Starbridge (48 page)

Women.

I wanted space adventures featuring female protagonists!

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Not just girls who got rescued once in a while, but women who had adventures--the kind of adventures the male protagonists had. Why couldn't there be female space pilots, or traders, or explorers, I wondered. It wasn't fair for the guys to have all the fun!

Of course, nowadays we have Cirocco Jones, Ellen Ripley, Kate Harlin (from Anne Moroz's
No Safe Place)
and dozens of other great female protagonists. Heroines abound in science fiction and fantasy. But in those days, until Andre wrote about Charis Nordholm (her heroine in
Ordeal),
women were conspicuous only by their absence.

Even in
Star Trek,
which I loved and watched from its inception, most of the females did little more than swoon over James T. Kirk. (You'll note I said
most.
There were a few notable exceptions, such as "Number One." Gene Roddenberry has stated that the network moguls turned pale at the idea of having a woman second-in-command. "Get rid of her," they commanded.

"And while you're at it, get rid of that guy with the ears, too." Oh, well. These were the same people who cancelled the show after its third season, on the grounds that it wasn't popular enough, so that shows how in touch with reality
they
were.)

More years went by. I became a writer myself, and enjoyed having my female protagonists explore, lead, fight, spy--and even rescue the guys, from time to time.

Then, in 1985, my agent said that she thought the time was ripe for a series of space adventure books--and she suggested that I invent one. Thus
StarBridge
was born. I knew what I liked to read, and I knew from the popularity of my
Star Trek
books that other people liked to read the same kinds of stories. So I sat down to invent a universe where those kinds of stories could be set; books about adventure in space, featuring lots of interesting aliens, with the emphasis on character interaction rather than hardware.

Books like those old space-adventure tales that I'd loved as a kid--with one difference. You guessed it--the heroes of these stories could be either male
or
female.

You'll note that the book you're holding in your hands is labeled "Book One."

Currently, there are four more books under contract in the StarBridge series, with the possibility of additional books in the future. For the next volume,
Shadow

309

World,
I teamed up with a talented newcomer, Jannean Elliott.
Shadow
World
is set about fifteen years after the events chronicled in this book.

Even though the five books are a series, they are basically independent stories, and can be read in any order. (No cliffhanger endings to make you grind your teeth waiting until the next book comes out, I promise!) ACE tells me they'll be issuing the books at approximately half-year intervals.

Here's hoping you enjoy
StarBridge . . .

--Ann Crispin April 1989

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311

TekWar

WILLIAM 5HATNER

A gripping futuristic thriller by Star Trek's own Captain Kirk. William Shatner has written a science-fiction action tale sure to captivate his many fans. Set in the stunning technoglitz world of 22nd-century Los Angeles, TEKWAR is destined to beam itself onto bestseller lists across the galaxy.

Coming soon in hardcover to bookstores everywhere!

ACE/PUTNAM

312

QOBEDT A. HEINLEIN

THE MODERN MASTER OF SCIENCE FICTION

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We are not alone...

Across the galaxy, there a
leven known intelligen

Mankind is the twelfth?

We are about to meet our neighbors...