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Cover art for Space Viking by Alan Gutierrez

Carr's publishing company, Pequod Press, has recently released a reprint of the story. In addition, John F. Carr and Mike Robertson have written two sequels to Piper's original novel, The Last Space Viking and Space Viking's Throne.

Terro-human Future History
(from PequodPress.com)

H. Beam Piper's Terro-Human Future History spans over six thousand years of human stability and turmoil: the Third and Fourth World Wars on Earth, the First and Second Federation and the colonization of the solar system and hundreds of worlds, the System States Alliance, the Interstellar Wars, the Neo-Barbarian Age, the Sword-World Incursions, the formation of the League of Civilized Worlds, the First, Second, Third and Fourth Galactic Empires. The First Empire is described as containing 3,365 worlds, 1.5 trillion people and 15 intelligent races. Unfortunately, Piper's untimely death prematurely halted his development of the Terro-Human Future History. Still, Piper left behind an important body of work with the majority of his stories and novels taking place in his Terro-Human Federation.

Piper himself had a cyclical view of human history, one based on his study of history and influenced by Arnold Toynbee, the great English historian whose "A Study of History" had a great impact on the mid-twentieth century view of history. For example, when Piper was working on story ideas for his short story A Slave is A Slave, Mike Knerr writes in his unpublished biography, "PIPER": "Piper dug out his copy of Toynbee's 'A Study of History,' searching for something to write about."

The Terro-Human Future History is one of Science Fiction's richest and one of the most detailed SF future histories, comparable to Robert Heinlein's Future History and Jerry Pournelle's Empire of Man. Piper was a master at fleshing out his stories with background and historical tidbits; all without slowing down the narrative pace. Legendary Editor John W. Campbell said best: "'Space Viking' itself is, I think, one of the classics-a yarn that will be cited, years hence, as one of the science-fiction classics. It's got solid philosophy for the mature thinker, and bang-bang-chop-'em-up action for the space-pirate fans. As a truly good yarn should have!"

John F. Carr is continuing Piper's Terro-Human Future starting with his new sequel to "Space Viking" ("The Last Space Viking") and has plans for more Space Viking books as well as a continuation of "Cosmic Computer."