David Drake

I wrote NORTHWORLD because Beth Fleisher, a wonderful editor, told me as I rose after we’d had breakfast at a convention that if I ever wanted to do something for a larger house than Baen Books, she at Ace would like to see it.

I sat down again. we–my wife, son, and I–had just gotten back from Iceland. I had an idea for a very complex series Of SF novels using Norse myth as their basis. I told Beth that, and added that I wanted $100,000 for the trilogy. (I’d gotten $22.SK when I last wrote a contract, but that had been some time earlier and my books were doing well.) continue reading…

Probably not. I’m proud of the existing trilogy; in some ways they’re my best and most subtly complex books (observe, for example, the way in Vengeance and Justice that words are echoed either from the end of a section to the beginning of the next, or from the end of one thread to the resumption of that thread), but they’re also harsh in a fashion that I no longer feel a need to be. continue reading…

What novel have you personally enjoyed the most writing?

Once I apparently answered this question, ‘Northworld.’ I can’t imagine why I did that, because I was so stressed while writing Northworld that I was having back spasms that made it difficult for me to walk some days. I’m very proud of the book and the series, but they’re enormously complex works–note the way words are echoed within and among the interwoven plot strands, for example–and the first one darned near crippled me.

Now I’d say Lord of the Isles. I’ve always loved fantasy, but because I’d been successful with military SF I wasn’t able to do as much as I’d have liked to. Getting the chance to write Lord of the Isles was a wonderful change of pace. You can take the series as homage to Tolkien and to Robert E Howard both if you like; I do.