Over time, it changes - partly because my tastes in SF have changed somewhat, and partly because SF and Traveller have both evolved. In general, though, my preferences tend to swing away from the heavily militaristic, though MilSF does influence the background, and toward the exploratory. Offhand, I'd say that the series that most influence me right now would be the
Republic of Cinnabar Navy series, by David Drake; the
Vatta's War series, by Elizabeth Moon; the
Liaden Universe by Steve Miller and Sharon Lee; and the two books of what I call the Third Way series, consisting of two books so far,
The Course of Empire and
The Crucible of Empire, both by Eric Flint and K.D. Wentworth.
That's not to say that there aren't other influences; those range from Asimov's Foundation and Lije Baley/R. Daneel Olivaw series, through Nivenpournelle's Co-Dominium series, Piper's Terro-Human Future History, Drake and Stirling's Raj Whitehall series, various ideas from the Cordwainer Smith corpus, Dickson's Childe Cycle (Dorsai series), McCaffery's P.E.R.N., Chalker's Four Lords of the Diamond, Zelazny's Amber, Weber's et alia Honor Harrington universe, and so on, right up to such Star Trek novels as the Rihannsu subseries (Diane Duane), Spock's World (also Duane), The Final Reflection (John M. Ford), or Uhura's Song (Janet Kagan).
In short, when Hemdian said
Hemdian said:
Everything has some influence, whether we realise it or not, ...
he had it exactly right.
