cthia wrote:Jonathan_S wrote:Sure, I've read Insurrection. It's one of 4 books that Weber and White wrote in the universe of the Starfire tabletop game.
Chronologically Insurrection come last, though it was written first.
(The four, chronologically, where Crusade, In Death's Ground, The Shiva Option, and Insurrection; and were later bundled together and republished as The Stars at War and The Stars at War II)
Huh, how did that happen?
As David explains in the infodump on 'The Great Vanishing Crucian Mystery' they didn't start out planning to write a novel; much less a series. (Note - the infodump contains some significant spoilers; which I'm trying to sidestep; so don't read it unless you're fine with getting some major points potentially spoiled)
David was working with the designers of the Starfire tabletop game, doing some early work on a new major scenario. And, as he explains, the way he worked when he "was doing game design was to write a short story which set the tone for the game background." So he wrote at the end of, or possible beyond, the end of the game scenario -- one that eventually became a chapter of Insurrection. He then sent it off to Steve (who he'd been discussing the plans with) for feedback. Well that inspired Steve to write a story of his own, which eventually became another chapter in Insurrection; which inspired David to write one, which inspired Steve to write one, etc. and "Neither of us thought we were writing a novel; we were simply exchanging short stories on isolated incidents drawn from the future history/scenario plans I'd concocted"
"After a month or two, we did realize that we had the makings of a novel, and we began shaping it in that direction, but by the time we finished covering the entire war, we had roughly 285,000 words. Since neither of us had thought in terms of submission when we began, the length of the final manuscript had played only a minor part in our thinking, but I did realize that 285,000 words was just a tad long for a science fiction novel, so I sliced 100,000 words out before we submitted it initially." And this was eventually published (with significant further editing) as their first novel,
Insurrection.
Then a couple years after
Insurrection was published they went back and published a prequel; filling in events that had been mentioned in passing as having occurred
before that expansion scenario David had been working on for the game. That story became
Crusade. (2nd book published, but earliest chronologically). About about five years after that they decided to go ahead and do a novelization of the key events in the game scenario David had been working on, way back when, and that became the 2-part story
In Death Ground and
The Shiva Option.
And that's how their first book was the furthest into the future of that universe (at least of the ones they coauthored. Like I said, Steve went on to work on books that postdate
Insurrection; but David wasn't cowriter on those.