Intimations of mortality

As I sit waiting for the next installments in Mr. Weber's various sagas, I am reminded of Robert Jordan's passing and Brandon Sanderson's taking up the torch in the Wheel of Time saga. David, you have quite a few irons in the literary fire, not to mention a new movie deal that will take up a bit of your time. You're also a few years older than I, and lately I've been doing a lot of thinking about Social Security, Medicare and retirement.

I suspect you've considered this, and made plans to bring all your sagas to closure, but since I haven't seen anything to that effect, I feel moved to mention it. I don't expect you to publish all the details, but I (and, no doubt, your other fans) would feel reassured to know that the matter is taken care of.

At a guess, I would say David is slowly bringing in other authors to continue his work. We already have several examples -

Starfire - Steve White
Stephanie Harrington - Jane Lindskold
Hell's Gate - Linda Evans

Anyone think that the Honorverse Anthologies that allow other authors into David's personal playground are a cunning way of looking for an apprentice to train up for his other series?

And who do you think might work out well?

Michael Everett wrote:At a guess, I would say David is slowly bringing in other authors to continue his work. We already have several examples -

Starfire - Steve White
Stephanie Harrington - Jane Lindskold
Hell's Gate - Linda Evans

Anyone think that the Honorverse Anthologies that allow other authors into David's personal playground are a cunning way of looking for an apprentice to train up for his other series?

And who do you think might work out well?

Oh no you don't! The only author that he has let into his universe in any depth is Eric Flint, and he and Eric may work well in collaboration but they each have unique and different styles. At this point in the series we do not need any head-butt blood and guts battle-porn guys like Ringo or Kratman, worse comes to worse.

Michael Everett wrote:At a guess, I would say David is slowly bringing in other authors to continue his work. We already have several examples -

Starfire - Steve White
Stephanie Harrington - Jane Lindskold
Hell's Gate - Linda Evans

Anyone think that the Honorverse Anthologies that allow other authors into David's personal playground are a cunning way of looking for an apprentice to train up for his other series?

And who do you think might work out well?

That's like asking who could sub for Audrey Hepburn in Roman Holiday, or who sits in for Carlos Santana on "Samba Pa Ti". There might actually be someone who could do it, but it wouldn't be the same -- Like Brandon Sanderson finishing up Wheel of Time. He's doing a good job working from Robert Jordan's source material, but there's a visible difference. Not necessarily bad (despite some rants over on the Dragonmount forum), just different.

As some less-than-sterling examples of replacement authoring - Todd McCaffrey and WEB IV ...

dscott8 wrote:

Michael Everett wrote:At a guess, I would say David is slowly bringing in other authors to continue his work. We already have several examples -

Starfire - Steve White
Stephanie Harrington - Jane Lindskold
Hell's Gate - Linda Evans

Anyone think that the Honorverse Anthologies that allow other authors into David's personal playground are a cunning way of looking for an apprentice to train up for his other series?

And who do you think might work out well?

That's like asking who could sub for Audrey Hepburn in Roman Holiday, or who sits in for Carlos Santana on "Samba Pa Ti". There might actually be someone who could do it, but it wouldn't be the same -- Like Brandon Sanderson finishing up Wheel of Time. He's doing a good job working from Robert Jordan's source material, but there's a visible difference. Not necessarily bad (despite some rants over on the Dragonmount forum), just different.

Todd MCCafferty's takeover was really, really bad, but Brian Herbert's was worse.

Brom O'Berin wrote:As some less-than-sterling examples of replacement authoring - Todd McCaffrey and WEB IV ...

dscott8 wrote:

Michael Everett wrote:At a guess, I would say David is slowly bringing in other authors to continue his work. We already have several examples -

Starfire - Steve White
Stephanie Harrington - Jane Lindskold
Hell's Gate - Linda Evans

Anyone think that the Honorverse Anthologies that allow other authors into David's personal playground are a cunning way of looking for an apprentice to train up for his other series?

And who do you think might work out well?

That's like asking who could sub for Audrey Hepburn in Roman Holiday, or who sits in for Carlos Santana on "Samba Pa Ti". There might actually be someone who could do it, but it wouldn't be the same -- Like Brandon Sanderson finishing up Wheel of Time. He's doing a good job working from Robert Jordan's source material, but there's a visible difference. Not necessarily bad (despite some rants over on the Dragonmount forum), just different.

dscott8 wrote:As I sit waiting for the next installments in Mr. Weber's various sagas, I am reminded of Robert Jordan's passing and Brandon Sanderson's taking up the torch in the Wheel of Time saga. David, you have quite a few irons in the literary fire, not to mention a new movie deal that will take up a bit of your time. You're also a few years older than I, and lately I've been doing a lot of thinking about Social Security, Medicare and retirement.

I suspect you've considered this, and made plans to bring all your sagas to closure, but since I haven't seen anything to that effect, I feel moved to mention it. I don't expect you to publish all the details, but I (and, no doubt, your other fans) would feel reassured to know that the matter is taken care of.

Amen to that :)

R