David Falkayn: Star Trader (Technic Civilization Series #2) Book

This is the second book in the new compilation of Poul Anderson's Technic Civilization stories, and it's going to be hard to top. Apart from the titular Falkayn and his alien trader-pioneer partners, Chee Lan and Adzel the dragon, it features Nicholas Van Rijn himself again in most of the stories, and he is at his best. This volume includes the novels Satan's World and The Trouble Twisters, classics in their own right but here set in chronological order amidst shorter tales that give them their rightful context. The book takes the reader from the pinnacle of the Polesotechnic League's exploration and exploitation of known space, to the beginning of the League's dissolution into a tyranny of robber barons who care little for the trillions of sophonts who must suffer so that the barons can maintain their cashflow. By the end of the volume, civilization is still in full flower (and still dominated by humans), but you can just make out the clouds gathering on the far horizon.

As a nice bonus, there's a complete timeline of Anderson's Technic Civilization in the back, with each of his books and stories set in proper chronological order.