[Darqref]

I'd like to recommend any book credited to BOTH Eric Flint and another author. Eric's writing is an acquired taste, and some people won't like it. But the combination of Eric writing with another author frequently brings out qualities not normally found in either writing alone.

During his lifetime, Jim Baen tried lots of tactics to help beginning writers whom he published. One of them was to connect a "younger" writer with a more experienced pro, in the hope that some of the pro's market and name recognition would grow for the newer writer. In some cases this partnership amounted to the pro working on an outline that was finished by the newer writer. In fact, Eric was the recipient of just such a partnership, writing from original outlines in his Belisarius series (starts with "An Oblique Approach"). However, Eric ended up collaborating with David Drake much more closely that other authors had, and the results show.

Jim then threw other authors at Eric to repeat this cycle, but Eric has always taken a more active role in these collaborations. Most times, Eric ends up doing the final editing pass on the complete text (except maybe with Dave Weber on Honor Harrington stuff, for which Dave is the senior writer....). The 1632 series is somewhat different, in that Eric retains creative control over the whole shmear, but actual details tend to be worked out by a group of writers who end up running the whole Grantville Gazette system. This of course includes Eric, but also includes all the authors who you've seen listed as co-authors of 1634 and -5 series books. In this case, I believe that again, Eric does the last editing pass.

To support this general recommendation, I specifically recommend these three books:

1. The Shadow of the Lion (written with Mercedes Lackey and Dave Freer). A fantasy set in a Europe where magic works and thus certain happenings in the early Christian church happen differently. The first book in a series (2 written, another scheduled soon), each author contributes ideas and characters that make the whole story work. In planning, each author was also intending to write single novels in this setting, inter-threading with the jointly-written ones. Dave Freer has written one such, but I don't know how many more are actually under contract.

2. Boundary (written with Ryk Spoor, followed by Threshold). A near-future space science fiction about finding archeological evidence of aliens in the solar system. Each author contributes attitudes and characters. And they each try to beat up on poor Joe Buckley, which is an inside joke amoungst all the Baen authors. Eric and Ryk differ in that they have (at least so far...) left Joe alive, but I think they're getting more extreme about the peril they leave him in. As Ryk tried to explain in another thread, they tried to use at least plausible engineering, and I'm not sure there's anything that complete violates known science.

3. The Course of Empire (written with Kathy Wentworth, followed by "The Crucible of Empire"). Earth gets conquered by aliens, and its 20 years later. One of the best recent efforts to explore the interaction with believable aliens and humans. And some other *really* strange aliens.

In each of these three books, I believe the writing is better than either author would normally achieve writing alone. I've recently read the latest in 2 of 3 of these, and I'm eagerly awaiting the third.