Newsletter #25 mailed out 6 December 2004

Dear People,

The draft of The Fortress of Glass, the first volume in The Crown of the Isles Trilogy, is moving along very happily. I’ve got some 55K roughed out at this moment. The work is proceeding more steadily than I recall a novel doing in the past, though this is utterly subjective and really doesn’t mean anything more than ‘I’m feeling pretty good.’

Regardless, it’s a pleasant change from decades of feeling in the middle of whatever I was working on (whether short story or novel) that it was absolute dreck, that I’d lost whatever talent I’d once had, and that people would find it less exciting than a phone book. I don’t know why I feel more positive about my work than I did for so very long a time. I’m certainly glad of the change.

For those of you who’ve read the Early Influences section of the website, I’ll mention that the evil minions (well, one batch of evil minions) of The Fortress of Glass are effectively the Terrible Ones from The Angry Planet by John Kier Cross [http://david-drake.com/early.html]. That’s quite a book. In fact, the book itself was more frightening than the monsters, who were pretty darned frightening themselves. That’s a thought worth considering.

Master of the Cauldron, the sixth Isles fantasy, is out from Tor in hardcover [http://david-drake.com/news.html]. It has what I think is the best of the many excellent covers Donato has done for me. It isn’t the most complex and subtle art that he’s done--Goddess of the Ice Realm [also on the news page] is probably that--but it has a strong central image of Ilna.

A majority of fantasy readers are female, and my books have generally had strong female characters. (Not as a marketing ploy--the same was true of the early Hammer stories, whose initial readership was overwhelmingly male.) A woman in the cover painting gives that information to potential readers who aren’t familiar with my work, though, so I’m very glad to have this one.
Speaking of Goddess, it’s out from Tor in pb. It remains my favorite of the series, though anecdotal evidence suggests that fans consider Servant of the Dragon and Master of the Cauldron as the best. There’s no accounting for taste (and I apply that to my opinion as well as the opinions of others).

I’m back to where I was before the lady ran into me in September. The bike is repaired and I’m wearing my replacement jacket and helmet, paid for by the nice people at Nationwide. (Seriously, I’ve heard bad things about Nationwide but my personal experience with them was very good indeed.) It had never occurred to me that there could be technological improvements in leather jackets, but my 2004 jacket has a high-tech liner that really does retain heat better than the simple quilted liner of the 1986 version of the same jacket.

Having said that, the reason one wears a leather jacket is so that what rubs along the pavement if you get off your bike abruptly is leather, not you. I’ve replaced two jackets in the course of 30 years of riding motorcycles.

Mountain Magic, a Baen pb with a short novel by Eric Flint and Ryk Spoor, Henry Kuttner’s hilarious Hogben stories, and my Old Nathan, is out now. Gary Ruddell is a splendid artist, but the cover of this book won’t be going in his portfolio.

The World Turned Upside Down should be a January, 2005, hc from Baen Books. I’ve gushed about the book in past newsletters, so I won’t repeat myself here. Read what I said before--or better, order the book now and read it as soon as it comes in.

I should be getting proofs of The Way to Glory, the next RCN (Leary/Mundy) space opera shortly. It’s due out from Baen in May, 2005. Steve Hickman is doing the cover. He called to say how much he liked the book (he’s a fan of Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey/Maturin series, which I used as a model for the interplay of my lead characters). I don’t know what effect Steve reading the book will have on the art--the covers of Lt. Leary, Commanding and The Far Side of the Stars are both fine. (He says he’s going to go back and read the earlier books now, including the first--With the Lightnings--for which David Mattingly did the art.)

Also in May, 2005, is the Baen pb The Enchanter Completed. It’s a collection of pastiches of Sprague deCamp’s work edited by Harry Turtledove and includes my novelet A Land of Romance (which is also up on my website: [http://david-drake.com/texts/romance.pdf]).

Sprague was in many ways the Golden Age writer who had the most influence on me as a writer. He was also a perfect gentleman in every contact I had with him or observed him having with others. Recently I’ve been struck by the degree to which a person gains long-term benefits by being courteous. Sprague was always that. I try to be, in part from memory of Sprague.
Speaking of the website, two more of my translations from Ovid are up (Amores I:15 and Amores II:1). The more I read him critically (which I have to do for a proper translation), the more I’m impressed by his craftsmanship.

On the other hand, I read a recent work discussing Ovid’s Fasti, a late work which tends to be passed over. The author makes a convincing argument that Ovid wasn’t writing a star manual badly but rather using stellar devices to counterpoint praise of Roman triumphalism. I accept that, but the author also appears to believe that absolutely every aspect of the work is deliberate. The Fasti is (all right, are) of epic length, composed in exile on the Black Sea without (as Ovid states explicitly) the reference works that he needs to do the job properly.

The thing is, writers are human beings. I think to a considerable degree academics fail to understand that, though it’s equally wrong to assume there’s no art in something because you personally don’t see the art. (Which was the error I made when I read the Fasti forty years ago.)

Twice recently I’ve been interviewed at conventions, focusing on the ‘70s--not only the start of my serious writing career but also my involvement with Whispers magazine and Carcosa. There turned out to be a lot of stuff that was new to the audiences and some that was new to the interviewers also. I’d already done for the website a discussion of Whispers, Stu Schiff’s magazine that kept short fantasy alive during the ‘70s [http://david-drake.com/whispers.html], but there was nothing about Carcosa, the publishing company founded by Karl Wagner, Jim Groce, and myself. I decided (after prodding) to write an account.

It isn’t finished yet. It’s barely started. I kept getting angry. I do intend to write an account, as dispassionate as I can make it, but I’m not there yet. Please bear with me (particularly those of you who rightly told me it was something I ought to do).
There are more convention pictures, a recent picture of me with Jonathan and Tristan, [http://david-drake.com/album.html] and the usual general cleanup on the news and FAQ pages.

It’s been an interesting year. There were plenty of downs in it, but right at the moment I seem to be personally up. I hope that’s true for most of you, too; and happy holidays.

Now, back to slaughtering ravening plants.

All best,
Dave Drake
david-drake.com

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