Old Mars

James S. A. Corey is the pseudonym of two young writers working together, Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck. Their first novel as Corey, the wide-screen space opera Leviathan Wakes, the first in the Expanse series, was released in 2010 to wide acclaim, and was followed in 2012 with a new Expanse novel, Caliban’s War. Coming up is another Expanse novel, Abaddon’s Gate.

Daniel Abraham lives with his wife in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where he is director of technical support at a local Internet service provider. Starting off his career in short fiction, he made sales to Asimov’s Science Fiction, SCI FICTION, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Realms of Fantasy, The Infinite Matrix, Vanishing Acts, The Silver Web, Bones of the World, The Dark, Wild Cards, and elsewhere, some of which appeared in his first collection, Leviathan Wept and Other Stories. Turning to novels, he made several sales in rapid succession, including the books of The Long Price Quartet, which consist of A Shadow in Summer, A Betrayal in Winter, An Autumn War, and The Price of Spring. At the moment, he’s published the first two volumes in his new series, The Dagger and the Coin, which consists of The Dragon’s Path and The King’s Blood. He also wrote Hunter’s Run, a collaborative novel with George R. R. Martin and Gardner Dozois, and, as M. L. N. Hanover, the four-volume paranormal romance series Black Sun’s Daughter.

Ty Franck was born in Portland, Oregon, and has had nearly every job known to man, including a variety of fast-food jobs, rock-quarry grunt, newspaper reporter, radio advertising salesman, composite-materials fabricator, director of operations for a computer manufacturing firm, and part owner of an accounting-software consulting firm. He is currently the personal assistant to fellow writer George R. R. Martin, where he makes coffee, runs to the post office, and argues about what constitutes good writing. He mostly loses.

In the tense story that follows, they show us that “honor” can mean many different things to many different people—and to nonpeople too.