Authors
The series was originally co-written by Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir. Their collaboration took the form of each separately writing a portion of each book. The usual process was for one of them to begin the book and for the other to finish it. In the late 1970s, the relationship between the two men became tense, and Sapir left the series. In the early 1980s, Murphy began using ghostwriters to help with the series, including his wife Molly Cochran. By the mid-1980s, Sapir returned to the series to write some more books.
In the late 1980s, Will Murray took over the sole responsibility of writing the series, after having written several previous books with either Murphy or Sapir. After Sapir died, Murray continued the series until the late 1990s. When Murray left after novel #107, three novels were written by interim ghostwriters (#108 & #110 by Mike Newton; #109 by Alan Philipson). Jim Mullaney took over for novels #111-#131, followed by two more by Newton. Tim Somheil was ghostwriter from #134 through #145.
On July 11, 2006, it was announced that The Destroyer would be moving to Tor Books, part of the St. Martin's publishing group. Along with the change of publisher, Somheil was dropped in favor of Mullaney, who co-wrote the new novels with Warren Murphy. The last novel published by Gold Eagle, Dragon Bones, came out in October 2006. The first Tor novel, The New Destroyer: Guardian Angel, was published in May 2007, accompanied by a re-release of three older novels collected as The Best of the Destroyer. The second novel, Choke Hold, was published October 31, followed by Dead Reckoning in April 2008 and Killer Ratings on July 28 of that year. Due to disagreements between the authors and the publisher, this fourth New Destroyer will remain the last one for the time being.
A few years ago, Murphy started his own publishing house, Ballybunion, as a vehicle for Destroyer spin-off books. Ballybunion has reprinted The Assassin's Handbook, as well as the original works Destroyer World: The Assassin's Handbook II, Destroyer World: The Movie That Never Was (a screenplay he and Richard Sapir wrote for a Destroyer movie that was never optioned), The Way of the Assassin (the wisdom of Chiun), and New Blood, a collection of short stories written by fans of the series.
In 2011 the rights to most of The Destroyer novels reverted to Warren Murphy. They are being released in E-book format for the Amazon Kindle. Warren Murphy has stated on his Facebook page that he's writing a new Destroyer story which will also be available for the Kindle.
Read more about this topic: The Destroyer (fiction)
Famous quotes containing the word authors:
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—Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679)
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—Franz Grillparzer (1791–1872)
“If in the opinion of the Tsars authors were to be the servants of the state, in the opinion of the radical critics writers were to be the servants of the masses. The two lines of thought were bound to meet and join forces when at last, in our times, a new kind of regime the synthesis of a Hegelian triad, combined the idea of the masses with the idea of the state.”
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)