I've still adopted quite a bit of the mainstream "high fantasy," I suppose. To some extent I think that's inevitable, given the sort of stories I want to tell. But it's the differences, the spaces between the expectations, with which I most enjoy playing.

Fantasy is also a good place to play with concepts of good and evil, of responsibility and morality. It's a place which is actually designed to let us build heroes and villains who are bigger than life. It can be pure escapism, but there's always a mirror hiding somewhere deep down in the depths, waiting for us to look into it, often when we least expect it.

And, finally, from my own perspective as a writer, fantasy offers a welcome break from science fiction. I'm a production writer, and I produce somewhere around two million words a year. That's a lot of time in front of the keyboard (well, wearing the voice-activated headset, in my own case), and switching gears helps refresh the sense of wonder and enjoyment that keeps me writing. As any of you who have read my science fiction are undoubtedly aware, I like writing series. I like big story lines, that don't really lend themselves very well to resolution between a single set of covers. And I like to watch characters, events, and societies evolve and grow over several volumes. But maintaining the energy in a series, keeping up the writer's own interest to a level that makes new books enjoyable for his readers, requires occasional breaks. In many respects, the Bahzell novels have represented breaks for me.

At the same time, they aren't something I write only as a vacation from my "real writing." The very thing that makes them a break for me is the enjoyment I find in working on them and the different constraints and opportunities my fantasy characters face as opposed to my science fiction characters.

If I can ever find the time for it, I have at least seven more novels I want to set in Bahzell's universe. Two of them will deal with Bahzell, Brandark, and their further adventures. The other five will include all the (surviving) major characters from the first five books, but most of those major characters will be appearing in very important yet ultimately supporting roles as I get around to finally resolving the lingering conflict between the Kontovarans and the Norfressans. The problem, obviously, is finding time to sandwich those books in amongst the science fiction novels which, as Jim pointed out to me, actually pay the rent.

Now, I have a theory about that. Jim and I discussed it off and on for years. My argument was that if I had more fantasy titles on the shelves, then fantasy readers might actually decide to look for them and even-gasp!-decide to recommend them to their friends. I might even-who knows?-come to be known as a fantasy writer, as well as a science fiction writer, and then the fantasy novels might start generating enough income to make Jim happy to see them. You see the point I'm cunningly making here? If you buy the books, and if you encourage your friends to buy them, then it'll get easier for me to convince Baen Books to let me write even more of them, which will put more of them on the shelves, which will generate more sales, which will . . . Well, I'm sure you get the point, and I hope at least some of you will think this would be a Good Thing.

I expect Toni will go ahead and let me squeeze them into my writing schedule anyway. She understands how important they are for that gear-switching I mentioned above. Besides, I think she likes them. Of course, she could just be trying to avoid hurting my feelings . . . .

Nah, not Toni!

At any rate, here's Oath of Swords, the first of Bahzell Bahnakson's adventures and misadventures. The new novella included with it isn't set at any particular point in Bahzell's life. Those of you who have read the other novels will realize it comes after certain events in them, but aside from that, its exact chronology sort of floats in the timeline of the mainstream of the series. Who knows, maybe it was all a dream. Then again, Tomanâk did warn him about all those alternate universes-

What? Oh, that was in Wind Rider's Oath, wasn't it? (Shameless plug for later book in series.)

I hope you like it. I hope you tell Toni you like it, so I can write more of them sooner. Eventually, assuming I'm not struck by a meteorite or something equally drastic, I will get them all written, I'm sure. But I'm not going to complain if you choose to bombard Baen Books' offices with requests for more of them in the meantime.

Honest.

David Weber

I

He was thinking about snow when it happened.

He really ought to have been getting his mind totally focused on the task at hand, but the temperature had topped 110° that afternoon, and even now, with the sun well down, it was still in the nineties. That was more than enough to make any man dream about being some place cooler, even if it had been-what? Three years since he'd really seen snow?

No, he corrected himself with a familiar pang of anguish. Two and a half years . . . since that final skiing trip with Gwynn.

Gunnery Sergeant Kenneth Houghton's jaw tightened. After so long the pain should have eased, but it hadn't. Or perhaps it had. Right after he'd received word about the accident, it had been so vast, so terrible, it had threatened to suck him under like some black, freezing tide. Now it was only a wound which would never heal.

The thought ran below the surface of his mind as he stood in the commander's hatch on the right side of the LAV's flat-topped turret and gazed out into the night. As the senior noncom in Lieutenant Alvarez's platoon, Houghton commanded the number two LAV (unofficially known as "Tough Mama" by her crew), with Corporal Jack Mashita as his driver and Corporal Diego Santander as his gunner. Tough Mama was technically an LAV-25, a light armored vehicle based on the Canadian-built MOWAG Piranha, an eight-wheel amphibious vehicle, armored against small arms fire and armed with an M242 25-millimeter Bushmaster chain gun and a coaxial M240 7.62-millimeter machine gun. A second M240 was pintle-mounted at the commander's station, and Tough Mama was capable of speeds of over sixty miles per hour on decent roads. She drank JP-8 diesel fuel, and technically, had an operational range of over four hundred miles in four-wheel drive. In eight-wheel drive, range fell rapidly, and the original LAVs had been infamous for leaky fuel tanks which had reduced nominal range even further. The most recent service life extension program seemed to have finally gotten on top of that problem, at least.

At the moment, Mashita was sitting behind the wheel, with the big Detroit diesel engine to his immediate right and his head and shoulders sticking up through the hatch above his compartment. The twenty-year old corporal had just finished checking all of the fluid levels-which he'd do again, every time the vehicle stopped. Santander was standing to one side, jaw methodically working on a huge wad of gum, as he spoke quietly with Corporal Levi Johnson, the senior of their evening's passengers. The four-man recon section they were responsible for transporting and supporting had already stowed most of its gear aboard, and Houghton reminded himself to check the tunnel from the LAV's driver's compartment to the troop compartment before they actually headed out. It was supposed to be kept clear at all times, but people had a habit of protecting equipment and gear from damage by stowing it in the tunnel, rather than stowing it in the open-sided bin mounted on the back of the turret or lashing it to the outside of the vehicle, the way they were supposed to.

Houghton had already completed all of his other pre-mission checks. Fuel, battery, ammo, night-vision, thermal sights, commo, personal weapons . . . He still had a good twenty minutes before they were scheduled to leave, but he and his crew were firm believers in staying well ahead of deadlines.