The Earth Book of Stormgate by Poul Anderson

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.”

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