DRAKE’S NEWSLETTER #102: March 3, 2018
Dear People,
I have finished my novel: The Storm, a sequel to The Spark. (Both titles come from Tennyson’s Idylls of the King, if you were wondering.)
I worried about this one more than I do most, which is saying something. I guess that’s in part because The Spark was the best thing I’d written (with the exception of Redliners, which is in a league by itself; and isn’t a book for everybody besides). I thought The Storm was coming out too short; the pacing was off; there wasn’t enough action; and lots of other things were wrong.
Now that I’ve gone over it in detail, it strikes me as fine. It’s 98K and, while I’ve written longer books than that, 98K is a thoroughly satisfactory length. (Anything over 90K is, I believe.) The pacing works, and though there isn’t a climactic duel as there was in The Spark, there’s no lack of action. The Storm is different from its predecessor, but I want every book to be different.
I guess the truth is I need to worry about things, especially when I’m writing. I assume that’s part of my writing process, and as a general rule I’m happy with the results of that process. I could still bitch that I’m uncomfortable most of the time I’m working–and that’s true; but I’m a volunteer. Nobody drafted me for the job, and I’m not being asked to kill people. I’ve been in worse situations.
Finishing the new book is the big news, but Though Hell Should Bar the Way, an RCN space opera, is due out in early April. It’s got a great Steve Hickman cover. (Gosh, I’ve been lucky with covers over the years. I attribute that mostly to not trying to micromanage artists, who have very different minds from my own.)
Hell is a considerable change of pace for the series. It’s told from a single viewpoint rather than two (as were all its predecessors) and it’s a different character–new to the series–besides. Most of the usual series characters are present, but you’re seeing them through unfamiliar eyes.
I think this works pretty well, but I did it for myself rather than for the effect on the reader. I need to keep myself from going stale, and looking at the characters and situation from an outside viewpoint forces me to rethink. Leary and Mundy are certainly heroes, but Odysseus was a hero also. Odysseus would look very different in a novel told from the viewpoint of Diomedes, let alone the viewpoint of the Greater Ajax.
It was a fun book to write. I hope readers will have fun with it also.
In support of Hell, I did a podcast interview for Baen (it’ll be up March 15) and also did a short story connected with the novel. The story focuses on the Bosun, Ellie Woetjans, ten years before she appears in the first of the RCN novels. Again, this isn’t quite up.
While recording the podcast at the Baen offices yesterday, I picked up the anthology Star Destroyers, for which I did a story, Superweapon. In glancing over the story again, I was struck by how much I’ve learned by reading classical authors. Very frequently while telling stories in verse, classical authors describe characters in a single line or two. This gives each character a personality and gives the story life.
In his 4th satire, Juvenal describes a meeting of Domitian’s Council to determine how a large turbot should be cooked; the capsule descriptions of the Councilors turn this scene into a snapshot of life under a savage autocracy. The talking heads have become people.
That’s the difference between a story and a phone book; and that’s what I’ve tried to do in Superweapon. I’ve written better stories, but the craftsmanship of this one is of a very high order.
At a recent con, a writer/friend asked me if I liked Mechs. I misunderstood, thinking he was asking about dinner plans, and said, “Well, I’m partial to chiles rellenos.” We got that sorted and I did an intro to an anthology about humanoid fighting machines, Mechs, in which my friend had a story.
My intro is about the relationship between soldiers, in particular mercenaries, and the civil government employing them, rather than about this anthology per se or the universe in which it’s set. The anthology, The Good, the Bad, and the Merc, is out now.
Ursula K. LeGuin, an exceptional writer who happened to write SF, died recently. I met her only once, when Tor sent me to Seattle for a book fair at which she was the keynote speaker.
She talked intelligently, of course, but then opened the floor to questions. Nobody jumped in for a time, so I did, asking, “What was it like to work with Don Wollheim?”
Wollheim was a leading SF fan in the ’30s and became a major SF editor in the ’40s through his death in 1990. He was responsible for the Ace SF line, which formed the basis of my own SF reading when I was getting into the field.
Wollheim was a towering figure in the SF field, but his personality caused many to dislike him. He was extremely smart and well-read, never pompous himself and displaying open contempt for pompous twits (of which the field has its share).
Among other things, Wollheim at Ace published LeGuin’s earliest SF novels. Her take on this man probably wasn’t what most in the auditorium came to learn about, but it was of interest to me.
LeGuin paused, then said, “It was like working with a lizard.” Pause. “A very old, very wise, lizard.” Pause. “A poisonous lizard.”
That was a perfect and succinct description. LeGuin spoke with exactly the sort of craftsmanship that I mentioned above when I was discussing Superweapon and the classics.
Another of the things I’ve learned from classical writers is to steal from the best. To Vergil, that meant Homer. He’s quoted as saying (I’m paraphrasing in English), “The man who can steal a line from Homer could steal Hercules’ club.”
For me “the best” definitely includes Ursula LeGuin. I stole her description of Don Wollheim for a characterization in Superweapon.
Go out and be nice to folks, people!
–Dave Drake
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