Journal Entry #10

 January 26, 2008

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Jane Eyre is one of the novels I never got to during my school years. It's been on my reading list for half a century. Recently, I received an invitation to attend a local book club, and Jane Eyre was the book of the month. The novel, of course, deserves its classic status, but I was struck by the stylistic differences between it and a modern novel. Writing today, Charlotte Bronte would have to fix the dialog (Characters sometimes go on for the better part of a page), and cut back on the literary and biblical allusions. People just don't talk that way anymore. If they ever did. Jane, by the way, is the smartest 18-year-old I've ever encountered.

 

The novel is, of course, a powerhouse. I kept coming away from it outraged at the behavior of Mrs. Reed and her kids, and the idiot who ran the religious school, and St. John, and a few others. I've always felt that one way to gauge the effectiveness of a piece of fiction is how annoyed you get with some of the characters. But occasionally, Bronte plays games. Jane, lost and alone, stumbles around a town that won't take her in, won't provide a meal, won't do anything for her. She's near death when rescue finally arrives. She's 18 at the time. I tried to imagine a teenage girl left in such circumstances. Weren't there even any guys in that town?

 

Bronte repeatedly refers to Jane's plainness. I couldn't buy that either. She's extremely bright, and obviously animated. Those qualities are going to show up in her eyes. There's no indication that any of her features have gone awry, no big ears and no extra 100 pounds. So you add a smile to what we know, and she has to look good. No 18-year-old female packing what she obviously has is going to look plain.

 

Incidentally, I was the only male present at the book club meeting. One of the young women commented that they can't find guys who read. My advice to single guys: Hang out at libraries. It reminded me how much I like SF cons, where everybody's a reader. Sometimes you forget that a vanishingly small percentage of the US population actually reads a book during the course of a year. That might explain a few things.

 

Chicago journalist Sam Weller has given us The Bradbury Chronicles. It's a perceptive and emotional ride through the grandmaster's life. And instructive for anyone who aspires to write. Persistence helps. But I guess ultimately there's no substitute for sheer talent. When you read Bradbury's fiction, it's impossible to imagine he was ever clumsy. Anyhow, if you're a Bradbury fan — who among us isn't? — , this one is well worth picking up.

 

Spent part of the day yesterday with A. E. Housman. My favorite poet. I've been reading Elaine Pagels' Beyond Belief, which is an account of the struggles among the early Christians to establish a unified dogma. Pagels uses the gospel of Thomas, discovered in Egypt in 1945, to demonstrate some of the divisions. Then I came across Housman's "Easter Hymn." After spending so much time with people convinced they were being guided by a higher power, I came close to understanding how you could come to believe that.

 

Our computer was in the hospital until yesterday and we were offline for a week. Curiously, on the day we took the computer in, we also lost our landlines, and the cell phone died. This at a time when the cell phone outlet had just moved and we didn't know where. It felt a little as if we were living in the 19th century. With a TV, though.

 

My last act with the computer before shutting it down was to finish "Molly's Kids," a story for the Lou Anders anthology, Fast Forward II. Actually, I'd finished the story, or so I thought, the day before, and asked Maureen to read it. (That's our standard procedure. Get a second pair of eyes to take a look.) She didn't like the way it ended. I was uncomfortable with it too, but for different reasons than she had.

Eventually, I added four pages for a climax that is directly opposite to the original plan. In case anyone's wondering, the story's about the first launch to Alpha Centauri. The ship is completely automated and will take several thousand years to get to its destination.

 

When I was in college, back in the fifties, a friend suggested I see a British film, "The Ladykillers." I think I'd heard of Alex Guinness. Certainly had no idea who Peter Sellers was. But I went, and it was another of those life-altering experiences. I fell in love with British comedy, with Alistair Sim and Terry-Thomas and movies like "Lucky Jim" and the St Trinian's films. Unfortunately, in the next decade, they changed and began playing for American audiences and lost much of the tone that had made them priceless.

Last evening our local library sponsored a showing of "The Ladykillers" out on the island. We went, and I was surprised to discover the theater was jammed. The film was every bit as good as I remember it. But Maureen and I were among the youngest people in the building. The local kids don't know about these guys. What a pity.

 

We're approaching the end of January, which is the time of year I usually start writing a novel. This would be a book that will appear in November 2009. (The Devil's Eye, an Alex Benedict mystery, will be out toward the end of this year.) Usually by now I have a good idea what the project will be. People disappearing out of a starship, or a flight to the galactic core, or whatever. I have to confess that, at the moment, I haven't a clue.

 

— Jack

 

Journal Entry #11

February 12, 2008

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We traveled to western Georgia over the weekend, where LaGrange College staged a memorial art exhibit in honor of Jamie Bishop, one of the victims of last April's shooting rampage at Virginia Tech. Jamie, of course, was the son of novelist Michael Bishop. He was also a German teacher at VT, and a talented artist who produced an array of outstanding work, including illustrations to two of his father's books. It was of course an evening that carried some intense emotions.

 

Why is it so difficult for the Second Amendment crowd to figure out that it's not a good idea to grant lunatics easy access to guns?

 

Kathryn Lance is a writer with a taste for Richard Wagner. I'm in the same boat. His music is overpowering. Once, years ago, I was driving north on the New Jersey Turnpike when "The Ride of the Valkyries" came on the radio. It came roaring in, and before I realized it, I was up to ninety. Anyhow, Kathryn and I got talking about Wagner and how he'd become an icon for the Nazis, when they incorporated his music into the slaughter at the death camps. We thought it might be interesting to look at how he might have reacted had he known in advance what was coming. One thing seemed obvious: He would go into denial. A travesty of such proportions would not be possible because Germany was too civilized. Story's title: "Welcome to Valhalla."

 

Bob Uecker, the one-time Phillies catcher, and one of my favorite players, describes one of his more memorable experiences at Connie Mack Stadium in Philadelphia: A fan got over-excited and fell out of the upper deck. Landed on the field, struggled to his feet, and limped away. Apparently not seriously hurt. The crowd booed. Well, it's a proud tradition. The ship that became part of the Boston Tea Party stopped first at Philadelphia on the way north. A crowd gathered at the pier and booed the Brits. (Okay, it's probably apocryphal.)

 

I've been reading Robert Kaplan's The Coming Anarchy. It's one of the more pessimistic books I've come across. Kaplan thinks we face an age of utter chaos. There's pretty much nowhere to go but down. He argues that even an era of prolonged peace under the benign supervision of a world organization could very easily be bad news. He expects a future in which nation states break up, borders dissolve, and the world descends into what can only be called large-scale tribal warfare, not unlike what was seen prior to the development of the modern nation-state. His most dismaying argument: That men living in miserable conditions — read, most of the world — enjoy making war and committing atrocities. Takes their minds off hard times at home. Get past the Enlightenment and things get very dark.

 

Well, as they say at WalMart, have a nice day.

 

— Jack

 

Journal Entry #12

February 29, 2008

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Asimov's has picked up "Welcome to Valhalla." Also, Baen's Universe will publish "Indomitable" in its April issue. "Indomitable" is the story mentioned in the first journal entry, inspired by a visit to the Calgary, Alberta, Aerospace Museum. The idea came from seeing a WWII RAF bomber that was described as being the last of its kind. The experience is as good an example as I can think of illustrating how story ideas arrive. If you have a chance to read the story, think of that bomber.

 

Recommended science fiction book: Sheila Finch's The Guild of Xenolinguists. A treasure trove for those of us who enjoy stories about encounters with aliens.

 

I've gone back to reading the H.L. Mencken Chrestomathy, which I've been away from for a long time. It is as sharp and witty as ever. Mencken never loses his touch. As I've mentioned elsewhere in these journals, the Gregory MacAllister character from the Priscilla Hutchins novels was inspired by him. He's also remembered for bring in Clarence Darrow to defend John Scopes in the Tennessee Monkey Trial.

 

(And yes, it's no coincidence that MacAllister got his own version of the Monkey Trial in Odyssey.)

I expect to make up my mind within the next few days which way the next novel will go. I'd been expecting to follow The Devil's Eye with another Alex Benedict mystery. (I've an interesting idea for it, but it will take time to sort itself out.) I'm still thinking about the NASA/SETI conference I attended during the summer, and the issue it addressed: If life really can happen more or less easily, given liquid water and stability and whatnot, why do we hear only a vast silence around us? If the novel goes as expected, the title will be The Armageddon Club.

 

Finally, Subterranean Press is gearing up to publish Cryptic: The Best of Jack McDevitt. No release date has been set yet. We're putting it together now. It will probably incorporate about forty stories and run to approximately 200,000 words. Rob Sawyer is on board to do the intro.

 

— Jack

 

Journal Entry #13

Marcy 17, 2008

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Just back from Stellarcon 32/Deep South Con in High Point, NC. I love trains, and should have checked out the possibility of going by Amtrak. But it seemed so likely that I'd get deposited 60 miles away and have to rent a car, that I just didn't bother to look. Turns out the Amtrak station was across the street from the hotel.

 

Cons are always a pleasure and this one was no exception. The highlight of the weekend came with the Saturday evening award ceremony. The Phoenix, given to a writer or editor with Southern connections, went posthumously to Jim Baen. John Ringo made the presentation, and Toni Weisskopf accepted for the Baen organization. Baen was enormously popular with those who knew him, and Ringo's voice gave way several times during the event. When he finished, he hurried outside the auditorium while a stunned crowd sat in silence, and then rose for a standing ovation. I had breakfast with Ringo next morning. He credits Baen with being one of the major forces in preserving the kind of science fiction we fell in love with back in the forties and fifties. Somehow, over the years, he said, the awards had always overlooked him.

 

He's right, of course. And it was nice to see him receive his due.

Interesting panels included "Whatever Happened to the World of Tomorrow?", "How to Annoy Your Publisher" and "The Cabaret at the End of the Universe."

 

My closing panel was Military SF, chaired by Toni Weisskopf. Other participants were John Ringo and Timothy Zahn (both masters of the art), and artist Doug Chafee. Some of the all-time great novels have been military-oriented. One thinks immediately, of course, of War and Peace. I've been a Herman Wouk reader all my life, and I'm not sure how you'd classify the Flashman novels, but I don't think I've ever enjoyed a series more than those. But it strikes me as being especially difficult to carry off in SF because, if there's a starship available, there are just more interesting things to do with it than shoot at somebody.

 

Which shows you what I know. Anybody ever hear of Darth Vader?

 

On the way home, I drove through Branchville, SC. I was surprised to see that the downtown area was demolished. Buildings collapsed, roofs blown off, piles of bricks and concrete everywhere. A tornado had hit the town the day before. Incredible. I've never seen damage on that scale. When you're there, it's different from seeing it on TV.

 

I read Garrison Keillor's Pontoon and Frank Rich's The Greatest Story Ever Sold. Keillor's dry wit makes a superb antidote to the endless flow of political name-calling during this relentless election season. Pontoon follows the funeral arrangements for a woman who turns out to have been a great deal more than simply the nice elderly church-going lady she seemed. There's also a wedding gone wrong, some marriages gone wrong, an Elvis fly-by, and a squadron of Lutheran preachers from Sweden (or Denmark, I forget which), who go for an unexpected boatride. Everything comes together in the middle of the funeral for a catastrophic finale. Lovely book.

 

Rich, a New York Times reporter, does not hold the Bush administration in high regard, but seems to have as little respect for the media which, he argues, stood by for years and bought everything the White House handed out. In the epilogue, he provides the first rational explanation I've heard for the invasion of Iraq: The Afghan War had run out of glitz, Osama had gotten away, and the plan was to re-elect a strong Republican majority running on national security issues. So we needed a war with some sparkle. And it was summer of an election year. That's why, he says, we charged in without allowing the inspectors to complete their job, and before we had the equipment in place. If it's so, it's even more shameful than my earlier sense that we wanted to secure Iraqi oil and simply didn't do our homework.

 

Interesting cover story in this month's Astronomy Magazine. There are more theories on what the universe (maybe) looks like, and an illustration. I have to confess I can't follow the physics. But the illustration looks nothing like my notion of a more-or-less spherical universe, floating in a sea of universes. Whatever, things are getting pretty big out there.

 

Have started James Bamford's The Puzzle Palace, a history of the NSA.

I've changed course again on plans for my 2009 novel. I've been wanting for years to explore some of the possibilities left untouched in my 1996 novella, "Time Travelers Never Die." (It was a Nebula and Hugo finalist.) If all this seems as if I can't make up my mind, that's the way it goes sometimes. The reality was that earlier narrative ideas just didn't turn me on. There's no way to spend the better part of a year writing a decent novel unless there's some passion involved. So sometimes you just have to do tryouts.

 

— Jack

 

Journal Entry #14

March 31, 2008

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A New York Times story last week reports that a judge is being asked to decide whether a giant particle accelerator constitutes a menace to the world, and possibly to the entire universe. The suit has been filed in Hawaii, and unless he intervenes, the accelerator will begin smashing atoms outside Geneva this summer. Scientists are saying it's unlikely that the research will produce a black hole, which of course could be extraordinarily bad news for the real estate market. I remember when I was in high school and we were conducting H-bomb experiments. At that time, there was a lot of talk about the possibility of a chain reaction destroying the world. Scientists reassured us not to worry, that there wasn't much chance, and went ahead. And of course they were right, so why worry? Readers of Odyssey may get the feeling they've heard all this before.

 

I've just begun K. C. Cole's The Hole in the Universe. It's been on my shelf for a few years. Negligent on my part. And my guilty pleasure for the month is The Mammoth Book of New Sherlock Holmes Adventures. It's another one I've been trying to get to. In fact I have several Holmes collections waiting for me.

 

I've signed a contract with Subterranean for a 'best of' collection to be titled Cryptic. It'll be out next year, probably checking in at 200,000 words.

 

Audio versions of Seeker and The Devil's Eye are coming. Details will be passed along when they show up.

 

Time Travelers Never Die is well underway. I'm trying to look at what time travel might really be like if you actually acquired a device, along with a warning to change nothing. And no instructions. How, for example, could you manage to have the thing put you down at the intersection of W 45th Street and Fifth Avenue? (If there is such a place.) How do you buy meals in medieval Italy? How find an address in 16th century London? (Did they even have addresses?)

 

Headed for Willycon in Nebraska next weekend.

 

And finally, we learned this week of the death of Arthur C. Clarke. I never had the opportunity to meet him, although I felt I knew him intimately through his books. Exchanged one e-mail with him. (One of the three fan letters I can recall having written.) I wouldn't know how to measure Clarke's contribution to the field. Or to me, personally. I believe his classic story "The Star" hit me as hard as any piece of SF, ever, and maybe as hard as any piece of literature, period. My other favorite moments are the conversation between Adam and God in Paradise Lost when Adam complains about being alone, and God asks, 'Who is more alone than I?' And Hector's farewell to Andromache in The Iliad. And maybe's Ivan's story about the Russian duke and the young mother he wants to bed in The Brothers Karamazov.

 

If you're interested, the other fan letters went to Dennis Overbye for Lonely Hearts of the Cosmos, and to Will Eisner, for The Spirit, which showed me what a short story could be long before anybody got around to it in school. (In fact, I'm not sure anybody ever did get around to it in school.)

In any case, Arthur, we'll miss you. There'll never be another.

 

— Jack

 

Journal Entry #15

April 19, 2008

               Finished James Bamford's The Puzzle Palace. Recommended for anyone interested in the behind-the-scenes story of the NSA.
               Attended Willycon, at Wayne State College in Nebraska. Other guests included Paul Lawrence, whose long history in Hollywood includes working on Commander-in-Chief with Geena Davis and Donald Sutherland, and for six years he served, often as assistant director, for Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Paul brought several of his own short films with him. A couple of them knocked my socks off.
              Artist GoH was John E. Kaufmann, who does magnificent starscapes. John and I shared a panel in which we tried to create an interstellar vacation spot to audience specs. We came up with a villa on an airless moon orbiting a pair of gas giants that were orbiting each other. Both giants have rings and moons. We looked at other possibilities as well, including a house on the coast of a lifeless world. (We seemed to have a thing for worlds on which we'd have no company.) But there's a galaxy in the sky.
            The fan guests were Trudy Myers and John Shoberg, both of whom were active throughout and participated in the writing workshop.
           Jacksonville University is running a series of seminars to help local teachers put together curricula in various subjects. I was invited to participate in one that uses SF to inspire an interest in reading, the sciences, and, obviously, critical thinking. We don't get enough of that. Too much of what our schools do consists of indoctrination, and there's relatively little interest in thinking for oneself. I went to a religious school, and it was, um, frowned on. Anyhow the seminar was intriguing. I'd have been happy to have any of the attendees as a teacher.
          After about two weeks, I completed the copy-editing process for The Devil's Eye. Will mail the manuscript back to the editor tomorrow.
         My copies of Sideways in Crime arrived. It's an anthology of alternate world detective stories. I read the first two this evening: "Running the Snake," by Kage Baker, in which Will Shakespeare has to make his way through an England where Christianity went awry. And John Meaney's "Via Vortex," with a United States that is wildly different. Both good stories. I have an entry, "The Adventure of the Southsea Trunk," in which Conan Doyle gives up writing Sherlock Holmes very early to do "more serious stuff." And yes, I know I have a Holmes & Watson fixation. The anthology is edited by Lou Anders and should be in bookstores any time.
            I survived another birthday this week. Maureen always gives me interesting presents. Among them: copies of Why We're Liberals, by Eric Alterman, and Physics of the Impossible by Michio Kaku.
Watched the ABC debate the other evening. I wish we could stop talking about Jeremiah Johnson and Hillary trying to get off the plane while under fire. There's a major worldwide population problem. We've tripled in just two centuries, and we're straining resources. It never gets mentioned. Oil is a trifle expensive. The war grinds on. What are the energy plans? Population in the U.S. continues to exacerbate our resources. In my lifetime it's almost tripled.
           Also, I'd be interested in hearing what the candidates are reading. And I'd love to hear someone challenge the candidates --all of them-- to take an IQ test. Or possibly whatever passes for the old Federal Service Entrance Exam. And publish the results. And I know that sounds elitist. But do we really want an average person in the Oval Office?

— Jack
 

Journal Entry #16

May 2, 2008

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I spent last week in Austin at the annual Nebula Awards Banquet. You may already know who the winners are. If not, or you'd like to see more, go to http://www.sfwa.org/ -- Michael Chabon, who won the Nebula in the novel category for The Yiddish Policeman's Union, is also a Pulitzer Prize winner. Two of the other winners, Nancy Kress and Karen Joy Fowler, have been friends for a long time. Both were regulars at the Sycamore Hill Writers' Workshop in the late eighties and early nineties. For those who wonder about the value of attending workshops, I can tell you that Sycamore Hill was one of the highlights of my career. One of the critical things I picked up: You don't go for the clean, obvious ending. I remember talking to Lewis Shiner there about A Talent for War, which was then under construction. The climax put Alex Benedict at the controls of the super warship Corsarius. A Mute destroyer has been trying to take him out. Now Alex has the upper hand. As originally written, Alex pulled the trigger and blew everybody away. Lew shook his head. "Why does he kill them? They can't harm him now." It was a simple enough sequence, but it changed the way I thought about what I was doing.

 

Anyway, my congratulations to the winners.

Also on the Nebulas: I can't resist noting that eight of my thirteen novels have made the final ballot, including the last five..

 

I'll be spending next week at Newfound Memorial HS in Bristol, NH, where I used to be English Dept chairman. Thirty-five years ago. Not having had enough, they've invited me back to talk about writing. My experience there in the early seventies left me feeling pretty good about the kids. They were ambitious, and a lot of them had a passion for reading. I cut my teaching career short after ten years because we were about to have our first child. We were also supporting two mothers, and we simply needed more money. I eventually got a job as a customs inspector which, when the overtime was added, doubled my pay.

 

JH writes: "Noticed you're reading Why We're Liberal. Just wondering if you've ever speculated on why so many creative types, writers and other artists, are predominantly liberal, in the political sense. This is my observation from years of going to SF conventions, and talking with writer friends...."

 

Since we're in a political season, I thought I'd post my response:

"Not sure I can answer for others on the liberal/conservative issue. I've voted both ways. My inclination usually is to vote against whoever is currently in office, because politicians seem especially prone to corruption. I like Arthur Clarke's comment that anyone who actively seeks the presidency shouldn't be allowed anywhere near the oval office.

 

"Lately, I've been voting Democratic because the Republican dominance of recent years has brought the country to its knees. The reality, I think, is that we need both conservatives and liberals to make the country work. Liberals to look for, and try, new ideas. Conservatives to hold onto what works until we find something better. I think the vast majority of Americans, given responsible leadership (which is rare), come down more or less in the political center. Nobody wants welfare cheats, but nobody wants the kids of feckless parents to starve. Nobody wants to leave the country defenseless, but nobody wants to get involved in pointless wars. So we look for a middle course.

 

"The problem develops when politicians try to pad their nests by raising phony issues and setting people against one another. And it's exacerbated today by the number of bloggers and media types who make a career of attacking the opposition. Limbaugh comes immediately to mind."

 

RW suggests reading The Light's on at Signpost, a collection of reminiscences by George MacDonald Fraser, creator of the Flashman novels. I haven't read it, but I have read the Flashman books, which I've enjoyed as much as anything I've seen. They are not SF, but they are superb. Read one and you won't be able to stop. I guarantee it.

 

Finally, I keep hearing about values voters. The values usually seem to be the right to bear arms, an antipathy to gays, and anti-abortion. Why, I wonder, does no one ever mention intelligence?

— Jack

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Journal Entry #17

May 14, 2008

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I'm just back from serving a week as writer in residence at Newfound Regional High School in Bristol, NH. Thirty-five years ago, I was the English Department chairman at Newfound. Hard to believe so much time has passed. I enjoyed the position immensely, by the way, but had to leave because I was supporting two adults (other than my wife), and could not do it on a teacher's salary.
            I enjoyed myself. The students were the way I remember their parents: bright and enthusiastic. We talked about the sense of wonder, and what a writer tries to do (not tell a story, but create an experience). We also talked about why people weigh more in the basement than they do on the roof. On the fact that space is made out of rubber. That you age more quickly waiting for the bus that you do actually riding it. We talked about Hamlet and tribalism and tried to put the responsibility of an American citizen into no more than 57 words.
            James Patrick Kelly, who has also served as writer-in-residence at Newfound, came over for an evening. Jim writes compelling fiction, and if you've not read him, you have a treat in store.
         Several of us went to see "Iron Man" the other evening. It's not "Hamlet," but it is fun.
Science on the newsstands: Astronomy has a cover story on the approaching end of the Milky Way when it collides with Andromeda (which is fortunately still several billion years off). And The Atlantic has a cover story on the dangers presented by asteroids. Is anybody at the White House listening?
         I'll be at the Florida Writers Assn get-together in Ponte Vidra, FL, Saturday, May 17. Will be conducting a workshop on common blunders. (Who better to do that?) And I'll also be the keynote speaker at the luncheon. Information can be had at http://www.windrusher.com/Conference.html
          A tornado hit our home town of Brunswick, GA, two days ago. Did some damage on the mainland and on St Simons Island. Fortunately, though, no one was hurt.
         Finally, I'm reading The Thurber Carnival. My favorite story, one of my favorite stories all-time, is "The Greatest Man in the World."

— Jack

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JOURNAL ENTRY #18

May 31, 2008

​

The Florida Writers Association had me in as guest Saturday May 17, at Ponte Vedra Beach. This kind of event always makes for a rousing time, because the place is filled with people who are passionate about writing. A few admitted during asides that they had finished projects, but had not submitted them to editors. And were reluctant to do so. There's a tendency among beginning writers to assume they will never see publication, and consequently they don't really make the effort. The reality is that there's only one way to find out: A person who wants to write professionally should, rephrasing Heinlein slightly, finish his work, send it to one of the top publishers, and find out what happens. No one wants to reach a point in his life where he has failed to do something he really wanted to do, because he didn't think he could manage it, and consequently never really tried.

 

I've said this elsewhere, but for what it's worth: my experience is that most people underrate their own abilities. If you want to write, if you want to win the gorgeous young woman in the accounting department, if you want to be a doctor, whatever, make the effort. Make it happen.

 

Obama has withdrawn from his church. One deranged pastor too many, I guess. Whatever happened to the line from Article vi: 'No religious test'? Can anyone who has honestly looked at our world not at least wondered at the notion that we have a divine protector? This is after all a world in which hawks routinely gobble down kittens, armies of kids are born with a wide range of deformities, tidal waves and earthquakes kill thousands, planes go down, cranes fall over, and idiots in uniform prevent supplies from getting to people who are dying. But if you ever hope to run for political office, do not admit publicly that you might have a few doubts about sacred assertions.

 

We saw the "Crystal Skull" the other evening. Indy is always fun to watch, but I'd have preferred to see him taking on HUAC. THAT would have made for a fascinating two hours.

 

I've been reading John Lewis's =Walking with the Wind=, and the Ellison essay (from =The Essential Ellison=) both on the Selma marches. John Lewis led the first of the three marches, the "Bloody Sunday" event in which Alabama state troopers and the sheriff's deputies launched an unprovoked attack on the demonstrators, a group that included elderly persons, women, and children. They used clubs and tear gas. Harlan also has a blood curdling description of one of the marches. He was a participant, while most of us were off doing something else. (I was vacationing in Mexico.)

 

I've also been digging into "Cicero" from =Plutarch's Lives=, and Tom Paine's =The Crisis=. If any of this sounds as if I'm working on a time travel project, I'll plead guilty. Other characters will include Winston Churchill, Galileo, Charles Lamb, and Ben Jonson, among others. Readers will have a chance to sit in on the first production of =Hamlet=, and will visit the Alexandria Library in its heyday. With a guy who can read Greek and Latin.

 

— Jack

 

JOURNAL ENTRY #19

June 15, 2008

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Brenau University, Valdosta State, and the Coastline Community College have developed a combined venture at Kings Bay Submarine Base in southern Georgia. On June 6, they graduated 134 students with associates', bachelors' and masters' degrees in a range of areas from business administration to electronics technology to criminal justice. They invited me to give the keynote, and though I promised myself I'd refrain from talking about science fiction, I couldn't resist getting into the sciences a bit. Though only to the extent that I suggested the graduates take time to note occasionally the grandeur of the universe they live in. In the end, that's what education is really about, not gaining the capacity to make more money, but acquiring an appreciation of the wonders that surround us. It was, incidentally, my first visit ro a naval base since 1965.

 

We went to see M. Night Shyamalan's "The Happening." There were four of us. Reactions varied, but I was much impressed. It's refreshing to see some science fiction that's more than simply invaders running loose, or a monster chasing people through dark woods. The film is imaginative, thoughtful, and scary. Don't take the kids, though.

 

Robert Sawyer's Wake arrived the other day. I'll confess here that I've gotten bored with most of what passes for SF these days. Maybe I've simply read too much of it in a lifetime, but I need something more than interstellar wars or people trying to deal with exotic implants. I think I've read everything Sawyer's done, and I'm happy to note that he's never failed me. It'll be a few days before I can start it though. I'm trying to catch up on the last few issues of the major SF magazines, plus a couple of anthologies. For Nebula voting purposes. Trying to stay current takes a fair amount of time.

 

I mislaid the copy of Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything, which had been a Christmas present. Came across it several days ago. It's one of the most intriguing science books I've seen. Bryson not only asks the right questions, but he can lay the corresponding theories out in plain English, and with passion. He seems to be a guy who really cares about quantum mechanics, exclusion principles, and how long it would take a brick to hit bottom if you drilled a well all the way to the core.

 

Have also been reading essays by W.E.B. DuBois. Somebody else whose work is essential for gaining a wider perspective on the black experience. Or maybe on the experience of everyone who, for one reason or another, gets treated as an outsider.

 

I now have a complete first draft of Time Travelers Never Die. Robert Heinlein famously said you should never do a rewrite except under editorial command. I'm not sure whether he was actually claiming he could get it right the first time. My own first drafts are terrible. I've always refused to show them to anyone.

 

And I can't help thinking how much better high school kids would do with their essays if they could get away from handing in their first attempts all the time. Especially in an era when fixing the thing is so easy.

I've stayed clear of cons this summer. Last year was too much of a dash to the finish. I was a month late closing out The Devil's Eye, and I don't want to reach a point where a novel suffers because I wasn't able to make adequate time to write the thing. The only commitment I have this side of Labor Day is Friday, August 22, at Stratford Academy in Macon, Georgia.

 

Jack

 

JOURNAL ENTRY #20

July 1, 2008

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Three days ago, in an interview, I was asked about my favorite books. The list, which was not to include SF, would change from day to day, but here are the ones I chose, in no particular order.

1. The Brothers Karamazov, Dostoevsky

 

I was 23, in the Far East, when I settled down with this one. The most memorable passage: When Ivan explains to Alyosha the reasons for his atheism. He tells of a mother of two children who refuses the advances of a Russian count. The count throws one of the kids to the dogs while the mother watches. Then he looks at the remaining child and asks her again. "What," says Ivan, "could that woman ever receive in eternity that would compensate for the agony of that moment?"

 

2. The Sherlock Holmes Canon

I discovered Holmes during the summer of 1955, when I was at LaSalle College. Once I'd read A Study in Scarlet, there was no escape.

 

3. Poems of A.E. Housman

He has only two themes: early death, and unrequited love. I know the official standings among poets, but I've never encountered anyone who can deliver a punch the way Housman does.

 

4. Any collection of Mark Twain's essays

His funniest and most compelling work is his conversations with the reader. Or, perhaps, Fred Lorch's The Trouble Begins at Eight, an account of his tours with generous excerpts from the lectures.

 

5. David Copperfield, Dickens

Another one from my college years. I was a freshman. LaSalle was publishing my first short story in its literary magazine, Four Quarters, and I thought I was on my way to becoming the next Robert Heinlein. Then I read Copperfield. At one point, the beloved Barkis lies dying in his bed, and the reader is conscious of the murmur of the nearby sea. And Barkis, informed that the end is near, delivers his tag line:


"Barkis is willin'!"
And, it being low water, he went out with the tide.

I reacted by recognizing that I would never get near that level, and gave up all ambition to write. Not another word for 25 years. Until I figured out you didn't have to be as good as Dickens.

 

6. Any James Thurber collection

Driest wit this side of the Pecos.

 

7. War and Peace, Tolstoy

War, what is it good for? Occasionally, you get a novel that's impossible to put down. Tolstoy gives us the central drama of the French invasion of Russia, and adds unforgettable details. Like the method by which Napoleon hands out medals.

 

8. War and Remembrance, Herman Wouk

Should include the companion volume, The Winds of War. A brilliant portrait of the second war.

 

9. A Mencken Chrestomathy, H. L. Mencken

Had my folks known what he had to say, they'd never have granted my request and got this book as a Christmas present. I was never the same.

 

10. Any collection of Irwin Shaw's short stories

Recommended especially for anyone who wants to learn how to write short fiction. Of course, genius helps, too.

                                                                                                                     #

A few others that I've a special fondness for:

• The Lives and Times of Archy and Mehitabel, Don Marquis

• The Star Thrower, Loren Eiseley (And pretty much anything else by Loren Eiseley)

• Short fiction by Ring Lardner

• The Return of Hyman Kaplan, Leo Rosten

• Berlin Diary, William Shirer

And my favorite science fiction anthology: Adventures in Time and Space, edited by Healy & McComas

This evening, I expect to start Kaufman & Hart's George Washington Slept Here.

                                                                                                                     #

A week or so ago, a college instructor told me that none of his students read anything except what's assigned or what's in some way connected with the class. When I think of the impact that the books mentioned above, and of course several zillion others, have had on me across a lifetime, of how they've influenced the way I see the world, how much pure pleasure they've provided, and how many laughs, I can feel nothing but sympathy for people who never show up at the station.

 

There's a sequence in the forthcoming novel version of Time Travelers Never Die in which the protagonists visit the Library of Alexandria, at the height of its glory. Of course, they used scrolls, printed by hand. A book, in the second century B.C. was an expensive item. For people in the 20th century, it's something we simply take for granted. Thank God for paper. What kind of world would we live in did it not exist?

 

Jack

 

JOURNAL ENTRY #22

August 1, 2008

​

I just finished my last pass through The Devil's Eye. It's probably the seventh or eighth time I've gone through it, and if you're wondering why I can't get it right the first time, I can only hope you figure it out and let me know. Somebody said once that this sort of thing is the reason they lock the Louvre at night. I have never bought into Heinlein's injunction that you rewrite only at an editor's insistence. Although I suspect he wasn't talking about the number of passes through a manuscript, but about doing a rewrite after the submission.

 

The Devil's Eye will be the fourth outing for Chase and Alex. The plot line: Alex's home world, Rimway, is near the edge of the galaxy. But there's another human world, Salud Afar, 30,000 light years further out. It's still, of course, part of the Milky Way. But at that range, its skies are dark, except for a couple of planets, a single star that's even more distant, and the haze that is the galactic rim.

Vicki Greene is an eminent writer of horror novels, immensely popular, and a dazzling speaker at conventions and other events. She is based on Rimway. Chase and Alex are just returning from touring Atlantis with friends, when a message comes in from Greene: "Alex," she says, "God help me, they're all dead."

 

Neither Alex nor Chase has had any previous connection with her. They are several days away, and by the time they return home, they discover that Greene has undergone a mind wipe. Her memory is gone. Doctors have given her a new identity. She was suffering, one of them tells Alex. "We didn't want to do the procedure, but there seemed no alternative."

 

"She was suffering from what?"

 

"Emotional distress. >From something she knew. Or had imagined."

 

She has left an enormous amount of money for Alex, with no explanation and no additional information. Her editor explains that she had been vacationing on Salud Afar. Is there anything special about Salud Afar? "It's an ideal world for a horror writer," says the editor. "Lots of strange places. An unquiet grave. A time lab abandoned centuries before, but that may still be home to time travelers. A phantom aircraft." And a lot more. An ideal spot for her. But a quick investigation indicates that no one knows of any unusual incidents in which she was involved, either on Rimway or Salud Afar. And certainly nobody's dead.

Yet her family, her editor, her doctors, are all mystified. Greene had everything to live for. She was still young. The public loved her. She had never been known to suffer from mental or emotional problems. What then has happened? Ultimately, in their efforts to learn the truth, Chase and Alex will visit Salud Afar, and will also find themselves at ground zero as Confederates and Mutes face off again.

 

#

 

I've started =Bleak House=. It's been a good many years since I've read a Dickens novel, and I'd forgotten how effective he can be. I have the complete Oxford set. I've read some of the essays and short fiction, but am embarrassed to admit that my last novel was =Our Mutual Friend=, back when I was in the Navy. Once again, we're reminded how quickly the years pass.

 

And a book for leisure moments: =It Seemed Like a Good Idea=, edited by William R. Forstchen and Bill Fawcett. The subtitle is: A Compendium of Great Historical Fiascoes. Next time you feel confident about putting your life or your future in the hands of a general, a president, or whomever, take a look at this one and get your head down. Included are roughly fifty prize cases of military, political, and social blunders, botched jobs, and fumbles.

 

#

A good many people have inquired whether =Cauldron= is indeed the last Academy novel. In each case, I provided a firm response. I said I didn't know. (Okay, before anybody points the finger at me, I know the line is lifted from Mark Twain.) I started my career determined to do no sequels. I've no idea why. Eventually, I discovered I missed some of the characters. And that's not an exaggeration. You spend a lot of time inside someone's head, and you can't help feeling an attraction after a while. So I'll confess that, at the moment, anything's possible. I've even thought about doing a couple of prequels. Hutch in her twenties.

 

On another subject, a number of readers have offered plot ideas. I want to say here that I appreciate the effort. And some of the ideas have been pretty good. Pretty good to the extent that they would be usable. Unfortunately, I can't touch them. For one thing, you have to live with an idea, nurse it along, before you can really write a decent novel about it. (This is even true where a critical aspect comes from, say, a physicist.) More important, when a suggestion comes from someone I don't know, I can't be sure of the source. Is it original? Is it something the individual read long ago and possibly forgot? The truth is that I'm seldom really sure in my own case about the source of ideas. Sometimes you pick up a notion somewhere, and after a while you adopt it as your own. And come to believe it. Consequently any writer is very careful about other people's suggestions. My best reaction: The idea might indeed be a glorious one. Why give it away?

 

Jack