Friday 24 May 2013

Rise And Decline Of The Polesotechnic League II

I am not sure that this problem is fully resolved yet: how to arrange the stories in such a way that they clearly show first the rise, then the decline, of the Polesotechnic League. Certain points are clear enough.

(i) Both "The Saturn Game" and "Wings of Victory" are pre-League and rightly come at the very beginning of Volume I of The Technic Civilization Saga or of any other uniform edition of the series.

(ii) I think that "The Problem of Pain" is also pre-League but, in any case, it is definitely the third story in the History.

(iv) From the fourth story onwards, the League definitely exists.

(v) The fourth story could be either "Margin of Profit," which introduces Nicholas van Rijn, or "How To Be Ethnic In One Easy Lesson," which introduces Adzel. Sandra Miesel's Chronology lists both as occurring in the same year. I would prefer to start with the Adzel story in order slightly to delay the appearance of van Rijn.

(vi) We know that van Rijn was born poor, worked as a spaceman and built the Solar Spice & Liquor Company from nothing but we do not see any of this happening. When introduced to the reader, van Rijn is already rich, successful, powerful and older than the other characters that he is dealing with - although he also ages significantly and visibly during the series.

(vii) So far, that gives us an order for the first five stories in Volume I.

(viii) Mirkheim is a sequel to the trader team series and rightly opens Volume III.

(ix) "Lodestar" is the prequel to Mirkheim. Van Rijn has visibly aged, the League is now in serious decline and this is the last time that we see the trader team in action before they disband - van Rijn has to bring them back together after a considerable interval in order to address the Mirkheim crisis - so "Lodestar" rightly closes Volume II.

(x) That leaves us with twelve works to sort out between the first five in Volume I and the last one in Volume II.

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