Multi-Layered Narratives

In The Van Rijn Method:

Francis L. Minamoto introduces "The Saturn Game";

Hloch introduces seven stories that had previously been collected in The Earth Book of Stormgate;

Vance Hall and Noah Arkwright, respectively, introduce two stories that had previously been collected in The Trouble Twisters;

Le Matelot introduces one story that had previously been collected in Trader To The Stars.

Hloch informs us about the fictional authors of the Earth Book works. Thus, a daughter of the hero of "Esau" wrote both "Esau" and "The Season of Forgiveness" and both these stories had been published in the Avalonian periodical, Morgana, before Hloch collected them in the Earth Book. The main action of "Esau" is framed by a conversation between its hero and Nicholas van Rijn. Thus, throughout The Van Rijn Method, we experience multiple layers of narrative and historiography. In the case of "Esau":

Emil Dalmady in action

Dalmady in conversation with van Rijn

Judith Dalmady/Lundgren writing for Morgana

Hloch compiling the Earth Book

Or again, in the case of "The Problem of Pain":

Peter Berg on Gray/Avalon

the unnamed narrator in conversation with Berg

that narrator in private correspondence on Earth

a historian obtaining a copy of the correspondence

a transcription kept on Esperance

Hloch's mother, Rennhi, finding the transcription

Hloch explaining all this to his Avalonian readers 

Crossing A Threshold

Three continuing characters, Nicholas van Rijn, David Falkayn and Adzel, are distributed across seven of the eleven instalments collected in The Technic Civilization Saga, Volume I, The Van Rijn Method. However, these three characters do not co-appear in a single narrative until the second of the seven instalments collected in Volume II, David Falkayn: Star Trader. All three make their final appearances in the first of the six instalments collected in Volume III, Rise of the Terran Empire. Whether singly or together, these three characters  are featured in fourteen of the twenty-four instalments collected in Volumes I-III. Of the remaining ten instalments, three are pre-Polesotechnic League whereas five are post-League. Thus, these three (of seven) volumes in themselves present a future history series, i.e., a futuristic sf series covering a period longer than the lifetimes of any individual characters.

The very first Technic History instalment, "The Saturn Game," links the late twentieth century of the author, Poul Anderson, to the fictional future of the series. 

"The fact is that thresholds exist throughout reality, and that things on their far sides are altogether different from things on their hither sides. The Chronos crossed more than an abyss, it crossed a threshold of human experience.

"-Francis L. Minamoto, Death Under Saturn: A Dissenting View (Apollo University Communications, Leyburg, Luna, 2057)"

-Poul Anderson, "The Saturn Game" IN Anderson, The Van Rijn Method (Riverdale, NY, December 2009), pp. 1-73 AT I, p. 1.

One threshold is between reality and fiction. The characters in this fictional narrative cross the threshold between single-level activity and role play, then go further into the role play than anyone has done before, crossing another threshold. 

A threshold with altogether different things on its hither and far sides is what the philosopher, Hegel, called the "specific quantum." Thus, a liquid becomes solid below its freezing point and gas above its boiling point. These two points are specific quanta where a quantitative increase or decrease suddenly becomes a qualitative transformation. Another example is the straw that broke the camel's back. The most significant qualitative difference is that between empirically detectable neural interactions and subjectively experienced mental states.

"The Saturn Game" links back to the mass entertainment of the twentieth century and shows a plausible, or at least possible, programme of Solar System exploration in the near future. We might imagine that this near future does not after all lead to the Technic History. However, it does contain one precursor of later developments, the Jerusalem Catholic Church. Everything connects although there is no direct connection between "The Saturn Game" and the very last Technic History instalment, "Starfog." Both stories are about the exploration of space but in different millennia and in different spiral arms of the galaxy. More thresholds have been crossed, the most important being from slower-than-light space travel to faster-than-light.