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OtherRealms Issue 29 Part 01
Electronic OtherRealms #29
Winter, 1991
Part 1 of 10
Copyright 1991 by Chuq Von Rospach
All Rights Reserved.
OtherRealms may be distributed electronically only in the original
form and with copyrights, credits and return addresses intact.
OtherRealms may be reproduced in printed form only for your personal use.
No part of OtherRealms may be reprinted or used in any other
publication without permission of the author.
All rights to material published in OtherRealms hereby revert to the author.
Table of Contents:
Part 1
Editor's Notebook
Chuq Von Rospach
Part 2
I'm Not a Nice Girl
Laurie Sefton
Behind the Scenes: A Chronicle of Deverry
Katherine Kerr
Part 3
Scattered Gold
Charles de Lint
Much Rejoicing
Dan'l Danehy-Oakes
Part 4
Interview with an Anarchist: Lewis Shiner
Alan Wexelblat
Part 5
Past Imagining
Lawrence Watt-Evans
Fantasy in the Mainstream: The Novels of Olaf Stapledon
Chuck Koelbel
Walter Jon Williams: Bibliography
Walter Jon Williams
Part 6
From Beyond the Edge: Reviews (part 1 of 2)
Part 7
From Beyond the Edge: Reviews (part 2 of 2)
Part 8
Flights of Fantasy
Reviews by Laurie Sefton
P.J. Plauger
Mitch Wagner
Part 9
Words of Wizdom
Reviews by Chuq Von Rospach
Part 10
Your Turn: Letters from our readers
The Masthead: subscription, copyright and administrative trivia
Editor's Notebook
Coments and Ramblings from Chuq Von Rospach
My new job
No, I haven't left Apple -- I'm not sure they could kick me out if they
wanted to. But since we last talked, some things have changed. I'm now
one of the three book reviewers for the new Amazing Science Fiction.
I've committed to reviewing four books a month, twelve times a year
for the duration.
I'm both thrilled and cautious about this. Thrilled to actually be
paid for reading and reviewing books; cautious because this is the
sort of thing you just can't slip a couple of weeks if life gets too
busy -- unlike OtherRealms. You notice that OtherRealms, which was
scheduled for January, is late. Part of the lateness was caused by my
new position, since I needed to get up to speed and start reading. One
habit I had with OtherRealms was that when schedules got tight, I'd
simply stop reading for a while, and then perhaps catch up on ten or
15 books in a couple of weeks before writing my Words of Wizdom
column. that works when you're quarterly, but now I *have* to read six
or seven books a month to make sure I fill the column, and perhaps
build up a backlog of reviews so I'm not always on the edge.
This is naturally going to affect OtherRealms. It already is. What
it's ultimately going to do to OtherRealms I don't know yet. I still
think three issues a year is reasonable, but I'm also a hopeless
optimist. Between work, the Amazing column, my real writing, Laurie's
going back to school (which doesn't affect me directly [except I've
been warned I WILL be cooking dinner on a regular basis], but she has
put a lot of time and energy both into OtherRealms and into doing
things that allow me to spend time on this beast that otherwise would
have gone to boring projects like vacuuming) and the further
resurgence of some of my non-fannish interests, I have to realize that
there's a finite amount of time and an infinite number of projects. OR
is still an important part of my life -- but I also have to realize
that it's not the only thing I'm responsible for any more and plan
accordingly.
This is not, definitely not, the sounding of OR's death knell. The
electronic issue goes away next issue, but I'm not foreshadowing the
death of the rest. Just a warning that schedules are going to be
'flexible.' My apologies in advance for this to all my readers. Things
that I get paid for take priority on my time over things that don't.
That is a necessary fact of life.
Going to work for Amazing has other implications. Reviews that I'm
paid for won't be published here in OtherRealms, so my Wizdom column
is going to shrink. I'm going to have to depend more on other people
to keep the focus on books. My writing in here has been shifting to a
more personal focus over the last few issues as it is, and this is
going to accelerate it. For those that don't like that, well, sorry.
You CAN read Amazing SF and get my reviews, as well as those by John
Bunnell and John Betancourt. So far, (one and a half columns into this
new relationship) we seem to be a pretty good team -- we're trying to
avoid duplicating reviews, and so far, our tastes all differ enough
that there's been no real fighting over who gets what title, which is
good.
It feels damn good, by the way, to get paid for reviewing -- even
though it's hard work. After 29 issues of OtherRealms, six years of
pushing myself out into the world on my own, it's nice to know someone
else thinks enough of me to publish this stuff for me. The money's
nice, too -- not exactly Spider Robinson's "Cheese sandwiches and
exposure" from his reviewing days (it's more like tunafish, and the
exposure IS nice....).
Now, if I can just get some of my fiction sold.
And some new toys
I mentioned my resurgent hobbies above. A couple of things have been
taking more of my time and energy. One is the garden. Earlier this
month I planted three trees and five rose bushes, which means that
about 80% of the back yard has now been rehabilitated and the major
foliage planted. When we moved in two years ago, we moved into a house
that had (literally) not been maintained for ten years -- what hadn't
died was overgrown and needed to either be cut way back or (mostly)
simply pulled out. Digging in the dirt is a great way for me to get
away from computers for a while (I spend all day with them -- there are
times when coming home and 'relaxing' with computers is not what I
want to do), plus I enjoy watching an entire living space slowly
reshape itself. A couple of weeks later, the roses have budded out,
the trees are getting ready, last year's raspberries are starting to
leaf and there's unripe fruit on the strawberries. Laurie has tomatoes
under the lights in the garage and this weekend I should be installing
a new low-flow sprinkler system in the raised beds (we HAVE been busy
out there). If things work out, we should be able to spend much of the
summer enjoying the back yard instead of weeding it. One hopes.
Since last issue, I've picked up a couple of new techie-toys, too.
Last issue I talked about a new Shortwave radio, which I've since
bought -- a Kenwood R5000. Most nights when I'm working I tune in the
BBC World Service, since I get much better news from them than I get
from American media. One of the neat features of the R5000 is an RS232
port, so I'm working on a Hypercard stack that will control the radio
and let me handle most of the frequency and control stuff from the
computer. Why? Well, it's fun and it's nice to be programming again.
Another toy, this time for the computer, is a Syquest 45 megabyte
removable drive. For about $1.50 a megabyte, I now have a potentially
unlimited amount of disk space simply by swapping out cartridges. I
was chronically tight on room on my regular hard disk until I got it,
but now I've got a lot of flexibility. One of the things I've done is
load the text of all issues of OtherRealms onto a cartridge, and then
I've used a tool called "On Location" to index it. On Location allows
me to type in strings and find out exactly where those strings are in
any of the indexed files, so I can look up anything in previous issues
quickly and without any real delay or hassle. I'd originally planned
on building a Hypercard stack to do this, but with On Location, I
don't need to.
Isn't technology wonderful? What's scary: When I was starting out in
the computer industry, the "home computer" state of the art was the
IMSAI 8080 (mine had 8K of RAM, 5K of ROM and a cassette interface).
My work computer was a studly PDP11-34 running RSTS, and state of the
art in disk storage was a CDC drive the size of a small washing
machine that stored an entire 80 megabytes of data. Now, 15 years
later, my "obsolete" Mac II (which now has eight megabytes of RAM and
128K of ROM) has more power than that PDP11 did, and I own a disk
that, for a total price of $600 (drive and two cartridges) stores as
much as that old CDC drive did, is faster and is about the size of a
Stephen King book in hardcover. Where are we going to be in another 15
years? When you stop and think about how far computers have come, the
mind simply refuses to accept the significance of the changes.
One hint on where we're going: Go systems, who just gave the world a
first look at their new pen-based computer operating system. It looks
awesome and may well be as important a paradigm shift as the Macintosh
was (even if you hate the Macintosh, you have to admit that with OS/2,
X windows, SunView, Microsoft windows and all of the other Graphical
Interfaces, the Mac really made a fundamental change in the way we do
computers. Xerox pioneered it, the Mac made it practical and now
everyone else is copying it. That's how technology moves forward).
War
We're at war. This shouldn't come as a great surprise to you. If it
is, you haven't been paying attention. It was no surprise to me,
either -- but I have to admit that even though I thought I was more or
less prepared for the inevitability, when it happened I was still
shaken. I watched CNN and ABC like everyone else; for a few days very
little got accomplished. It's funny how inconsequential a fanzine
deadline can seem when planes are flying over the deserts shooting at
each other.
I have many mixed feelings about this. I'm heartened that all this
very expensive high tech stuff is working as well as it seems to be --
and bothered that we find ourselves in a position to put it through
the ultimate field test. I'm very encouraged that so far public
support stays high, and very discouraged that Saddam Hussein seems
much crazier than anyone gave him credit for and really IS willing to
let us pound his entire country into sand and turn himself into a
martyr rather than admit he's being overwhelmed.
Let us all hope he suffers an accident before major ground fighting
casualties begin. Even dead and as a martyr, he will be a force to
reckon with in the Middle East, but as long as he lives, the fighting
will continue.
Scary fact for those people who think America is picking on a tiny
country: according to the experts, Iraq has the fourth largest armed
forces in the world (the first three being us, USSR and People's
Republic of China, not necessarily in that order). At least, they did
when this all started, there was a report on the BBC World Service
tonight that the British experts no longer believe this to be true,
not that you can get decent military casualty information out of
either Iraq or the Pentagon.
Speaking of which, since last we spoke I went out and bought a Kenwood
R5000 receiver, also known as a Shortwave Radio (although it really
does much more than the 'shortwave' frequencies). I've been having
lots of fun with it, and one of my current projects is to write a
Hypercard stack that'll control the thing through its RS232 interface
(a radio with a serial port? What will they think of next). I have a
number of the basic support functions working, but there are only so
many hours in the day....
Anyway, I find I spend much of my time listening to the BBC, which I
bring up here to ask whether anyone else has noticed exactly how
piss-poor American journalism of the war has been. Once the initial
shock of the invasion wore off, I pretty much switched the TV back off
-- not because I wanted to avoid the war, but because I'm getting much
better information on the shortwave. The quality of reporting on the
American media frankly sucks.
There has been a lot of criticism thrown at the Pentagon because
they've been heavily stonewalling the media. A lot of that
stonewalling is true -- try to get any reasonable information on
casualties, machinery losses, collateral damage or any information of
great substance. On the other hand, we *are* at war, and this is the
first war where Pentagon briefings are being beamed behind enemy lines
in real time, thanks to communication satellites. The Pentagon has a
job to do. That job is NOT keep the media happy, but to get the
fighting over with a minimum of allied casualties. Giving Iraq
information that can help them fill in the holes in their own
intelligence only makes it worse for us, so I can't blame the Pentagon
for turning a deaf ear on some topics. I've also been VERY bothered by
the frankly poor quality of the questioning. These are supposed to be
professional, trained journalists, and yet (as Jim Eason of KGO radio
likes to say) the primary questions seem to be of the form "When will
the ground war start?" or "How long is this war going to last?" --
worse, a reporter will ask a question and the briefers will say
something like "That's an operational (i.e. militarily sensitive)
detail and we won't comment" -- and not only does the reporter get
snotty because the Pentagon doesn't want to blab secrets to the entire
world, the next couple of reporters think that maybe if they slightly
rephrase the question, these highly trained Pentagon folks might slip
up and tell them something.
I haven't really thought much of American mass-media (especially on
television) for a long time, but I did better journalistic work for my
high school newspaper. It's bush league -- and a number of journalists
have taken blatantly adversarial positions against the Pentagon --
which, of course, means the Pentagon is even LESS likely to talk to
them. And then they get miffed when the Pentagon won't discuss things
with them. Bad journalism made worse by a bad attitude. Thank you,
I'll stick with the BBC. The BBC (and to a good degree the British
military and media) seem to have a much better attitude about this. I
get information about the war from them that shows up on American
television a few days later (presumably after THEY've heard it on the
BBC). One of the regular programs on the BBC is their daily book
reading. Currently, they're reading the Hobbit every night, but right
after the troops went to Saudi Arabia, the BBC scheduled "Catch 22" by
Joseph Heller. These broadcasts, of course, go to the troops.
Coincidence? You won't find that kind of humor in American
television. It's too subtle.
Let us hope, by the time you read this, that it's all in the past and
the rebuilding has begun. Let us hope that sanity reigns and the
chemical and biological weapons Hussein have stay unused. Let us hope
Hussein doesn't rape and burn Kuwait beyond recovery (if the reported
and documented atrocities have any basis in fact, he's doing things
even the Nazi's would have flinched at -- whether it be large-scale
rape and pillage of Kuwaiti cities or pulling all of the infants out
of the incubators of a hospital ward and tossing them on the floor to
die so they can carry the hospital gear back to Iraq for the
soldiers). Tonight (which is February 12), the BBC is reporting that
there are at least 50 oil fields in Kuwait burning, covering much of
the country in smoke -- and last week, Hussein was threatening to burn
Kuwait to the ground rather than give it up.
Which reminds me of something. Earlier this week, Jim Eason on KGO
radio (talk/news here in the Bay Area) had someone call up and take
the allies to task for allowing Hussein to cause that major oil slick
from the Kuwaiti tanker port. We knew it was going to happen, he said,
and we should have stopped it. Eason responded quite simply: "What
should we have done?"
"We knew it was going to happen. We should have done something."
How's that for thinking? If you're going to criticize, at least
pretend to come up with alternatives. If the war is so terrible, what
are the alternatives to fixing the situation? If we should have
stopped Iraq from trashing the ocean, how should we have done it? We
weren't exactly invited guests at that oil terminal when they opened
the drainspouts.
Don't just complain. Don't just criticize. Criticize constructively.
It's easy to say "you're wrong" -- but it's really tough to say "Here's
a better way". Sometimes, it just doesn't exist.
It should be obvious I support the way -- not because I like it, but
because I see it as a necessary evil, a lesser evil than leaving
Saddam Hussein and his terrorism, his regional bullying, his nuclear
and chemical and biological weapons -- and his crazy bugfuck attitude.
He is, bar none, the most dangerous man to come to power since Hitler,
and as long as he is in power the entire world is in significant risk.
The war is a nasty thing -- but to not deal with this man, I feel
strongly that we would simply have to deal with him later from a great
disadvantage. He sees no problem in killing thousands of innocents in
Kuwait -- he sees nothing in throwing tens of thousands of his own
supporters to their death -- for little more than the protection of his
macho sense of power. This war is meaningless. Any sane person would
have run like hell when the first bombs came calling. That Saddam
Hussein not only continues to fight, but continues to try to escalate
the war and scream his rhetoric only proves the man is not sane and
that his power must be terminated. I haven't even mentioned his random
attacks of terrorism at Israel with his SCUD missiles (all the while
calling the U.S. for 'war crimes' for attacking citizens of Iraq. We
ARE at war with Iraq -- what's his excuse with Israel?).
Saddam must go if we have any hope for long term peace in that region.
War is Hell, literally, but sometimes necessary. The difference
between me and a peace-activist is that I see war as a terrible
alternative and a peace activist sees war as the worst possible
alternative. Having seen the results of Nazi Germany against its
neighbors, I don't think we can sit idly by this time. Go study the
attack against Poland and Czechoslovakia; go study the Holocaust --
then try to imagine a scenario where the U.S. doesn't play
isolationist until long after Hitler had a major power base through
the bowels of Europe. Answer: if the U.S. had gotten involved in WWII
early, there's a good chance, a very good chance that Hitler would
have been stopped, Europe would not have been ripped to pieces and the
Holocaust would not have happened. Sometimes you have to stand up and
stop the tyrants. Waiting until the Holocausts have happened to stop
them doesn't make the dead people feel better.
I know some of you out there disagree with me on this. That's your
right as an American (on the other hand, if you lived in Iraq and
publicly disagreed with Saddam Hussein, you'd be dead. Isn't it nice
to live in a country that tolerates dissent?) I certainly don't mind
people disagreeing. I only get upset when people disagree
unthinkingly. You can't understand a situation from the evening news
or what you read in the first two paragraphs of the newspaper (which
is all the vast majority of newspaper readers read; isn't THAT
depressing) or from some catchy but meaningless protest slogans. Go
study the situation -- read up on Hussein's history (did you know he
came to power as an official state torturer?) and what he's done to
Kuwait. Go study the first few years of WWII and Hitler's decimation
of the Poles. If you still can't support war, bless you -- at least you
thought.
The only thing an unthinking patriot and an unthinking anti-patriot
have is that they're both blind to reality. "Real" patriots think
America does nothing wrong and we should always be loved and obeyed
blindly (forgetting that dissent is a primary aspect of the freedoms
we fought to gain in our independence from England); "Real"
anti-patriots think America never does anything right and if they're
involved, they must be the bad guys. I have no sympathy for either the
"Love it or leave it" crowd or the "America is scum" crowd. I make up
my mind on a case by case basis -- and that's all I ask of others.
Unfortunately, I find that most folks prefer falling behind easy
platitudes. That way they don't have to think for themselves.
I don't care if you're for or against the war, as long as you look the
situation over, study the facts and decide for yourself. Think about
it.
Think.
"Blind" Hubble
Remember how the major media "proved" to us how worthless and screwed
up the Hubble was? It was fun to bash NASA about the screwups. Good,
easy press. Bad news sells newspapers and toilet paper, after all.
Well, it didn't take long for the scientists to figure out it wasn't
all that bad. The Hubble wasn't blind, just nearsighted. That, of
course, was on page 17, not page 1.
And now this -- in the 1-Feb-91 issue of Science -- the tuning and
calibration is done on the Hubble and the actual research is starting,
and the Hubble is "only" 10 times clearer than anything we can get
from the ground. "Only" 10 times better.
Now, it *should* be much better than that. I'm not downplaying the
screwups that caused us to ship Mister Magoo up to sky. But think
about it. The media made a hey-day on how this was a billion dollar
piece of useless junk. Now that it's turning out (already!) data
that's revolutionizing astronomy, where do you think the media is?
Have you seen any "well, maybe it's not as bad as we thought" pieces
on page one of your local newspaper? Or were they buried behind the
commodity prices?
Environmental Pop Quiz
Quick pop quiz. What's less harmful to the environment: a paper coffee
cup or a foam coffee cup?
All of you who said paper cups -- guess what? It looks like you're
wrong. Martin Hocking from the University of British Columbia (again
in the 1-Feb-91 Science, if you want the full details) has done a
study of the total environmental impact of your average, everyday
"green" paper cup and compared it to the nasty, environmentally ugly
foam cup. The results are fairly stunning -- the polyfoam cup is not
only less expensive to produce, but it creates many fewer pollutants
in the process and uses fewer resources. It is also, on the recovery
end, much cleaner to deal with.
For instance, in raw materials, a paper cup requires 33 grams of wood
pulp. Surprisingly, it ALSO requires 4.1 grams of petroleum products
(primarily fuels used for energy in the creation process, and that
specifically excludes the plastic or wax coating -- just the paper) and
1.8 grams of others chemicals (including sodium sulfate, sodium
hydroxide, chlorine, sulfuric acid and sulfur dioxide). The polyfoam
cup uses 3.2g of petroleum products and 0.05 grams of other chemicals
per cup. The weight of the paper cup is 10.1 grams, the foam cup 1.5
grams.
Surprise #1: you use MORE hydrocarbons to create a paper cup than you
do to create a hydrocarbon-based foam cup. Plus you have to add in the
paper, plus a fair number of fairly noxious (and ecologically nasty)
chemicals during the paper pulping and pressing and bleaching
processes.
Surprise #2: energy usage. Total energy usage to create paper cups is
about 9000-12000 kilogram of steam and 980 KilowattHours per metric
ton, vs. about 5000 kilogram of steam and 120-180 KwH for polyfoam.
Also note how many fewer cups you get per metric ton -- it takes about
6 metric tons of paper to match one metric ton of polyfoam. You're
using a LOT more energy to make "green" paper cups.
How about pollutants? For every metric ton of paper, we're creating
50-190 cubic meters of contaminated effluent that's being dumped into
our lakes and rivers. These include sulfuric acid, chlorine and
significant amounts of biological material that, when released into
from the plant, will break down and use significant amounts of the
free oxygen in the water, possibly choking out the wildlife and
plants. On the other hand, polyfoam causes under 2 cubic meters of
water effluent with essentially no chemical or organic content.
Surprise #3: paper processing is a highly polluting process that
causes significant damage to the local water system unless very
carefully monitored and unless expensive pollution controls exist (and
even then there are still hassles). Just ask anyone who lives
downstream of a paper plant how "green" they are.
But the *big* problem with polyfoam is that it releases lots of
greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, right? That's why everyone
screams? (that and the use of hydrocarbons).
Surprise #4: A metric ton of polyfoam will cause the release of 35-50
Kilograms of Pentane, which has replaced CFCs as the chemical of
choice in the manufacturing process. Pentane has been shown to
increase ozone, both in low and high atmosphere studies. On the other
hand, Pentane also has a maximum life of about seven years, after
which it's broken down and gone. So paper cups help prevent global
warming, then, right?
Well....
Instead of Pentane, creation of a metric ton of paper causes 5 to 15
kilograms of particulates to be released in the air (i.e. smog). Also
measurable amounts of Chlorine, Chlorine dioxide, sulfides and sulfur
dioxide. So during the creation process, polyfoam is somewhat more
polluting, but is dispersing stuff that is fairly short-lived and
relatively benign (unlike the older CFCs, and definitely unlike things
like Chlorine). But we aren't done yet.
What about when we're done: those foam cups will live forever,
clogging our landfill, right?
Surprise #5: polyfoam is highly recyclable. In fact, McDonalds had
invested three years in building a system that would take the majority
of the polyfoam in its containers and recycle it -- they were about to
put the program in place when some "green" activists started a major
publicity campaign against them that forced them to trash all of that
work, all of their polyfoam and switch over to "green" paper products.
It would have been a model program in the effective re-use of
previously disposable material. Instead, they were threatened with a
smear campaign and forced to switch to "green" paper products, the
production of which is a highly polluting process.
But you can recycle paper, right? Well, *some* paper. Coffee cups
aren't recyclable, because they're put together with a type of glue
that can't be removed during the repulping process. Same with all the
food service papers that use wax or plastic coatings to protect the
food. Newsprint is recyclable, but we don't wrap food in newspaper in
the U.S.
Surprise #6: instead of building recycling programs for polyfoam,
we're chopping down trees, using up as much hydrocarbon as they would
for foam, create more (and nastier) pollutants, all so we can haul the
paper off to the landfill.
Where it sits.
Surprise #7: they've been digging up landfills and trying to figure
out what goes on inside them. Guess what? They're finding out that
"biodegradable" paper, when placed in a landfill, generally sits
there, essentially inert. Just like polyfoam. They've dug up forty and
fifty year old newspapers -- that were still easily readable. Large
chunks of landfills just sit there and never do anything. Just as if
they were full of plastic or polyfoam. The parts that DO degrade
generate methane and carbon dioxide. Guess what? Methane and Carbon
Dioxide are greenhouse gasses, and Methane is essentially equivalent
to Pentane as far as greenhouse response is concerned. Worse, you only
have to degrade 2% of the paper to generate as much methane as the
equivalent amount Pentane released in polyfoam creation. So you better
hope that 98% of that paper doesn't degrade, or it's going to do worse
things than the polyfoam did in the first place. We won't even mention
the runoff from the landfill contaminating the water table (which
won't happen with polyfoam, since it doesn't degrade and cause noxious
runoff).
And if you burn that paper? You get lots of carbon dioxide,
particulates and other random chemicals.
Look, everyone "knows" that paper is better for the environment.
Everyone "knows" that petrochemicals pollute. Everyone knows that to
be socially conscious you have to use "green" recyclable products and
convince others to do the same.
The problem is, what everyone "knows" isn't always right. Drilling for
oil is a relatively benign operation -- until it leaks. Clearcutting
trees is always disastrous for the local environment and butt-ugly to
boot. A "green" product like paper sounds great -- trees are a
renewable resource, right? But when you look at the total cost --
collection of raw materials, processing, use and disposal, some
fascinating realities pop in. What we all know ain't always so.
The McDonalds program could have been the first step in a nationwide
move by Corporate America to move towards intelligent disposal of
their discards. Instead, they were coerced by the "environmentalists"
to drop all that and move to a product that is significantly more
damaging to the environment and uses much more energy and resource in
the creation -- and is just as difficult, if not more difficult, to
dispose of. All in the name of "saving our environment". Isn't this
stupid?
The point of this diatribe is this: being careful in the treatment of
this planet is crucial to our long-term survival. But it's just as
critical that we deal in facts and we do what science has shown is
necessary. The state of the environmental movement these days is that
a relatively small pressure group comes up with an emotionally
powerful position and coerces people into conforming or facing what
can be a terrible PR disaster for a company. I mean, we all "know"
that paper is better than plastic, right? Except the science is
clearly showing that's not true.
I wonder what else we "know" about the environment, what policies
we're putting in place, that are making it worse because people are
moving through emotion or political expediency and not the facts?
Think about it. What do you know is right? And why? Has it really been
proved? Or are we working with Old Wives Tales again?
Price Increase update
Last issue I announced an upcoming price increase in OtherRealms
subscriptions. Because of all sorts of things, I still haven't decided
what to do, so this is on hold. Even though postage has gone up, until
I finalize this, I'm not changing anything, so the old rates will
continue to apply indefinitely.
Dial 1-800-HI-PIERS
Are you a Piers Anthony fan? If so, you probably should know about
Valet Publishing, a new organization set up by Anthony specifically to
sell and market his books. They're putting out a newsletter all about
him that is available on a quarterly basis for only $7.50. He's also
set up the Xanth Trading Post so you can mail order your favorite
Piers Anthony stuff.
You can get more information by calling 1-800-HI-PIERS.
I take this as an indication of just how popular Anthony has gotten
with his fans. We've had all sorts of stars and superstars in the SF
field over the years, but as far as I know, this is the first author
with his very own 800 number. Obviously, someone likes his stuff (but
I wonder why....)
Next Issue
Is issue 30, which I think will be something special. At the very
least, different. More than that I'm not going to say. My hopeful
schedule is early April, but since I'm writing this in mid-February, I
wouldn't hold my breath. Please remember that issue 30 is the final
issue that will be distributed on-line -- and people who want to get
back issues on-line should note that I'll be removing the archives on
apple.com (anonymous ftp, directory pub/otherrealms) about a month
after issue 30 ships.
See you next issue!
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