Re: "To Challenge Heaven (Out of the Dark, 3)" by David Weber and Chris Kennedy

On 6/10/2025 8:10 PM, WolfFan wrote:

On Jun 9, 2025, Lynn McGuire wrote
(in article <1027odp$q7dg$1@dont-email.me>):
 

On 6/8/2025 8:14 AM, Robert Carnegie wrote:

As I've kvetched before, not much of this
book review is about this book. Just one
paragraph.
>
How about putting that at the start of
a post, at least? But did I say that
before, too?

>
I am putting too many spoilers in my reviews of the current book in a
series. I am trying to cut back on that.
>
Lynn

 Weber’s going all George R.R. Martin, except with multiple series.
 There hasn’t been a new Empire of Man since 2005. No new Starfire since
2002. (Steve White has perpetuated at least two more by himself. They were
distinctly inferior.) There hasn’t been a new Safehold since 2019. There
hasn’t been a new Bazhell since 2015. No new Hell’s Gate since 2016. No
new Dahak since 1996. Lots of space vampires who are really solar-powered
nanobots and prequels to the AliciaDeVries and weird alt universe stuff.
 Personally I think that there ain’t gonna be any resolution of the
cliffhangers in the old series, and I am _very_ reluctant to start up new
series. I expect that he’ll lose interest. Again. And the space vampires
are just so utterly ridiculous. Especially after the bad guys from the first
book switch sides in the third book ‘cause they weren’t really all that
bad, they just killed a third of humanity, that’s all.
 Bloody hell.

Here are David Weber's current book plans from Aug 29, 2022:
    https://www.facebook.com/search/top/?q=david%20weber%20book%20plans
"Um. I posted this as a comment in a conversation about unfinished series and storylines that would probably never be completed on one of the TRMN pages, and someone suggested I should make it more broadly available, so …..
———-
Okay, I am looking to the future of the Honorverse and several of the other series I have going. There almost certainly WILL be at least one, and probably 2-3, more novels in the Honorverse, following END IN FIRE's merger of the main series and the Crown of Slaves series. They won't be written with ERIC (which i hate) but he and I always knew exactly where the books were going, and they will go there. It is possible that the collaborator I have in mind will also replace ME before the end of the journey (as someone said, I am --- alas --- mortal, and I am one of those writers who will never be "done"), but the end will be reached,
Tim Zahn, Tom Pope, and I will be wrapping the MANTICORE ASCENDANT series in the next couple of books, at which point we will tie it off with a bow. Jacob Holo and I will be writing the story of Edward Saganami shortly. Joelle and I are working on the next MULTIVERSE/HELL'S GATE book, and we know precisely where that series will ultimately end up. I don't know that I'll be here to see the final book, but I know what will be in it and I totally trust Joelle, Sharon, and Toni Weisskopf to get the series there with quality writing. Richard Fox and I have about 3 more books to bring Terrence Murphy's immediate story to a close, though we may go a tiny bit farther than that. We are looking at doing the second book in the Murphyverse later this fall/winter. It's already plotted and ready to go. Chris Kennedy and I just handed in the sequel to INTO THE LIGHT, and I think it's solid. I'm not sure how far we're going to get into that one, but I think we can keep our readers satisfied. And the only reason I'm not sure how far we'll get is that I set up a heck of a big enemy when I created the Hegemony, and it's likely to "end up" with a case of Mutually Assured Destruction rather than a clear cut military victory. Can't say that for sure; we got farther in the current book than we'd really expected. I need to sit down with Jane Lindskold some time in the next couple of months and lay out the writing outline for the next STAR KINGDOM novel. We are envisioning three more in that series, too. I have at least two more novels in SAFEHOLD (might be 3) at which point I will be at a thoroughly satisfying stopping point. (Could go farther if I brought in the right collaborator, but I don't think it's likely.) 3-4 more books in the SWORD OF THE SOUTH series, and then that's done.
So, by my calculations, that's another 22 books I need to get written to wrap up my current series plans.
I'm 70 this October. I sold the first novel thirty-three years ago. Since then, I have published (or have currently turned in, awaiting production) 74 solo and collaborative novels, which works out to roughly 2.24 per year. That doesn't count the anthologies, of course.
I lost roughly 2 years to the concussion, and about a year and a half to the Covid, so let's call it 30 years, not 33, which brings the production up to 2.5 per year. And let's assume that I write for another ten years, which (at the moment, and barring any anticipated encounters with mortality) seems entirely plausible. By my calculations, that comes to another TWENTY-FIVE solo and collaborative novels, in the process of which I will be working with some of my collaborators to establish them firmly in the existing universes going forward.
People, like the characters in Richard Adams' PLAGUE DOGS, I'll probably still be writing "when the dark comes down." That means, obviously, that I won't be "finished" when I leave, but don't go around thinking that you're getting rid of me next week!
Just saying."
I believe that of his 74 books, he is approaching ten million copies of them.  Pretty good for a guy who sold his first book at the age of 37.
BTW, sadly DAHAK is done.  SAFEHOLD was the rewrite of book #3 of that series.
Lynn