As a huge David Drake fan, thanks so much for this episode! I remember reading old Nathan when it came out. As a native of western North Carolina, some of the elements of the story were familiar to me. However, the attempt at dialect – less so.
On David Drake’s website he says that he always thought of the book as an episodic novel, but the fact that he wrote two of the stories years before the rest probably contributes to the fact that the book doesn’t feel as coherent as it might.
I’ll respect your desire not to spoil the ending, but that does constrain what I can say. This book is well worth the read, and is so different from the Hammer’s Slammers and Lord of the Isles series for which he is better known.
Manley Wade Wellman was an inspiration for this book. I hope there can be a future episode on one of his stories.
Looking forward to the ATOZ episode on Lord of the Isles!
Got around to reading this (like I wrote earlier, had a couple things ahead of it). I enjoyed it a lot - it's an interesting under-explored modern setting that still has enough room for magic and the supernatural. That said, Drake doesn't lean on the supernatural for the story to progress. It's present, but not forward.
Nice to see an older wiser protagonist instead of another naïve youth heading out on his first hero's journey/origin story. Also, interesting to see some of the effects of aging on him, as these stories seem to be spread out over at least a decade of Old Nathan's life.
I'd never heard of David Drake, though someone up above mentioned Hammer's Slammers, which I'm sure I've read way back when. The podcast discussion made me go buy it immediately. I have a couple things in front of it, but am looking forward to reading this enough to push it up the list.
Really enjoyed this! It's been on my TBR pile for a while, so thanks for the prompt to actually read it. As a Brit, I found the dialect a bit tricky at first, but I think I got my head around it by the end.
I appreciated the way the stories were more or less stand alone, but also that the plots, themes and characters came together as the book progressed. The ending was a big surprise, and I'm still not really sure how I felt about it to be honest. I liked all the stories, but think "The Fool" hit the sweet spot for me in terms of the right level of weird. Although I really want to know more about the Neill clan. Or maybe I don't... But I'd love more stories with them as the antagonists.
For anyone who hasn't read it yet and is wondering whether it's worth tracking down a copy, it's actually available as a free ebook, at least on Kindle and Kobo. So no excuse!
Not sure whether it's convinced me to read more David Drake, knowing that it's very different from his other stuff, but I do really want to check out Wellman's John the Balladeer.
In fact, Weird Fiction fans might have some fun spotting the references in Drake's work, because he was a huge Forteana fan and likes to throw it into his stuff. There's one book that is "The Argonautica x Ong's Hat, in space"...
As with much else of Drake's work, "Old Nathan" is one part pastiche and one part fanfic. You've mentioned Manly Wade Wellman; these stories were, according to Drake's comments, written as tribute to Wellman's "John The Balladeer" (http://david-drake.com/2000/old-nathan/)
There's also an older sci-fi short, "Thy Rocks And Rills", which is probably much more the direct inspiration for Old Nathan than the Wellman stories. It was reprinted in Drake's project "The World Turned Upside Down", a collection edited by Drake and several other Baen writers with the theme of works that had influenced them as writers. (https://www.baen.com/Chapters/0743498747/0743498747___7.htm)