News Archives - 2010

November 20, 2010

Dear Friends,

First, my new expanded Paratime novel, Time Crime, is back from the printers; it's a beautiful book. I will be shipping the pre-order copies all week.

The "new" Time Crime contains all of Piper's original text plus another additional Piper short story and a new novella by myself. Like many readers, I've always believed that the original version of Time Crime was "unfinished" and this is my answer.

While waiting for my continuity editors to go over the first two-thirds of Gunpowder God, I got inspired and wrote a new Space Viking novel! The new novel, The Last Space Viking, takes place roughly a century after Space Viking during the early days of the First Empire.

The new novel is not Return of Space Viking which I wrote for Jerry Pournelle. That novel is still waiting for Jerry's final edit and takes place about twenty years after the original Space Viking. I had a lot of fun writing the new book andgetting back to one of my favorite universes.

I'm now doing the final edit and The Last Space Viking is scheduled for publication in the spring of 2011, along with a companion hardcover of the original Space Viking novel by H. Beam Piper. I will soon be back to work on Gunpowder God and it will be published in the fall of 2011.

Have a great Thanksgiving and a wonderful holiday season!

John F. Carr

August 12, 2010

Dear Friends,

It has been a very busy summer, as well as a hot one. The new expanded Paratime novel, Time Crime, is now available for pre-order for $32.00, which includes Priority mail shipping, in the Shop. It's scheduled for publication in late October.

The "new" Time Crime will contain all of Piper's original text plus another additional Piper short story and novella by myself. I've always believed that the original version of Time Crime was "unfinished" and this is my attempt to address that issue.

John W. Campbell and Beam were always fighting about story length and I suspect that the original Time Crime was cut by Campbell so he could fit it into two issues rather than three.

I'm over the halfway mark with the new Kalvan novel, Gunpowder God. It is scheduled for release in the fall of 2011. In this new story Kalvan is busy consolidating his military success of the past year, while Styphon's House is snaking out tentacles throughout the Five Kingdoms.

Prince Phidestros and Great King Lysandros are at loggerheads and only one of them is going to emerge from this fight-to-the-death alive. Meanwhile, things are going from bad to Hell in a handbasket on Home Time Line. Verkan is still in hiding on Kalvan's Time-Line, while Dalla is juggling crises one after another. And then things really get interesting...

John F. Carr

June 11, 2010

Dear Friends,

It's been a busy year. Together with Mark Richardson, I've put together a new web site for the War World CoDominium/Empire of Man series. The War World series was created by myself and Jerry Pournelle back in the late 1980s for Jim Baen; it was our idea to put together a future military series that had the firm backdrop and future history along the lines that H. Beam Piper pioneered. We created an author's guide to War World which went into detail on everything from the planetary physics to post-settlement and Empire of Man history. It was our plan to raise the bar on shared-world anthologies.

I believe we succeeded and so did the SF reading public, as the books (five anthologies and two novels) went into multiple printings and the series sold close to half a million copies making War World the most successful military shared-world anthology series in the SF field.

When Jerry decided to stop doing any new anthologies in 1996, he gave me the rights to the entire War World series with the understanding that I would further nurture and develop it:

"John Carr worked for me as Senior Editor for years while I was doing anthologies. He did an excellent job of finding reprint stories and commissioning new stories, and he was able to help a number of new authors break into the business; he had time to work with them, and I was glad to have him do that. When the anthology market began to dry up I closed off the War World and There Will Be War series, and there was nothing left for John to do.

When Carr left I gave him the right to work in the War World areas. Don Hawthorne created the major Sauron characters (with Carr's help). I have reviewed and recommended the book (War World: The Battle of Sauron). They offered to have me as a co-author. That would mean my doing a rewrite (I don't do ghost written books) and I couldn't do that in time (and I am not at all sure I'd have added much to it).

So, yes, John Carr has permission to write in the War World, and to commission stories in it. Indeed, one reason I created the War World was to give John Carr something as a reward for long faithful service. Jerry Pournelle"

Unfortunately, the series publisher and I did not see eye-to-eye on how to best continue the series and War World languished until 1998 with the publication of the new War World novel, The Battle of Sauron. After the success of the new novel, I decided the next step would be to not only keep the series going, but to reinvent it by expanding the scope of the original history with a new series of hardcover anthologies (with covers by Alan Gutierrez) in chronological order. The first of these, War World: Discovery, will chronicle the first years of Haven's discovery and colonization will be appearing in July 2010. This new War World anthology will include nine never before published stories and four earlier yarns.

For more information, visit www.warworldcentral.com.

After the problems I ran into on getting The Fireseed Wars into print, I've got a new typesetter and printer for the new books. They were responsible for the new reprint of Kalvan Kingmaker and they made all their promised deadlines.

On the Paratime front, I'm currently making the final corrections to the new and expanded Time Crime novel. The "new" Time Crime will contain all of the original text plus another additional Piper short story and novella by myself. I've always felt the original version of Time Crime was "unfinished" and this is my attempt to address that issue. John W. Campbell and Beam were always fighting about story length and I suspect that the original Time Crime was cut by Campbell so he could fit it into two issues rather than three. The new Time Crime by H. Beam Piper and John F. Carr will be published later this year. In the coming years, there will be two more original Paratime novels to follow: Time Troubles and Time Wars.

John F. Carr

January 18, 2010

Dear Friends,

I have just received 4 advance copies of The Fireseed Wars via Fed Ex. The remaining 996 will be arriving by truck within the next week. I will do my damndest to get all pre-orders out before the end of the month.

The good news is the books are beautiful and well crafted. I'm already hard at work on the next Kalvan book, Gunpowder God, and plan to get that book finished and in print in 2011.

John F. Carr