Dogs and Homework

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

Today is one of those crazy days, because I’m finishing re-purposing son’s room, soon to be guest room and my craft den (I don’t have as much time to play with fabric and paint and clay as I used to, but sometimes I need an hour or two to do something with my hands while the brain turns something or other that I’m having trouble with upon itself.)

I am now under sail on Darkship Revenge.  I’ve attempted it before, and managed it for a few minutes, and then I’d lose it, that sense of being in the book.

For those who don’t remember — the last year has been such a mess — in the move in March I lost THE thumbdrive containing the most recent/complete version of the book.  I then tried to rebuild the second half, and it felt… bland, because I was trying to remember what I’ve done.  I’ve since realized it was wrong anyway, as I completely ignored a third factor that WOULD feed into events.  But I couldn’t get into it enough to do what I thought was a structural edit.  I’ve decided to just write it, and it’s coming out much stronger and natural, even though all my characters are lunatics and keep taking steps I didn’t see coming (Does this happen to anyone else?  That is when I know the writing is working.  That and 3/4th of the way through the book, when it does a sudden FLIP and changes completely on me.)

Anyway, that’s now underway, and I want at least four hours to sit down and do something with it, but–

But this is my chance to get the carpet in that room finished (having a mostly incontinent cat there for two months has proven challenging) and to do the sort of lick and promise cleaning to the rest of the house  that will allow us to live here for another week without sinking in our own dirt.  Mostly kitchen wipe down, bathrooms clean, and cat boxes.  The rest is just dust-and-vacuum and quickly done.  Still not sure if that happens today, since writing is WAY higher on my list of priorities.

I had a guest post for today, but I also had technical difficulties with it.  (My fault, should have opened it first.)

All of this is compressed because we need to go to Denver this evening, to see L. Neil Smith receive the lifetime Prometheus award.

For those of you going to Milehi, no, I’m not snubbing it, I’m just stupid.

Life is starting to slow down from the frantic whirl of the last two years (which is good, because I need to recover from the exhaustion) but I mean to sign up for Milehi two months ago… and then younger son found the apartment he wanted to move to, the cat got ill, and two-legs had surgery.  Which means I forgot it completely.  So I’m not signed up, and since I have no panels I’m taking the weekend to work instead of attending (At any rate I have another driving practice thingy on Sunday morning.) BUT I’d like to meet L. Neil Smith, and it seems like every time we try to, one or the other of us gets ill, so this might be my only chance.  We’ll get there a little early and maybe say hi to some of you, if you’re around.

Meanwhile, to keep you amused, while I go and do a dervish-clean of the house.

In a moment of insanity, perhaps understandable to the psychiatrist he doesn’t have, my brother sent me a list of the books from THE SF collection that published in Portugal.  He thought you guys might want to see it, though I’m not a hundred percent sure why, since we did NOT in fact have all of these books.  He was HIGHLY amused by your reactions to pictures of the books we did have, and wanted to see what you said to these, I guess.

First, you must understand why we didn’t have most of these: Portugal worked on a weird system, which resembled the one that has become common here for traditional publishers now, and is perhaps a factor of low profit margin: it published books, which were calculated to be less than what would sell.  When they disappeared from the stores, that was it.  If you hadn’t been so lucky as to secure one, you were done, unless by some freakish chance you found them in one of those turning racks in a touristy shop in a fisherman village in the South of Portugal (where I found titles more than ten years old, when I was fourteen.)

This means with the best goodwill in the world, we missed a lot of the books we wanted to read.

I don’t know why he thought this would be fun for you guys to look at, and at any rate I’m only giving you the first hundred, leaving the other two hundred as dubious treats for another time I run out of material.

One thing you’ll notice is that we have a lot of non-English science fiction.  More as it goes on.  The ones I remember are Pierre Barbet’s books, which I enjoyed immensely as a kid, but I find they don’t hold now, not even when read in the original French.

Anyway — sorry to do this, but I got to run.

 

1 Perdidos na Estratosfera Adrift in the Stratosphere A. M. Low
2 O Estranho Mundo de Kilsona The Green Man of Graypec Festus Pragnell
3 A Última Cidade da Terra The City at World’s End Edmond Hamilton
4 A Nave Sideral The Last Space Ship Murray Leinster
5 O Universo Vivo L’Univers Vivant Jimmy Guieu
6 O Mundo Marciano The Martian Chronicles Ray Bradbury
7 Inconstância do Amanhã Tomorrow Sometimes Comes F. G. Rayer
8 O Veneno de Marte David Starr: Space Ranger Paul French
9 Missão Interplanetária The Voyage of the Space Beagle A. E. van Vogt
10 Exploradores do Universo Antro the Life Giver Jon J. Deegan
11 O Homem que Vendeu a Lua The Man Who Sold the Moon Robert A. Heinlein Hugo: 1951 (2001)
12 Os Humanóides Atacam From what far star Bryan Bery
13 O Cérebro de Donovan Donovan’s Brain Curt Siodmak
14 Indómito Planeta The Metal eater Roy Sheldon
15 O Mundo em Perigo World at Bay E. C. Tubb
16 Sentinelas do Universo Sentinels from Space Eric Frank Russell
17 Regresso à Pré-História Three Go Back J. Leslie Mitchell
18 O Homem Ilustrado The Illustrated Man Ray Bradbury
19 Caminhos do Espaço Spaceways Charles Eric Maine
20 A Sexta Coluna The Day After Tomorrow Robert A. Heinlein
21 As Correntes do Espaço The Currents of Space Isaac Asimov
22 Vigilância Sideral Les Étoiles ne s’en Foutent Pas Pierre Versins
23 Slan Slan A. E. van Vogt
24 A Tentação Cósmica La Tentacion Cosmique Roger Sorez
25 O Reino das Mulheres The Haploids Jerry Sohl
26 A Idade do Ouro Childhood’s End Arthur C. Clarke
27 O Planeta 54 Chute Libre Albert Crémieux
28 Futuro do Mundo Pebble in the Sky Isaac Asimov
29 Loucura no Universo What Mad Universe Fredric Brown
30 Gerações do Amanhã Beyond This Horizon Robert A. Heinlein
31 Xadrez Cósmico Cosmic Encounter A. E. van Vogt
32 Robinsons do Cosmos Les Robinsons du Cosmos Francis Carsac
33 Fahrenheit 451 Fahrenheit 451 Ray Bradbury Hugo: 1954 (2004)
34 Guerra no Tempo Time and Again Clifford D. Simak
35 O Homem Demolido The Demolished Man Alfred Bester Hugo: 1953
36 Os Corsários do Espaço Lucky Starr and the Pirates of the Asteroids Paul French
37 As Cavernas de Aço The Caves of Steel Isaac Asimov
38 A Invasão dos Marcianos; Não Apontem aos Marcianos En Avant, Mars!… Pierre Versins
39 Estrela Dupla Double Star Robert A. Heinlein Hugo: 1956
40 O Síndico The Syndic C. M. Kornbluth
41 Tiranos da Terra Les Voyants Christian Russel
42 Mundos Simultâneos Ring Around the Sun Clifford D. Simak
43 A Cidade da Ciência Les Savants Dans l’Aréne Maurice Vernon
44 História de Dois Mundos Planet of the Dreamers John D. MacDonald
45 O Décimo Planeta La Dixième Planète C. H. Badet
46 Os Marcianos Divertem-se Martians, Go Home Fredric Brown
47 Salto no Tempo Via Velpa Yves Dermèze
48 Mundo de Vampiros I Am Legend Richard Matheson Filmes baseados no romance: The Last Man on Earth (1964), The Omega Man (1971) e Eu Sou a Lenda[12]
49 Vuzz… Vuzz… P. A. Hourey
50 Os Mares de Vénus Lucky Starr and the Oceans of Venus Paul French
51 A Porta do Espaço Portes Sur l’Inconnu Adrien Sobra
52 Atenção aos Robots Alerte Aux Robots! Jean-Gaston Vandel
53 A Morte da Terra La Mort de la Terre J. H. Rosny aîné
54 Regresso a Zero Retour a “O” Stefan Wul
55 Os Frutos Dourados do Sol The Golden Apples of the Sun Ray Bradbury
56 Pré-História do Futuro Niourk Stefan Wul
57 O Robot de Júpiter-9 Lucky Starr and the Moons of Jupiter Paul French
58 A Rainha Rebelde Rogue Queen L. Sprague de Camp
59 Partida Para o Espaço Takeoff C. M. Kornbluth
60 O Vagabundo das Estrelas L’Orphelin de Perdide Stefan Wul
61 A Superfície do Planeta Surface de la Planète Daniel Drode
62 Rumo ao Universo Destination: Universe A. E. van Vogt
63 O Tempo das Estrelas Time for the Stars Robert A. Heinlein
64 O Mundo dos Draags Oms en Série Stefan Wul
65 Projectado no Futuro Timeliner Charles Eric Maine
66 Ortog Aux Armes d’Ortog Kurt Steiner
67 O Homem que Vinha do Passado Venus Plus X Theodore Sturgeon
68 O Espaço Será Pequeno Space on my Hands Fredric Brown
69 Geração Galáctica The Space-Born E. C. Tubb
70 Ameaça dos Robots The Naked Sun Isaac Asimov
71 O Dia das Trífides The Day of the Triffids John Wyndham The Day of the Triffids[12]
72 Missão em Sidar Rayons Pour Sidar Stefan Wul
73 Operação Vénus Na Orenjevoy Planete (На Оранжевой Планете) Leonid Onochko
74 Colónias no Espaço Alien Dust E. C. Tubb
75 Plano 7 Level Seven Mordecai Roshwald
76 Degelo em 2157 La Peur Géante Stefan Wul
77 A Aldeia dos Malditos The Midwich Cuckoos John Wyndham Village of the Damned[12]
78 Caminhavam Como Homens They Walked Like Men Clifford D. Simak
79 A Máquina do Poder La Machine du Pouvoir A. Higon
80 Cidadão do Universo Pour Patrie, l’Espace Francis Carsac
81 O Signo do Cão Le Signe du Chien Jean Hougron
82 Emissários do Futuro Le Temps n’a pas d’Odeur Gérard Klein
83 O Satélite Sombrio Le Satellite Sombre Jérome Sériel
84 A Nuvem Negra The Black Cloud Fred Hoyle
85 O Templo do Passado Le Temple du Passé Stefan Wul
86 Fundação e Império Foundation and Empire Isaac Asimov
87 A Astronave da Esperança Seed of Light Edmund Cooper
88 A Era dos Biocibs L’Ére des Byocibs Jimmy Guieu
89 Segunda Fundação Second Foundation Isaac Asimov
90 Armadilha em Zarkass Piège sur Zarkass Stefan Wul
91 A Guerra Contra o Rull The War Against the Rull A. E. van Vogt
92 Luta Intergaláctica Outside the Universe Edmond Hamilton
93 As Máquinas da Alegria The Machineries of Joy Ray Bradbury Coletânea
94 S. O. S. Lua A Fall of Moondust Arthur C. Clarke
95 Náufragos da Lua A Fall of Moondust Arthur C. Clarke
96 2000: Anos de Terror Crisis 2000 Charles Eric Maine
97 O Abismo de Chicago The Machineries of Joy/2 Ray Bradbury Coletânea
98 Ameaça de Andrómeda A for Andromeda Fred Hoyle
99 Os Amotinados do Polar Lion A Small Armageddon Mordecai Roshwald
100 De Júlio Verne aos Astronautas – Os Melhores Contos de Ficção Científica Editado por Lima de Freitas Coletânea
Vários autores, entre o quais Júlio Verne, H. G. Wells, Arthur C. Clarke, Jorge Luis Borges,Poul Anderson eRay Bradbury e Daniel Keyes (pormenor na linha abaixo)
Flores para Algernon Flowers for Algernon Daniel Keyes Hugo:1960

Números 101 a 200[editar | editar código-fonte]

Na segunda centena de livros publicados encontram-se obras como Revolta na Lua e Soldado no Espaço, ambas de Robert A. Heinlein.Estas obras foram publicadas nesta coleção entre 1965 e 1974.[11]

Lista de obras publicadas na Colecção Argonauta nº101 a 200 [11]
[Esconder]
Nº		 Título em português Título original Autor Notas
101 Nova Ameaça de Andrómeda Andromeda Breakthrough Fred Hoyle
102 A Guerra das Salamandras Válka s Mloky Karel Čapek
103/104 Perdido no Espaço Marooned Martin Caidin
105 Engenheiros Cósmicos Cosmic Engineers Clifford D. Simak
106 O Vírus Destruidor The Darkest of Nights Charles Eric Maine
107 O Império dos Mutantes La Mort Vivante Stefan Wul
108 A Cidade Fantástica Dandelion Wine Ray Bradbury
109 Cataclismo Solar The Drowned World J. G. Ballard
110 Estrelas Inimigas The Enemy Stars Poul Anderson

 

104 thoughts on “Dogs and Homework”

      1. Don’t know if All of E. C. Tubb’s books are out in e-format but I’ve seen plenty of his in the Kindle Store.

        Oh, did you know he wrote the “Cap Kennedy” space opera books? :wink:

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      2. I’ve kinda wanted to reread some of the Dumarest books ever since I read that Dumarest (the character) was inspired by Eric John Stark. Unfortunately, my paper is boxed up in the attic, and the kindle editions used to be pricey; it looks like they’ve come down since I last time looked. (Or I mis-remember, which happens more they I should like.)

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  3. Some of Pierre Barbet’s books got published in the US (by DAW).

    I remember enjoying them but I doubt that I’d spend big money (or time) to re-read them.

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  4. If you hadn’t been so lucky as to secure one, you were done, unless by some freakish chance you found them in one of those turning racks in a touristy shop in a fisherman village in the South of Portugal (where I found titles more than ten years old, when I was fourteen.)

    Twice I have known such places, both near schools. One was a drugstore on Broadstreet near Temple University in North Philadelphia, the other was an actual bookstore on Franklin Street a block from UNC Chapel Hill.

    That latter, The Intimate Bookshop, was founded in 1931. I am convinced that if a copy of any book they stocked hadn’t sold it stayed on the shelves until it did. Housed in a storied building with creaking wooden floors, the labyrinth of shelving contained happy surprises just about everywhere you turned. For The Spouse and I a trip there could be costly, but oh!, what joys. It became part of a holiday tradition that only ended when the store burned spectacularly to the ground. Those wood floors had been kept oiled in their early decades, and once the fire took the building was doomed. Great great sadness…

    Liked by 1 person

    2. I am convinced that if a copy of any book they stocked hadn’t sold it stayed on the shelves until it did.

      Once upon a time, there was a used bookstore in the town in which I currently live.

      I had spent the summer here working while in college, back in ’83. To finance myself during that awkward period between when I arrived and when I received my first paycheck, I sold my big box of science fiction to the bookstore.

      When I moved back here in ’02, the bookstore was on the other side of the street. I went looking for some of the books I had particularly missed, and most of them were still there.

      So not only did things sit on the shelf until they sold, but at some point someone had taken everything off the shelves, wheeled them across the street, and put them back.

      Sadly, the store only lasted a couple more years. I miss it.

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    3. There was an office-art-etc. supply store in my little home town, 100 miles from anything considered a city. They actually had an SF rack in the back (IIRC, maybe a whole two dozen titles?)

      I think I was the main (if not only) income stream for that rack, once I began working for my Dad at kennel cleaning and general labor. Ten to fifteen bucks every week went a long way when the paperbacks were between $0.95 and $3.00 a pop.

      Alas, most of those are gone now; they eventually wore out and required replacement for much more.

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      1. I was pulling paperbacks to give away, and found Charles de Lint’s _Greenmantle_. Thick paperback. $3.85 cover price. Today it would probably be at least $7.99.

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  5. Apropos of nothing actually in Sarah’s post today but instead to one of the baseline themes around here, I found the article linked below addressing the value of “odds” in a workplace environment interesting.

    Note the observation that keeping a few “office misfits” around might be a good idea just in case the market pulls the rug out from under the approach your cohesive groupthink company culture can mentally accommodate – kind of a genetic-diversity-for-evolutionary-adaptation-success argument for the office world.

    https://melmagazine.com/embrace-your-office-misfits-9c20d2c43f6e#.2sahthwv0

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    2. I am not Odd, I am a profitably eccentric Lady of a Certain Age.

      And yes, yes, he most certainly is. (And it appears that the Feds have just [re]discovered jury nullification.)

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              1. I would think that the best way to a stuffed dragon was to set the dragon down in an area full of lightly guarded herds of sheep…

                Anyway, oh no you don’t I just wasted a good part of the day finding all sorts of patterns for clothes from Regency to Edwardian … and before I could stop myself I found a dragon from somebody named Melinda at Small Works and and and…

                Somewhere along the line I think it would be appreciated it if I did something other than play with search engines.

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                  1. *waves paw, bounces up and down* Back in college (the first time) I had a stuffed dragon from Firebird Arts and Music (before they turned evil) that had coat-hanger wire inside it, so you could pose it. It rode on my shoulder and was great for getting people to stare or do double takes. Especially people without a sense of humor. it almost got hooded with me at graduation, but the dean put her foot down, and NO ONE messed with the Dean. About 24″ nose to tail, four legs, plus wings. Is in a box somewhere.

                    Liked by 1 person

                    5. Yes, like that but with a stockier body and legs, and no feathery stuff. You could play with it, as long as “you” are not at the “Chew All the Things!” stage anymore. It was pale blue and silver.

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                    6. I do not care how short the Dean is, you should not — repeat, NOT — have her “in a box somewhere.” All boxes containing Deans should be carefully labeled and stored in a Dean appropriate manner.

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                    8. … Firebird Arts and Music (before they turned evil) …

                      When you say “turned evil”, is this the standard “artist goes SJW and starts blocking/unfriending Republicans, and turning a lot of friends into former friends” story? Or are there particulars that are different from the usual story in this case?

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                    9. Robin, they got into a copyright and royalties battle with several artists that is still on going. The last I heard, the former Heather Alexander and several others cannot get their copyright to revert despite contract, and were not paid funds they claimed were due them. Plus Firebird has had delivery problems that go back at least a decade (I got hit in one of the first waves and they still owe me at least two CDs I ordered and paid for that never shipped). They don’t seem to be selling much besides back-list and figures and some tee-shirts and tote bags at the moment, and there’s at least one BBB complaint against them still pending.

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                    10. This has been going on for 20 years; Leslie Fish and several others took them to court, and actually got an injunction saying they couldn’t continue to sell their work without permission…. which Firebird promptly broke. If you see any new Firebird tapes / CDs in a dealers room with any of Leslie’s music on it, they are probably doing it again.

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                    11. If you send me a picture, I can attempt to recreate. I’d like to do something like that, and also larger/lighter ones that can be hanged flying, to guard writers’ domains, and also poseable larger ones. We have a massive transom for the front door, and I want to put a dragon sleeping on it, with a paw hanging in “cat with paw hanging” position.

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              2. I didn’t see any patterns but here are some images that might be helpful in crafting your own:


                Personally, I don’t see the attractions of stuffed dragoons, but then I only draw my next breath from force of habit.

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              3. Stuffed Dragon:

                1. Shoot dragon in heart through missing scale in chest with magic arrow.

                2a. Transport carcass to nearest taxidermist
                2b. Eviscerate dragon. Fill cavity with mixture of stale bread, egg, celery. water chestnuts, garlic, onion, and sage. Roast kalua style until the eyes pop.

                Sorry Drak.

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                1. Only “Damn-Fool” Dragons have a missing scale on their chest.

                  Only “Damn-Fool” Dragons let archers with magic arrows get within shooting range.

                  I’m not a “Damn-Fool”. :wink:

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      2. “And it appears that the Feds have just [re]discovered jury nullification.”

        Or the perils of over charging. It appears they went for conspiracy instead of criminal trespass, because the sentence could be harder, and then failed to prove it.

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      3. I was slightly surprised, but pleased, by the jury nullification in the Bundy case. I take it as a good sign. What worries me was that the Marshals Service tasered the defense attorney, over the judge’s protest, when he requested to see the paperwork before the marshals took Bundy into custody again to face another trial.

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  6. From the list, I think I’ve read ‘The Martian Chronicles’, ‘Fahrenheit 451’, and all of the Asimov stuff listed.

    And 94 and 95 appear to be the same book with different translations?

    Fahrenheit 451 seems more and more relevant these days. We’re not burning books yet. But if the special snowflakes in college were to have their way, we would be.

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    1. I have ebooks and a printer. Re-creation would be, while not trivial, at least relatively simple, making such mass destruction difficult for the powers that be.

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      1. There were plenty of books still floating around in F451. Otherwise the firemen wouldn’t have had steady employment.

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        1. Fair point. On the other hand without restricting access to digital books, they’d never be able to keep up to the extent portrayed in the book.

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    1. You mean the books? Yeah, I’m cool with that. I’ve been catching up on Zelazny whom — that I remember, concussion taken into account — I had never read. Man, the first few books need help on the dialogue. But it smooths out. And the passing is fantastic.

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      1. Zelazny’s work hit extremes of really good and really bad. In between were a bunch of novels and short stories that didn’t feel quite finished.

        Zelazny’s main problem was get got caught up in “New Wave” and never could shake it completely off.

        And there were Eye of Cat, the Dilvish, and the Wizard World books, which I still suspect were written by someone else. At least, they show no sign of Zelazny’s usual style.

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  9. Anyone who has attempted to recreate a brilliant post/comment lost in a browser crash sympathizes with you, Sarah (NOW with all H retained!) over the difficulty of recreating inspiration. It is all the harder for not simply recovering the thoughts which had been expressed but the expression as well.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. There’s this super-amusing bug in one of Microsoft’s e-mail programs such that e-mailing an attached file, downloading and opening it causes the F10 or save buttons to appear to work, but do not actually update the file with changes. One has to do a save-as first before regular saves take.

      Then, after closing the document, one will come back, sometimes days later, to discover only the original header, and perhaps the few opening paragraphs of the original document.

      Oh the happy hours spent rebuilding literally hours of reports, book reviews and book talks!

      Hoo boy do I sympathize.

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      1. Actually, MS Office does save it — to a temporary directory under the Windows directory named after your login id. And there it will sit until it’s purged.

        Liked by 1 person

  10. I will allow, recalling what was available in America at that time, your selection in Portugal was excellent. Probably not a third of the titles would be culled from a serious collection (Asimov’s “Lucky Starr” could be tossed as juveniles or kept as Asimov) and a number of titles (Frederic Brown in particular) that were hard to find in the US.

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    1. Read the first David Starr book when I was still a juvenile and even though I was an Asimov fan, thought it was too juvenile. Later read A Boy’s Best Friend, targeted for the same age group, and thought it was much better.

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      1. It always struck me as a juvenile space opera series by somebody who *hated* juvenile space operas. As if they’d told him what tropes to use, and he went out of his way to subvert each and every one.

        (Consider, for example, the superweapon given to him by the Ancient Benevolent Aliens. Something about halfway between a Lens and a Power Ring in utility, with a HUGE cool factor. So he uses it once–then packs it in his suitcase and doesn’t touch it again until the last book. Where he uses it as an improved spacesuit. Sigh.)

        It did have some cool ideas, though. I WA TAYLOR some of the toys Bigman Jones carried…

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  12. #91, The War Against The Rull: I have this memory that when I read the stories) in ASTOUNDING, they were called the Yevd. I could be wrong, having been wrong before, but my memory claims not.

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        1. I wasn’t aware of the name, but I’m sure aware of the effect !

          Back in the 1980s I had a business appointment in Memphis. I got there way too early, went and got lunch (Wendy’s chicken combo, as I recall) and was cruising aimlessly when I saw a small storefront with “Martin Luther King Museum.” Since there was a parking place nearby I stopped and went in.

          It was one of those small storefronts, maybe twenty feet wide. They had some of King’s clothes and personal posessions on display, and a photo montage of his life, and King booklets and audio tapes for sale. They also had a section on his murder, with photos and drawings, and what was supposed to be the rifle that killed him (a Remington 760 in .30-06).

          They had photos of James Earl Ray and a biography; Ray was a disaffected former Memphis policeman with kinda-sorta KKK affiliations who felt that hiring black police officers was responsible for his being unemployed, and killed King more or less on the spur of the moment.

          It was sad but fairly simple and logical, and I never thought much about it until I was looking up some assassination stuff and noticed things were… different. Crazy different. Now James Earl Ray is some kind of super-criminal multiple escapee, highly political, former pornographer, had plastic surgery and traveled the US, Canada, and Mexico while evading the police, and came up with a complicated murder plan involving buying a new rifle in a different state, multiple aliases, and so forth. Then, after murdering King, he flew to Portugal and then to England, where he got picked up with a false Canadian passport…

          Whaaaaat?!

          If that was an action-adventure I would throw it against the wall. It doesn’t even make sense, unlike the story I remember.

          Oddly, most of the people I’ve discussed it with who are old enough to remember, don’t remember any more than “he got killed, didn’t he?”

          There’s a King museum in Memphis, but it’s nowhere near the one I visited in 1986.

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  13. “For those who don’t remember — the last year has been such a mess — in the move in March I lost THE thumbdrive containing the most recent/complete version of the book. I then tried to rebuild the second half, and it felt… bland, because I was trying to remember what I’ve done. I’ve since realized it was wrong anyway, as I completely ignored a third factor that WOULD feed into events. But I couldn’t get into it enough to do what I thought was a structural edit.”
    —————-

    Brandon Sanderson sort of had something like this happen to him last year. He was writing a novel, stepped away from it for a bit, and then couldn’t get back into the right frame of mind for it when he came back. So he wrote the sequel, and then went back and finished the original novel. :P

    The two books were released about three months apart, which is unusual for a sequel, though not unheard of.

    (John Ringo’s got a similar release schedule for his first two MHI: Memoirs books)

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    1. Sort of, but I can’t write the sequel till I figure out who dies in this one.
      BTW I had it saved on the computer, too. When both files disappeared (one corrupted (on the computer) ) and one physically missing, I decided maybe there was something to it.
      Yes, writers are very superstitious.

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  15. “..I lost THE thumbdrive containing the most recent/complete version of the book…” My biggest nightmare.

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    1. I’ve had too many thumbdrives get the gollywobbles to put anything critical on one.

      A 1.44 Mb floppy disk is a convenient novel-sized data storage packet, and the disks are cheap enough to use a fresh one every day.

      – TRX (retro tech)

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          2. The bottom drawer, right side, library monitor’s desk. Also has cassette-tapes with programs on them for something that I suspect passed through the school at its founding and is either 1) long gone or 2) in [best James Earl Jones voice] The Storage Closet.

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            1. Not that long ago I was cleaning out a room and found several thousand dollars’ worth of SCSI external QIC and DAT drives, a SCSI card, and boxes of tapes. I twinged at the thought of how much I spent on all that, then dumped it in the trash can.

              It took a day or more to back up the main system’s hard drive, and restores were slow and unreliable. I started buying spare hard drives to back up to. No spastic software, no waiting for the tape drive to gum every tape of a 12-tape set before it would pull a file off the first one, no aborting a restore because one spot on the eleventh tape was bad, no mystery error messages…

              TRX’ Fourth Dictum : Backups are good. But only restores count.

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            1. When cleaning/sorting after Mom passed, I ran across some of the punched paper tapes of some programs I’d developed in High School before the school got a couple of Apple II Es for the lab.

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        3. If I really had a mind to (and the keyboard didn’t hurt my hands – it’s too big) I’d probably write on the fully functional Amstrad I have sitting in one of the rooms. Remember the disks that were before the 1.44 floppy? The really FLOPPY ones? Yeah. *grin*

          I’m also rather fond of Bold and Italic, so maybe not. But I have been tempted on more than one occasion.

          (It’s also the model with the light pen – you could draw on the screen! And at one point, to test it, we did.)

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            2. I always thought touchscreens were insane. I *hate* anyone putting fingerprints on my monitor.

              I had lunch with a friend last week, and he brought up the time I slapped his hand away from my monitor when he was reaching out to point to something.

              That was in 1995.

              I guess it made an impression on him…

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      2. When I do backups, I back up my thumb drive as well. I encrypt it so no one can access it if they find it. I just like my privacy. The backup is unencrypted, of course.

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          1. Shrug. All they’ll find are public domain books in PDF, manuscripts, spreadsheets, open source and free programs, and some artwork. Oh, and The Word bible software.

            BTW, since thumb drives have wear leveling, I’m not convinced that simply creating encrypted folders is secure, as there may be old data in the unencrypted portion. I encrypt the entire thumb drive for that reason.

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      3. I also had it on the computer. Diskettes have gone bad for me, consistently. So far NO thumb has gone bad. The “lost” one is LOST. In fact we were discussing today whether it could be in the armchair that eats thumdrives, through all the moves… I’ll have to go take it apart and poke it.

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  16. I remember Pebble in the Sky…. when I was very young (I think younger than 10), a friend of our family who also liked sci fi books gave me a copy of it. I never was able to read it because the scene where the protagonist was transported to another time terrified me! I should try it again now that I’m older :)

    Also have added a lot of books to my amazon wishlist. Thanks for posting this :)

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