Expanded Universe

FOREWORD

My next attempt to branch out was my first book:

ROCKET SHIP GALILEO.Iattempted book publication earlier than I had intended to because a boys' book was solicited from me by a major publisher. I was unsure of myself - but two highly respected friends, Cleve Cartmill and Fritz Lang, urged me to try it. So I did... and the publisher who had asked for it rejected it. A trip to the Moon? Preposterous! He suggested that I submit another book - length MS without that silly space - travel angle.

Instead I sold it to Scribner's and thereby started a sequence: one boys' book each year timed for the Christmas trade. This lasted twelve years and was a very strange relationship, as my editor disliked science fiction, disliked me (a sentiment I learned to reciprocate), and kept me on for the sole reason that my books sold so well that they kept her department out of the red - her words. Eventually she bounced one with the suggestion that I shelve it for a year and then rewrite it.

But by bouncing it she broke the chain of options. Instead of shelving it, I took it across the street... and won a Hugo with it.

ROCKET SHIP GALILEO was a fumbling first attempt; I have never been satisfied with it. But it has never been out of print, has appeared in fourteen languages, and has earned a preposterous amount in book royalties alone; I should not kick. Nevertheless I cringe whenever I consider its shortcomings.

My next fiction (here following) was FREE MEN. Offhand it appears to be a routine post - Holocaust story, and the details - idioms, place names, etc. - justify that assumption. In fact it is any conquered nation in any century -