Works
His best-known non-collaborative work is the Hammer's Slammers series of military science fiction. His newer Republic of Cinnabar Navy (RCN) series are space operas inspired by the Aubrey–Maturin novels. During 1997, Drake began his largest fantasy series, Lord of the Isles, using elements of Sumerian religion and medieval technology. During 2007, Drake finished the series with its ninth volume.
In addition to his own works, he often provides both plotting and a military perspective to many collaborative writing projects, such as his contributions to the Heroes in Hell series. Earlier in his career, Drake worked in collaboration with some other authors by providing detailed plot outlines (5,000 to 15,000 words), after which they did "the real work of development in the outline into a novel." He doesn't "consider involvement to be that of a real co-author." His co-authors include Karl Edward Wagner, S.M. Stirling, and Eric Flint.
Drake's plots often use his extensive knowledge of history, literature, and mythology. Starting with Northworld of 1990, he has generally explained the background of each book in an afterword or preface. Additionally, Drake's plots frequently involve a contest of political systems.
As John Clute concluded in the entry on Drake in the 1993 edition of The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, "Today there seems very little to stop from writing exactly what he wishes to write."
Some of Drake's works are available for free download in the Baen Free Library.
Read more about this topic: David Drake
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“The slightest living thing answers a deeper need than all the works of man because it is transitory. It has an evanescence of life, or growth, or change: it passes, as we do, from one stage to the another, from darkness to darkness, into a distance where we, too, vanish out of sight. A work of art is static; and its value and its weakness lie in being so: but the tuft of grass and the clouds above it belong to our own travelling brotherhood.”
—Freya Stark (b. 1893–1993)
“His works are not to be studied, but read with a swift satisfaction. Their flavor and gust is like what poets tell of the froth of wine, which can only be tasted once and hastily.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“His character as one of the fathers of the English language would alone make his works important, even those which have little poetical merit. He was as simple as Wordsworth in preferring his homely but vigorous Saxon tongue, when it was neglected by the court, and had not yet attained to the dignity of a literature, and rendered a similar service to his country to that which Dante rendered to Italy.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)