Corridors Of Power II

In the following volume of Baen Books' The Technic Civilization Saga, Dominic Flandry rides a grav repulsor from his hovering space yacht to the fortieth flange of the Intelligence tower. It seems that Vice Admiral Fenross' office is on this level. Later, Flandry looks through the clear wall of his own office at the "...slim faerie spires..." (Sir Dominic Flandry, p. 189) of Admiralty Center and reflects on the millions of specialists who live and work there, making the Center a city.

Flandry expects barbarians to howl among smashed buildings, burning books and dead men when the Empire falls (p. 190). In the previous volume, he had anticipated:

"...when the Empire goes under and the howling peoples camp in its ruins." (Young Flandry, p. 381)

Why howl? A mere barbarian assault might have this effect. However, when the Empire does go under, I would expect a lot of people on Earth to set about building something better out of the ruins.

Coincidentally, I read these lines today:

Robert Huntoon to John Constantine: "SHE WAS A NICE GIRL! FROM A GOOD FAMILY AND I WAS GOING TO MARRY HER, UNTIL YOU GOT HER MIXED UP IN ALL THAT SEX AND MAGIC CRAP YOU WERE INTO...YOU RUINED MY WHOLE LIFE..."
-Rick Veitch, Swamp Thing: Regenesis (New York, 2004), p. 46, panel 4.

Flandry thinking about Fenross: How the devil did this feud get started? Is it only that I took that girl...what was her name, anyway? Marjorie? Margaret?...was it only that I once took her from him when we were cadets together? (Sir Dominic Flandry, p. 167)

However, this is all that Constantine and Flandry have in common.

Corridors Of Power

When Josef Faber reports to Krasna at Service HQ on Randolph, Krasna offers Faber:

"'Smoke? Drink? Rax?'"
-James Blish, The Quincunx Of Time (New York, 1983), p. 20.

When Lieutenant Commander Dominic Flandry reports to Vice Admiral Sir Ilya Kheraskov at Intelligence headquarters on Earth, Kheraskov offers Flandry a cigar, then:

"'Coffee...Or tea or jaine.'"
-Poul Anderson, Young Flandry (New York, 2010), p. 383.

They will have different drugs and beverages in future.

I am having trouble with the word, "...trikon..." on p. 386 of Young Flandry.

I am rereading this account of Flandry's visit to Intelligence headquarters at Admiralty Center because I am fascinated by the phrase "...labyrinthine corridors of power..." in the blurb on the back of Young Flandry and want to learn more about these corridors. The phrase suggests, at least to me, underground corridors which would make sense for defense against the threat of nuclear bombardment. Admiralty Center occupies and lifts above the Rocky Mountains so some of the Center must tunnel into the mountains? Indeed:

"...traffic pulsed among the towers, up and down within them, deep into the tunnels and chambers beneath their foundations." (p. 380)

However, a robot air taxi deposits Flandry "...on the fiftieth-level parking flange." (ibid.) From there, he walks down several bustling halls to a lift shaft and ascends by negagrav field to the hushed, high rank, ninety-seventh level which holds Kheraskov's opulent suite of offices.

No doubt everyone will descend to chambers beneath the foundations if there is an attack.

The Twilight Of The Terran Empire

Did Hank Davis, Compiler of Baen Books' The Technic Civilization Saga, write the blurbs? This one is quite good:

"It is the twilight of the Terran Empire. The warriors who made it great are long gone now, and the traders of the Polesotechnic League who made it possible are the dimly-remembered stuff of legend. Alien enemies prowl its outer precincts, and Sector Governors conspire for the Throne of Man. On Terra herself, those who occupy the labyrinthine corridors of power busy themselves with trivialities and internal politics, as outside the final darkness gathers."
-Young Flandry (New York, 2010), back cover.

The blurb deploys evocative terms and phrases: twilight; Empire; warriors; legend; enemies prowling; Throne; not only "corridors of power" but "labyrinthine" ones; the final darkness gathering.

The warriors that made the Empire great include the Founder who, in the previous volume, led a slave revolt, seized a slaver ship and attacked the slavers' planet. How did the League make the Empire possible? It "...spread a truly universal civilization..." (The Van Rijn Method, p. 146), which the Empire took over when the previous system of government had broken down.

Alien enemies include not only a rival imperialism but also barbarians armed with spaceships and nuclear weapons by unscrupulous traders - the other side of the League. The corridors of power include the city-sized Admiralty Center where Flandry receives his orders in the third Young Flandry novel.

The second paragraph of this blurb describes Flandry as "...blazing a trail across the galaxy..." whereas, of course, in this era, known space comprises only one outer part of a single spiral arm. Anderson's text is more considered and restrained than an extravagant blurb.

Volumes And Collections

I am glad to have a copy of that milestone volume, Poul Anderson's The Earth Book of Stormgate, even though its entire contents are faithfully reproduced in Baen Books' later The Technic Civilization Saga. Right now I am looking at two volumes of Anderson's History of Technic Civilization. Neither is or could have been the entire History. However, The Van Rijn Method is Volume I of the seven volume complete edition, the Saga, whereas the Earth Book was an omnibus collection of previously uncollected works with new fictional introductions.

The Van Rijn Method collects eleven works, including the first van Rijn novel, The Man Who Counts. The Earth Book collects twelve works, including that same novel. So are they almost the same volume? No, but they are closely related. The Van Rijn Method comprises:

one previously uncollected work;
six of the twelve works from the Earth Book;
two of the three works from the David Falkayn collection, The Trouble Twisters;
two of the three works from the Nicholas van Rijn collection, Trader To The Stars.

The rest of the Earth Book and of van Rijn's and Falkayns careers, together with other relevant material, are in Volumes II and III and then there are four more volumes of the History! This is the ultimate future history series, building on the model created by Robert Heinlein but going far beyond Heinlein's Future History in both scale and depth.

Analyzing The Technic History

3 installments set before the Polesotechnic League
5 set between the League and Dominic Flandry
4 set after Flandry
2 set in the League period but not featuring van Rijn or any member of his trader team
   (although one of the 2 quotes van Rijn)
2 set during Flandry's lifetime but not featuring Flandry
   (although one of the 2 quotes Flandry)

Thus, 16 installments without any of the continuing characters, leaving:

14 featuring van Rijn, Falkayn, Adzel or all three
13 featuring Flandry

43 installments in total

Margin Of Profit

"Margin of Profit":

was an early sf short story by Poul Anderson (Astounding Science Fiction, September 1956);

introduced Nicholas van Rijn;

had to be rewritten to be incorporated into Anderson's major future history series, the History of Technic Civilization;

was quoted but not included in the first van Rijn collection, Trader To The Stars;

thus, for some readers, acquired the special status of a defining van Rijn story that we had not read yet;

was included in The Earth Book Of Stormgate and, of course, in the definitive The Technic Civilization Saga.

What's not to like?

Personal flashback to September 1956:

I was seven and living in (a different part of) the North West of England;
in that very month, September, I started to attend a boarding school near Glasgow in Scotland;
I read comic strip science fiction and superheroes;
Dan Dare fought bald, green, imperialistic Treens just as Dominic Flandry, whom I did not know yet, fought bald, green, tailed, imperialistic, green Merseians;
that first term in Scotland was when I realized that years were numbered and that we would very soon be in 1957;
I did not suspect that, in late December 2014, I would be discussing the works of an American prose science fiction writer on a planetary computer network.

Old And New In Mirkheim

Mirkheim is the first of six works collected in Volume III of Baen Books' seven-volume The Technic Civilization Saga and is also the turning point novel of Poul Anderson's forty three installment future history series called the History of Technic Civilization. Because it is a turning point, Mirkheim gathers together many characters and plot elements that had already appeared in the eighteen earlier installments collected in Volumes I and II but also introduces new background information that is so seamlessly welded into the History that readers may not recognize its novelty.

I have summarized the contents of the early Technic History previously but this time the purpose is to identify how many important data are pre-Mirkheim.

Of the eleven works collected in Volume I:

"Wings of Victory" mentions the planets Cynthia, Woden and Hermes;
"How To Be Ethnic In One Easy Lesson" introduces the Wodenite Adzel and the Polesotechnic League;
"Margin of Profit" introduces Nicholas van Rijn, Master Merchant, Polesotechnic League;
"The Three-Cornered Wheel" introduces the aristocratic Hermetian David Falkayn as a League apprentice on the planet Ivanhoe;
"A Sun Invisible" discloses that Falkayn is now employed by van Rijn and introduces the planet Vanessa;
"The Season of Forgiveness" describes later events on Ivanhoe;
The Man Who Counts shows van Rijn with Sandra Tamarin, future Grand Duchess of Hermes, on Diomedes, a planet that Dominic Flandry will visit in Volume VI;
"Esau" features van Rijn and introduces the Baburites.

Of the seven works collected in Volume II:

Falkayn, Adzel and the Cynthian Chee Lan work for van Rijn in four;
van Rijn cameos in the first of these four and shares the spotlight with Falkayn etc in the third and fourth;
the first, "The Trouble Twisters," introduces the planet Ikrananka;
the second, "Day of Burning," introduces the planet Merseia;
the third, Satan's World, introduces much but for present purposes we should note the planet Gorzun;
the fourth, "Lodestar," introduces van Rijn's granddaughter, Coya Conyon, the planet Mirkheim discovered by Falkayn, then independently by van Rijn, the Supermetals Company secretly founded by Falkayn, the Wodenite Nadi and an unnamed Ikranankan working for Supermetals, and discloses that this company represents many poorer planets.

In Mirkheim:

Falkayn has married Coya;
Sandra has become Grand Duchess of Hermes and will be succeeded by Eric, her son by van Rijn;
we learn that Supermetals also represents Ivanhoe, Vanessa and Gorzun;
the League has split into two rival cartels and many independents;
the Baburites, employing disaffected human beings and Merseians and secretly armed by a League cartel, seizes Mirkheim and invades Hermes;
van Rijn reassembles Falkayn, Adzel and Chee Lan to investigate Babur;
Supermetals, through Nadi, asks Hermes, through Sandra, to take possession of Mirkheim;
we are now told for the first time many details about Hermes and about the Falkayn domain.

Numbers

The 24 works collected in Baen Books' The Technic Civilization Saga, Volumes I-III, comprise:

12 from The Earth Book Of Stormgate;
3 each from Trader To The Stars and The Trouble Twisters;
3 other novels;
3 other short stories -

- extremely comprehensive and also systematic, although the systematic numerical sequence, 12 + (4x3) = 24, is entirely fortuitous. Volumes I-III are just under half of the seven volumes of the series but collect more than half of the 43 installments of the Technic History because there are more full length novels in Volumes IV-VII.

I suggest that Volumes I-III are an Extended Earth Book Of Stormgate because, although the Earth Book ends at the mid-point of Vol III, the concluding work in Vol III, The People Of The Wind, provides the background for the Earth Book.

Most installments of the Technic History were originally published in science fiction magazines, 16 in Analog Science Fiction. Publication in anthologies or in a different kind of magazine generated other kinds of stories, presenting alternative perspectives on the History:

"How To Be Ethnic In One Easy Lesson" (Future Quest, ed. Roger Elwood, Avon, 1974);
"The Season of Forgiveness" (Boy's Life, December, 1973);
"Wingless" (Boy's Life, July, 1973);
"Rescue on Avalon" (Children Of Infinity, ed. Roger Elwood, Franklin Watts, 1973).

Thank you, Roger Elwood and Boy's Life. David Falkayn led a trader team consisting of himself, Adzel and Chee Lan and later led the colonization of Avalon. However, these four stories do not present any further adventures of Fakayn or his team. Instead, we get:

Adzel's student days;
a later incident on a planet where Falkayn had been as an apprentice;
Falkayn's grandson on Avalon;
a later incident on Avalon.

The first trader team story had mentioned some of Adzel's activities as a student on Earth. "How To Be Ethnic..." describes these activities but introduces a one-off character, James Ching, to narrate them. Although Ching, who also goes into space, is a potential series character, we do not see him again, although Hloch's introduction in the Earth Book does summarize his later career. The History becomes richer at each stage of its development.

The Technic Civilization Saga, Volume III

Occasionally, I critique the physical layout and even the pagination of a book. For example, I consider unnecessarily blank pages wasteful and unaesthetic. However, I can find very little adverse criticism to make of Rise Of The Terran Empire, which is Volume III of Baen Books' The Technic Civilization Saga, compiled by Hank Davis.

First, I think that the contents are just right, that the title is appropriate and even that the cover illustration (see image) is excellent, unlike those on some of the other Volumes. Secondly, in the entire seven-volume Saga, the text begins on page 1 in Arabic numerals whereas Roman numerals are used before that. I think that this should be a universal publishing practice. A glance at the last page should tell us the page count for the text. It should not be necessary to look to the front, then subtract a number.

In Rise..., we find that Hank Davis' Introduction, "Descent Into Empire," is on pp. VII-X, although it could have been fitted onto three pages and there is a miss-spelling in the heading of p. IX, "Desent Into Empire."

The Roman numerals number everything before the text except the front cover. Thus, we find:

outside front cover - see image;
inside front cover - the Baen symbol, prices and a bar code;
p. I - an extract from Mirkheim, the first work collected in this Volume;
p. II - a list of Baen Books by Poul Anderson;
p. III - title page;
p. IV - publication information;
p. V - Contents;
p. VI - Acknowledgements.

I also like it that there are few blank pages throughout the book and, in particular, that the text of "Sargasso of Lost Starships" ends on p. 436 while the text of The People Of The Wind, a novel, begins on p. 437, without any intervening blank pages or internal title page.

Where Is The Black Nebula?

In Poul Anderson's History of Technic Civilization, the author writes the introductions that are fictitiously written by:

Francis L Minamoto;
Hloch of the Stormgate Choth;
Vance Hall;
Noah Arkwright;
Le Matelot;
Urwain the Wide-Faring;
Donvar Ayeghen, President of the Galactic Archaeological Society.

(Have I missed any?)

In Baen Books' The Technic Civilization Saga, the first complete uniform edition of the Technic History, editor/compiler Hank Davis writes the one new introduction that is fictitiously written by Michael Karageorge, a contemporary of Donvar Ayeghen.

Karageorge writes that the few clues as to the location of the Black Nebula use names of stars that fell into disuse centuries previously. The story, "Sargasso of Lost Starships," informs us that the nebula is a spherical dust cloud a light year in diameter ten parsecs beyond Ansa towards Sagittari. This sounds clear enough. And Ansa, a colony planet, is still inhabited a few centuries later in Dominic Flandry's time.

However, "Ansa" is the Anglic name of a planet. We are not told the name of its star. Further, Ayeghen and Karageorge live a very long time after Flandry. Ayeghen refers to the Empire founded by Manuel Argos as "...the First Empire..." (Rise Of The Terran Empire, p.325). We know of no subsequent Empires although we do know that human beings spread further during the four or more millennia after Flandry. Daven Laure, a Ranger of the service organization called the Commonalty, reflects that:

humanity has thinly occupied parts of two or three spiral arms;
the Commonalty operates in only one civilization, where it has members on ten million planets;
other branches of humanity have distinctive ways;
there are rumors of even stranger ways.

Thus, although the Commonalty has no wars or imperialism, there could well be empires elsewhere and Ayeghen's phraseology confirms this. Sol and Old Earth are fifty light years from Ansa but two spiral arms away from Daven Laure so Karageorge, wherever/whenever he is, is probably right when he says that the Black Nebula will be difficult to locate, especially if the name of their organization, the Galactic Archaeological Society, means that Ayeghen and Karageorge belong to a civilization that is not confined to part of one spiral arm but spans the galaxy.  

Diomedean Geography

More maps of planets in Technic Civilization would be helpful.

The Holmenach archipelago, stretching north for hundreds of kilometers from the Britain-sized island of Lannach, separates the Sea of Achan from the colder Ocean. The north coast of Lannach slopes in broad valleys from the uplands towards the Sea and Sagna Bay where the Flock of Lannach have several towns:

Ulwen;
Mannenach;
Yo of the Carpenters.

Fish called trech have changed their habits and moved from Draka waters (where?) to the Sea of Achan.

Well to the north of the archipelago is the ice-covered island of Dawrnach. The Flock of Lannach takes several Earth-days to fly there, resting on skerries usually visited only by birds. Somewhere to the south of Lannach are the jungles of Swampy Kilnu.

Thursday Landing, the League trading post across the Ocean, deals with the Tyrlanian Flock.

There may be a little more geographical information in the text, which I have not yet reread in full.

Ice And Fire

Nicholas van Rijn forced the Flock to fight on foot. Next, he gets them to fight the Fleet with a fleet of ships carved from ice! Ice floats but does not burn. Van Rijn's ingenuity is infinite:

(i) most Flock members can wield stone chisels;

(ii) thus, each ship is carved in a few hours and the fleet in a week;

(iii) oil lamps with bellows smooth the ships;

(iv) holes are cut for insertion of mast and rudder;

(v) refrozen water is cement.

There is no time for testing and I am also inclined to agree with Wace that there is nowhere near enough time to solve all the engineering problems that he lists:

How deep should the mast holes be?
Is ballast necessary?
How can clean cuts be made in large, irregular ice blocks?
Should the bottoms be smoothed to reduce drag?
The ice can be strengthened by refrozen mixed sawdust and seawater but in what proportions?

Van Rijn does get some Diomedeans to work under the cold sea water to streamline the bottoms.

When the ice fleet penetrates the Fleet, van Rijn's forces burn some Fleet rafts and board others. The boarders use the new infantry tactics, advancing on foot shielded against aerial assault, still the only form of assault known to the Fleet, whose members rise only to be shot down by archers in a second wave of boarders. Pretty smart stuff.

Since the rafts are dwellings, one female tries to rally the others to fight but van Rijn frightens her by saying that she should stay with her children whom he will otherwise eat. More political lying, which happens to be in the Fleet females' best interests as well.

Regular readers will notice how the war has advanced quickly through distinct stages thanks to van Rijn's innovative inputs. The characters are in the thick of battle at the point to which I have read.

I might post twice more tonight, then this laptop goes back to Ketlan for maintenance tomorrow.

Minor Anomalies

"The following story was also written by Judith Dalmady/Lundgren for the periodical Morgana."
-Poul Anderson, The Van Rijn Method (New York, 2009), p. 317.

"Children of [Dalmady's] moved to Avalon with Falkayn. This story was written in her later years by one of them, Judith...It appeared in a periodical of the time called Morgana." (p. 517)

Alert readers will notice that the passage introducing Judith Dalmady and Morgana comes two hundred pages after the passage referring to a second story by Judith in Morgana. This is because the order of stories in The Van Rijn Method, compiled by Hank Davis, differs slightly from that in the earlier The Earth Book Of Stormgate.

However, I agree with the placing of "Esau," introduced on p. 517, later in the Technic History since its introduction describes the philosophy and practice of the Polesotechnic Leauge as "...already...becoming somewhat archaic, if not obsolete." (p. 517) Anomalously, the introduction to the immediately following story, "Hiding Place," celebrates the League's early days with:

"The world's great age begins anew..." (p. 555)

I suggest that the introduction to "Hiding Place," which had originally opened the Trader To The Stars collection, should, in the omnibus History, be placed before "How To Be Ethnic In One Easy Lesson," where it would then appropriately introduce the League period as a whole.

This period begins with three short stories featuring, respectively, Adzel, van Rijn and Falkayn and ends with a novel featuring all three. We see Falkayn and, later, Flandry from the beginning of their careers into their mature years whereas we first encounter van Rijn when his early days are far behind him. I will seek out what the texts disclose, although it is not very much, about those early days.

Chunderban Desai

Chunderban Desai:

is a native of the human-colonized planet, Ramanujan, where there is a Mount Gandhi;

is married with seven children, four grown and settled on different planets (imagine living in such an immense civilization);

had worked in regions facing Betelgeuse and Merseia;

was assigned to the Terran diplomatic delegation that ended the Jihannath crisis, where his Merseian opposite number was Uldwyr;

is fluent in the principal Merseian language, Eriau, as Uldwyr is in Anglic;

is now a commissioner, thus intermediate between a resident in a single culture and a governor of a galactic sector;

specifically, is High Commissioner of the Virgilian System at the opposite end of the Terran Empire from Jihannath;

thus, is based in Nova Roma on the human-colonized planet Aeneas which had spearheaded the revolt of Sector Alpha Crucis against the Empire;

later, will teach at the Diplomatic Academy on Terra for a year before retiring to Ramanujan where he will continue to develop the cyclical theory of history that he explains to Flandry.

One of the many characters that we would like to know more about, Desai's single reappearance, to converse with Flandry in a later novel, is both unexpected and highly enjoyable.

Captain Flandry

I have never quite finished rethinking how best, publishorially speaking, to present Poul Anderson's History of Technic Civilization and therefore assessing how well Baen Books' The Technic Civilization Saga measures up, although I have become more sympathetic to Baen's approach (apart from the covers) than originally. Baen has four titles featuring Flandry:

Young Flandry
Captain Flandry: Defender Of The Terran Empire
Sir Dominic Flandry: The Last Knight Of Terra
Flandry's Legacy

Young Flandry is perfect both in its title and its contents: the three novels that were written and published to be a tripartite prequel to the already existing Flandry series. However, Flandry's Legacy is six works of which only the first two are set during Flandry's lifetime. The remaining four make no reference to Flandry and are set in successively later periods and therefore should, I think, form a separate, albeit shorter, volume.

That leaves us with twelve works that, after the introductory trilogy, are set during Flandry's lifetime. But the last three of these are all novels and form a perfect concluding trilogy featuring sons and daughters of characters introduced in the opening Ensign Flandry. Thus, these three could constitute an omnibus Children Of Empire - although, if Anderson had continued the History, then the very last of these novels, The Game Of Empire, would have opened a new sub-series about Flandry's daughter and her companions.

We are now down to nine works of which the first two do not include Flandry whereas the remaining seven comprise the already mentioned original Flandry series. I did think that therefore there should be an Outposts Of Empire volume and a Captain Flandry volume but these would be very dissimilar in length so maybe it is right that the first three Flandry short stories, which are in fact a continuous sequence, should be collected in (the proposed) Outposts...

In fact, Baen's Captain Flandry... equals my proposed Outposts... plus "A Message In Secret" but this splits up the diptych of "A Message In Secret" and "The Plague Of Masters" so I would put "A Message In Secret" in the next volume.

Sir Dominic Flandry: The Last Knight Of Terra

Volume VI of Baen Books' The Technic Civilization Saga by Poul Anderson, compiled by Hank Davis, is Sir Dominic Flandry: The Last Knight Of Terra (New York, 2012), which collects:

"The Plague of Masters" (pp. 1-147);
"Hunters of the Sky Cave" (pp. 149-301);
"The Warriors from Nowhere" (pp. 303-337);
"A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows" (pp. 339-606).

Just four works, all about Flandry, three of them novels. "The Warriors from Nowhere", a very short story, can retroactively be regarded as a mere prelude to "A Knight..." Thus, Volume VI is effectively a Flandry trilogy, like Vol IV, Young Flandry. Given the parameters of the Saga, I can understand the rationale for Sir Dominic...

However, "The Plague of Masters" is a direct sequel to "A Message in Secret" and, I think, belongs with it. "A Knight..." is a sequel to the original Flandry series and is the first of three novels featuring sons or daughters of characters introduced in the first Flandry novel. I think that these three "Children of Empire" novels belong together and that the following four post-Flandry works should have a volume to themselves.

Thus, although I recognize that Sir Dominic... is a solid Flandry omnibus collection, I still have reasons to prefer a different way of dividing up Anderson's History of Technic Civilization.

Historical Perspectives

In Baen Books' The Technic Civilization Saga Vols I-III by Poul Anderson:

the three introductions referring to Noah Arkwright cover the period of the Polesotechnic League;
the two introductions written in the much later period of the Galactic Archaeological Society cover the Time of Troubles and the early Terran Empire;
the twelve extracts from The Earth Book Of Stormgate cover the Grand Survey, the Polesotechnic League, the colonization of Avalon and the Terran Imperial War on Avalon.

Subsequent periods - later Empire, Long Night, Allied Planets and Commonalty - are covered in Vols IV-VII but lack comparable introductions.

Unlike Arkwright and Hloch of Stormgate Choth, the Archaeological Society looks back on its subject period from a much later date. The Society refers to the Terran Empire as the First Empire, implying that there have been at least two although there is no indication of a second in the Chronology of Technic Civilization that is known to us.

A Second Empire could have coexisted with the Commonalty, but in a different spiral arm. If the name of the Society implies a civilization operating on the scale of the entire galaxy, then it is considerably later even than the Commonalty.

Spans, Illuminates And Completes...II

The previous post showed that The Earth Book Of Stormgate not only spanned and completed the Polesotechnic League period of Poul Anderson's History of Technic Civilization but also applied the perspective of the post-League novel, The People Of The Wind. Thus, there were:

two League collections, starring van Rijn and Falkayn respectively;

two League novels, each starring both;

one post-League novel, featuring a direct descendant of both;

the concluding League collection, including one more novel and presented from a post-League perspective.

However, the narrative was not yet complete:

one more pre-League story was written later;

two post-League stories preceded The People Of The Wind;

the History of Technic Civilization continued for many volumes after The People Of The Wind.

Fortunately, not only the six volumes and three separate stories already mentioned but also all subsequent volumes have been fully incorporated into Baen Books' The Technic Civilization Saga, seven omnibus volumes collecting the entire History in chronological order for the first time.

The eleven works collected in Vol I, The Van Rijn Method, comprise:

the one newer story;

seven of the twelve works that had been collected in The Earth Book;

two of the three works that had been collected as The Trouble Twiters;

one of the three works that had been collected as Trader To The Stars.

Further, the previously collected stories retain their fictitious introductions from the earlier collections:

seven by Hloch of the Stormgate Choth;

one by Vance Hall commenting on Noah Arkwright;

one by Noah Arkwright;

one by Le Matelot, beginning "'The world's great age begins anew...'"

The perspective expands. The Saga is like a bigger and better Earth Book.

The seven works collected in Vol II, David Falkayn: Star Trader, comprise:

the two remaining works that had been collected in Trader To The Stars;

the one remaining work that had been collected in The Trouble Twisters;

three more from The Earth Book;

the first of the two League novels, Satan's World.

The faithfully reproduced introductions are:

a passage from the first Trader story in Vol I;
Urwain the Wide-Faring's memories of Noah Arkwright;
a passage from Percy Shelley's "Hellas";
three more from Hloch.

(Who is this guy, Noah Arkwright? Don't ask.)

The six works collected in Vol III, Rise Of The Terran Empire, are:

the second League novel, Mirkheim;
the two remaining stories from The Earth Book;

the two post-League stories mentioned earlier;
The People Of The Wind.

The introductions are:

two more - plus one conclusion - by Hloch;

one from the much later perspective of Donvar Ayeghen, President of the Galactic Archaeological Society;

one by Ayeghen's contemporary, Michael Karageorge (this time scripted not by Poul Anderson but by Saga compiler, Hank Davis).

Thus, the expanded Earth Book extends from the second story in Vol I to the third story in Vol III and the History continues for another four and a half volumes
after that.

There is in addition a perspective from right outside the fictitious history because introductions by the author, where they exist, are also included. In his introduction to "The Night Face," in Vol VII, Flandry's Legacy, Anderson informs the reader that Nicholas van Rijn, David Falkayn, Christopher Holm, Dominic Flandry and other characters lived in the past of this story.

The inclusion of Holm may be a surprise. However, Christopher's/Arinnian's role is pivotal because he is a viewpoint character in The People Of The Wind and, fictitiously, one of the authors of The Earth Book Of Stormgate.

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 Problem Of Pain II

The argument in the preceding post was not: God (fore)knows our actions, therefore our actions are unfree. It was:

God (assuming that He exists etc) creates everything, including our dispositions, motivations, mental and physical abilities, will-power, environmental interactions etc, thus causes our actions, therefore cannot judge our actions in the way that we can and do judge ourselves and each other;
caused actions are free if they are unconstrained;
uncaused actions would be random, therefore not morally significant.

Such arguments are presented on a Poul Anderson Appreciation blog because Poul Anderson's fiction addresses these issues. In "The Problem of Pain," i.e., Anderson's short story, not CS Lewis' work of apologetics with the same title, the Christian Peter Berg and his unbelieving colleague discuss both the problem of evil and the problem of pain.

The Problem of Evil
Why does God allow (I would say cause) moral evil? Berg thinks that Christian free will apologetics is a perfect answer whereas the Ythrian response, that God allows wickedness so that we can gain honor by fighting it, is weak.

The Problem of Pain
"'Why does a merciful God permit [I would say cause] undeserved agony?'"
- Anderson, The Earth Book Of Stormgate (New York, 1979), p. 46.

"'Why? What possible end is served? It's not adequate to declare that we'll receive an unbounded reward after we die and therefore it makes no difference whather a life was gutsy or grisly. That's no explanation.'" (p. 47)

My answer is that no end is served because we evolved and were not created. Pain exists because it has survival value but this does not prevent it from often continuing long after it has served that function. Anderson presents an excellent alien response to the human belief in a hereafter. When asked whether he believes that the spirit outlives the body, Enherrian of the Ythrian New Faith, whose daughter has just drowned, snaps, "'How could it?...Why should it?'" (p. 38) (Despite this, we later learn that the Old Faith did involve a hereafter with a deity.)

Berg wonders whether the Ythrian response to the problem of pain is better:

"'...at last He comes after us. Our noblest moment is when we, knowing He is irresistible, give Him a good chase, a good fight.
"'Then he wins honor.'" (p. 48)

Berg's colleague, the narrator, says:

"'I looked into the abyss once, and saw nothing, and haven't looked since. You keep looking. Which of us is the braver?'" (ibid.)

The narrator's look into the abyss is another of Anderson's many untold stories.

Berg's priests tell him "'...to deny a false creed and to acknowledge a mystery.'" But he thinks that, "'Neither instruction feels right.'" (ibid.)

I would say: acknowledge mysteries but keep looking and do not call alien creeds false. The narrator points out that the New Faith has been held for centuries by millions of beings and that it solves some paradoxes, if not all.