What’s in a Name?
David Afsharirad
According to the Social Security website, the name “David” has been one of the top twenty names for males born in the United States for over a hundred years. Strange then that I didn’t encounter many Davids growing up. In grade school, I was never forced to append my first name with my last initial in order to differentiate myself from all the other Davids in the class for the simple reason that there were no other Davids in the class.
All that changed when I started working at Baen Books. I soon learned that Baen published gentlemen with names like David Drake, David Weber, David B. Coe, David Carrico, and Dave Freer. Soon D.J. “Dave” Butler and David Boop were added to the roster. And did I mention cover artist David Mattingly, whose work includes the Honor Harrington covers (not to mention the cover to the book you hold in your hands)? Baen had and has a superabundance of Davids. For the first time in my life I was one David among many.
I entered an even larger pool of Davids when my work started getting published and I became a part of the science fiction and fantasy writers community. Indeed, SF/F publishing seems full to bursting with Davids! This fact did not escape me nor did it escape Baen associate editor and author of the Sun Eater series Christopher Ruocchio. The two of us were talking at the Baen booth at DragonCon about the myriad Davids Baen published. (At the time Baen also employed an additional Christopher, though he has since moved on.) It was Christopher who suggested an anthology. “You could edit and we’d get Mattingly to do the cover,” he said. We went on to list all the Baen-Davids and non-Baen-Davids we could include. It was funny; one of the things you come up with during a long convention to pass the time.
Or so I thought.
Christopher had the vision. And he had the will to see that vision through. At the next LibertyCon, at which I was not in attendance, Christopher cornered Baen publisher Toni Weisskopf (read: our boss) during a room party and pitched her the idea. (I suspect some liquid courage was involved, but perhaps not; Christopher is not one in the long and storied line of perpetually soused writers.) Toni agreed to greenlight the project, a fact which I did not know until the tail end of a telephone conversation with her about another matter entirely. “Oh, and we need to talk about the Davids book soon,” she said casually.
Some time later, with a contract in hand, I went hunting for Davids. The search was not a difficult one. Indeed, there are so many Davids in the science fiction and fantasy field that I could have easily filled three volumes without repeating a David.
Here then an anthology by people named David, for everyone who loves a good story!
Included herein are new stories from David Drake, D.J. Butler, Dave Freer, David Boop, Barry N. Malzberg, Hank Davis, Dave Bara, D.L. Young, David Carrico, and David Hardy; and reprints of the highest caliber from David Weber, David B. Coe, David H. Keller, Gregory Benford & David Brin, and Avram Davidson. Fifteen stories total, all by a distinguished David.
Er, almost.
The eagle-eyed will have spotted three non-Davids in the above list.
Allow me to explain.
Gregory Benford co-wrote a story with David Brin that I really wanted to include, so he gets to be a “David by association.” In the case of Hank Davis, Toni and I agreed to stretch the point. After all, “S” is right next to “D” on the qwerty keyboard, and what’s one letter between friends? As for Barry N. Malzberg, David Drake invited him to the anthology and I’m sure as hell not going to turn down David Drake and Barry Malzberg, two gentlemen whose writing I admire greatly. Further, anyone who reads the story Mr. Malzberg wrote for the book I’m sure will agree it belongs, without a doubt.
My thanks to all the contributors who agreed to be a part of this most unique anthology; to Toni Weisskopf, who gave the go-ahead to put the book together; and to Christopher Ruocchio, who like Moses on Mount Nebo, led us to the Promised Land though he himself could not enter it.
And thanks to you, Dear Reader, whether you be a member of the worldwide coterie of Davids or not.
—David Afsharirad
Austin, TX
December 2018