Career
The Cold Cash War was Asprin's first published novel. Drawing from his personal background working as a financial analyst in a large U.S. corporation, Asprin wove a futuristic tale about mega-corporations that behave like nations: they wage bloodless "warfare" on each other using war-game simulations. Ignoring the efforts of actual governments to stop them, these moneyed superpowers eventually lose control of the game when real weapons enter the picture and the hits become lethal. Calling it a "very good treatment of a SF concept popular in the 50s," a Publishers Weekly reviewer praised The Cold Cash War's "satire, action, and character."
Asprin's second novel found him mapping terrain in a different genre: fantasy. Another Fine Myth,published in 1978, was inspired by such heroic characters as Kane and Conan the Barbarian, and Asprin leapt into the project with relish. Basing his two main characters--anapprentice wizard named Skeeve (who also serves as narrator) and his
shifty-eyed cohort, Aahz--on the relationship between Bob Hope and Bing Crosby in their classic screwball "Road" films of the 1940s, Asprin developed a winning duo whose antics have fueled an entire series of humorous "Myth" books, in addition to spinoff graphic novels
In his continuing effort to keep the job of writing fun, Asprin has strived to keep his subject matter from becoming stale. As he once noted, "my first three books are intentionally dissimilar. The Cold Cash War is speculative near-future fiction involving corporate takeover of world government.Another Fine Myth is a sword-and-sorcery farce full of dragons, stranded demons, and very bad puns. The Bug Wars does not have a human in the entire book. It was written 'first-person alien, reptile to be specific' and has been one of my greatest writing challenges to date." In addition to novel-writing,Asprin also branched out into editing, collaborating with fellow editor and writer Lynn Abbey to produce the popular series "Thieves' World." Called "the toughest, seamiest backwater in the realm of fantasy" by Voice of Youth Advocates reviewer Carolyn Caywood, the highly acclaimed "Thieves' World" anthology series brings together a
collection of original short fiction written by a host of predominately women writers, including Abbey, Janet Morris, and C. J. Cherryh. Each book in the series centers around the ongoing struggle between the evil Queen Roxanne and her
nemesis, a blood-sucking enchantress named Ischade. The continuing battle between these two powerful witches continues through such collections as Soul of the City and Blood Ties, each of which takes place in a mythic city called Sanctuary.
Asprin has characterized the overall message behind his writing as "the case for Everyman. Like all science fiction writers, I promote space travel and development. I feel, however, that we will never see it until the average guy on the street can see a place for himself in space. We will have to have the support of the common man, not just the scientists and test pilots." In 1979's Tambu, for example, Asprin assembles what he believes is a realistic crew for a spaceship. A renegade spaceworker who starts a kind of intra-stellar mafia, Tambu and this rough and ready crew use their collective street smarts to protect client planets from space pirates. Calling Tambu an "action-filled tale of how power corrupts," Claudia Morner notes in School Library Journal that Asprin's unusual sci-fi adventure yarn holds a great appeal for YA readers. "It is not only co-educational," the author explained of Tambu; "there are several racial types, ages ranging from teens to old-timers, and a wide cross-section of educational backgrounds. That is what life on Earth is all about, and that is what it is going to be like in space." Reflecting aspects of human reality within his
fantasy has always been Asprin's goal; he maintains that the science fiction writer can be instrumental in changing the public's awareness of the amazing possibilities presented by travel to other worlds. "We are going to need
grease monkeys as well as computer programmers," he once noted. "Few people see themselves as Superman, and as long as science fiction writers portray space travelers in that light, the taxpayers and voters could not care
less about getting off the planet."
Another novel leaning more towards sci-fi than fantasy is Asprin's Time Scout, which he co-wrote with Linda Evans.
Taking place in the near future, the 1995 novel features a world where time travel has become a common vacation pastime. Kit Carson, a retired "time scout"--one of the daring explorers who enter new passages through time in
advance of the common folk--must train his headstrong granddaughter to survive as the first female time scout.