On Manticore Ascendent

So here I am sitting in front of the computer finishing reading the two Manticore Ascendant books when I SHOULD be working on my Tech Writing class work. Darn you DW, TZ, and TP, your messing up my carefully worked out time schedule!

Despite the hole it's ripping in my time, however, I did want to both compliment the books and say they were a wonderful read. It takes an enormous amount of courage and discipline (Or so I have been told) for an author to let others play in the worlds of imagination he's built and it can't have been any easier for Mr. Weber to do that than for any other author. Indeed the only other author who I can think of, who has done such a thing was Eric Flint with his 1632 series. I'm sure there must be more but I'm drawing a blank thinking of anyone.

So thank you Mr. Weber for the courage on this. By the fact that I have once again destroyed two days of my time that I should have been spending on work, school, family things, and general errand running but instead spent consuming the two books in the series, it should be apparent that I enjoyed them greatly. I hope that your and your coauthors schedules will align in the future to allow more stories in the series to come to fruition in the future. Only not too soon, OK, cause I really do need to get my assignments for my Technical Writing class done.

Larry

P.S. In the next one could you creative gentleman please include a list of excuses or alternative ways to keep my wife from discovering that I have just blown off everything I should be doing because I was addicted to one of your stories and couldn't put the darned book down? I was abducted by aliens is about all I've been able to come up with.

Larry wrote:Indeed the only other author who I can think of, who has done such a thing was Eric Flint with his 1632 series. I'm sure there must be more but I'm drawing a blank thinking of anyone.

Robert Asprin's Thieves World was purportedly the first "shared universe," but many authors have allowed anthologies of short stories and a few permit parallel novels.

Weird Harold wrote:

Larry wrote:Indeed the only other author who I can think of, who has done such a thing was Eric Flint with his 1632 series. I'm sure there must be more but I'm drawing a blank thinking of anyone.

Robert Asprin's Thieves World was purportedly the first "shared universe," but many authors have allowed anthologies of short stories and a few permit parallel novels.

I don't know how DW or Eric works with their writers on subjects. I know the Grantville Gazette is kind of open, but the novels must be more structured - with an agreed to timeline of major events.

Tom Clancey in the 90s through his death worked with other writers on several series - If I heard correctly, he storylined what was happening and the "associate" writer wrote the story around it. He started doing this with his "Netforce" books and the last ~4 Jack Ryan books were written in a similar manner.

Theemile wrote:Tom Clancey in the 90s through his death worked with other writers on several series - If I heard correctly, he storylined what was happening and the "associate" writer wrote the story around it. He started doing this with his "Netforce" books and the last ~4 Jack Ryan books were written in a similar manner.

I'm not sure that could be considered a "shared universe," though. It's more like a "contract author" hired to finish a series, like Brian Sanderson finishing the WOT or the host of authors who wrote Hardy Boys or Nancy Drew books under a common pen-name.

The Ring of Fire/Assitti Shards (AKA 1632 series or Grantville Series) is a true Shard Universe with every author's contribution considered Canon once the story is published. As I understand it, there is now an editorial committee that vettes every story before publication because it has gotten to big for Eric alone to manage. There is another Alternate Universe in the Assitti Shards universe, (mostly serialized in the online Grantville Gazette) that Eric has little or no input to other than the initial concept.

I think David maintains more control over contributions by others; Eric encourages fan-fiction, where David doesn't.