Series:The Destroyer
| This is an ISFDB Bibliographic Comments page for the The Destroyer series. This page may be used for a list of the titles in the series, bibliographic comments or extended notes about the series, or discussion on how to organize and/or record the works in the series. The link above leads to the ISFDB series record for The Destroyer. To discuss what should go on this page, use the talk page.
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Link to Wikipedia page on the series.
Although most of the books in this series are officially credited either to Warren Murphy or to Murphy and Richard Sapir, it is known that many of the books were ghost-written, or were written with the aid of additional ghost-writers. The Destroyer fan community has constructed an apparent list of the actual writers for the various books, and these lists are available at Sinanju.com (up through #126, except 106-107) and Sinanju.net (up through #147). These two fan sites agree on all ghost-writer attributions that they share, except for #88.
We do not, however, view these fan sites as authoritative sources, and have used them primarily as an aid in locating more authoritative sources. We have listed true authors when we have such authoritative sources to use. The sources used so far are:
- Reginald3 has contacted Warren Murphy, and gives full authorship information for books 1-86.
- An essay by Will Murray claims credit for books #69-107, and we credit (or co-credit) those to him -- Reginald3 gives co-authorship to Warren Murphy for #69-73. As noted below, #88 has Jim Mullaney as a co-author.
- An interview with Warren Murphy verifies that Warren did not participate in the writing of any books after the series moved to Gold Eagle publishers, i.e. that Warren is not a co-author for issues #95-145.
- The copyright pages on volumes 108 & 110 contain the statement "Special thanks and acknowledgment to Mike Newton for his contribution to this work." Knowing that Murphy did not contribute to these books then specifies their authorship.
- Alan Philipson verifies his authorship of #109 at his blog.
- James Mullaney's home page verifies that he wrote (or co-wrote) #88, #111-131, and #146-149 (the later set being "The New Destroyer" #1-4).
- Tim Somheil writes on Writers.net that he is "now writing The Destroyer series" with issues 134 & 135, with several more issues coming out. A reviewer comments that volume 145 contains the "Special thanks to Tim Somheil" message, and that this is now (at least) a regular feature of these books. Combining this with the widely reported claim (including FantasticFiction) that Somheil wrote 134-145, we view this claim as credible enough to credit him for those books. (Although verifiers should still note if/when that "Special thanks" message appears.)
This leaves the following differences between our attributions and those of the two fan sites mentioned above, claims for which we have not been able to find authoritative evidence:
- One site claims that Ric Meyer was also a co-author of #88.
- Both claim that Warren Murphy was a (true) co-author of #94.
- Both claim that Richard Sapir was a (true) co-author of #101. This book was written well after Sapir's death, but is apparently based on an idea that Sapir had. It is not clear that this would justify co-credit even if we knew this claim was accurate.
- It is widely reported that Mike Newton, in addition to #108 & 110, was also the author of #132 & 133 (e.g. as reported by FantasticFiction.co.uk). It seems likely that verification copies would support this with a "Special thanks" note, and that the probably existence of such a note is why this is "widely reported", but we have not seen those volumes or actual claims of such "Special thanks".