When the inevitable suggestion was made that we should re-ally think about doing something together, I was willing. One of the things I admired most about his writing was that he could be funny—very funny—without being sickeningly cute or dragging a joke until it died. Though there were elements of slapstick in his stories, the characters weren't stupid. Mistakes are made out of innocence or ignorance. Comic timing evolves out of the situation. He imbued his characters with wisdom, loyalty, and warmth. You would probably like to hang out with them. I would.

Bob came up to our house one January: an act of faith, since he now lives in New Orleans and we live in the suburbs of Chicago. We talked, with Bill standing by as a referee in case things got ugly. They didn't. I gave Bob the respect he deserved for his experience and accomplishments, and he offered me acceptance as an established newcomer. Bill went back to his office to play computer games, and Bob and I started talking ideas.

Our first crack out of the box was an original book, License Invoked (Baen Books). We worked out our story line and characters together, then decided who would write what sections. Books change all the time while they are being written. They develop— we hope, for the better. The result was longer than a novel he would usually produce, and shorter than one of mine. The plot ran pretty much along the lines we'd laid out, though the structure and the villains changed a lot. I liked our main characters. It wouldn't bother me a bit to do something else with them—later.

By now, Myth Adventures had lain dormant for a long while. Bob had two books to run on the twelve-book contract with Donning Starblaze, the trade paperback publisher who produced the original Myth Adventures series. Because they'd gone belly-up, years had passed before the rights to books eleven and twelve could be extricated.