David Drake

NEWSLETTER 63: July 4, 2011

Dear People,

I have written a(nother) novel! The Road of Danger, the latest RCN (Leary/Mundy) space opera went off to Baen Books at 124,889 words. For the moment it feels good, but I’ll shortly start to be antsy that I’m not accomplishing anything, I’m sure.

I don’t think I’m exactly a workaholic–I don’t think that everything hangs on me or anything like that. But I’m most content when I’m working and the project is going well. Work structures my existence and keeps me from thinking too much about the meaning of life. (I figure I know the meaning already, and it’s not something that makes me happier to dwell on.)  continue reading…

Dear People,

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. continue reading…

Cover art: Steve Hickman

I’ll start out with what in my days as a lawyer we would call boilerplate: I use both English and Metric weights and measures in the RCN series to suggest the range of diversity which I believe would exist in a galaxy-spanning civilization. I do not, however, expect either actual system to be in use in three thousand years. Kilogram and inch (etcetera) should be taken as translations of future measurement systems, just as I’ve translated the spoken language.

I really wish I didn’t have to say that. I’ve learned that I do. continue reading…

Dear People,

Quite a lot has been happening. First and foremost in my mind, I turned in WHAT DISTANT DEEPS, the latest RCN (Leary/Mundy) space opera, to Baen Books the day after I got back from World Fantasy Con. I’d carried hardcopy of my second draft with me and edited it while sitting on planes and in parks in San Jose. My first priority on getting home was to key in the final changes and ship the book off.  continue reading…

Cover art: Steve Hickman

I learned with the first book of the RCN series, With the Lightnings, that I have to explain that I use English and Metric weights and measures as a convenience to readers, not because I think the same systems will be in use three millennia hence. To me, that went without saying. Here as often, I was wrong.

There are many snatches of song in this novel, as generally in my work. They’re all my paraphrases of real music ranging from The Handsome Cabin Boy to the Carmen Saeculare of Horace. I do this for my own amusement–but people do sing, and I think it gives the work resonance to use pieces that people have sung instead of pieces that I’ve invented. continue reading…

Dear People,

Well, I haven’t completed the rough draft of THE LEGIONS OF FIRE, the start of my new fantasy series for Tor, but I’m close. And I’m darned consistent: two months ago I had about 60K; now I’ve got a bit over 125K, so I’m averaging a hair over a thousand words a day regardless of holidays, crises (the water line froze; on the other hand, about this time last year a drunk in a pickup crossed the road and hit us, so I’m not complaining), birthdays, colds and flu.  continue reading…

Cover art: Steve Hickman

The genesis of my RCN novels was Patrick O’Brian’s wonderful Aubrey/Maturin series, set during and after the Napoleonic Wars. It therefore won’t surprise many of you to find a number of plot points common to O’Brian’s last novels and When the Tide Rises. This is a case of convergent evolution, however, rather than direct borrowing on my part: we’re both working from Lord Cochrane’s memoirs of service under the revolutionary governments of Chili (sic) and Brazil.

Jack Aubrey and Daniel Leary are supporting independence movements as agents of their governments. In reality, the British government threatened Cochrane with prosecution if he accepted the Chilean offer, and the British warships which Cochrane encountered during his operations against the Spanish empire baulked him at every possible opportunity. continue reading…

Cover art: Steve Hickman

I’ve based the setting of Some Golden Harbor on political and military events taking place during the early 5^th century BC in Southern Italy (Aricia, Cumae, and the Etruscan federation). All right, that’s a little obscure even for me, but I found the discussion of Aristodemus of Cumae in an aside by Dionysius of Halicarnassus to be an extremely clear account of the rise and eventual fall of an ancient tyrant.

There’s more real information here than in the lengthy, tendentious, and generally rhetorical disquisitions on Coriolanus (a near contemporary, by the way). I suspect that’s because Aristodemus is unimportant except as a footnote to Roman history, whereas Gaius Marcius Coriolanus provided one of the basic myths of Rome. The real Coriolanus and the real events involving him are buried under a structure of invention, but nobody had a reason to do that in regard to Aristodemus. continue reading…

Cover art: Steve Hickman

The general political background of the RCN series is that of Europe in the mid-18^th century, with admixtures of late-Republican Rome. (There’s a surprising degree of congruence between British and Roman society in those periods.)

Major plot elements in The Way to Glory, however, come from the 19^th century. Those of you who know some American history may note echoes of the Somers Mutiny, and if you’re really well-versed you’ll understand how greatly I simplified the details of political factions both in Washington (Whigs, Democrats, and the intimates of President Tyler whose own party had repudiated him) and in the US Navy. Real history is a great deal more complex than anything I could make up. continue reading…