INTRODUCTION
THE MAKER OF WORLDS BY TOM CLANCY
Some years ago, when I was still dreaming about becoming that special breed of cat called “author,” I had a birthday coming up and my wife was out of ideas. I told her to check out the bookstores for any book by Larry Niven except the three I’d already acquired. I don’t remember how many Wanda returned with, but I do know that I still read them periodically.
One of the bad things about being a writer (and there are many) is that when writing a novel, you often find it impossible to read someone else’s novel. Some evil agency inside your brain takes note of the fact that you are reading instead of writing and forbids you to read more than thirty or forty pages. So, often you go back to vegetating in front of the TV because you can only write so much in a day, and the reason you picked up that book in the first place is to get your mind off what you were doing that morning. Writing is, therefore, both a form of compulsive behavior and, I frequently tell people, a self-induced form of mental illness. Those few writers who don’t start off by being a little nuts soon get that way as a direct result of their vocation.
When I find myself in desperate need of removing my mind from THE PLOT so that I can look at it just a little more objectively the next day, my helper and pshrink is Larry Niven. For some reason, my brain does not recognize him as a threat to my compulsion.
The scope of Larry’s work is so vast that only a writer of supreme talent could disguise the fact as well as he does. He doesn’t just set up a cute little story of ETs or interplanetary war. Not Larry—he builds a complete universe. Oh, sure, he keeps the galaxy pretty much as we know it (or think we know it), but he peoples it with whole sets of civilizations, some active, some extinct, all interrelated somehow or other. Now, that’s a pretty tall order, and if you’re not careful how you go about it, the reader would soon be overwhelmed by the background and have trouble catching on to the story itself. But not with Larry. With little more than an occasional oh, by the way he sets all the scenery in place and then gets on with his tale, which is always a story with an interesting point and a fairly tight focus embellished by the scenery instead of being dominated by it.
And this ain’t easy. Trust me, I write for a living, too.
All authors get fan mail, some good, and some not so good. There are two kinds that really matter. The stuff you get from kids is very special. Kids who read for recreation, and then have the audacity actually to write a letter to the author (I never did) are something that always touches you. These kids will go on to accomplish things, and it’s rather nice to think that you’ve influenced them a little bit. Next best is the mail you occasionally get from fellow writers. To be read by someone in the same line of work—and the worst thing about being a writer is that it really murders your reading—is rather like being a fighter pilot and having a beer handed to you by another fighter pilot. Your basic good feeling. I expect that Larry gets a lot of such letters. In the times when I need to escape from inside my head and relax, Larry’s the guy who relaxes me. As I suspect he does with a lot of others. Thanks, pal.