Tuesday 21 May 2013

Emergency Reading

Driving my daughter and granddaughter to a place where they would be able to photograph birds, I went equipped with what we call "emergency reading," something to read while waiting, if delayed etc. The two volumes that I took provided an interesting contrast - two partial collections of Poul Anderson's History of Technic Civilization, necessarily "partial" because the entire series could not possibly fit into a single volume:

The Earth Book Of Stormgate was all the previously uncollected Polesotechnic League stories with new introductions and a new conclusion written as by a newly created fictitious character;

David Falkayn: Star Trader is the second of seven volumes collecting the entire History in chronological order with an enthusiastic introduction by the compiler, Hank Davis, and, where appropriate, preserving any introductions from earlier editions.

Thus, the Earth Book is twelve works all introduced by Hloch of the Stormgate Choth and David Falkayn is seven works of which three are introduced by Hloch, from which you may deduce that these two volumes present sixteen of the forty three works in the Technic History. Since the series is now complete, this seven volume Baen Books Technic Civilization Saga is the definitive version.

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