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[http://www.david-drake.com/ David Drake] is the author of several sci-fi series, and has a major fantasy series, ''[[The Lord of the Isles]]'' which finished in late 2008 with ''The Gods Return''. Has numerous other works.
* [[RCN Series]]
* [[The General]], with S.M. Stirling
* [[Belisarius Series]] with Eric Flint
* [[The Lord of the Isles]]
* [[
* Northworld
* The Reaches
From the book jacket for ''[[Belisarius Series|The Dance of Time]]'' :
* "Vietnam veteran, former lawyer, former bus driver, and now best-selling author..."
* "Drake graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Iowa, majoring in history (with honors) and Latin."
* "His stint at Duke University Law School was interrupted for two years by the U. S. Army, where he served as an enlisted interrogator with the [[wikipedia:11th ACR|11th Armored Cavalry]] in Vietnam and Cambodia."
* From [http://www.david-drake.com/north.html Notes on Northworld] on David Drake's website: "I made what I thought was a pointless change from my normal procedure by adding a short afterword to ''Northworld.''...Lo and behold, all the reviews of ''Northworld'' noted the intricate play of Norse myth in the novel. Well, yes; I'd precised the ''Elder Edda'', the ''Prose Edda'', and the ''Volsungensaga'' before I even started to plot. But I always work that way: I'd outlined all of Procopius' works save for ''The Buildings'' before I started plotting my first novel, ''The Dragon Lord.'' The only difference with ''Northworld'' was that I told the reviewers what I'd done; and, being told, they were able to see what I in my innocence had thought was obvious. Live and learn. I frequently write explanatory essays now."
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=== Major Series ===
* The Lt. Leary series, loosely based off the 18th century British navy, complete with spaceships that travel through hyperspace using sails. However, the sails are handled fairly realistically: stripping a ship's sails with a plasma cannon is a quick and easy way to keep it from escaping into hyperspace, the sails need to be furled and stowed before entering an atmosphere, and when deployed, interfere with the ship's realspace maneuvering and combat.
** Also known as
*** the ''Republic of Cinnabar'' series
*** the Leary/Mundy (after the main characters) series
*** the ''Lt. Leary, Commanding'' (after the title of the second book) series.
*** The [[RCN Series]] (Republic of Cinnabar Navy) series, however, is the nomenclature Drake uses.
** Author's note from ''The Way to Glory'', third book in the series: "The general political background of the RCN series is that of Europe in the mid-eighteenth century, with admixtures of late-Republican Rome. (There's a surprising degree of congruence between British and Roman society in those periods.)"
** In the same way that Honor Harrington is Hornblower/Nelson [[In Space]], the RCN books are Patrick O'Brian [[In Space]], with Daniel O'Leary in the role of Jack Aubrey and Adele Mundy as Stephen Maturin (only with her being the ship's comms officer rather than its surgeon). And a right deadly comms officer she is, too.
* ''[[The Lord of the Isles]]'': Heroic fantasy series. Ended in late 2008 with ''The Gods Return'', which was the last of the ''Crown of the Isles'' trilogy. You read that right.
** The last three books in the series are known as ''The Crown of the Isle'' series.
* ''[[
** Several collections of short stories, ''Hammer's Slammers'', ''At Any Price'', ''The Warrior'', ''The Tank Lords'', ''The Butcher's Bill''
** ''Paying the Piper'' - The Macedonians against the Aetolian League [[In Space]]! Okay, on a planetary surface. (Happy now?)
** ''The Sharp End'' - Rewrite of [[Dashiell Hammett]]'s ''Red Harvest'' on a [[Crapsack World]] in the Slammerverse, except that one of Colonel Hammer's contract teams serves as the collective hero.
** ''Rolling Hot'' - The Tet Offensive in the Vietnam War retold in the Slammerverse.
** ''Counting the Cost'' - The suppression of the Nika ('Victory') riots in Constantinople under the Byzantine Emperor Justinian in 532.
** ''Cross the Stars'': a retelling of the Odyssey [[In Space]] with former Slammer Major Donald 'Mad Dog' Slade as the Odysseus character. Colonel Hammer plays Zeus off-screen.
** ''The Voyage'': Re-write of the Jason and the Argonauts myth in the Slammerverse. The Jason character is female. The nephew of 'Mad Dog' Slade from ''Cross the Stars'' is the viewpoint character. Colonel Hammer again is cast as Zeus, but with only a brief message as an appearance.
* [[The General]] series with S. M. Stirling. (This is ''not'' his [[Belisarius Series]]. See the next entry.) A retelling of the life of the Byzantine General Belisarius in a sci-fi setting on a world after the fall of civilization. The world, Bellevue, has rebuilt itself to approximately 1900 technology. Aka the ''Raj Whitehall'' series, and the ''Raj Whitehall and Center'' series. After the fifth book (''The Sword'' in 1995) the stories shifted to other worlds.
** ''The Chosen'' - World War 1.5 on another world. Crammed with references to real-world military events. "The Chosen" themselves are expies of Stirling's own ''Draka.''
** ''The Reformer'' and ''The Tyrant'' continued on yet another world in the same Universe with Raj existing as a computer simulation. This time it's the Roman Civil War(?). ''The Tyrant'' was co-written with Eric Flint in 2002 and seemed to have ended the series until...
** ''The Heretic'', co-written with Tony Daniel, came out in 2013. The setting here is geographically reminiscent of ancient Egypt, although there's no enormous resemblance in the society. Complicating matters is that another computer like Center, but not as advanced, is maintaining "Stasis" by periodically encouraging barbarian invasions.
* The [[Belisarius Series]] with Eric Flint. The life of the Byzantine General Belisarius as an alternate history, where the two great powers from the far future have each sent an emissary to alter the past in Belisarius' lifetime.
* ''Northworld'' series. Retelling of selected Norse myth as sci fi using powered armor. The name's a pun. North for a cold world like the frozen north of Norse myth. "Norse" itself probably ultimately derived from Middle Dutch ''nort'' for, what else, "north." Also for "North's World" for the expy of Odin, who in the books is named North and commanded a team sent to explore the planet.
* ''The Reaches'': ''Igniting the Reaches'', ''Through the Breach'', and ''Fireships''. Set a thousand years after the collapse of an interstellar government, and based on the period when Spanish and British exploration and exploitation were colliding in the New World, with particular inspiration from the exploits of Sir Francis Drake (no relation). The planet Venus fills the role of Britain (ruled by [[The Virgin Queen|Governor Halys]]), while Spain is played by the Canada-based government of North America.
=== Selected Other Works ===
* ''[[Ranks of Bronze]]'': The campaigns of an ancient Roman Legion captured by aliens who survive as a mercenary army used on low-tech planets.
* ''Patriots'': Sci-fi retelling of Ethan Allen's capture of the British Fort Ticonderoga during the American Revolutionary War.
** From David Drake's website: "There were other interesting things about Allen. While unquestionably violent, neither he nor the violent men under his command killed anybody. That's really remarkable. Taking Allen as a model, I wrote a book in which nobody is killed (which a lot of people will find remarkable also)."
** In the book the Ethan Allen character was described as the type of person who could charge into machine gun fire and survive. This made him dangerous to be around, because the people around him would still get slaughtered.
{{quote|"I've met his type before."
"Type? He's a ''type''?"
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* ''Forlorn Hope'' - Sci-fi foreign mercenaries fight their way out of encirclement and then fight their way off-world when their employers betray them.
* ''All the Way to the Gallows'' - Gallows humor short stories. Includes
** ''Mom and the Kids'' with L. Niven.
** ''The Noble Savages'' - sci-fi sendup of special ops force operating under [[Political Correctness Gone Mad]].
** ''A Very Offensive Weapon'': Novella in which Fantasy Quest tropes are mercilessly slaughtered.
* ''Vettius and Friends'': Short stories of gritty fantasy around the time of Ancient Rome.
* ''Killer'': [[Alien]] like aliens come up against retired veteran of the Roman Gladiatorial games. Veteran trained killer vs natural born killers. Think ''Predator vs Aliens'' without the sci-fi equipment.
* ''The Dragon Lord'' - Gritty retelling of the story of [[King Arthur]]; Drake described the personality of his Arthur as a cross between Alexander the Great and [[Adolf Hitler]].
** This novel was originally intended as a pastiche novel of Robert E. Howard's historical adventure character Cormac Mac Art. Drake re-wrote it when the pastiche was declined.
* The March Up Country: Xenophon [[Recycled in Space]].
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{{examples|Works by David Drake with their own trope pages}}
* The ''[[Belisarius Series]]''
* ''[[The General]]'' series
{{creatortropes}}
* [[Improbable Aiming Skills]]: Adele Mundy from the [[RCN Series]], Joachim Steuben from ''[[
* [[The Quiet One]]: Tovera, Adele Mundy's aide. Subverted in that she's a tiny female. So self-effacing that in ''Lt. Leary, Commanding'', police responding to murderous violence at a society garden party ignore her, despite the fact that she's holding a sub-machine gun. Deadlier than her mistress, the [[Badass Bookworm]]. ''Much'' deadlier.
* Occasionally drops [[Shout-Out]]s to modern culture into his work. A punning one was in ''The Sharp End'' when a ship from the Marvelan Confederacy was known as the ''[[Silver Surfer|Argent Server]]''.
* [[Take That]]: Critic Charles Platt described ''Hammer's Slammers'' as, to quote Drake's summary, "queasy voyeurism," and said that if David Drake had ever seen war, he wouldn't write such things. Drake is a Vietnam veteran; see the quote at the top of the page. If you're a character in one of Drake's books and your name is "Platt," about the best you can hope for is to be stupid; financial corruption and/or unsavory sexual tastes may feature as well.
{{Needs More Tropes}}
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[[Category:Military Science Fiction]]
[[Category:Authors]]
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