Essays, Comments, Book Introductions, etc.

“Accidentally and By the Back Door” The New York Review of Science Fiction, 2004. 17:3(195): p. 17-18.
————– The Complete Hammer’s Slammers v.1. 2006, San Francisco CA: Night Shade Books.
————– The Complete Hammer’s Slammers v.1. 2009, Riverdale, NY: Baen.

“Afterword” The Cold Equations & Other Stories, by T. Godwin. E. Flint, ed. 2003, Riverdale, NY: Baen.

“Alien Landscape with Figures” The New York Review of Science Fiction, 2005. 17:11(203): p. 6.
————– Warriors of the Steppes, by H. Lamb. H. A. Jones, ed. 2006, Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press.

“At Seventeen” The New York Review of Science Fiction, 1996. 8:12(96): p. 1.

“A Background Note” Paying the Piper. 2002, Riverdale, NY: Baen.

“Becoming a Professional Writer by Way of Southeast Asia” The Butcher’s Bill. 1998, Riverdale, NY: Baen.
————– The Complete Hammer’s Slammers v.1. 2006, San Francisco CA: Night Shade Books.
————– The Complete Hammer’s Slammers v.1. 2009, Riverdale, NY: Baen.

“A Belated Thank-You” The New York Review of Science Fiction, 2009. 21:6(246): p. 21.

“A Brief Introduction to Karl Edward Wagner” Weird Tales, 1989. Fall 1989.

“Broken Things” The New York Review of Science Fiction, 2008. 20:6(234): p. 11.

“But Why on Earth Belisarius? (Introduction)” Thunder at Dawn, 2009, Riverdale, NY: Baen.

“The Cold Equations, by Tom Godwin” (with Barry Malzberg) The New York Review of Science Fiction, 2002. 14:7(163): p. 1, 4-5.

“Coming Home by the Long Way (Introduction)” Grimmer Than Hell. 2003, Riverdale, NY: Baen.
————– Grimmer Than Hell. 2004, Riverdale, NY: Baen.

“Costs and Benefits (Introduction)” Dogs of War. 2002, New York, N.Y.: Warner Aspect.

“The Creation of Rome (Introduction)” The Eternal City, D. Drake, M. H. Greenberg and C. G. Waugh, eds. 1990, Riverdale, NY: Baen.

Essays in “Personal Commitment” and “Combat” The American Warrior, C. Morris and J. Morris, eds. 1992, Stamford, CT: Longmeadow Press.

“Extraordinary Diplomats (Preface)” Retief! The Graphic Album, by D. Fujitake, J. Strnad and K. Laumer. 1990, Greencastle, PA: Apple Press.
————– Retief!, by K. Laumer; E. Flint, ed. 2002, Riverdale, NY: Baen.

“Faith, Hope, and Charity” The New York Review of Science Fiction, 2004. 16:11(191): p. 8-9.

“Five Firebases” Thunder Run, 2009. 24:3, p. 1, 4-5.
————– an edited version as “Foreward” Hammer’s Slammers. [Role-playing game] G. Hanrahan. 2009. Swindon, UK: Mongoose Publishing.

“Forever Afterword” Forever After, R. Zelazny, ed. 1995, Riverdale, NY: Baen.

“The Hairless Ones Come: L. Sprague de Camp” The New York Review of Science Fiction, 2005. 17:8(200): p. 18.

“Heroes (Introduction)” Space Infantry, D. Drake, C. G. Waugh and M. H. Greenberg, eds. 1989, New York: Ace.

“Hickmania” Science Fiction Age, 1993. November 1993.

“How They Got That Way: Afterword to Counting the Cost.” Counting the Cost. 1987, Riverdale, NY: Baen.
————– The Complete Hammer’s Slammers, v.2. 2006, San Francisco CA: Night Shade Books.
————– The Complete Hammer’s Slammers, v.2. 2010, Riverdale, NY: Baen.

“The Human Side (Introduction)” Kull, by R. E. Howard. 1995, Riverdale, NY: Baen.

“Intolerance” The New York Review of Science Fiction, 1995. 7:10(82): p. 21.

“Introduction” Cthulhu: The Mythos and Kindred Horrors, D. Drake, ed. 1987, Riverdale, NY: Baen.

“Introduction” The Mercenary, by J. Pournelle. 1988, New York: F. Watts
————– Reprinted as “Mercenaries [Introduction]” Caught in the Crossfire. 1998, Riverdale, NY: Baen.

“Introduction” A Separate Star: A Science Fiction Tribute to Rudyard Kipling, D. Drake and S. Miesel, eds. 1989, Riverdale, NY: Baen.

“Introduction” Heads to the Storm, D. Drake and S. Miesel, eds. 1989, Riverdale, NY: Baen.

“Introduction” Cormac Mac Art, by R. E. Howard. 1995, Riverdale, NY: Baen.

“Introduction” All the Way to the Gallows. 1996, Riverdale, NY: Baen.

“Introduction” Dorsai Spirit, by G. R. Dickson. 2002, New York: Tor.

“Introduction” Hammer’s Slammer’s Handbook, by J. Lambshead and J. Treadaway. 2004, Bournemouth, UK: Pireme.

“Introduction” Hammer’s Anvils: Handbook #2, by J. Treadaway. 2006, Bournemouth, UK: Pireme.

“It’s a Lot Like War (Introduction)” Men Hunting Things, D. Drake, ed. 1988, Riverdale, NY: Baen.

“Jim” [Jim Baen Obituary] The Complete Hammer’s Slammers v.3. 2007, San Francisco CA: Night Shade Books.
————– The Complete Hammer’s Slammers v.3. 2010, Riverdale, NY: Baen.

“L. Sprague de Camp: An Appreciation” Locus, 2000. 45:6(No.479).

“Let the Games Begin (Introduction)” Space Gladiators, D. Drake, C. G. Waugh and M. H. Greenberg, eds. 1989, New York: Ace Books.

“Letter of Comment: An Interview with Tom Purdom” The New York Review of Science Fiction, 2006. 18:7(211): p. 23.

“Letter of Comment: Frank R. Paul’s GoH Speech” The New York Review of Science Fiction, 2006. 19:2(218): p. 23.

“Letter of Comment: Isaac Asimov” The New York Review of Science Fiction, 1999. 11:5(125): p. 23.

“Letter of Comment: John Norman” The New York Review of Science Fiction, 1996. 9:4(100): p. 22.

“Letter of Comment: John W. Campbell” The New York Review of Science Fiction, 1998. 10:9(117): p. 23.

“Letter of Comment: My Discovery of William B. Seabrook” The New York Review of Science Fiction, 2003. 16:3(183).

“Letter of Comment: The Road to Science Fiction” The New York Review of Science Fiction, 1999. 14:9(129): p. 23.

“Letter of Comment: Tom Godwin: The Cold Equations” The New York Review of Science Fiction, 1995. 7:6(78): p. 23.

“Manly and the Stone Age (Introduction)” Battle in the Dawn: The Complete Hok the Mighty, by Manly Wade Wellman. 2011, Redmond, WA: Paizo Publishing.

“Manly in the Mountains (Foreword)” John the Balladeer, by Manly Wade Wellman. 1988, Riverdale, NY: Baen.
————– The Tome #6, 1990.

“Manly Wade Wellman and Alfred Bester” The New York Review of Science Fiction, 1996. 9:1(97): p. 9.

“Manly’s Stories” The New York Review of Science Fiction, 2002. 14:10(166): p. 15-16.
————– Sin’s Doorway and Other Ominous Entrances, by M. W. Wellman. 2003, San Francisco: Night Shade Books.

“Mercenaries: An Introduction” Caught in the Crossfire. 1998, Riverdale, NY: Baen. (First published as “Introduction” in The Mercenary, by J. Pournelle. 1988, New York: F. Watts.)

“The Motorcycle Way of Complex Plotting” Tor/Forge Newsletter (online), May 2010.

“Musings on the Discovery of Pluto.” The New York Review of Science Fiction, 2008. 20:5(233): p. 13.

“My Friend Barry” The New York Review of Science Fiction, 2007. 19:6(222): p. 17.

“The New King (Shiel’s Final Novel): An Appreciation” Shiel in Diverse Hands, A. R. Morse, ed. 1983, Cleveland OH: The Reynolds Morse Foundation.

“Non-Legal Writing” The Senior Lawyer, 1996. v.6 no. 2.

“A Note on Solomon Kane” The New York Review of Science Fiction, 1998. 11:2(122): p. 11.

“A Note on the Text” Cormac Mac Art, by R. E. Howard. 1995, Riverdale, NY: Baen.

“Notes on Neither Brute Nor Human: Karl Edward Wagner” The New York Review of Science Fiction, 2004. 16:12(192): p. 20.

“On Cover Art” The New York Review of Science Fiction, 2008. 20:8(236): p. 20.

“The One That Got Away (Introduction)” The Reaches. 2004, Riverdale, NY: Baen.

“One War Later (Afterword)” The Military Dimension: Mark II. 1995, Riverdale, NY: Baen.

“A Personal Note on Kurt Vonnegut” The New York Review of Science Fiction, 2007. 19:10(226): p.21.

“Pig Picking” Serve It Forth — Cooking With Anne McCaffrey A. McCaffrey and J. G. Betancourt, eds. 1996: Warner Aspect.

“Preface” The Complete Compleat Enchanter, by L. S. de Camp and F. Pratt. 1989, Riverdale, NY: Baen.

“A Quick Look at Battle Fleets (Introduction)” Space Dreadnoughts, D. Drake, M. H. Greenberg and C. G. Waugh, eds. 1990, New York: Ace.

“A Range of Treatments (Introduction)” Other Times Than Peace, 2006, Riverdale, NY: Baen.

“Read This (Or Something Like It)” The New York Review of Science Fiction, 2002. 16:11(167): p. 7.

“The Real Jungle: Belize 2001″ Seas of Venus. 2002, Riverdale, NY: Baen.

“Sea Stories (Introduction)” Seas of Venus. 2002, Riverdale, NY: Baen.

“A Short Appreciation of Jim Rigney (Robert Jordan)” The New York Review of Science Fiction, 2008. 20:9(237): p.18.

“The Sixty-Five Million Years Afterword (Afterword)” Time Safari. 1982, New York, NY: Tor.

“Skeletons at the Feast (Introduction)” Phantom Regiments, R. Adams, P. C. Adams and M. H. Greenberg, eds. 1990, Riverdale, NY: Baen.

“Soldiers’ Stories (Introduction)” A Separate Star: A Science Fiction Tribute to Rudyard Kipling, D. Drake and S. Miesel, eds. 1989, Riverdale, NY: Baen.

“Source Materials, By Way of Introduction” Vettius and His Friends. 1989, Riverdale, NY: Baen.

“Starting a Long Way From Here” Voyage Across the Stars. 2012, Riverdale, NY: Baen.

“Stolen Thunder” The New York Review of Science Fiction, 1998. 10:3(113): p. 16.

“Surreal Splendor: Three Novels by Mark S. Geston” The New York Review of Science Fiction, 2009. 21:5(245): p. 11.
————– The Books of the Wars, M. Geston. 2009, Riverdale, NY: Baen.

“Thomas Lanier Williams, Protofan” The New York Review of Science Fiction, 1995. 7, no.8(80): p. 21.

“Trout in the Milk: A Cautionary Tale” The New York Review of Science Fiction, 1999. 11:8(128): p. 13.

“The Truth Insofar as I Know It” Exorcisms and Ecstasies, 1997, Minneapolis: Fedogan & Bremer.
————– Karl Edward Wagner, ed. by Stephen Jones, 2011, Lakewood CO: Centipede Press.

“Three or Six Passages to India (Introduction)” Storm at Noontide, E. Flint and D. Drake. 2009, Riverdale, NY: Baen.

“We Happy Few (Afterword)” The Tank Lords. 1997, Riverdale, NY: Baen.
————– The Complete Hammer’s Slammers, v.2. 2006, San Francisco, CA: Night Shade Books.
————– The Complete Hammer’s Slammers, v.2. 2010, Riverdale, NY: Baen.

“Welcome to the War Zone (Introduction)” The Military Dimension. 1991, Riverdale, NY: Baen.
————– The Military Dimension: Mark II. 1995, Riverdale, NY: Baen.

“Well It Happened This Way (Introduction)” Foreign Legions, D. Drake, ed. 2001, Riverdale, NY: Baen.

“What’s for Sale” The New York Review of Science Fiction, 2006. 18:11(215): p. 10-11.
————– The Complete Hammer’s Slammers, v.2. 2007, San Francisco, CA: Night Shade Books.
————– The Complete Hammer’s Slammers, v.2. 2010, Riverdale, NY: Baen.

“Where I Get My Ideas” (Afterword) Cross the Stars, 1984, New York, NY: Tor.

“Why I’m Here” The New York Review of Science Fiction, 2007. 19:6(222): p. 20.

“Writer’s Pay in the Pulps: An Exchange” The New York Review of Science Fiction, 2006. 19:1(217): p. 15.

“Writer’s Pay in the Pulps: The Conversation Continues” The New York Review of Science Fiction, 2006. 19:4(220): p. 12.

“The Year of the Sex Olympics by Nigel Kneale” Horror: Another 100 Best Books, S. Jones, K. Newman and P. Straub, eds. 2005, New York, NY: Carroll & Graf.

Dear People,

Jeepers, a new year yet again. I hope you all–and all of us–have a good one.

I’m at work on the plot for my next Tor fantasy, which at the moment I’m calling Demons from the Earth. By ‘working’ I mean that I have detailed (though not polished) scene-by-scene descriptions of the first five chapters (I hope more by the time you read this) as well as a pile of more or less organized material sufficient to fill the remaining two-thirds of the plot. I’ve got some 3K words at the moment.

I’ll polish the plot after I complete it; then I’ll write the book. Nothing is certain (after all, Elijah on good authority was translated directly to heaven without passing through death), but at this point I’d say that completing the novel is just a matter of time. (And a lot of work, of course, but I’ve never minded work.)

Getting to this stage is a considerable relief. Gathering material for a plot takes time. I go over old notes, make new ones, doodle possibilities (mostly in the form of letters to friends). At some point (and this is the magic) it starts to go together. After that the process is similar to working on a jigsaw puzzle: stuff has to fit properly, but there’s a form into which I’m fitting it.

But until the plot starts to gel, there’s the lurking fear in the back of my mind that maybe things aren’t going to start fitting this time. Since I don’t know (not really) how the process works, I’ll have no warning that it isn’t going to work for this book–for the rest of my life.

There was another factor on Demons: the immediately previous project wasn’t a novel but rather the plot for a novel, Into the Maelstrom. I’m good at plotting and I rather like to do it, but plotting a complex novel (all of mine for at least the past twenty years have been complex) takes ten-tenths mental effort. Writing, even at its most demanding, doesn’t take that much concentration.

So: this plot seemed like unusually hard work and it may have taken me longer than some have (I’m not sure that’s objectively true), but that didn’t mean that my brain had turned to sludge. Which of course was what I was afraid of before the parts started fitting together.

While plotting I’ve written two essays of which I’m rather proud. One will be an afterword to the new Baen edition of Heinlein’s Assignment in Eternity (I assume it’s due out in 2012). The task caused me to think of Heinlein as a working professional writer rather than the exalted figure he’s been to me ever since I began reading SF seriously.

I compared the book versions (which I assume are the author’s preferred texts) with the original magazine appearances of the stories. Heinlein in the ’40s was edited with the same callous contempt as I was thirty years later, which isn’t a conclusion I expected to reach.

The second essay was… well, odd. Barnes and Noble are doing a Military SF week some time in January (for all I know it’s happening now), and the Tor.com blog is echoing B&N. Tor.com (specifically Irene Gallo, Tor’s art director) asked me to do an essay for them. She said any connected subject was fine, but they thought I could do a history of the subgenre.

Well, I could do a history. The problem is that I work in the subgenre myself, and that could lead to all sorts of recriminations. My essay on Golden Age SF was controversial (among people who didn’t realize how ignorant they were), but nobody claimed that I was banging my own drum. Anything I said about Military SF as a whole would lay me open to that charge; and because I’m human, accusations of the author’s self-interest might have an uncomfortable amount of truth to them.

I flirted for a bit with discussing the EC war comics of my childhood (Frontline Combat and Two-Fisted Tales) and reread a block of them, but then I got a better idea. I wrote my essay on The Rocketeers Have Shaggy Ears, a 1949 story by Keith Bennett, a one-shot author. I first read it when I was thirteen. I’ve reread it repeatedly, and it simply gets better each time.

I did my essay on that story, illustrating its implications with anecdotes from the 1970 US invasion of Cambodia. The result turned out to my satisfaction, but I was pretty sure that Tor wouldn’t print it. (Or whatever it is when something is published electronically. Published, I guess.)

To my surprise, Irene accepted it immediately without hesitation or cavil. Her actions throughout the process were decisive, intelligent, and–because I didn’t write pablum–showed courage.

The essay should be up at some point within the month. I’m proud of it.

Voyage across the Stars is probably out: at any rate, I’ve had my author’s copies for a couple weeks now. It’s an attractive package combining Cross the Stars and The Voyage, space operas set in the Hammer universe and based on Greek epics (The Odyssey and The Argonautica respectively).

The turn of the year makes me thoughtful if not precisely sad. I wrote Cross the Stars in the early ’80s: Jim Baen acquired it for Tor before he left to found Baen Books. It doesn’t seem that long ago, but it was thirty years–and Jim’s been dead for more than five.

Well, Jim isn’t dead in my heart or in my memories. And I have vivid memories of writing both the novels collected here, so maybe they weren’t so distant either.

I’ve read the proofs of The Road of Danger, the next RCN space opera. They were extremely clean, having been set from the electronic files over which I made multiple edit passes. I know that this level of polish doesn’t make my books sell noticeably better. In a strictly economic sense, I’ve wasted four days on proofs which I could have spent writing fresh material for which I would be paid.

But if I were thinking in strictly economic terms, I wouldn’t be a writer. My prose is important to me for reasons which have nothing to do with money: it’s something I can control, and it gives me the illusion that my life is to some degree under control.

So I do multiple drafts, and I read proofs… and I become irrationally angry when a copyeditor introduces error into something which I’ve done correctly. Mind, people should not be paid to make the world a worse place than it would be without them; and some copyeditors do just that.

I’ve added to the website (my webmaster has added) a short discussion of Manly Wade Wellman and the song Vandy, Vandy. Manly, like Jim, is still with me, thank goodness.

Bull Spec is a quarterly focusing on speculative fiction in the Research Triangle region of NC. The next issue (due out momentarily) has a review of Into the Hinterlands; an interview with me and John Lambshead about writing the book; and tributes to me by Mark, John, and Toni.

All I will say about those last is that I wish I were the man my friends think I am.

I get frequent queries as to why my books aren’t available in Kindle editions or more generally why they aren’t available electronically. They are, particularly from Baen Books. Yes, Kindle editions also.

Mentioning the fact here probably won’t help (I suspect splashing it in big red letters across my home page wouldn’t prevent people from peevishly asking the same question), but my webmaster suggests I note that the Baen.com sale site for Ebooks has recently become a lot easier to use.  It’s being handled now by a thoroughly professional outfit, Principled Technologies, which not-coincidentally is run by my friend (and Baen author) Mark Van Name.

Speaking of Baen, as I regularly do here and elsewhere, I just did a five-book extension with Toni to give me nine books under contract with Baen. The company is doing well by putting its first emphasis on storytelling, and I am doing very well for the same reason.

A couple things have occurred recently to make me think about the importance of appearance, to me and to humans more generally. I focus almost entirely on what I think is reality: how can I become a better writer? How can I become a better person? I’m not claiming that I’m particularly successful on those matters or similar ones, but I’m trying.

I was invited to participate in an Army War College Conference. The idea made me cringe: the two years I spent in close association with military officers were the worst in my life. While that wasn’t entirely because of those military officers, they had more to do with my misery than the NVA did.

For a while I considered going anyway, because… well, because I owed it to my country. Then I thought about that proposition and realized that I didn’t believe that any real good comes out of these conferences nor that I have anything useful to say to a gathering of colonels and the like. My country would get along fine without me at the Army War College, just as my country would have gotten along fine without me in Viet Nam. (Indeed, the US would have gotten along much better if there’d been 529,000 fewer of her citizens with me there in 1970.)

The only thing my attendance would have brought me was the ability to claim that I was important. That doesn’t matter to me: it wouldn’t make me more or less important (and neither a better writer nor a better man), it would just give me that appearance. It’s better that I save the government a modest sum of money by staying home and working. Just possibly I’ll manage to become incrementally better in reality. That would be important.

Happy New Year, everybody. May the future become a little brighter for all of us.

–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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