JOURNAL ENTRY #48 September 1, 2009
We were in South Jersey several days ago for the wedding of a niece. During the course of the weekend, we succeeded in getting lost three times. I guess it’s time to invest in a GPS. I’m beginning to feel like the uncle who once told us, in 1949, that TV was only a fad. ’Stick with that console radio, guys. It’s coming back.’
We drove, and, to pass the time, took along some radio programs. The Lone Ranger. The Green Hornet. Lights Out. (This latter was a series, written and directed by Arch Obeler, that played in the late thirties and early forties. They always warned you that if you get scared easily, you should switch to something else. I was about eight during the latter years of the show, and I remember it fondly. Though I might have been listening from under the bed.)
And, finally, Jean Shepherd. I mentioned him in the July 31 entry. He was, for my money, the best performer ever on radio. Pretty much forgotten now. But he holds up beautifully. One of the most memorable compliments I ever got came during my years as an English teacher, from a librarian at Woodrow Wilson High School, in Levittown, PA. She told me that she’d been outside the door during one of my classes, and that I sounded like Jean Shepherd.
Readers ask regularly whether Cauldron will be the final Academy novel. The answer to that is that I don’t know. And I hope that clears up the issue. I’ve never been good at planning ahead. My horizon always tends to end with the book I’m currently working on. Beyond that, I don’t have a clue. If I ever deliver a trilogy, my advice would be to stay clear of it. I’ll finish the 2010 novel in a few weeks, take some time off, and then begin thinking about whatever follows. At the moment, it could be anything. I might do something that depicts how Hutch became a pilot. (She originally played drums for a band called the Joint Chiefs.) Or maybe there’ll be a follow-up to Time Travelers Never Die, which provided the best time I’ve ever had while writing a novel. Or maybe what happens when we get the longevity breakthrough and someone informs the president that people are going to stop dying. And what was that again about social security?
I’ve been doing a daily workout routine for almost twenty years. Recently, I discovered I can ride the stationary bike and read at the same time. Yesterday, on the bike, I finished Barbara Tuchmann’s 1963 Pulitzer prize winner, The Guns of August. It’s a history of the first month of World War I. The overriding lesson: Hundreds of thousands of people were killed due to sheer stupidity at the top. You can’t even find a reason for the war. At least not one that makes any sense. Anyhow, today I’ll be starting Steve Coll’s Ghost Wars, an account of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden.
It fits nicely with the current news reports that some of our top people in Afghanistan say it’s hopeless, and we should get out. The whole thing is mind-numbing. I was under the impression we went into Afghanistan to get Bin Laden. We had him at one point, and then turned the effort over to local tribesmen, who can be bought. But we needed, for some reason, to invade Iraq. Hard to believe that, after Hitler’s experience in World War II, there were still some national leaders who hadn’t gotten the point about two-front wars.
Mike Resnick invited me to write an introduction for Blasphemy, a collection which will be released in 2010. The date is not yet certain. The book, which obviously has a religious theme, includes two novels, Walpurgis III (in which the action takes place on a world reserved for devil-worshippers), and The Branch. The latter gives us a latter-day messiah who’s closer to what had been anticipated: Someone to lead the chosen people in a war against their enemies. There are also five short stories. The content is typical Resnick, which is to say, engrossing.
One final item, which I’m embarrassed to report. I’ve jettisoned Callisto as the title for the 2010 Alex Benedict novel. The main reason: I can’t remember it. A secondary reason: It has no kick. The real action in the book takes place around a star that has no name, only a catalog number. But the World’s End Touring Company needed something better, so they adopted Harbinger. The title was sitting there all along, staring me in the face.