Sunday, 22 March 2026

Haertel Timelines

Although James Blish's Haertel Scholium does not comprise a single linear future history series, it could be republished in a boxed-set uniform edition with minimal editing. Such a set should exclude the novel, A Case Of Conscience, because that is Volume III of the After Such Knowledge Trilogy and need not be collected twice, which leaves six volumes:

Two Adolph Haertel Volumes
Welcome To Mars
Galactic Cluster: Revised Edition ("No Jokes on Mars" + the short Haertel trilogy)

These first two volumes cover:

Haertel on Mars
Mars
Haertel
Haertel's successors

Two Jack Loftus Novels
The Star Dwellers
Mission To The Heart Stars (+ "A Dusk of Idols")

Two Thor Wald Volumes
The Quincunx Of Time (+ "A Style in Treason")
Midsummer Century

The second and third pairs cover alternative successors of Haertel.

There are alternative versions of Mars and also of the galactic centre. The Haertel who is directly referenced in Mission To The Heart Stars and the Haertel who is indirectly referenced in "This Earth of Hours" cannot be the same Haertel because these works present mutually incompatible accounts of what is to be found at the galactic centre. Consequently, Haertel exists in different timelines.

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