Captain's Report (10 December 2011)

Dear Readers,

The latest War World anthology, War World: Takeover, is now in print and copies are available in the Cargo Bay. All pre-order copies were mailed out last week.

War World: Takeover is the second volume in our grand reissue of War World that will present Haven's history in a chronological fashion for the very first time. Takeover is a trade hardcover volume and runs 432 pages. It contains nine new stories as well as four previously published yarns. Contributors include John Dalmas, ER Stewart, Don Hawthorne, John F. Carr, Leslie Fish and Frank Gasperik, A. Brown, Susan Shwartz, William F. Wu and Charles E. Gannon.

It's a fine looking book and completes the story arc of how the masters of the CoDominium were able to wrest possession of Haven from the Church of New Universal Harmony. The next volume, War World: Jihad!, is scheduled for publication in the fall 2012 and will continue the Mahdi story arc that begins in War World: Takeover.

Have a great Holiday Season!

John F. Carr

Captain's Report (30 July 2011)

Dear Readers,

The latest War World anthology, War World: Takeover, is now going through final proofing and will be published this fall. It is now available in the Cargo Bay for pre-order which includes free Priority mail shipping within the U.S.

On Earth, overpopulation and rising nationalism require the resettlement of millions of troublesome minorities or the fragile peace between the USSR and the USA will go down in flames. It is up to the CoDominium to solve this problem and it just so happens the Bureau of ReLocation has discovered the perfect dumping ground for millions of unwanted minorities and religious fanatics while the mining companies exploiting Haven's considerable resources need a cheap and expendable labor pool. One hand washes the other, thus the CD Bureau of Intelligence gives orders to subvert Harmony rule and turn Haven into a CoDominium Protectorate.

Meanwhile, the inhabitants of Haven are having their own problems due to too many transportees from Earth, too few resources, too few live births and the most inhospitable environment known to sustain life in human occupied space. If that’s not enough, now the Haveners have to face a hostile takeover by the very people they left Earth to escape...

However, they do have a few surprises for the invaders and that's not going to make the Masters of the CoDominium very happy.

There was a last minute cover change for War World: Takeover when we decided to drop the novella, Peace at Any Price, from this volume in favor of the formerly 'lost' sequel to Frank Gasperik and Leslie Fish's Janesfort, which is titled To Win the Peace. As a result of this change, Alan Gutierrez was commissioned to paint a new cover more representative of this volume; the previous cover will appear on the next volume, War World: Jihad! which is scheduled for publication in the fall 2012.

John F. Carr

Captain's Report (23 December 2010)

Dear Readers,

The big War World news is that while going through some old boxes in the basement several months ago I discovered an unfinished story by Frank Gasperik, an old friend and co-author of Janesfort, who passed away on May 3, 2007. Frank Gasperik worked as one of Jerry’s and my editorial assistants at Chaos Manor in the late 1980's and we got to be good friends. While Frank was best known as a songwriter and folksinger, he also appeared as a character in several science fiction novels including Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle’s Lucifer's Hammer, as Mark Czescu, and in Footfall, as Harry Reddington.

Frank’s unfinished War World story, To Win the Peace, was originally started in the early 1990's and was intended to be the sequel to Janesfort. Unfortunately, Frank’s health problems got in the way of finishing it and the story remained forgotten for two decades until I ran across the incomplete first draft. I immediately contacted his long-time friend and collaborator, Leslie Fish, and she remembered the story well. I asked her if she would finish it as a tribute to Frank and she quickly agreed.

I just got the final version this week and it is a wonderful story. Leslie not only finished the story, but did it so well I was unable to tell where his writing began and hers left off. For all of us who enjoyed Janesfort, this is a real treasure. It will make its first appearance in War World: CoDominium Take-Over.

In other War World related news, Analog Science Fiction and Fact published a review of War World: Discovery. I thought I’d run it here for those of you who are not Analog readers:

Analog: Science Fiction and Fact, March 2011, review of War World: Discovery

The Reference Library—Don Sakers

About twenty-year ago, Jerry Pournelle and John F. Carr brought about a shared world series called War World. The five anthologies and two novels of the original series featured stories by a raft of authors, including Poul Anderson, Larry Niven, Mike Resnick, Susan Schwartz, S. M. Stirling, Harry Turtledove and William F. Wu. The stories were as diverse as their authors, ranging from pure military strategy to humor to surprisingly tender fables. The last volume, the novel Blood Vengeance, appeared in 1994, and the fun was over.

At least until 2007, when John F. Carr brought War World back in War World: The Battle of Sauron. Apparently, his intent is to bring the entire corpus of War World stories back into print, supplemented with a substantial number of new stories, portraying the saga in chronological order (the original volumes jumped around haphazardly through history). War World: Discovery is the first volume in this grand reissue.

The War World is Haven, a just-habitable moon of a gas giant called Cat’s Eye. In the future, Haven will become a battleground between humans and the Saurons, a genetically enhanced master race bent on universal domination. In the beginning, however, Haven was a peaceful colony that soon became a prison planet, a dumping ground for malcontents and undesirables of all types. When criminal gangs take over the place and start causing trouble, the Imperial Marines are sent to bring peace to a planet everyone considers a hell-hole.

Of the fourteen stories in this volume, four are republished; the other nine are brand-new. Work by ten authors is included. And while the price tag is a little steep, if you’re a fan of War World and want to see how it all began, it’s worth it.

The next volume in the War World series, War World: The CoDominium Take-Over, will be released next summer. There will be a lot of new stories and only one or two reprints from previous Baen volumes. This is the book that will put the war back into War World.

I’m including a preliminary scan of the War World: CoDominium Take-Over cover art. Alan Gutierrez’s first color sketch will be at the Scanner.

May you all have a Happy New Year’s and a wonderful 2011!

John F. Carr

Captain's Report (30 August 2010)

Dear Readers,

I’d like to report that copies of the new War World anthology, War World: Discovery, have arrived from the printer. It’s a handsome hardcover volume and I’m very pleased with it. I’ll be mailing out the pre-orders all week long.

It’s been a ball working on these books and getting back together with many of my old friends, like Bill Wu, Chuck Gannon, Eugene Stewart and Al Brown, who wrote stories for the earlier volumes as well as this one. We had a lot of fun working out all the details and filling the holes in Haven’s early history.

I’m now working on the next volume, War World: The CoDominium Take-Over, which will be released next year. There will be at least 3 volumes detailing the arrival and departure of the CoDominium from Haven.

To order a copy of War World: Discovery; visit the Cargo Bay.

John F. Carr

Chief Engineer's Report (14 July 2010)

To coincide with the soon to be published new War World anthology, War World: Discovery, we have been busy updating the History Database. It now includes further information on The Church of New Universal Harmony, Haven's first human inhabitants. We trust you will find it interesting.

Mark Richardson

Captain's Report (10 June 2010)

Dear Readers,

I’d like to report that the new War World anthology, War World: Discovery, will be published this summer. Discovery is the first new War World anthology in almost 20 years and is the opening volume in a War World series reinvention that will present War World’s rich history in chronological order. War World Discovery will be published in a hardcover edition and will include 9 new stories as well as 4 previously published yarns.

At the time of its discovery, Haven contains the harshest environment for life of any of the 40 habitable planets within the CoDominium’s sphere. This distant moon quickly becomes the center of a major lawsuit over its ownership. When the New Church of Universal Harmony buys the Colony Charter, the big mining companies send their agents to find a way to muscle their way in. The Harmonies quickly find themselves on the defensive. Behind the lines, some of the biggest industrial magnates, the Bronson and DeSilva families, are pulling strings to secure rights to strip-mine Haven of its resources and mineral wealth. This battle only intensifies when shimmer stones, the most valuable gems in the known universe, are discovered on Haven.

The Bureau of Corrections sees Haven, more than a year’s spaceship journey from Earth, as the perfect dumping ground for political dissidents and criminals. Within the CoDominium, there’s a fracture between US and Soviet interests; both powers want to use Haven for their own interests. Meanwhile, the New Church of Universal Harmony is finding its territories overwhelmed with undesirables from Earth, who neither want to work or live a meditative life.

This conflict quickly turns violent as the newcomers scheme to steal food and goods from the non-violent Harmonies, who see their culture torn asunder to confront the new realities brought by the displaced transportees from Earth. When Kennicott and Dover Mineral Development send their agents to fight over the newly discovered hafnium and shimmer stone deposits, the violence and bloodshed are ratcheted up. Finally, the CoDominium Marines are sent in to save the day, but for whom: the Harmonies, the miners, the convicts, or their puppet masters back on Earth?

To order your pre-publication copy of War World: Discovery for $32, including Priority mail shipping, visit the Cargo Bay.

John F. Carr

Captain's Report (1 May 2010)

Dear Readers,

Welcome to the first War World dedicated web site. Included you will find information on previous War World books, background data on Haven and the CoDominium/Empire of Man future history, the faces behind the curtain, as well as information about new War World books and games.

War World is a military shared-world science fiction series created by Jerry E. Pournelle and John F. Carr. The original series included five anthologies and two novels about the moon Haven and the struggles of its human population against both the world they live on and themselves. It is set in Jerry Pournelle’s CoDominium and Empire of Man future history.

The first new book is War World: The Battle of Sauron, by John F. Carr and Don Hawthorne, a novel detailing the final battle between the Sauron Coalition and the First Empire of Man. War World: The Battle of Sauron was first published in 2008 in a quality hardcover edition. It is available for purchase in the Cargo Bay. The second new book will be War World: Discovery, a hardcover anthology edited by John F. Carr, which will include eight new stories and one non-fiction piece on Haven astronomy. This collection of short stories will chronicle the discovery and colonization of Haven, a moon of a gas giant. Haven is a world of extreme temperatures, hard radiation and some of the toughest humans in the CoDominium. The new War World anthologies will contain both new and previously published stories placed in their proper chronological order. It is scheduled for summer release.

Haven is over a year from Earth by starship and multiple Alderson Jumps from the nearest inhabitable world; in other words, the end-of-the-line of human occupied space. The New Church of Universal Harmony was the original owner of Haven until the CoDominium decided that any place that far away from Earth would make an excellent dumping ground for political exiles, troublesome minorities and garden variety criminals. The strong survived both the harsh conditions and the attacks of their neighbors in a world that had always been at war. War World: Discovery explores the early years of Haven’s discovery and colonization before its annexation by the CoDominium and the Bureau of ReLocation.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank Jerry Pournelle for granting me permission to continue the War World series. I’d also like to thank Mark Richardson for all his work in designing and creating this web site, Alan Gutierrez for the eye-popping artwork that brings War World to life and to Victoria Alexander for all her work in making sure our words shine. I hope you enjoy exploring this site as much as we did creating it.

John F. Carr

Chief Engineer's Report (13 April 2010)

In my opinion the best web browser is Mozilla's FireFox, however, Microsoft's Internet Explorer is still the most popular browser at present. Consequently I have tried to make this site usable in most of the popular browsers and I have tested it on:

Mozilla FireFox v3.6+
Microsoft Internet Explorer v8.0+
Safari v4.0+

It was designed to be viewed on a monitor set to at least 800x600 resolution without needing to revert to horizontal scrolling. If you're using a higher resolution, so much the better.

Due to the fact that all browsers have their own way of displaying information, some parts of the site may look or work differently between browsers, however, all aspects of the site should work.

All pages on this site have been validated and conform to the W3C guidelines and standards.

Mark Richardson