Weber's 2015 National Book Festival Talk Up

David Weber's 2015 National Book Festival talk is now up at

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLpAGnumt6iV6kxToAhObqYJlVV1og9BMt



This talk was mentioned by someone else on this forum and I wasn't sure anyone had posted that it was available.

It talks a lot about the Honor Harrington series, but also mentions the Safehold series, in particular, how there is one more book after HFQ to complete the present story arc. It also mentions that after the 20 year "gap" to the next Safehold story arc, everyone will have steam powered economies with the implication that the fight will be harder/bloodier[MY interpretation].

It's about 45 minutes, but for those of us who haven't managed to get to one of the Cons to see David, it's interesting and informative to watch.

very entertaining talk and great find; I really liked how DW handled the q/a part; the only new stuff for me was that the next Safehold book will conclude the current arc - based on HFQ I expected two more

Anyway this mean that sometime in 2017 most likely we will finally get some closure here at least with the Group of 4

I'm always glad to see a new Honorverse. But it sort of sounded as though the next Safehold is in line after the Honorverse. Did the rest of you get that impression?

Don

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n7axw wrote:I'm always glad to see a new Honorverse. But it sort of sounded as though the next Safehold is in line after the Honorverse. Did the rest of you get that impression?

Don

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I'm thinking maybe some of the Honorverse MAY have a higher priority (though I'm thinking he's going Evil Author there by hinting he's not going to let them find the Mesa alignment folks and put paid to them).

This is where a PICA or four would come in handy to increase David's output!

From what is known - and I would happily find out more - DW is currently still writing the next Honorverse main book which will be next to last in the arc, so a late 2016, early 2017 publication if it is done by year's end or close

Then I guess he will write the next Safehold, so given that Tor has about a 12-18 months production schedule, even if DW hands it in by summer 2016, it won;t appear until late 2017 earliest

Then in-between collaborations (MA, Multiverse etc), DW may try the next fantasy before tackling the last Honorverse, so April 2018 for that one seems doable but not trivially so

cnrd22 wrote:From what is known - and I would happily find out more - DW is currently still writing the next Honorverse main book which will be next to last in the arc, so a late 2016, early 2017 publication if it is done by year's end or close

Then I guess he will write the next Safehold, so given that Tor has about a 12-18 months production schedule, even if DW hands it in by summer 2016, it won;t appear until late 2017 earliest

Then in-between collaborations (MA, Multiverse etc), DW may try the next fantasy before tackling the last Honorverse, so April 2018 for that one seems doable but not trivially so

We got about a book a year at one stage in Safehold, so TOR can churn them out much faster than 12-18 months if it plans to do so. The problems recently have been because RL intervened and RFC missed his hand-in deadlines leading to the books being bumped way down the production queue. Hopefully if we get back into planned production a new Safehold book in late 2016 is quite feasible.

I think it's almost certain that RFC will write another Wargod book before a second Honorverse one, Otherwise the new series will lose momentum, which would be a bad thing for ongoing income. Also RFC seems to be pretty into doing his 'fantasy epic'. It may even come before the next Safehold. If I were him, I think I might consider bashing out the last of this arc and the first of the next arc one after the other in order to maintain interest and ensure carry over of the readership. OTOH there was a big gap in the Honorverse mainline after 2005 and he has been over busy lately.

cnrd22 wrote:From what is known - and I would happily find out more - DW is currently still writing the next Honorverse main book which will be next to last in the arc, so a late 2016, early 2017 publication if it is done by year's end or close

Then I guess he will write the next Safehold, so given that Tor has about a 12-18 months production schedule, even if DW hands it in by summer 2016, it won;t appear until late 2017 earliest

Then in-between collaborations (MA, Multiverse etc), DW may try the next fantasy before tackling the last Honorverse, so April 2018 for that one seems doable but not trivially so

Thank you very much indeed for the info, I've been trying to locate posts on that for some time. Needles in haystacks . . .
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dobriennm wrote:

n7axw wrote:I'm always glad to see a new Honorverse. But it sort of sounded as though the next Safehold is in line after the Honorverse. Did the rest of you get that impression?

Don

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I'm thinking maybe some of the Honorverse MAY have a higher priority (though I'm thinking he's going Evil Author there by hinting he's not going to let them find the Mesa alignment folks and put paid to them).

This is where a PICA or four would come in handy to increase David's output!

We know that a new Honorverse is already in the works, although I haven't seen a progress reort on that. Baen cycles its stuff through faster than Tor, so we could see the Honorverse sooner than you are anticipating.

Presuming David goes to work on it next, which was my question, we could see the next Safehold October or November of next year.

Don

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n7axw wrote:
We know that a new Honorverse is already in the works, although I haven't seen a progress reort on that. Baen cycles its stuff through faster than Tor, so we could see the Honorverse sooner than you are anticipating.

Presuming David goes to work on it next, which was my question, we could see the next Safehold October or November of next year.

Don

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I wish you will be proven right but I have major doubts about Tor - today (things have changed from even a couple years ago) - putting a book out less than a year from delivery (maybe something expected to sell millions, but Safehold while selling respectably and generally being a one week NYT bestseller is not of that kind).

Baen is more flexible sure and I happen to agree that a mainline Honorverse book will have all stops pulled out to be out as soon as practically possible, but a 3-6 month wait from delivery is still to be expected, so my expectations for the main DW books are as follows:

- main next Honorverse book - fall 2016/early 2017

- next and last Safehold book in the current arc - fall 2017-early 2018

- last main Honorverse book in the current arc - April 2018

In between another Multiverse (spring 2017), another Fantasy (summer 2017), another MA (could be late 2016 too) and maybe the next Honorverse companion (probably late 2016 to 2017)

Unlikely but one obviously can wish, the next Prince Roger, while a possible new Stephanie Harrington novel is also under discussion but as the sales for the first 3 were mediocre, it may or may not happen

That's my take from what I hear and I would welcome better informed news for sure

cnrd22 wrote:

I wish you will be proven right but I have major doubts about Tor - today (things have changed from even a couple years ago) - putting a book out less than a year from delivery (maybe something expected to sell millions, but Safehold while selling respectably and generally being a one week NYT bestseller is not of that kind).

Baen is more flexible sure and I happen to agree that a mainline Honorverse book will have all stops pulled out to be out as soon as practically possible, but a 3-6 month wait from delivery is still to be expected, so my expectations for the main DW books are as follows:

- main next Honorverse book - fall 2016/early 2017

- next and last Safehold book in the current arc - fall 2017-early 2018

- last main Honorverse book in the current arc - April 2018

In between another Multiverse (spring 2017), another Fantasy (summer 2017), another MA (could be late 2016 too) and maybe the next Honorverse companion (probably late 2016 to 2017)

Unlikely but one obviously can wish, the next Prince Roger, while a possible new Stephanie Harrington novel is also under discussion but as the sales for the first 3 were mediocre, it may or may not happen

That's my take from what I hear and I would welcome better informed news for sure

I'm not going to make any guesses about dates, but as to order, it looks like Honorverse now, followed by (this is where it's even more guesswork):
Last first Safehold arc book
Next War God
Last first (?) Honorverse arc book
(something else)
War God arc 2 #3...

and then no telling. I doubt it's going to be solid War God arc 2 til the end and I'm especially uncertain when it comes to collaborative ones (I haven't read the Multiverse ones past the first, don't want to read more Prince Roger, and expect with great regret we've seen the last from Stephanie Harrington).

I doubt it will be too long before later arc Honorverse and Safehold books come, but I do think the gap between arcs will be longer than the gaps between books within an arc.