Notes
The Van Rijn Method, a collection of Technic Civilization fiction by Poul Anderson.

Part 1 of The Technic Civilization Saga.

Contains:

1. The Saturn Game (1981) [Other Technic Stories] (Brooks-1)
2. Wings of Victory (1972) [Other Technic Stories] (Brooks-2)
3. The Problem of Pain (1973) [Avalon] (Brooks-3)
4. Margin of Profit (1978) [Nicholas Van Rijn] (Brooks-4)
5. How to Be Ethnic in One Easy Lesson (1973) [Other Technic Stories] (Brooks-5)
6. The Three-Cornered Wheel (1963) [David Falkayn] (Brooks-6)
7. A Sun Invisible (1966) [David Falkayn] (Brooks-9)
8. The Season of Forgiveness (1973) [Other Technic Stories] (Brooks-17)
9. The Man Who Counts (1958) [Nicholas Van Rijn] (Brooks-7)
10. Esau (1978) [Other Technic Stories] (Brooks-8)
11. Hiding Place (1961) [Nicholas Van Rijn] (Brooks-10)

Also includes Planets and Profits: Introducing Nicholas Van Rijn and the Polesotechnic League, an introduction by Hank Davis and Chronology of Technic Civilization, a timeline by Sandra Miesel.

The stories are numbered to reflect the reading order suggested by Sandra Miesel's timeline. An alternative chronology has been suggested by Sean M Brooks.

The image opposite and the blurb below are from the first printing of the 2009 paperback edition, ISBN 9781439133262. Cover illustration by David Seeley.

Publisher’s Blurb – Lower Cover
MEET ONE OF THE MOST POPULAR CHARACTER5 IN SCIENCE FICTION

When the human race spread out among the stars, they took the profit motive with them, and none exemplified that fact better than Nicholas Van Rijn, interstellar trader and capitalist extraordinaire. He might look like Falstaff and talk in a steady stream of malapropisms, but anybody who might take him for a bumbling buffoon would quickly find themselves taken – to the cleaners!

In Nick Van Rijn, Poul Anderson created one of the most memorable and popular characters in science fiction, and now, for the first time, all the novels and stories of Van Rijn and the Polesotechnic League will be published in chronological order in three volumes.

"The book of the month is the Poul Anderson collection The Van Rijn Method from Baen Books. . . . These are stories of the classic science fiction tradition: hard science and tough characters in logically well integrated action stories. . . . The central figure in this volume is the merchant prince Nicholas Van Rijn, owner of Solar Spice and Liquors Company and a prominent member of the Polesotechnic League. . . . I opened this collection the other day when I wasn't feeling very good, and I emerged a couple of hours later – even though I had read most of those stories when they first came out. Poul was one of my closest friends for forty years. It was good to hear his voice again in those stories." – Jerry Pournelle