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Arthur C. Clarke and Gentry Lee sort of did this with the Rama series. The first novel reads startlingly like a history book from the future and focuses on the military and government people who fi...
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#4: Attribution notice removed
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/14575 License name: CC BY-SA 3.0 License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#3: Attribution notice added
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/14575 License name: CC BY-SA 3.0 License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision
Arthur C. Clarke and Gentry Lee sort of did this with the [_Rama_](http://www.amazon.com/Arthur-C-Clarkes-Rama-Series/lm/3T6KD05GJ04I3) series. The first novel reads startlingly like a history book from the future and focuses on the military and government people who find a spaceship which has reached Earth. Books 2, 3, and 4 are more traditional narratives around human and non-human families and other characters. Anne McCaffrey did something more like what you're thinking in her Harper Hall trilogy. _Dragonsong_ and _Dragonsinger_ are about Menolly, a girl who is abused by her father for her musical ability until she escapes to Harper Hall to become a professional musician, while the third book, _Dragondrums,_ focuses on Piemur, a different apprentice in the same Hall. Piemur is a secondary character in Menolly's books, while she barely shows up in his. Both are tertiary characters in other books in the overall Dragonriders of Pern series. As long as you establish some manner of continuity between the stories — in the Dragonrider books the characters overlap; in the Rama series it's about the same ship and species — I think you're okay.