More Musings About David Weber

[desertvixen]

 So, David Weber made me cry yesterday.

 Yes, I was reading the e-book of At All Costs.  I liked it better this time around, even though I knew what was coming at the end.

 Cutting this bit for spoilery stuff, since there's someone on the f-list who hasn't read to the end and may actually care:

 So, as some may recall - I was really pissed that DW decided to kill off Alistair McKeon.  Especially after reading that he'd been thinking about killing Honor off, and decided not to.  I've said before that I didn't know if I would read any more books if he killed off Alistair or Rafe.  Well, as we all know, that was an empty threat, because we all know I can't resist finding out what happens next.  And while the goodbye to Alistair is nice at the end, I can't NOT know what happens to the Peeps.  I'm more at peace with it now, but it still made me cry.  My reread of the series made me think that Echoes of Honor is probably the high point for the McKeon fans, as far as getting to see him.

 I also think that the Honor-White Haven relationship went down much better on this reread.  I didn't feel quite as embarrassed as I did during the Honor/Tankersley stuff, but that might be partly due to my personal preference for tall, dark, and handsome.  It just seemed better and more natural this time around.
The real question I have, since I don't frequent Baen's Bar and I couldn't turn up the answer via Google: WHEN IS HE GOING TO WRITE THE NEXT MAINSTREAM NOVEL?  I mean, I already have Storm from the Shadows on my WL, but damn it, I want to know.

 DV

Comments

[sraun]

As near as I can tell, killing off Alistair is actually Eric Flint's fault. The plan was to kill off Honor, and then pick up the story Honor's kids (maybe fraternal twins at this point?) thirty years later. With one of the kids being the military side, and the other the espionage side. Then Eric came up with Anton Zilwicki and From the Highlands / Crown Of Slaves, and bypassed those thirty years. So, David now needs Honor around, and he killed off Alistair instead.

IIRC, the next one is ... late 2009 or early 2010? It's waiting on Crown of Slaves 2, which was, the last I heard, in Eric Flint's hands. I think it's next in Flint's queue. After it's done, then David writes the next mainstream novel.

Let's see - thefifthimperium.com has a writing schedule at http://infodump.thefifthimperium.com/writingschedule.php. It's also something that gets talked about fairly frequently on Baen's Bar - http://bar.baen.com.

[desert-vixen.livejournal.com]

Well, Storm is in March, so the others should be in the pipeline.

Although now I'm a little scared because he says Storm has the first real cliffhanger he's done in the series.

I also notice that several characters who have been around from the beginning buy it in the Battle for Manticore, notably Sebastian D'Orville (who we met in Basilisk Station and who apparently gets to follow in his famous ancestor's steps) and Theodosia Kuzak (who had the little fling with Hamish).

I've also noticed that engineering/R&D appears to be a bad department in the books - several engineering chiefs get killed, along with Alistair's R&D work, and Paul Tankersley.

Damn Eric Flint for making that suggestion. So now basically the survivors' trio is Rafe, Scotty, and Harkness.

DV

[sraun]

What I'd like is the list of characters David's wife told him he was not allowed to kill off! (IIRC, this was after they got engaged, but before they got married.) He said that Honor's not on list, but Nimitz is!