Afsharirad - The Chronicles of Davids

THE
CHRONICLES
OF DAVIDS

Edited by

DAVID AFSHARIRAD

The Chronicles of Davids

Edited by David Afsharirad

STORIES FROM THE FIRST NAME IN SCIENCE FICTION AND FANTASY! Fifteen stories spanning the SF/F genresall by a "David." Includes stories by David Drake, David Weber, Gregory Benford & David Brin, D.J. Butlerand more!
Science Fiction and Fantasy with Maximum Dave
The history of science fiction and fantasy is littered with stories by Davids of distinction. Now, for the first time, an anthology by people named David, for everyone.
Read along as editor David Afsharirad guides you through the strange, wonderous imaginations of the great Davids of the field, past and present. Fifteen tales by David Weber, David Drake, Gregory Benford & David Brin, David B. Coe, D.J. Butler, Avram Davidson, David H. Keller, and many more.
Herein you will find: a Depression-era magic man who comes face-to-face with an ancient evil. A once-promising filmmaker whose fate depends on a movie-producing AI. A shape-shifting detective on the trail of a pack of werewolves. A sentient tank who must confront one of its own. And a diner regular who gets more than he bargained for when he orders the soup du jour.
Featuring David-inspired cover art by celebrated artist David Mattingly, The Chronicles of Davids delivers maximum Dave!
Remember: with a name like "David," it has to be good!
Contributors:
David Weber
David Drake
D.J. Butler
Gregory Benford & David Brin
David B. Coe
Barry N. Malzberg
Dave Freer
Avram Davidson
D.L. Young
David Boop
Hank Davis
Dave Bara
David H. Keller
David Carrico
David Hardy

Baen Books

edited by David Afsharirad

The Years Best Military SF and Space Opera

The Years Best Military and Adventure SF: 2015

The Years Best Military and Adventure SF: Volume 3

The Years Best Military and Adventure SF: Volume 4

The Years Best Military and Adventure SF: Volume 5

The Chronicles of Davids

The Chronicles of Davids

This work contains fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in those portions of this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

Introduction: Whats in a Name? copyright 2019 by David Afsharirad; The Savage copyright 2019 by David Drake; I Couldve Done Better copyright 2007 by Gregory Benford & David Brin; The Seven Nipples of Molly Kitchen copyright 2019 by D.J. Butler; DeMille and Me copyright 2019 by D.L. Young; A Servant of the Protector copyright 2019 by David Hardy; Long Nights Moon copyright 2014 by David B. Coe; Creation Unforgivable by David H. Keller orignally appeared in Weird Tales, April 1930. (All attempts to locate the holder of rights to this story have been unsuccessful. If a holder will get in touch with Baen Books, payment will be made.); As It Began copyright 2019 by Dave Bara; Full Chicken Richness originally appeared in Last Wave, October 1983, copyright 1983 by Avram Davidson; Four Days copyright 2019 by David Carrico; The Tyranny of Distance copyright 2019 by Dave Freer; Lyman Gilmore Jr.s Impossible Dream copyright 2019 by David Boop; Too Many Gods copyright 2019 by Hank Davis; The Traitor copyright 1997 by David Weber; An Epilogue: The House of David copyright 2019 by Barry N. Malzberg.

All other content copyright 2019 David Afsharirad

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form.

A Baen Books Original

Baen Publishing Enterprises

P.O. Box 1403

Riverdale, NY 10471

www.baen.com

ISBN: 978-1-4814-8426-8

eISBN: 978-1-62579-736-0

Cover art by David Mattingly

First printing, September 2019

Library of Congress Control Number: 2019024672

Distributed by Simon & Schuster

1230 Avenue of the Americas

New York, NY 10020

Printed in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Electronic Version by Baen Books

www.baen.com

THE
CHRONICLES
OF DAVIDS

Whats in a Name?

David Afsharirad

According to the Social Security website, the name David has been one of the top twenty names for males born in the United States for over a hundred years. Strange then that I didnt encounter many Davids growing up. In grade school, I was never forced to append my first name with my last initial in order to differentiate myself from all the other Davids in the class for the simple reason that there were no other Davids in the class.

All that changed when I started working at Baen Books. I soon learned that Baen published gentlemen with names like David Drake, David Weber, David B. Coe, David Carrico, and Dave Freer. Soon D.J. Dave Butler and David Boop were added to the roster. And did I mention cover artist David Mattingly, whose work includes the Honor Harrington covers (not to mention the cover to the book you hold in your hands)? Baen had and has a superabundance of Davids. For the first time in my life I was one David among many.

I entered an even larger pool of Davids when my work started getting published and I became a part of the science fiction and fantasy writers community. Indeed, SF/F publishing seems full to bursting with Davids! This fact did not escape me nor did it escape Baen associate editor and author of the Sun Eater series Christopher Ruocchio. The two of us were talking at the Baen booth at DragonCon about the myriad Davids Baen published. (At the time Baen also employed an additional Christopher, though he has since moved on.) It was Christopher who suggested an anthology. You could edit and wed get Mattingly to do the cover, he said. We went on to list all the Baen-Davids and non-Baen-Davids we could include. It was funny; one of the things you come up with during a long convention to pass the time.

Or so I thought.

Christopher had the vision. And he had the will to see that vision through. At the next LibertyCon, at which I was not in attendance, Christopher cornered Baen publisher Toni Weisskopf (read: our boss) during a room party and pitched her the idea. (I suspect some liquid courage was involved, but perhaps not; Christopher is not one in the long and storied line of perpetually soused writers.) Toni agreed to greenlight the project, a fact which I did not know until the tail end of a telephone conversation with her about another matter entirely. Oh, and we need to talk about the Davids book soon, she said casually.

Some time later, with a contract in hand, I went hunting for Davids. The search was not a difficult one. Indeed, there are so many Davids in the science fiction and fantasy field that I could have easily filled three volumes without repeating a David.

Here then an anthology by people named David, for everyone who loves a good story!

Included herein are new stories from David Drake, D.J. Butler, Dave Freer, David Boop, Barry N. Malzberg, Hank Davis, Dave Bara, D.L. Young, David Carrico, and David Hardy; and reprints of the highest caliber from David Weber, David B. Coe, David H. Keller, Gregory Benford & David Brin, and Avram Davidson. Fifteen stories total, all by a distinguished David.

Er, almost.

The eagle-eyed will have spotted three non-Davids in the above list.

Allow me to explain.

Gregory Benford co-wrote a story with David Brin that I really wanted to include, so he gets to be a David by association. In the case of Hank Davis, Toni and I agreed to stretch the point. After all, S is right next to D on the qwerty keyboard, and whats one letter between friends? As for Barry N. Malzberg, David Drake invited him to the anthology and Im sure as hell not going to turn down David Drake and Barry Malzberg, two gentlemen whose writing I admire greatly. Further, anyone who reads the story Mr. Malzberg wrote for the book Im sure will agree it belongs, without a doubt.