Re: Traveller Fiction

>Date: Sun, 21 Mar 93 10:44:01 -0500
>From: [email removed] (Mark Urbin)
>Subject: Traveller fiction
>
>   In a recent info release about T:TNE, GDW says, "Although we have allowed
>authors to set their worlds in the Traveller universe in the past, we have
>never had a GDW-sanctioned Traveller novel."  No other information except that
>they are going to do one now.

Yeah, and I should have been the author, Metlay mumbles to himself in
a junk-food-induced haze from his adipose slump in the cushions of his
couch. |->

>   My question is just what novels have been written in the Traveller universe
>before?  I've seen the reverse.  For example, H. Beam Piper wrote about the
>Sword Worlds and Space Vikings years before Traveller Classic came out.
>Anybody have a list of post Traveller release fiction written?  Actual,
>published novells, not just fluff.  Hmm...If there is any fluff on line,
>besides the PBEM, you could point that out also.

There haven't been any recognizably Traveller-Imperium books that I
know of in publication; I can't imagine GDW would have allowed such a
copyright violation to occur without making SOME noise, and I can't
imagine such a book getting out without the TML echoing with critiques
and so on.

As for "fluff," there's always MY fiction (the Grant stories and Near
Miss).  Parts of the Near Miss book (all but the final section) have
been finished for years, but GDW's people to whom I spoke on that
subject (hi Loren) were at the time very polite but firm in their
intention not to publish books, and I never pursued the matter any
further.  Besides, it's set in the Trav Classic universe, and it
wasn't ready to go before the MegaTraveller mindset-shift, so the
point was moot. I have some bits of it online, but nothing I'm
ready to hand out for free just yet.

I'd like to publish some Traveller fiction one of these days, but it's
low on my priority list right now for reasons that will become very
obvious very soon <dark hint>. When I do get around to writing T:TNE
fiction for possible publication, it will probably be within the
context of another piece I'm putting together for GDW....

What I'm hoping to do with respect to T:TNE is to follow the course
recommended by Loren several months ago, specifically to allow the
game a chance to get established and then put forward an outline for a
sourcebook on the Traveller-Classic Universe, i.e. a sort of civilized
economic/corporate/cultural/aristocratic "warfare" game set in the
Third Imperium of 1120, where Strephon has foiled an assassination
attempt but has suddenly realized that he is not in as firm control of
the Imperium as he should be. At this stage, I have a tentative "yes"
from a potential co-author, about whom I won't say more until he or
she agrees to dive in headfirst and the project gets a go-ahead from
GDW. We hope to market a more workable economics system, a simplified
ship design system that gets rid of "advances" like thruster plates, and
some well-developed cultural and political background for the various
hotspots of interest around the Imperium: Antares, Vland, the Solomani
Buffer Zone, and so on. I plan to pursue this project vigorously with
GDW, in the hopes of providing a worthwhile sourcebook for those users
who have a huge investment in old Traveller materials and would like a
more modern framework in which to put their old adventure and library
data modules to use. We'll keep you posted.


- --
mike metlay * atomic city * box 81175 pgh pa 15217-0675 * [email removed]
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"I'm looking for a woman with a REALLY sexy pancreas."      (m. t. jackson)