Fleet of Worlds: The Tintinnabulation

On October 16, 2007, Fleet of Worlds was first published. That is: ten years ago to the day.

Larry and Ed at 2015 Nebula weekend

This epic space opera, a collaboration with Larry Niven set in his Known Space future history(*), remains my most popular title. Fleet of Worlds has been translated into eight languages. It was selected (by what was not yet called the SyFy channel) as a Sci Fi Essential title, had a slot as a Science Fiction Book Club featured book, and was a finalist for a Prometheus Award.

(*) Which isn't to say that Fleet assumes the reader is familiar with any other story or book. But if you are a Known Space aficionado? If the name Beowulf Shaeffer rings a bell, or the title Ringworld elicits fond memories, I'm happy to say Fleet offers you the occasional Easter egg ...

And so it began ...

2007. Those were ancient times. Before I blogged. Before I built an authorial website. Before I joined Facebook. Today, of course, I'm able -- and delighted -- to herald the happy anniversary in all three venues. No matter that, by the traditional reckoning, the tenth anniversary is unfestively associated with tin. The subject line for today's post isn't entirely random ;-) 

The most amazing part? Larry and I wrote Fleet without a sequel in mind -- but the novel's success kicked off what eventually became a five-book series. These adventures collectively encompass centuries, a half-dozen spacefaring species (the utterly inhuman Gw'oth being among my contributions), and many light-years. We stopped writing when the overarching story line concluded, not for any lack of reader interest.

Five collaborative novels over six years (and also three solo novels, and bunches of short fiction, that I wrote in parallel) ... that era of my life was intense. And also one hell of a lot of fun.