Religion in the fiction of Poul Anderson Much of Poul Anderson's fiction is set in his "Technic Civilization" universe. Nicholas van Rijn and his associates are important characters in many of these stories. One of his contemporaries, and perhaps a competitor, is Martin Schuster, the master trader in "The Three-cornered Wheel" (the first part of The Trouble Twisters). Schuster knows and respects Jewish traditions. He uses his knowledge of the Kabbalah to deal with the theocracy that the protagonists confront.