The Van Rijn Method

Technic Civilization Series 1

By: Poul Anderson

Narrated by: BJ Harrison

Length: 21 hrs and 59 mins

Publisher's Summary

The buck starts here!

Think there's an unbridgeable gulf between human and alien thought? Not so! There's a common tongue, all right - and Nicholas Van Rijn speaks it fluently: trade. For behind the buffoonish blarney and bawdy bonhomie of the Falstaffian Van Rijn is a man who gets things done. A born wheeler-dealer who usually leaves both sides better off in the bargain. (While pocketing a hefty cut of the profits himself, of course!)

With "The Man Who Counts" and a passel of other tales included, this is the first of three volumes set to contain the complete cycle of Polesotechnic League books and stories by transcendently gifted science fiction master (how does seven Hugos and three Nebula Awards strike you?) Poul Anderson - and starring Nicholas Van Rijn, his most famous character of all!

Contains mature themes.

©2008 Poul Anderson (P)2020 Tantor

Humph and hassenpfeffer!

I read most of the stories in this collection in other books published in the 60s & 70s and listened to two of my favorite stories first: "The Three-Cornered Wheel" and "A Sun Invisible". These were the first Poul Anderson stories I ever read and I enjoyed your production of them, especially the "The Three-Cornered Wheel". The narrator BJ Harrison did a great job and brought to life the natives of Ivanhoe - a planet orbiting a small star located near the Pleiades star cluster. I had never read the Saturn Game(1981) and found it difficult to get through - not one Poul Anderson's best, in my opinion. "Margin of Profit"(1956) was a story I didn't know but is now one of my favorite Nicholas van Rijn stories. The novel the "Man Who Counts"(1958) was also new and is another great van Rijn story. The narrator plays van Rijn VERY well bringing him to life with his outrageous accent! The next book in the series "David Falkayn: Star Trader" has the best stories of the Polesotechnic League including the novel "Satan's World" (1969). The third book, Rise of the Terran Empire, collects Anderson's early stories of the Terran Empire including one my favorites "The People of the Wind"(1973). And the fourth book will introduce Poul Anderson's most famous protagonist, Sir Dominic Flandry.

wonderful reading - Technic in hi-fi audio

Delighted that the Technic Civilization series is finally having its own complete audiobooks.
I loved this reading by BJ Harrison - and I'm looking forward to the other volumes. The sound quality is perfect, and Harrison brings the characters and stories to life.

The editing of all of Anderson's stories finally into a chronological 7-book series is a great moment (just wish the covers were different). One can get a bit lost in all the different publications of the Technic Civilization without this fine editing job. I do hope they finish an entire series of audiobooks to accompany these publications.

meh

Did not do it for me.lots not working here. voice did not match the writing.