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Enjoy!

The most exciting news this time has very little to do with me. I am therefore turning the stage over to my webmaster, Karen Zimmerman:

The new web site is up at http://david-drake.com.  Our very simple original web site went live April 2000 and since then outgrew its ability to handle Dave’s very extensive, rich content.  I hope the new site helps users find things more easily—there are a lot of cross references and access points.  Please be aware that I’m still tweaking things, so you might see changes in appearance once in a while, and I’m still uploading some of the old archival content, including past newsletters and photos.

I’d greatly appreciate it if you would let me know if you see any glitches.  Tell me what error you see and what operating system and browser you’re using.

For those among you who care, this web site is built with WordPress, most commonly known as blogging software.  I found the post function and various plug-ins extremely adaptable for our content.  Thanks to my daughter, Ali Zimmerman, for helping me adapt the design and function the way I wanted it, especially the Ovid section.  I think we might be pushing WordPress to its limits in some cases.  I suppose we could say that Dave’s entire site is one big blog, eh?

Because we moved to a new web host, I have not yet set up new mailing list software, so this newsletter is going out from a third party which may or may not prove satisfactory.  That will explain some of the automatic footer and other oddities you might notice.  I apologize for the formatting on this one. On the other hand, there seem to be some interesting options I might try the next time.  Watch this space!

Anyway, enjoy the site!

–Karen

As I implied above, I was mostly a spectator. My primary function was lowest-common-denominator testing. “I can’t find that.” ‘But it’s right there, at the top of the page!’ “That says Internet Explorer.” ‘No, the top of the web page!’ “Oh, there it is.”

Yes, that’s a real exchange. One of quite a number of similar exchanges. I have my virtues; but believe me, skill in the design and construction of websites is not among them. I am in awe of my site.

Oh–I did add a little essay about the way the final Isles trilogy (The Crown of the Isles) was structured. That’s up as a note to The Fortress of Glass, the first of the three volumes.

And since I’m speaking of essays, I did one on motorcycling for the Tor/Forge blog, which led to me doing a pair of essays on the classics as an aid to writing for Tor.com, which is a wholly separate entity.

Essays of this sort are hard work to write correctly. I gave myself (the blog didn’t set a limit) 750 words for each of the classics pieces. They came in at 749 and 743 words respectively, after very darned careful changing and tightening. By the end I was pleased at the results, but the work took a lot out of me.

Whether or not the work was worthwhile depends on one’s definition of worth. I doubt that I’ll sell one additional book because I wrote them, so commercial considerations certainly didn’t apply. On the other hand, I really love the classics. Like the Blackhorse, classical literature has had a big, positive impact on my life. (Wholly positive in the case of the classics. That wouldn’t be true for the Blackhorse.) I’m proud to be able to say so in public.

I don’t expect I’ll do it again, though. The psychic cost was pretty high.

Speaking of Tor–in the most recent newsletter, I mentioned that Tom Doherty, Tor’s publisher, and I had wanted Tor to reprint Fortress, my 1987 Tor thriller, but that his bureaucracy wouldn’t permit that to happen. Toni, publisher of Baen Books and apparently a newsletter subscriber (hi, Toni) told me that she would be pleased to reprint both Fortress and the first book in the (kinda) series, Skyripper, as an omnitrade.

So I called Tom to make sure it was all right with him–and learned that nobody had told him what had happened about the (non) reprint of Fortress. He was okay with Baen doing it, though. It just seemed simpler to both of us.

THE LEGIONS OF FIRE, the Tor fantasy whose publication led to the three essays I mentioned above, has appeared and is beautiful, just beautiful. Donato did two versions of the cover: the book as printed, in which the painting is shown as a banner from Trajan’s Column (which he repainted with additions from the novel, you’ll notice if you look carefully), but also as a full-bleed cover with lots of fire demons. (Donato is not only good, he’s amazingly hard working.) Both versions are on the website. I guess I agree with the designer’s choice, but jeepers! what an embarrassment of riches!

Next up will be the two latest RCN space operas from Baen. The pb of IN THE STORMY RED SKY is due in August, with the hc of WHAT DISTANT DEEPS following in September. These, like all books of the series save for the first, have Steve Hickman covers–wonderful Steve Hickman covers.

I’ve been thinking about those covers a lot recently, because Steve has asked me to write an introduction to a (second) volume of his art which he’s putting together now. That’s a problem for me, because I can’t even draw a straight line with a ruler. (The ruler always slips.)

The thing that really struck me when I looked hard at the covers Steve did for the RCN series is this: they’re perfect for the works, but they aren’t what I would have picked if somebody had forced me to choose a subject. I couldn’t ask for a better illustration of why I generally refuse to comment on cover art.

Okay, there are a few things I’ve said. A fantasy with strong female characters in the text should have at least one woman in the cover image. (My Military SF generally has strong female characters also, but there putting a tank on the cover with only a teensy helmeted figure visible at the TC’s hatch isn’t going to mislead anybody about the contents.) And it’s generally good to have a strong central image, particularly on a paperback cover, though I generally bite my tongue rather than saying that.

But if someone insisted I pick a scene for the cover of (say) What Distant Deeps, I’d probably have put a giant Plesiosaur charging down the slope at a small human figure with her pistol raised. Which would have been completely _wrong_ or at least wrong for Steve to paint. He correctly focused on the fact that the series is about the two central characters, not about shooting monsters or blowing up spaceships or subverting governments (granted, that would be a hard one to illustrate) or any other of the many aspects of the plot.

But I wouldn’t suggest that another artist paint the central characters even though that was the right choice for Steve, because not every artist is as comfortable painting human figures as he is. (Paul Alexander’s covers had a great deal to do with the success of the Hammer series, but I wouldn’t have wanted him to do the cover of What Distant Deeps in the fashion Steve did it.)

I do my best work when somebody tells me the desired result and gets out of my way while I execute it in the fashion I’m most comfortable doing. I think most artists–the best ones, anyway–are similar to me.

I see that I’ve mentioned a lot of items peripheral to my main work, but I haven’t commented on how MONSTERS FROM THE DEEP, the second book in the new Tor fantasy series, is coming. It’s chugging along; I’m at just under 90K and rising. That’s still mid-book (I’m near the end of chapter 11 of 19), so I’m convinced that it’s crap and that I’ve lost all the skill I may once have had and a lot of other depressing things; but that’s a problem in my head, not with the book.

I sometimes wonder if I would get this depressed about the quality of my works in progress if it weren’t for Nam. I think I probably would. Even before I was drafted, I was in the habit of stopping in the middle of a story because I was sure the idea was crap. When I look back over those scraps, I find a number of them which were perfectly workable. I guess it’s just the (sad, miserable) way I’m constructed.

What follows can be construed as a political comment, at least if one lives in Connecticut. I don’t ordinarily do this (I vote every time, a right I’ve paid for; but I don’t tell other people how to vote), and anybody who wants to skip the rest of this newsletter will not offend me in any way.

First: a year ago, I could not imagine circumstances in which I would hope that Linda McMahon would become a US Senator.  However….

The Army and Marine Reserves were a significant factor in the First Gulf War and are even more important in the present quagmire. (Quagmires.) Reservists are being treated shabbily and put into extreme danger for uncertain periods of time with inferior equipment. Nothing I say below should be taken as an attack on present-day reservists.

Something similar was true during WW II–though since what was then the Department of War was run better than Mr Rumsfeld ran Defense, the Reserves weren’t as badly treated relative to regular troops. Reserve troops fought in many of the critical battles both in Europe and the Pacific.

1970, when Mr Blumenthal served in Washington, DC, and I served in Cambodia and Viet Nam, was different. The Army and Marine Reserves both had “Six and Six Programs” in which the recruit served six months active duty in the US, then spent the rest of his six-year term in the Reserves. Theoretically, the Reserves could have been called up. In reality they never were, and the Reserve recruiters used this fact quite openly to boost their numbers.

When I got back to the World, I immediately reentered Duke Law School. As I sat in the lounge, I heard two of my new classmates talking about the relative virtues of the ways they were staying out of Nam. One had gotten into the National Guard; the other had been accepted into the Six and Six Reserve Program.

I wanted to kill them both. They were unquestionably right–why should they have been screwed up just because I had been?–and intellectually I knew that, but for an instant I was furious.

It isn’t that Mr Blumenthal didn’t serve in Nam or that he got into the Six and Six Program that bothers me. Both those things showed better luck and perhaps better judgment than I showed. If that were the whole story I would happily vote for him under many circumstances, just as I voted for Bill Clinton the first time around even though he lied to stay out of Nam.

Clinton and I both made decisions and didn’t pretend otherwise. He has no reason to regret his choice any more than have to I regret mine.

What Mr Blumenthal did, however, was to claim something that he worked _very_ hard to avoid in 1970. He stole something that he could have had as a gift in 1970; hell, he could have had my seat on the back deck of an M48 tank, holding a bloop tube and wearing a bandolier of grenades, if he’d even hinted that he wanted it.

Mr Blumenthal might make a very good Senator. But he’s no kind of man.

Sorry for the rant. I hope I never feel compelled to do it again.

–Dave Drake

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I turned in THE LEGIONS OF FIRE not quite a month ago–140,845 words including the front matter. I’m overall pleased with the novel, the first of a four-book fantasy series for Tor, but the thing that pleases me most is that I had a chance to use my background in history and Latin, my undergraduate majors. This is an extremely erudite book, even for me. 

Which, of course, isn’t anything you or readers in general should be interested in. More to the point, there’s a story (several interwoven stories) and plenty of action. (I don’t recall ever getting complaints that there isn’t enough action in my books.) The plot is intricate and comes together neatly at the climax. The structure is very similar to that of the Isles novels, but the characters are completely different from those of the earlier series.

But what _I’m_ proud of is the erudition. Vanity comes out in various fashions; that’s apparently mine.

I’m still in the process of relaxing; well, trying to relax. I’ve banged out several short essays: for the Nebula Awards anthology, on Golden Age SF; for a collection of Manly Wade Wellman’s stories about Hok, his stone-age hero; and for the Hammer’s Slammers role-playing game that Mongoose Publishing in the UK is doing. These essays aren’t real work, but they trick my subconscious mind into thinking that I’m working–which it believes is all I should ever be doing.

Obviously I’m not ready to start another novel. I’m not even ready to start seriously plotting the next one (an RCN–Leary/Mundy–space opera). I’m beavering away in Polybius and Nineteenth Century travel memoirs, jotting down notes with a serious expression. Some of these notes, transmuted, will wind up in the current book, while others may appear in later projects. In any case, it’s a good way to imprint neat stuff on my memory.

The most recent RCN novel, IN THE STORMY RED SKY, isn’t quite out; it should appear at the beginning of May. I haven’t seen the final cover, but Jennie assures me that she and the artist, Steve Hickman, have made sure that the holographic foil overlay will be impressive even though it can’t go over the actual hologram in the painting (the lines were too fine) as it did in the previous volume. The image itself (lovely and striking even without foil) is up.

My author copies of the pb of WHEN THE TIDE RISES, the immediately previous space opera, have arrived, so they ought to be in stores by the time you read this. The RCN novels are a lot of fun to write. I like the characters, and the setting allows me to use my interest in history in ways that stretch my mind also.

I realized as I proofed the final draft of LEGIONS that for good or ill, I’m my own man. For good _and_ ill, more accurately. I write books that nobody else would have written, and I write them in my own fashion.

The third Belisarius omnibus, FLAMES OF SUNSET (containing The Tide of Victory and The Dance of Time), is scheduled from Baen in both hardcover and trade paperback in August, 2009. The striking art is by Kurt Miller.

The cover (also by Kurt Miller) for the Baen mass market (but slightly oversized) edition of THE COMPLETE HAMMER’S SLAMMERS, volume 1, is also up. The release date is October, 2009. The contents are the same as the Night Shade hardcover, as will be the case with the other two volumes. (Though I think it would be great if you ran out and bought the hardcovers right this minute.)

I mentioned the Mongoose RPG booklet. They did a really good job. I’ve never gotten into role playing (I’ve done both board games and miniature games, but RPGs were after my time), but I’ve seen a fair amount of RPG material over the years. This booklet is a cut above anything in my experience. I don’t know exactly when it’s to be released, but I think the material is complete.

And I did another interview with Stephen Cobb for his podcast, The Future and You; he split it over two shows. It struck me again that I say things which most people do not. I don’t guarantee I’ll be correct, but I _will_ be honest and you won’t be in any doubt as to my opinion on whatever question I’ve been asked.

Speaking of modern technology, there’s a David Drake Facebook page which a fan put together for me. I have looked at it, and my webmaster, Karen, will be looking in regularly. I think this is fine, but it just isn’t me.

I haven’t done any translations from Ovid since the most recent newsletter. I may glance through the Metamorphoses shortly to see if anything calls to me. Heck, maybe it will even give me notions for the next volume in The Books of the Elements, my Tor fantasy series. I wonder if Ovid ever discusses Britomartis?

The website hasn’t changed much beyond the regular updates on the FAQ and News pages (new titles going up, older ones relegated to the Archive). I was in Toronto for Ad Astra last week, and there’s a picture of me in the Royal Ontario Museum. The museum’s very nice display of fossils includes a set from the Pre-Cambrian Burgess Shale (small, but Deeply Significant).

I was most taken by the giant sea-turtle, Archelon, mounted so that it (actually a casting) swims through the air toward the viewer. For some reason, the turtle’s silent majesty moved me in a fashion that the even bigger dinosaurs did not. Perhaps in a former life, I was a turtle. I suspect things weren’t as peaceful even then as I’d like to dream they were, however.

A couple people at the con mentioned that I’d answered their fan letters twenty-odd years ago and how much that impressed them. In one case I’d apparently written a two-page letter, which surprises me; ordinarily I’d have sent a postcard, though I’ve always made an effort to reply to anybody who was polite.

But that got me thinking about online communication as a contrast to the letters and occasional face-to-face meetings which were the choices in past times. Something over a thousand people are getting this newsletter directly. That’s a larger audience than I could imagine in 1980, even if I were on a panel at a worldcon.

My newsletters are on a roughly bi-monthly schedule. I have friends who blog, giving fans a daily or weekly update on their thinking and activities. And there are plenty of people who update their Facebook pages multiple times a day, and who Twitter. If I were on Twitter, I could inform any number of cell phones that I’m sitting in Toronto Pearson Airport at the moment. There are lots of ways to communicate instantly.

But to communicate what? Would people have come up to me this weekend to thank me for Twittering them decades ago?

I’m in regular correspondence with a few friends. Most of them email me, but with some I respond by surface mail after I’ve printed out their letters and have digested the contents. I think better after a reasonable delay, and I believe my friends do also.

For example, Barry Malzberg mentioned The Brooklyn Project by William Tenn, which precedes A Sound of Thunder by Ray Bradbury by four years but which reads like a deliberate satire of the later story. In checking original publication of the Tenn (which I’d read but didn’t remember) I found that it was in the same issue as Bradbury’s Mars Is Heaven, making it virtually certain that Bradbury was familiar with the Tenn before he wrote A Sound of Thunder.

The Tenn is very intelligent, written in a sophisticated fashion, and was genuinely original. Yet it’s the Bradbury that everybody, including me and Barry, remembers vividly while the Tenn story slipped out of our minds till we happened to reread it in a context of familiarity with the Bradbury.
That sort of synergy, of real communication, wouldn’t have happened if Barry and I limited ourselves to blogs. Could it? Sure; but we all know that it wouldn’t have.

So I’m not against instant communication. But I’m not going to blog, and anybody who emails me through david-drake.com will get a real reply (though probably one that would fit on a postcard, just as in past years).

And I’m going to continue writing letters to friends.

–Dave Drake

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