From the story card:
I Dare 151,000 words Lee & Miller #24 Liaden Universe® #7
April 2001
To Meisha Merlin
2/2002 PUBLISHED
2001: Ace buys mmp rights to all 7
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Like it says on the card, I Dare is the seventh Liaden Universe® novel. Students of history will recall that we (1) had from the beginning intended to write seven books, and (2) had sold seven at one blow to Meisha Merlin.
We’d hit, therefore, the end of the line.
I’ve told this story before, but, for the three people on the planet who haven’t heard it, or read it someplace else — when we turned in I Dare, it ended with this line: “Yes!” Miri said again.”
Memory says it was the day after, but it might have been a couple days later that we got a phone call from Stephe Pagel at Meisha Merlin, who told us in very flattering terms that I Dare was terrific, only — “The way it ends, people might think there won’t be any more Liaden books.”
On our end of the phone, I looked at Steve and Steve looked at me.
“There will be more Liaden books?” Stephe Pagel said through the speaker in the middle of the dining room table. “Won’t there?”
First Rule of Freelancing States: Never turn down a job.
“Oh, yes!” I said brightly, Steve adding, “There’ll be more Liaden books. Sure.”
“Good,” said Stephe, actually sounding relieved. “So could you write another chapter, and kind of let people know that there’s going to be a book after this one?”
So, we did.
Something interesting here — people have asked us if we had “always intended” to write Fledgling and Saltation, and the answer is “no.” However, we had known for Quite Some Time, just between us, that Daav yos’Phelium had a daughter during his time away from the clan. Just one of those backstory things that writers are liable to know about their characters. And it made sense to bring her in, at that point — whole new character, arriving with a problem? Of course, there will be more Liaden books!
* * *
Lee and Miller’s eagerly awaited conclusion to the Agent of Change sequence of their Liaden Universe® series.
Cover art by Michael Herring. I love that Michael remembered Pat Rin’s earring.