Monthly Archives: March 2000
Skyripper
SKYRIPPER was a more important book for me than I’d realized until this moment. In 1981 I was driving a bus for the Town of Chapel Hill, having decided that being a lawyer was killing me–and quitting the law business. … Continue reading
Vettius and His Friends
I started writing with heroic fantasies either explicitly set during the classical past or closely modeled on that past. Black Iron was the fourth story I sold and the first that I consider to be really publishable. These aren’t necessarily … Continue reading
Fortress
FORTRESS is the only solo book I’ve written when I didn’t want to write it. When Jim Baen left Tor Books to found his own publishing house, Baen Books, I intended to continue working for both men. (They’re both friends … Continue reading
All the Way to the Gallows
This is a collection of my humorous SF and fantasy. To my delight it sold very well. There’s really a lot of humor in my other fiction, but it tends to get lost in the other things that are going … Continue reading
From the Heart of Darkness
My original title for this collection was BALEFIRES. Jim Baen asked me to change it late in the process because a big-budget book of that title was due out shortly. I may use the title on the planned Fedogan & … Continue reading
Lacey and His Friends
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 … Continue reading
The Dragon Lord
THE DRAGON LORD was my first novel. There was a heroic fantasy boom in the latter ’70s. andy offutt (as he then styled himself) had a contract with Zebra Books to write novels about the Robert E. Howard character Cormac … Continue reading
Rudyard Kipling
Kipling had a major influence on my writing and a lesser one on my life. The photo above is me in the garden of his house in Brattleboro in September, 1996. The one at the bottom of the essay is … Continue reading