JOURNAL ENTRY #66
May 31, 2010
We’re just back from OASIS 23 in Orlando. OASIS, under the direction of Juan Sanmiguel, is not a large convention, but the fans are loyal, they are enthusiastic, and they come back year after year. And okay, I know that is generally true of people who attend conventions. But this time around was special: We hadn’t been there the last two years, and a lot of people went out of their way to welcome us back. Two reported having broken through and made professional sales, the artwork was particularly outstanding --we picked up a print by Debbie Hughes which blew me away, two dolphins leaping out of the water under a sky dominated by a magnificent ringed world. And a very nice lady presented us with a jar of strawberry jam which I’ve been wolfing down since we got home.
I was on three panels. One with Ben Bova, Sharon Lee, and Steve Miller. Sharon and Steve were the GoH’s. We were to select favorite characters and books from our own work. I had misread the description and went prepared to name my favorite characters in general, who are probably Holmes and Watson, Flashman --the protagonist in a series of novels by George MacDonald Fraser--, and Ben Bova’s Sam Gunn.
Then, at the table, I found out we were supposed to talk about our own books. I usually try to avoid naming a favorite. But I was cornered, so I picked : Priscilla Hutchins, and the other -who’s not really human, at all-- the Winston Churchill AI from ETERNITY ROAD. Winnie gets turned on when a bolt of lightning hits the equipment in an ancient amusement park. He has a chance to talk with Chaka Milana at the moment when she’s ready to give up her search for a legendary library built and maintained by the civilization that had long since vanished.
For my favorite book, I fell back on the novel I’d most enjoyed writing: TIME TRAVELERS NEVER DIE.
I picked up two books at the con, both by Ben Bova: ABLE ONE, which deals with the attempt to put together a defense system against rogue states with missiles; and THE SAM GUNN OMNIBUS. The latter is a definitive collection of stories detailing the exploits of the cranky, goodhearted, run-for-your-life hero. I haven’t read the novel yet. But it’s by Ben, so I have no qualms about recommending it.
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I’ve been catching up on my reading. Other books I’ve enjoyed: THE COMPLETE BOUCHER (NESFA); DEEPTIME (Bard), nonfiction by Gregory Benford; THE VARIETIES OF RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE (Penguin Press) by Carl Sagan; A NEW DAWN: THE COMPLETE DON A. STUART STORIES (Stuart of course is a pen name for John Campbell); and IDIOT AMERICA (Doubleday), by Charles Pierce.
I’ve almost completed Allen Steele’s COYOTE DESTINY (Ace), which I’ve enjoyed. Waiting on my bedside table are, aside from the new Bova novel, Rob Sawyer’s WATCH (Viking Canada), and Joe Haldeman’s STARBOUND (Ace).
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I finished the copy edits for ECHO and sent them back to my publisher on the way out of town Friday. These early versions are barely readable. I feel sorry for the copy editor, who has to plow through the thing. Usually, copy editors content themselves with correcting misspelling, bad usage, and inconsistencies. Occasionally they’ll suggest that things might work better if so-and-so gets pushed out an airlock. But they tend to stay away from style. And that has to be painful, because they can’t miss seeing where vast improvement could be made --indeed, is called for--, but if they try to fix all that, the job would be endless. So they assume the author will figure it out. Anyhow, thanks, Bob.
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And scientists have apparently succeeded in creating artificial life in the laboratory. I wonder whether that’s good news or bad news?
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And a pair of responses to the study that showed, for the first time, the new generation is looking at a life span shorter than their parents’-- (Which comes as a surprise considering that we’ve been able to get smoking pretty much out of public places.)
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The actual issue: not "how long you live" but "how well"? What have you positively accomplished? What have you contributed to society, your family, or to an ecological sustainable better future for all life on Earth?
Chet Twarog
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I was twelve years old when the Eagle landed on the Moon, and I have a box full of newspaper articles that I saved from the Apollo era. As I was rummaging through the box this evening, I found a full-page spread of space related articles published in the Louisville Courier-Journal on July 20, 1969.
According to the articles...
1. "Shelters are being designed that could lead to the establishment of a permanent lunar base by 1985."
2. NASA presented to congress a plan for an automatic "moon jeep" that could be guided from Earth. Following the 10 missions planned for the Apollo program, NASA is developing several 28-day manned missions to orbit and study the Moon.
3. By 1975 we will have a space station that will hold 9 to 12 men for flights up to 6 months. Around 1980 we will have a giant orbiting "space base" that can carry 50 to 100 people for flights of up to year or more. The station will be served by cheap re-usable space shuttles, space jeeps and space tugs.
4. By 1989, NASA will have landed humans on Mars, and taken close-up photographs of every planet in the solar system, including Pluto.
"The first good chance to dispatch a man to Mars comes in 1982, but a more likely landing period is 1986-88."
5. By the end of the 20th century, NASA administrator James Webb predicted that we would land a human on Ganymede or Titan.
--Ingrid Siegert