Challenges Within Challenges
Challenges Among the AstersYesterday’s mail brought me my author’s copies of the new Honorverse/Star Kingdom anthology: Challenges. Although there have been other short stories set in these early days of the Star Kingdom of Manticore—my own “Deception on Gryphon” in What Price Victory? being one such—this is the first anthology to focus specifically on this time period.
Small side note, since I was asked about this by someone after my post last week. Yes, do I know David Weber. We’ve been friends for well over thirty years now. When I refer to him as “Weber,” it’s not because he’s not my friend, it’s because he is. Let me clarify that. When David Weber and I were getting to know each other, I had at least three other “Davids” in routine rotation in my life. I took to referring to David Weber as “Weber” then, and it basically became more or less a pet name.
Now… back to Challenges.
When Weber phoned me to ask if I’d do a story for this collection, our discussion went something like this:
Weber: “Your story doesn’t need to be about Stephanie [Harrington] and her circle.”
Me (after thinking for a moment), “Is there anything you’d like me to write about?”
Weber (so promptly, I wondered if he’d had this lurking in the back of his mind all along): “Well, I’d love a prequel to ‘The Stray’ by Linda Evans. It covers the second human/treecat adoption, but we never actually see that event. Linda, of course, can’t write it.”
[Linda Evans died in June of 2023.]
Me (bluntly): “’The Stray’ has continuity problems with treecat/human interactions that drive me up the wall. I like the basic story, but I don’t know if we want to draw attention to it, because if people go back and re-read it, they’re going to have lots of questions as to why Stephanie and Lionheart and all can’t do what’s done in this story.”
Weber (deep sigh): “Yeah. I know. Look. You write your story. Follow how we’ve been doing things. I’ll write an introduction, explaining why there are differences. Okay?”
Me: “Good. I can do.”
And I did. Those of you who are familiar with “The Stray” may guess why this was a hard story to write. In the end, though, I’m really glad I took on the challenge. And at least one character I created for the story is set to reappear in the next of Weber and my Star Kingdom novels, which is set about eight years later.
And Weber did write the promised introduction. It’s well-worth reading as a window into the challenges (ah, that word again!) of writing a complex, multi-layered series that began with a single novel decades ago.
We’re doing a panel discussion for Baen Free Radio with the whole anthology team. I’ll let you know when it goes live.
