SCAVENGER HUNT/FINISH LINE

The third novel I ever wrote was a 110,000-word jaunt called Scavenger Hunt. I had -- and still do have -- an inordinate fondness for this book because, unlike Herds and Caravan, this is a light-hearted interstellar romp of the kind I loved to read when I was growing up. (The fact that its hero looks suspiciously like me and travels among the stars in a hedonistic space yacht with an all-female crew doesn't hurt, either.)

Since Laser Books had already published two of my titles, I offered them this one as well. Roger Elwood, the editor, liked it, but there was a problem: the book was too long to fit Laser's format of 50-60,000 words. He wondered whether I could cut it down to that length, but I told him absolutely not; it was already pretty much at the bare minimum for the story I wanted to tell. The next solution was to break it into two books -- but since Laser Books were supposed to be complete in each volume, could I make the two halves read like independent books?

To get my baby out to the public, I gave in on this point. The break in the middle of the story is totally artificial. Toward the ending of the first book, I added some fake conflict to cause the characters to break off the Hunt, and then I added two chapters at the beginning of the second book to recap what happened in the first and to jumpstart the story again. If you read the two volumes and sort of ignore this extraneous material, you'll get the flow of what I was really trying to accomplish.

Recently I've returned the book to its one-volume format. Along the way I've snipped some parts and changed or expanded others. If you read the previous two-volume version, you might find this a significantly different experience. I'm particularly fond of a new character, The Barb. Though she only has a minor role in the proceedings, I find her a lot of fun to be around. I hope you will, too.

This book is now available in a wide variety of electronic editions. A free sample of the book is also available for your perusal.

An interesting note about the Laser artwork. The Laser Book covers were all painted by multi-Hugo winning artist Kelly Freas. At the time he did the cover for Finish Line, he had never met me nor seen any pictures of me; but going just by the description in the book, the character whose face appears on the cover of Finish Line does indeed bear a startling resemblance to the way I looked in those days.