Robert Asprin - Early Writing

Early Writing

Asprin's first novel, The Cold Cash War, an expansion of an earlier short story of the same title, was published in 1977.

Over the next few years, he created and edited (with his then-wife, Lynn Abbey) the Thieves' World series of shared world anthologies, credited as the first project of its type. Soon after the series hit its stride, many of the authors produced novels and stories outside the anthologies, beginning with Beyond Sanctuary by Janet Morris, the first "authorized" Thieves World novel, published in 1985. Janet Morris and Chris Morris went on to produce two more authorized Thieves' World "Beyond" novels and a series of related novels about their immortalized character, Tempus, and the Sacred Band of Stepsons. A series of graphic novels followed in the mid-1980s, and several other authors, including Andrew J. Offutt and David Drake, published novels about their characters. In 2002, Lynn Abbey resurrected the series with the novel Sanctuary.

In 1978, Asprin began the "MythAdventures" series, chronicling the comic adventures of Skeeve and Aahz, with the book Another Fine Myth. Originally illustrated by Frank Kelly Freas, and later by Phil Foglio, the highly pun-driven books follow a "demon" magician who has lost his powers and his inexperienced human apprentice as they travel through a variety of worlds in pursuit of finding their place in life, though under the guise of seeking wealth and glory. Some of the early "Myth" novels were later adapted as comic books by Foglio and others. The Myth books have passed through three publishing companies over the years: Donning Starblaze, Meisha Merlin and, as of 2008, Wildside Press.

In the 1990s, Asprin's "Phule" novels followed the humorous science-fiction exploits of a rag-tag company of the "Space Legion" and its wealthy and iconoclastic leader, Willard Phule.