The Earth Book of Stormgate
A collection of short fiction and one novel.
Locus Award nominee 1979.
Contents:
- Wings of Victory
- The Problem of Pain
- How to be Ethnic in One Easy Lesson
- Margin of Profit
- Esau (also known as Birthright)
- The Season of Forgiveness
- The Man Who Counts (the first appearance of the unedited version of War of the Wing-Men)
- A Little Knowledge
- Day of Burning (also known as Supernova)
- Lodestar
- Wingless (also known as Wingless on Avalon)
- Rescue on Avalon
One of the great modern works of the imagination, this book tells of the trader van Rijn and the adventurer Falkayn; it rounds and completes the future history of the Polesotechnic League that spans four thousand years of Earth's interstellar empire; and it chronicles Mankind's encounters with the great-winged Ythri, who kept this record at far Stormgate.
"Behold these animals from
the discovery on through the World-Taking. They are garnered from
different trees, and few of them will seem at once to grow toward the
same sun. Yet they do.
"This is the tale, told afresh, of how Avalon came to settlement and
thus our choth to being. This is the tale as told by Terrans, who walk
the Earth...
"Then read."
Poul Anderson
Poul Anderson (1926–2001) was born in Pennsylvania of Scandinavian stock. He started publishing science fiction in 1947 and became one the great figures in the genre, serving as President of the Science Fiction Writers of America, winning many Hugo and Nebula awards, and also winning the Gandalf (Grand Master) Award.
The Polesotechnic League
After the first initial burst of exploration for national glory and for the pure joy of exhilaration, Mankind found trading to be a truly excellent reason to travel from star to star hoping to make a discovery that would make an amazing financial killing. And if, along the way, you could do some good, well all the better... The Polesotechnic League stories cover that initial explosion of Technic civilisation up until its replacement by the Terran empire.
The Polesotechnic League consists of 6 total books. The current recommended reading order for the series is provided below.
Main series Technic History