Newsletter #22 mailed out 17 May 2004
Dear People,
This is just a short note to say that I'm back from England and happily in my nest again. It was a wonderful trip. Those who want a travelogue with a few pictures can find them at http://david-drake.com/englandreport.html.
Since the formal purpose of the trip was to attend Salute, the big one-day miniature wargame show, and to launch the Hammer's Slammers wargame book there, that's worth a few extra comments. First, Salute's large but still much smaller than the monstrous thing I'd been dreading: ca 4,500 attendees, not 50-60K.
That's still a lot of people, mostly male, and beer was available on the premises. Nonetheless there was absolutely no interpersonal tension. The atmosphere was simply very pleasant.
Everybody was remarkably nice to me personally. I met a number of fans of my work who'd gotten into it through wargaming, not SF. I boggled at some of the layouts, particularly one of the Battle of Naseby containing 3,000 individual figures. I bought a few books.
And I pitched the game book and game starter packs with honest enthusiasm. All the dealers involved with the project went home smiling at their profits.
I'd chosen to wear a Blackhorse T-shirt (11 th Armored Cavalry Veterans of Vietnam and Cambodia) for the event, since without that association I wouldn't have written the Hammer stories (or much of anything else, I suspect). While walking around the three levels of stalls and demonstrations, I chatted with a former staff officer of the Blackhorse after it was reflagged as the Opposition Force unit at the National Training Center ( Ft. Irwin.) It wasn't until I signed a bookmark that he realized I was the author of books he'd read and liked.
I had a good time in England, and a particularly good time at Salute.
Two weeks later I was in Phoenix for Leprecon (there are a few pictures at http://david-drake.com/leprecon.html.) I may have been a little logy there because of all the travel, but it was a comfortably low-key convention. Apart from a non-SF event in Seattle a few years, Phoenix is as far west as I've been since I was stationed in El Paso for language school in 1969. Some people brought a lot of books for me to sign, which I take pleasure in doing. (Having been at the other kind of signings rather too often, especially when I was starting out.)
Now I'm back to work on The Way to Glory, the fourth RCN (Leary/Mundy) novel. I'm in the midst of the climactic space battle, with plasma cannon blasting and projectiles of various sorts racing lethally across the void. Writing scenes like this is rather like choreographing a production number: there are an awful lot of separate pieces which have to mesh perfectly together.
So far, so good, I think; but I also thought I'd take a break and do this newsletter.
The Way to Glory, by the way, will be out as a Baen hc in May, 2005, with a Steve Hickman cover. And speaking of Hickman covers, when I got back from Phoenix I found the original cover for Lacey and His Friends waiting for me, a present from Jim Baen. This is one of Steve's best paintings; one of my best covers; and one of the best covers anybody ever did for an SF book, in my opinion. Jim's been a good friend for a long time, but I don't recall either of us having done anything recently to have justified such a gift.
Donato Giancola was at Leprecon also. He'd just finished the cover for Master of the Cauldron, the sixth Isles fantasy (due as a Tor hc in November, 2004). I haven't seen the finished art yet, but Donato had the sketch and it should be a very strong cover. (With a central female character, by the way.)
Donato, by the way, has recently sold a number of paintings--including earlier wonderful covers he did for the Isles series--to a man who also collects paintings by John W. Waterhouse and Bouguereau. I've been very fortunate with my covers over the years, but never more so than in my association with Donato.
I just got copies of the Baen pb of Grimmer Than Hell, a collection of some of my harshest (and best) SF short stories. It'll probably be in stores in a couple weeks. You know, I'm still the person I was when I wrote those stories... but thank goodness, I'm not only that person. Now.
There've been a few updates on the website besides adding the England travelogue and some photo pages. I think the only things of real interest are the photos of the professionally painted 25-mm vehicles and Slammers figures. (http://david-drake.com/hswargame.html)
I really have to do a new chunk of Ovid, perhaps the section dealing with the Erymanthean boar which (like the Niobe section) highlights Ovid's skill at characterization with a line or two. Well, after I finish a novel, I guess.
And now, back to that space battle!
Dave Drake
david-drake.com
******************
To subscribe, unsubscribe or change your e-mail address, e-mail webmaster@david-drake.com
******************