David Drake

Cover art: Steve Hickman

One of the problems when you’re writing of either the past or the future is ‘How much should I translate?’ I don’t mean simply language: there’s a whole complex of things that people within any society take for granted but which vary between societies. (But language too: I had somebody complain that the Arthurian soldiers in The Dragon Lord talked like modern soldiers. My reaction to this was that I could write the soldiers’ dialogue in Latin, but the complainant couldn’t read it; and if I’m going to translate into English, why on Earth wouldn’t I translate into the type of English the same sort of men speak today?) continue reading…

Cover art: Steve Hickman

I’m using English and Metric weights and measures throughout Lt. Leary Commanding, as I did in With the Lightnings.  I wouldn’t bother mentioning this, but the decision seems to concern some people.  I’m doing it for the same reason that I’m writing the novel in English instead of inventing a language for the characters of future millennia to speak.

I’d like to note for those who’re interested that the orders in Chapter Nine are a close paraphrase of those which sent the frigate USS Congress to Hawaii in 1845.  Here as elsewhere, I prefer to borrow from reality rather than invent it.

–Dave Drake

Lt. Leary, Commanding. RCN Series. 2000, Riverdale, NY: Baen. 432 p. 0671578758. $24.00.
————– 2000, New York, NY: SFBC. 432 p. SFBC 05840. $11.98.
————– 2001, Riverdale, NY: Baen. 556 p. 0671319922 (pb). $7.99.
————– 2008, Newark, NJ: Audible Frontiers [Audiobook]. 16 hours 28 mins.[Available for download from Audible.com]

I’ve had a lot of good book covers. I’ve never had a cover better than Steve Hickman’s for this volume.

The three Lacey stories are harsher than anything else I’ve written. It’s probably not a coincidence that I wrote them in the later ’70s when I was starting to raise my head up a little. For the first five years or more after I got back to the World I was afraid to do that.

By contrast, Travellers is a gentle, upbeat time travel story, and Time Safari a novella about hunting dinosaurs. Neither one has any heavy emotional baggage for me. continue reading…