Black Gate

Hammer’s Slammers (Ace Books, April 1979). Cover by Paul Alexander

David Drake passed away on December 10, 2023, and his death was a major loss to the field. In addition to his considerable accomplishments as a writer — with dozens of novels and collections to his credit — he made significant contributions as an editor and publisher.  He edited dozen of volumes for Ace, including the Space Anthologies with Marty Greenberg and Charles Waugh, and The Fleet and Battlestation shared universe series with Bill Fawcett. For Baen he edited three volumes of Men Hunting Things, Armageddon, and much more. He founded the Carcosa small press with Karl Edward Wagner — and in fact every time David stopped by the Black Gate booth at conventions over the years, the two of us invariably ended up talking about Karl.

But without question David’s most significant creation was Hammer’s Slammers, a long-running SF series that followed the adventures of the mercenary Colonel Alois Hammer and the tank regiment that bore his name. Alongside David Weber’s Honorverse, Hammer’s Slammers was the most popular military science fiction series of the late 20th Century. Including spin-offs and related volumes, the series ran to over a dozen volumes between 1979 and 2002.

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Andre Norton’s two-book series Judgment on Janus and Victory on Janus
(Fawcett Crest, December 1979 and January 1980). Covers by Ken Barr

Part I of Andre Norton: Gateway to Magic is here.

Two other fun books by Norton that I read between ages 12 and 16 were Judgment on Janus and Victory on Janus. In Judgement, a down and out young man named Naill Renfro ends up on the planet Janus, which is ruled by a group of religious fanatics from Earth. There are artifacts on Janus from a native civilization, which is thought extinct, and Renfro finds one but is contaminated by it and begins to mutate. Turns out, he’s mutating into a native of the planet, a changeling, if you will. He flees into the vast forest of Janus.

When I first read this book, I was caught up in the rousing adventure, which had elements of the Sword & Planet genre. Only with a later read did I realize all the things going on underneath the surface, the condemnation of religious fanaticism and racism, and the criticism of a corporate world of excess. I came around to that way of thinking myself many many years later. She was ahead of her time here.

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The complete run of Swords Against Darkness (Zebra Book, 1977-1979).
Covers by Frank Frazetta, Larry Kresek, Greg Theakston, and Luis Bermejo

In my opinion, Andrew Offutt’s greatest contribution to literary history is the five book anthology series he edited called Swords Against Darkness. They were simply called I through V and published between 1977 and 1979, all by Zebra.

I’ve got them all and have read them all. They knocked my socks off. I was just beginning to write around the time the series ended and one of the first pie-in-the-sky goals I had for myself was to write something good enough to be included in the series. The series ended before I got close to making it, or even submitting.

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