as "...a powerful diagnostic and therapeutic technique..." (p. 25) and as a revolt against inactive entertainment, like television. He then adds:

"The Chaos ended those activities." (p. 26)

This suggests, as I had thought, that the Chaos is a late twentieth century and/or early twenty-first century phenomenon. The latter schedule remains all too plausible. What is really going to happen? And, whatever happens, will global civilization be able to recover from it as it does in the Technic History?

"Of Time And The Rover"

Sandra Miesel, "Of Time And The Rover" IN Poul Anderson, The Guardians Of Time (New York, 1981), pp. 245-254.

Brilliant title. "The Rover" is Poul Anderson and some of his characters:

"The same thought must have occurred to the time rover." (p. 241)

Sandra Miesel advises us to:

"Compare [Anderson's] Old Phoenix Inn filled with heroes from everywhen in A Midsummer Night's Dream, 1974, with the gatherings in Robert A Heinlein's Number Of The Beast, 1980." (p. 246)

I prefer not to!

Miesel writes that Anderson's "...time transit stories...compare favorably with the famous efforts of John Brunner, L Sprague de Camp, Fritz Leiber, Ward Moore, Larry Niven, Andre Norton, H Beam Piper, Keith Roberts, and Robert Silverberg." (p. 246)

I disagree. I think that Anderson's time travel works are far superior to any of these. And several of the mentioned writers make a complete mess of time travel paradoxes.

in "Brave To Be a King":

"The climactic procession celebrating the Birthday of Mithras would take longer for a critic to analyze in full than it does for Anderson to describe." (pp. 249-250)

This is probably right. Next, I will reread "Brave To Be A King."

Afterword III

Virgil wrote, "Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes," (I fear Greeks bringing gifts), in Aeneid, II, 49.

The captain of the first survey ship to Toka is alleged to have said, of the Hoka's reptilian opponents, "'Timeo dracones et dona ferentis'..." (I fear dragons bringing gifts):

- S*ndr* M**s*l, "'The Bear That Walks Like a Man': An Ursinoid Stereotype in Early Interbeing Era Popular Culture" IN Poul Anderson and Gordon R Dickson, Hoka (New York, 1985), pp. 241-253 AT p. 244.

M**s*l thinks "...it is no accident that the next starship dispatched to Toka was the H.M.S. Draco." (pp. 244-245)

Thus, Sandra Miesel, as she is on our side of the event horizon, neatly links reptilian Tokans to the H.M.S. Draco through a clever Virgilian misquotation.

If I were ever to be assisted by an apprentice blogger, I might set him/her this exercise: edit M**s*l's piece to eliminate political swear words. Thus:

"Although in their contemptible bourgeois fashion Anderson and Dickson attempt to portray Jones as a bumbling simpleton of a hero, it is well known that he was in actuality a cunning arch-villain steeped in reactionary paternalism of the deepest hue. This lackey of the League's ruling caste..." (p. 245)

would have to become something like:

"Although Anderson and Dickson attempt to portray Jones as a bumbling simpleton of a hero, he was in actuality a League apologist who..."

- and even that might not be edited down enough. I edited out "...it is well known that..." because M**s*l needs to cite evidence, not appeal to what (she says) we all know anyway. (Sorry if I sound as if I am taking this too seriously but it is an interesting exercise.)

"Had political development proceeded at its natural pace, a bispeciesist communal society would have inevitably evolved on Toka." (p. 244)

Ideological blindness indeed! In fact, there are three howlers here. First, nothing about society is either inevitable or mechanically predictable and in this case the projected outcome seems highly unlikely. Secondly, political development is not a "natural" process like biology or natural selection. Rational species have stepped out of natural history into social history which is qualitatively different. Everything that they do is "artificial" and interstellar contact is just more of that. Thirdly, political development cannot possibly have a predetermined "pace." It can stagnate for millennia or explode in a week.

"Although the cleansing fire of revolutionary zeal has happily rendered such aberrations obsolete, speciesism in all its loathsomeness did pervade human behavior in the League era." (p. 249)

I think that this just means, "League human beings were speciesist."

- and, of course, this requires elucidation. One example given is "...Tanni Jones plays goddess for the Telks..." (ibid.)

We thought that Tanni was forced into this role and had to be rescued from it but now we know that our informants were contemptibly bourgeois.

M**s*l hints at dark revelations "...when the unexpurgated critical edition of Tanni Jones' diary is finally published." (ibid.)

It is fortunate that M, to abbreviate the name further, seems to be unaware of the illustrations showing Tanni and Hokas with the naked Alex Jr playing Mowgli.

Afterword II

In the Afterword to Poul Anderson's and Gordon R Dickson's Hoka (New York, 1985), S*ndr* M**s*l describes Rudyard Kipling as "...a jingoistic journalist..." (p. 243). I had thought that the slang term "jingo" became associated with nationalism because of a poem by Kipling and therefore that Sandra Miesel was consciously ironic when she made her alter ego in the Hoka timeline apply the adjective "jingoistic" back onto Kipling himself. This may be so but will require more research for confirmation. A quick google search has disclosed a long history for the term "Jingo" and its use by many other people.

"...the obsessively imitative behavior of the Hokas toward humans is a servile response typical of oppressed peoples. They emulate their vile oppressors in the deluded hope of thereby bettering their own condition." (p. 246)

There is a real point in there somewhere! Ango-Indians, Anglo-Irish, the latter denigrated as "West Britons" by some of their countrymen. A black work colleague once told me that he was "...a field nigger!" (I would not use this word if I were not quoting Negel's own self-description.) He elucidated, "Your house niggers are your cooks and your maids who feel that they are part of the family. Your field niggers are your field workers who want to burn the house down!" Yeah, right. I must assure everyone that he was usually a mild-mannered man who only said this once.

But the Hoka's imitativeness is not of that Anglo or "house" sort, although Miesel has cleverly made this comparison in order to show how M**s*l's ideological approach would misrepresent the beings that the latter claims to represent. If the Hokas had wanted to ingratiate themselves with humanity, then they would have mimicked the life-styles of the plenipotentiary and his wife and would have maintained an obsequious relationship with them. Instead, they imitate every possible historical figure and fictitious character with a thoroughness that causes endless problems for the plenipotentiary and then suddenly switch to following another fashion with bewildering rapidity.

M**s*l says that Alexander Jones:

"...led his first delegation of Hokas to Earth shortly after his appointment as plenipotentiary (the chaotic expedition is described in 'Don Jones')..." (p. 246)

In fact, in "Don Jones," Jones is merely assigned to host a visiting delegation. The story ends:

"'Ah, there, Jones. No hard feelings, I trust? There's something that just occurred to me. How would you like to be a plenipotentiary -?'" (Earthman's Burden, New York, 1979, p. 60)

But, again, Miesel has a point to make. Crucial historical details like the date on which an individual became a plenipotentiary become hotly disputed with opposed interest groups citing contrary sources and arguments. If Jones was not already the plenipotentiary, then why was he in charge of that delegation? - and so on.

Again:

"'Undiplomatic Immunity' boasts of the collaboration by Hoka pawns in human-engineered espionage schemes...'" (p. 247)

Excuse me, surely it was the Hokas who nearly wrecked everything by role-playing espionage to the ludicrous extent of really breaking into other delegations' apartments? But then why should we believe Anderson's and Dickson's highly implausible account? - and so on.

Afterword

Should I read the thirteen-page Afterword to Poul Anderson's and Gordon R Dickson's Hoka (New York, 1985)? It is written neither by Anderson nor by Dickson but by S*ndr* M**s*l, who is described in a footnote as "Academician of the All-Systems Institute for Historico-Literary Investigations" (p. 241)!

A Publisher's Note introducing the Afterword describes left-wing intellectuals as particularly "dumb" whereas the ones that I know are both intelligent and informed.

However:

as the footnote already quoted should make clear, this is a parody;
I have indeed read some left-wing, in particular Maoist, tracts that were as insulting to the intelligence as M**s*l's:

"We eagerly await that glorious day when fully liberated Hokas assume their rightful place in the classless Union of Beings even now being forged in our own Sector and that will soon and inevitably liberate our entire Galaxy from the capitalist oppressors." (p. 253)

So I will read on... I will be interested to see whether Sandra Miesel, to name the eminent Anderson scholar as opposed to her revolutionary opposite number, combines satire with some discussion of the stories.

For fictional purposes, should we really see the Afterword as fitting into the same timeline as the stories? I would hate to think of Anderson's and Dickson's gentle Interbeing League being replaced by M**s*l's intolerant Union of Beings but we can console ourselves that the claimed inevitability of its Galactic hegemony is mere propaganda!

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.

Sandra Miesel's Technic Civilization Chronology by Sean M Brooks

Several editions of the Technic Civilization stories of Poul Anderson (Gregg Press, Ace Books, Baen Books) have attached to them a chronology compiled by Sandra Miesel, an excellent commentator on the works of Anderson. This chronology lists in internal chronological order all the stories and novels of the Technic Civilization series through periods like that of the Polesotechnic League and the Terran Empire. Miesel also added many annalistic notes to her chronology.

For those who wish to read the Technic Civilization stories in chronological order, or merely to have a list of the stories in a correct temporal sequence, Sandra Miesel has done readers of Anderson's works a real favor. However, commentators like Dr. Paul Shackley have discovered inconsistencies in some of Miesel's proposed dates which contradicts what the texts says.

For example, Miesel dates the birth of Nicholas van Rijn to AD 2376 and the crucial Polesotechnic League's Council of Hiawatha to 2400. However, as discussed by Dr. Shackley in his note "Inconsistencies II," Nicholas van Rijn was born too late to have attended that council. The section of Chapter IX of MIRKHEIM which discussed the Council of Hiawatha ended with "But when a century had passed--". Nicholas van Rijn could not have attended that council because he was 80 years old at the time of the Mirkheim/Baburite crisis. He would need to have been, implausibly, well over a century in age.

I have no objection to keeping Miesel's dating of the Council of Hiawatha to 2400, but I believe dating van Rijn's birth to 2424 is more accurate. And since the Mirkheim/Baburite war came when van Rijn was 80 years old, that means it should be dated 2504 (not in 2456, Miesel's date). This has the advantage of not contradicting what Chapter IX of MIRKHEIM said about "But when a century had passed."

Another error in Miesel's chronology contradicting what the texts say are her dates for "Lodestar" and MIRKHEIM. She dates the events in "Lodestar" and MIRKHEIM to 2446 and 2456. However, the Prologue to MIRKHEIM emphatically dates the events in that book to EIGHTEEN, not 10, years after "Lodestar." My revision of her chronology dates those stories to 2486 and 2504.

The next major inconsistency in Miesel's chronology contradicting what the texts say came from her dating the foundation of the Terran Empire to the 28th century and the birth of Dominic Flandry to AD 3000. These dates clash with what Chapter 10 of ENSIGN FLANDRY says, as the Merseian prime minister Brechdan Ironrede was going to the Imperial embassy for an official reception: "His destination was another offense, a compound of residences and offices in the garish bubble style of the Imperium four hundred years ago." This indicates the Empire had existed for over four centuries by the time of ENSIGN FLANDRY (because it is reasonable to think schools of architecture needed some time after the Empire arose to become popular).

However, one problem with this dating is that we don't know how long the year of the planet Merseia was when compared to our Earth's year. We don't know whether it was longer or shorter than the Terran year. Nonetheless it does indicates the Empire was older than the three centuries or so her chronology gives it by the time of ENSIGN FLANDRY.

Moreover, Miesel herself contradicts her chronology when she wrote in her "Introduction" for THE PEOPLE OF THE WIND (Gregg Press: 1977): "The Empire is its third century when it moves against the Domain in its first aggressive campaign against a civilized foe." Another chronological indication can be found in Chapter 8 of Anderson's THE DAY OF THEIR RETURN, as Ivar Frederiksen briefly summarized the history of relations between the Empire and the Domain of Ythri: "Still, it [the Domain] grew. So did Empire, Terra's, that is, till they met and clashed. Couple centuries ago, they fought." Now, if the Empire had existed a little over two centuries by the time of the Ythrian War and then that conflict was at least two centuries in the past by the time of THE DAY OF THEIR RETURN, that can only mean it had lasted more than four centuries by then.

Therefore, I would argue for dating the birth of Dominic Flandry to AD 3100, not 3000 (the year Miesel chose). The later date better fits the chronological evidence I collected from the texts. I am still puzzled how Miesel could have missed, for example, such crucial indications as the Prologue of MIRKHEIM saying the Baburite war occurred 18 years after "Lodestar."

In addition, I suggested below that Josip died in 3142 rather than in 3141 (Miesel's date was 3041) because a slightly longer reign for that Emperor fitted better the background of the stories. That is, it gives more time for the events recorded in those stories to take place without being crowded together too tightly.

If the argument I gave above is correct, then that means many, not all, of the dates given by Miesel in her chronology needs to be changed. Mostly by proposing dates later than the ones she chose. In the chronology given by me below, the dates I advocate are given first while Miesel's dates are given in square brackets. For the most part I used the "Chronology of Technic Civilization" to be found in the Gregg Press edition of ENSIGN FLANDRY. I also thought it best, for simplicity's sake, to omit many of the annalistic notes added by Sandra Miesel. I omitted many bibliographical details for similar reasons.

The Breakup and the Polesotechnic League

2055 "The Saturn Game," ANALOG SCIENCE FICTION (cited as ASF), February, 1981

2150 "Wings of Victory," ASF, April, 1972

24th century "The Problem of Pain," FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION, February, 1973

2400 The Council of Hiawatha

2424 [2376] Birth of Nicholas van Rijn

2454 [2406] Birth of David Falkayn

2464 [2416] "Margin of Profit," ASF, September, 1956

2470 [2416] "How to be Ethnic in One Easy Lesson," FUTURE QUEST, ed. Roger Elwood, Avon Books, 1974

2470 [2416] "The Three Cornered Wheel," ASF, October, 1963

2474 [2426] WAR OF THE WING MEN, Ace Books, 1958

2474 [2426] "Esau," ASF, February, 1970

2475 [2427] "Hiding Place," ASF, March, 1961

2475 [2427] "Territory," ASF, June, 1963

2480 [2426] "A Sun Invisible," ASF, April, 1966

2481 [2427] "The Trouble Twisters," as "Trader Team," ASF, July-August, 1965

2481 [2433] "Day of Burning," as "Supernova," ASF, January, 1967

3481 [2433] "The Master Key," ASF, July, 1964

2485 [2437] SATAN'S WORLD, Doubleday, 1969

2485 [2437] "A Little Knowledge," ASF, August 1971

2485 [2437] "The Season of Forgiveness," BOY'S LIFE, December, 1973

2486 [2446] "Lodestar," ASTOUNDING: THE JOHN W. CAMBPBELL MEMORIAL ANTHOLOGY, ed. by Harry Harrison, Random House, 1973

2504 [2456] MIRKHEIM, G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1977

Early 26th century [late 25th century], settlement of Avalon

26th century, "Wingless on Avalon," BOY'S LIFE, July, 1973

26th century, "Rescue on Avalon," in CHILDREN OF INFINITY, ed. Roger Elwood, Franklin Watts, 1973

26th century, dissolution of the Polesotechnic League

The Time of Troubles and the Terran Empire

2600-2700 [27th century] The Time of Troubles

Late 27th century, "The Star Plunderer," PLANET STORIES (cited as PS), September, 1952

2700 Manuel Argos founds the Terran Empire, Principate phase begins

28th century, "Sargasso of Lost Starships," PS, January, 1952

29th century, THE PEOPLE OF THE WIND, New American Library, 1973

29th century [30th C], Covenant of Alfzar

3100 [3000] Birth of Dominic Flandry

3119 [3019] ENSIGN FLANDRY, Chilton, 1966

3121 [3021] A CIRCUS OF HELLS, New American Library, 1971

3122 [3022] Josip succeeds Georgios as Emperor

3125 [3025] THE REBEL WORLDS, New American Library,1969

3127 [3027] "Outpost of Empire," GALAXY, December, 1967

3128 [3028] THE DAY OF THEIR RETURN, Doubleday, 1973

3132 [3032] "Tiger by the Tail," PS, January, 1951

3133 [3033] "Honorable Enemies," FUTURE COMBINED WITH SCIENCE FICTION STORIES, May, 1951

3135 [3035] "The Game of Glory," VENTURE, March, 1958

3137 [3037] "A Message in Secret," as MAYDAY ORBIT, Ace Books, 1961

3138 [3038] "A Plague of Masters," as EARTHMAN, GO HOME, Ace Books, 1961

3140 [3040] WE CLAIM THESE STARS! (also HUNTERS OF THE SKY CAVE), Ace Books, 1959

3042 [3041] Hans Molitor succeeds Josip as Emperor after brief civil war, supplants short lived Imperial relative as Emperor.

3143 [3042] "Warriors from Nowhere," as "Ambassadors of Flesh," PS, Summer, 1954

3148 [3047] A KNIGHT OF GHOSTS AND SHADOWS, New American Library, 1975

3155 Dietrich succeeds Hans as Emperor

3157 Gerhart succeeds Dietrich as Emperor

3162 [3061] A STONE IN HEAVEN, Ace Books, 1979

3167 [3064] THE GAME OF EMPIRE, Baen Books, 1985

Early fourth millennium, the Empire enters its Dominate phase

Circa AD 3500, Fall of the Terran Empire, the Long Night begins. War, piracy, anarchy, economic collapse, and isolation devastate countless worlds.

The Long Night

3600 "A Tragedy of Errors," GALAXY, February, 1968

3900 THE NIGHT FACE, Ace Books, 1978

4000 "The Sharing of Flesh," GALAXY, December, 1968

7100 "Starfog," ASF, August, 1967