Recovering. Novelizations. And a Billion Dollar Bond

View 713 Saturday, February 18, 2012

Well, I did a SKYPE interview for BOSKONE this morning and I am told it went well enough. The connection was fairly good, and I could generally hear what was said to me from the audience, so I am hoping the quality of the projection wasn’t too bad. I didn’t have a lot of energy, and I am glad it didn’t go on for much longer. BOSKONE has asked me back for next year, and this time I intend to get there.

I posted one big mailbag, and I intend to put up another today or tomorrow. There are a number of topics, and I tried to comment appropriately, although some of the topics deserve a lot more discussion; perhaps that will happen. And enough excuses. I really do think I have some of the most interesting mail on the Internet.

Today ends the Winter Pledge Drive. It went well, and my thanks to all those who subscribed, and particularly to those who renewed after a lapse of a year or two – in one case eight years! Welcome back. This place can’t operate without subscriptions. Fortunately it gets them. If you have been thinking you ought to subscribe – or renew— now’s the time!

Apparently I have fallen way behind in what’s going on in the writing business. Many years ago – early 1972 I think – I was asked to write the novelization of the film Escape From The Planet of the Apes. This was while we were writing Mote in God’s Eye but before we sold it so I needed money to live on, and I was offered a couple of thousand dollars to do this as a work assignment – that is, my name would be on the book, but all rights to the novel were owned by the publisher. I did it in a couple of weeks – Alan Dean Foster who had done a number of film novelizations gave me some invaluable tips on how to do it – and shipped it off. I still am asked to sign old used copies of the book several times a year.

I was later asked to write novels in other people’s universes, such as Star Trek and other franchises, but by then Mote had sold well and Hammer was on the best seller list, and I was science editor of Galaxy, so I had no need or interest, and I haven’t paid much attention to that sort of thing.

I gather that it has not only become a fairly large industry, but there are novels based on games now. And we have this

Apparently, fans found so many inconsistencies between the game of MASS EFFECT

and Bill Dietz’s tie-in novel that they’ve raised howls of protest—and Del

Rey has promised to make revisions to future editions:

http://kotaku.com/5882185/bioware-to-patch-error+laden-mass-effect-novel-in-response-to-fan-uproar

One of those links leads here http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/323/index/9150901/1 where I see in the comments some really interesting avatar pictures. I really know nothing of the Bioware game. I’m way behind in computer games, and I have so little time that I don’t dare try to find out more. I tend to turn-based strategy games anyway, and very few of those are published nowadays.

The whole world of fiction is changing before my very eyes. I understand some authors are filming previews of their novels – actors in costume doing scenes from their upcoming books. The technology has got to the point that almost anyone can make a production quality trailer. Production for Internet quality, that it; theater projection quality movies are still pretty costly even in this electronic era, but that too is changing, and anyone can have a camera and editing hardware and software to do good looking films to be broadcast by Internet. They might not look so good on a large screen high definition set, but I am told even that is changing.

It’s a very different world out there.

Space Access ’12 Conference – April 12-14 – Phoenix Arizona

SA ’12 will be the next round of Space Access Society’s long-running annual get-together for people seriously interested in the technology, business, and politics of radically cheaper space transportation.

Conference location is the Grace Inn, 10831 South 51st Street, Phoenix, AZ. (For room reservations, call 800 843-6010 or 480 893-3000, and mention "space access" to get our discount $69/night breakfast-included

rate.)

Conference registration is $120 in advance, $140 at the door, student

rate $40 either way. We’re not set up to accept credit cards in

advance – for advance registration you need to paper-mail us a check or money order. Include your name, the affiliation (if any) you want listed on your badge, and your email address. Make the check out to "Space Access ’12", and mail it to Space Access ’12, PO Box 16034, Phoenix AZ 85011.

Stay tuned to http://www.space-access.org for more

I always enjoy Space Access. I wish I could make it this year, but probably I will not.

$6 Trillion in Fake Bonds

It makes me wonder what other scams are going on; six trillion in bonds? That’s a big transaction.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2012/02/17/bloomberg_articlesLZJARS6JTSE901-LZJMW.DTL

—–

Most Respectfully,

Joshua Jordan, KSC

Percussa Resurgo

There was a picture of a $1 Billion (in Gold!) printed US Treasury bond with coupons in today’s papers. Astonishing. The US no longer issues printed Treasury bonds, and has certainly never issued a piece of paper worth anything like that – as I understand it we no longer have $10,000 bills. More and more we rely on electronics for large sum transfers. In Asia gold and currency is still transported about for big transactions, but in the West it’s all electronic – and of course vulnerable to hackers, who have become the new counterfeiters.

The counterfeit bonds were marketed largely in foreign countries to be sold at a big discount. I doubt any of our readers would have been tempted…

I find that I get tired easily: I did the BOSKONE interview, a mail bag, and this rather simple writeup, and I am exhausted. Whatever this infection is – and I hear of more and more of my friends who have it – it may not deserve national attention the way swine flu did, but it’s sure affecting a lot of people. I have no idea of how you can avoid it. In my case I am fairly certain I got it from my granddaughter. For her it was a severe case of sniffles, not the debilitating wracking that I have had, thank heaven.

Anyway I am having a mild relapse. This will have to do.