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January 12, 2008 News from John...
My wife came up with the idea of putting out an H. Beam Piper T-shirt to coincide with the publication of the new Piper biography. Well, "H. Beam Piper: A Biography" is due from McFarland & Company on March 30, 2008 and that time has arrived. Tori and I have always thought the Typewriter ‘Killer’ image from the Pennsy article of the same name was the best surviving photograph of H. Beam Piper -- and certainly the most noir. Thanks to Tom Rogers, we've obtained a very high quality copy of the September 1953 "Pennsy" issue and have made up a limited number of white Typewriter ‘Killer’ T-shirts with this black and white image. These will be 100% cotton Gildan T-shirts. The Typewriter ‘Killer’ image will be on the front and the back will read: H. Beam Piper: A Biography with my Hostgos.com web address underneath. We have them available in the following sizes: Large, Extra-Large, XX-Large and XXX-Large sizes. If you have a special request for a smaller size, write and I’ll see what I can do. Visit the Shop on our menu for a scan of the T-shirt, pricing and other details. These shirts will be a unique Piper memento. I'm really looking forward to wearing mine at some SF Cons next year. It's a striking image of the Thin Man, as Beam's close friends called him, and they should be a great conversation starter! Finally, after thirty years, my Piper biography will soon be in print - March 30, 2008! We will be selling copies in the Shop here at Hostigos.com as soon as they‘re available. "H. Beam Piper: A Biography" will illuminate H. Beam Piper the writer and the man. The majority of this information on H. Beam Piper has never seen the light of day and I fully intend to show Piper the man, as well as unlock many of the ‘mysteries’ surrounding his life and death. My final announcement is that the H. Beam Piper Memorial website is up and running on the Internet at www.h-beampiper.com. The H. Beam Memorial Fund was founded by Dennis Frank and John Carr to collect donations from Piper fans and readers to purchase a proper granite memorial headstone for Piper’s grave in Fairview Cemetery, Altoona, Pennsylvania and to pay tribute to the memory of H. Beam Piper. It is our plan to raise enough money through contributions so that we, as a group of Piper fans and admirers, can replace the existing grass covered marker at Altoona's Fairview Cemetery with a solid granite memorial stone. The new headstone will include an etching of Beam’s face and his epithet, provided by his ex-wife, Betty Piper in a 1975 letter: "’He always maintained his independence.’ he said he wanted that on his tombstone." It is only fitting that we who love his work memorialize his burial site. The new headstone will be composed of gray granite (Rock of Ages) and will cost approximately $5,115.00, which is the Altoona Memorial Studio estimate. We plan to raise the money through contributions here and on the new Memorial website. Donations can be made via PayPal at www.H-BeamPiper.com, or by sending a check or money order to: H. Beam Piper Memorial Fund P.O. Box 96 Boalsburg, PA 16827 John F. Carr
October 5, 2007 News from John... Dear Readers, the new book, "War World: The Battle of Sauron," arrived from the printers this afternoon. The book is beautiful, with an eye-popping full color star map for the endpapers. For a look at the cover and star map, go to ‘Gallery’ in the menu. Alan has recently finished the cover for my new War World anthology, "War Worlds: Beginnings," which will be out in a few months from Final Sword Productions in trade paperback. Go to ‘Gallery’ for a look at the first draft of the new cover. In this new series, all the War World stories (and many new ones) will be set in chronological order, which is not how they appeared in the Bean Books original editions. There will also be new non-fiction and War World history and background that never appeared in the previous seven books. There are now three paintings by Alan Gutierrez available as prints from books by John F. Carr: "Great Kings War," "Queen Rylla’s Crown" and the "H. Beam Piper Portrait" at the Pod Gallery. The last two paintings are of covers of upcoming books. The prints are of high quality stock, and, include choices of photo paper stock, watercolor glicee, and canvas style glicee. Glicee closely simulates actual paint on canvas. Prices start at $20 for an 11" x 14" size print; prints can be ordered as large as 44" x 55"—the actual size of the original artwork. These are beautiful paintings and highly recommended. I have several of them framed and hanging on the walls of my office! The link for Alan’s Pod Gallery site is: www.podgallery.com/gutierrez. All "Battle of Sauron" pre-orders will be in the mail by Tuesday, October 2nd. The book is now available for purchase at ‘Books’ in the website menu. I’m
almost finished with the first draft of "Queen Rylla’s Throne" and expect
to have it completed before the end of October. John
August 28 , 2007 News from John... Dear Readers, Lots of news for this post. First, “War World: The Battle of Sauron,” is at the printers. Go to the Gallery to see the final dust jacket layout and art. Alan Gutierrez and the graphic designer did a fantastic job and it’s one of our best covers yet. We received the printer’s blue-lines for “The Battle of Sauron” this week and Victoria Alexander, Pequod’s editor-and-chief, and I are going over them now. We intend to have them back to the printer after the weekend. “The Battle of Sauron” will be out and in the mail before the end of September. For those of you unfamiliar with the War World series, this volume would be an ideal introduction, since it chronicles the arrival of the Sauron invaders on Haven, a barely habitable moon of a Jovian planet, Cat’s Eye. It’s a space adventure in the mold of H. Beam Piper’s work and based on an idea developed by myself and Jerry Pournelle. Five War World anthologies (including “CoDominium: Revolt on War World) and two War World novels were published by Baen Book in the early 1990s. The new novel, “War World: The Battle of Sauron” takes place in the waning days of the First Empire of Man, a future history inspired by Piper’s own Terro-Human Future History. Ad Astra, a gaming company and publisher, and myself are working on new editions of the War World anthologies. We plan to reprint most of the older stories, interspersed with new ones, in trade paperback volumes in chronological order. There will also be non-fiction exploring War World and its peoples. The first volume, “The War World Chronicles: Volume I,” will cover the early exploration and conquest of Haven during the CoDominium. There will be five or six new stories in this volume; it’s scheduled for release in October 2007. Alan Gutierrez will be doing the cover art and one or two interior black & white illustrations. A War World role playing game is planned for next year. My editor at McFarland & Company wrote to say they will be releasing my H. Beam Piper biography next year. To quote: “Your book will appear in our spring 2008 catalog, which means publication in the first half of the year. It’s too early to estimate what month at this point.” I will post the actual publication date as soon as McFarland provides it. To my chagrin, the title has been changed to the very original “H. Beam Piper: A Biography.” However, there is a good chance that Alan Gutierrez’s proposed cover art (see Gallery) will be used by McFarland for their cover. Let’s keep our fingers crossed! On May 26th at 9:00 a.m. sharp the Irregulars’ Muster met at the Waffle Shop on Atherton in State College. It was a small gathering of Piper fans, but lively with Fred Ramsey, Dennis Frank and myself in attendance. After breakfast we car pooled and Dennis drove us out to Altoona. First on the itinerary was Fairview Cemetery. Having visited Beam's grave site last year we knew just where to look, right across from Altoona Hospital at the corner of 5th Street and Willow Avenue. Last year we'd “found” Beam's burial plot and it was thought that the corner Hospital parking lot was his former Altoona apartment. Our big discovery of the day was that Beam and Harriet Piper were in the middle of a family plot, surrounded by the Maurer family members. The Maurer name (having spent much of the last year working on Piper’s biography) triggered my memory and I recalled that Harriet Piper's maiden name was Maurer. The oldest (double) gave site was that of Henry Maurer (1829-1908) and Caroline Maurer (1839-1908): we quickly determined we had found the Maurer family plot. [When I returned home, I verified these names with the Harriet Maurer/Herbert Piper wedding announcement.] The only two graves without the Maurer name were Harriet and H. Beam Piper. Since the Coleman’s (Diane specifically) were involved in making the funeral arrangements for Beam it’s not surprising they would locate him next to his mother. There were a number of other Maurer grave markers, most of an age to have been Harriet's brothers and sisters. The biggest surprise was Father Raymond G. Maurer (1910 - 1970), Beam’s cousin who was a Presbyterian priest! (The family was Presbyterian so it’s highly doubtful that he was Catholic.) According to the marriage announcement, Harriet and Herbert: “were married at 9 o’clock this morning at the home of the bride's parents, 311 Howard Avenue, by Rev. John W. Bain, of the First Presbyterian Church.” There is no mention of Father Raymond in either Coleman’s “The Early Letters,”" or in any of Beam's diary entries... This was news to Don Coleman, too, I talked to him on the phone and he had never heard of Beam’s cousin Raymond, either. After visiting the Fairview Cemetery, our next stop was the Altoona Railroad Museum for a visit to the Juniata shops where Beam prowled the Yards as a night guard. It was interesting to see the actual Yards, which run for about ten miles! Altoona, in its heyday, was the center where most of the locomotives in the U.S. were made, and had a worldwide reputation for excellence. Our next plan was to locate Beam’s former residences. Since this was an ad hoc investigation, I called home and had my wife go through my notes for all of Beam’s Altoona addresses. She located three addresses: 407 Wordsworth, 407 Howard Avenue and 1314 Eighth Street. We visited the 407 Howard Avenue address first, which is only a few blocks away from the Pennsy car shops and rail heads. Unfortunately, time has not been kind to this area. It’s close to Altoona Hospital which has cannibalized many of the nearby neighborhoods. On the 400 stretch of Howard Avenue, there was a parking lot covering most of the block and no evidence of the Piper apartment. We did find some similar two-story row houses about two blocks away which were probably similar to the Piper apartment house. Dennis used his digital video recording to tape this (as well as the Piper grave site) for future additions to his website. Next, we walked to the 1300 block of Eighth Street, which is only a block or two away from the rail yards. The 1300 house is still there, along with a 2+1 garage, which appears to match the original structure probably built around 1920. Since there was little need for so much car storage, I suspect the structure served as an early car repair business. The lot next door to the garages was vacant and the last structure was a two-story State Farm Insurance agency, which appeared to be of 50’s/60’s construction and thereby unlikely to have once housed the Pipers. We plan to do more research and see if more information can be obtained before our next visit. We left Altoona at about 4:00 p.m. and drove back to State College for dinner, having accomplished far more than anticipated. We had a great time and are looking forward to next year’s Muster, and welcome anyone who would like to join us. In spite of the interruptions, I’m making good progress with “Queen Rylla’s Crown” and will have the book written before the end of the year. John
February 28 , 2007 News from John... Yesterday the final manuscript for The Last Cavalier: H. Beam Piper was mailed via Express Mail to McFarland Books. It should be out within a year, with any luck it will be in print before the end of 2007. The final manuscript (with chapter notes and bibliography) topped out at 121,000 words. I may have to make some more cuts, but it will be rough slogging. As it is, I cut over 50,000 words and the appendix, although I added another several thousands words because going over all the material again gave me some new insights into Beam’s personality and writings. Then I found a rare letter from Beam to Freida Coleman, written after his mother’s death, which actually gave Betty’s former "married name." I also discovered some priceless quotes that I’d missed in Mike Knerr’s unpublished biography, "PIPER." As Ken White used to say, Beam was a "One!" Hard to get it all into one book...someday I’ll do a sequel, "The Tao of Piper." The Last Cavalier will include some great photos of Beam from Don Coleman from the 1920s, ’30s and ’50s, but they’re snapshot quality photos and taken from ‘old’ prints that have faded over time. Certainly, not cover quality. Still, it's great to see Beam as a young whippersnapper with the rest of the "Unholy Trinity," as he, Ferd Coleman and Ted Ranck used to call themselves. Plus shots of his wife, Betty, and their dachshund Verkan Vall! The one taken on the Queen Mary, shot when Beam was going to France with Betty, shows little Vall tugging at one of Beam’s slippers. It’s priceless. In a recent phone conversation with Don Coleman, he told me a story about Beam, who after coming back from France, showed him one of the shredded leather slippers: "Beam was pissed as hell, those damn slippers were real leather and expensive, even back then! Still, he couldn’t resist pulling out the snapshot of Vall he kept in his wallet; I’ll swear to My Maker there was moisture in those anthracite eyes of his, maybe the only time I ever saw them well up." Unfortunately, there really isn’t a good "full-sized" photo for the cover. The dust jacket photos from Murder in the Gunroom and Four-Day Planet are under 2 inches by 3 inches. So I’m hoping that McFarland will use the cover Alan Gutierrez worked up based on my ideas... We shall see. Go to the Gallery and you can see the proposed cover art for yourself. Alan did a truly first-rate job and I think it would make a killer cover. My first order of business, now that the Piper biography is finished, will be to make the final corrections to the galleys of the new War World novel: The Battle of Sauron. Then back to Queen Rylla’s Crown, which I hope to have done by the end of summer. Right now we’re hoping to have copies printed by the first part of next year in plenty of time for the 50th Paratime (the Penn State SF Club) convention and reunion. John
November 22, 2006 News from John... Dear Readers, last week I received the contracts for my long awaited H. Beam Piper biography, H. Beam Piper: The Last Cavalier. The publisher will be McFarland & Company, Inc. McFarland is a scholarly press which has published several hundred science fiction studies as well as other genre. They also have access to hundreds of libraries and book stores. We've been in negotiation for a couple of months, but I didn't want to announce it until I received a green light from the McFarland Editorial Board. This will be McFarland's first SF biography, so the acceptance process took longer than usual. As I've mentioned previously, I finished a rough draft of H. Beam Piper: The Last Cavalier in 2003 amounting to some 155,000 words. McFarland wants me to cut it back to 110,000 so there will be significant rewriting. H. Beam Piper was one of the most enigmatic writers in the field of science fiction. He appeared suddenly in 1947 as a mature writer and went on to write a number of memorable short stories in the premier science fiction magazine of the Golden Age, Astounding Science Fiction, under legendary editor John W. Campbell. Piper quickly became friends with many of the top writers of that era, Lester Del Rey, Fletcher Pratt, Frederick Pohl and Sprague de Camp. Even those who counted Piper among their friends knew very little about the man and his real life as a railroad yard guard for the Pennsy Railroad in Altoona, Pennsylvania. Piper was very protective over his personal privacy and had a Victorian view of publicity and self-promotion. Most of his science fiction friends and fans believed he was an engineer, of the slide rule variety, working for the Pennsy Railroad. Not even his closest friends knew that he began writing as a teenager and received rejection after rejection for close to thirty years before he made his first sale to Astounding Science Fiction in 1945 with “Time and Time Again,” which appeared the following year. H. Beam Piper’s entire life was draped in secrecy and he lived in dire poverty for great stretches of time. After reading this book, you will feel like you've actually met H. Beam Piper; The Last Cavalier contains a treasure trove of material. Over ninety-percent of the information in The Last Cavalier: H. Beam Piper has never been published, made available through the Internet or any other source. The crowning jewel is the complete collection of correspondence between H. Beam Piper and his best friend, Ferd Coleman, which runs from 1929 to 1953 until Coleman’s death in a tragic plane crash in Mexico. Thanks to Don Coleman these letters were collected and put together with the Coleman family’s personal recollections of Beam as The Early Letters. We owe Don a great round of thanks for saving these several hundred valuable letters, which open up a period of Piper's life that up until now has been pure conjecture and illuminates Beam's early years as a struggling author. The last half of the book draws heavily from PIPER, Michael E. Knerr's autobiography written for Ace Books in 1987, which they rejected out-of-hand, despite a promise to publish it in return for the “lost” third Fuzzy novel... Serendipitously, I talked to Mike right after his biography was turned down, and he cursed a blue streak against Ace and threatened to destroy the manuscript. I attempted to talk him out of it, pointing out that to throw it away would be a great loss to Piper’s legacy. I was surprised as hell, when three months later, he sent me the original manuscript. I had a very nice talk with Mike Knerr's son Daniel recently and learned that Mike Knerr had died in 1999. Dan didn't even know the manuscript of PIPER existed and very graciously gave me permission to quote extensively from it. This rare manuscript provides a firsthand look at Beam during the last years of his life and provides great insight into Piper's financial and mental decline. I've also had access to Piper’s diaries. I was able to interview several members of John J. McGuire's family, Terry and John J. Jr., who have provided me with the exclusive story of the Piper/McGuire collaborative partnership. Anne McGuire, Jack’s widow, bestows even more insights about their collaborative efforts and Beam’s life in a wonderful question and answer session which she taped. H. Beam Piper was a fascinating character with a wry wit and an irreverent view of science fiction, his own foibles, the politics of his time and the human species. His letters were written with an eye toward posterity and they truly reward and fascinate even the most casual reader. Piper’s humanity and informed intelligence grace every page. Beam was an original, even for his own time. With the wealth of information I have unearthed over the past twenty-five years, I intend to lift this veil of secrecy from Piper’s life and show my readers the real H. Beam Piper beneath his carefully created facade. This book will reveal “the man inside the black cape;” the animal lover, the friend of children everywhere, the lonely man who was imprisoned by his own solitude and unaware of the high regard he was held in by his peers and the science fiction readership—all of whom were stunned by his unexpected suicide. I'm really excited about getting this book into print and into the hands of readers who will truly enjoy it. It is scheduled for publication in 2008. Visit our Gallery for Alan Gutierrez's latest Paratime color sketch: this time it's a view of Dhergabar City for the Paratime section that will be appearing on the website. This is the first draft and it will go through some further revision before it's finalized. I thought everyone might enjoy seeing this early version. Meanwhile, I've made good progress with the latest Kalvan volume, Queen Rylla's Victory. There are over 100,000 words committed to paper and it will be finished after the biography is done and off to the publisher. War World: The Battle of Sauron required more continuity work than anticipated and has been delayed a bit longer than expected. A gaming company is very interested in acquiring the rights to the War World series and is now in the process of doing their own continuity study to insure that it's compatible with the other games planned for their future Empire of Man gaming projects. Once they've finished, we will make the necessary adjustments and Pequod Press will go ahead with its plans to publish the book. All in all, it's been a very busy and exciting couple of months. Wishing you all Happy Holidays! John
June 27, 2006 News From John... Dear Readers, We have just received two advance copies of Great Kings' War. I'm very pleased with it; the new printer did a wonderful job. The dust jacket art is an expansion of Alan Gutierrez's original cover for the Ace Edition and it took this printing to do it justice! Inside there are several new maps, one of the Princedom of Hostigos and surrounding areas, one of the Five Kingdoms and two maps of Hostigos Town, a black and white one and a full color map on the end pages. There's also a new dramatis personae. With 60,000 words of new text, this revised edition is the definitive version of Great Kings' War. The books are scheduled to arrive from the printers by the end of next week. We will package the pre-ordered books and get them out to you as soon as possible. From some of the e-mails I've been getting, I know a lot of you can't wait to get your hands on them. For those of you who didn't pre-order copies of Great Kings' War, go to Books on the website menu bar and you can order your copy via PayPal or by mail. At the website Gallery, you can view Alan's latest color sketch for Queen Rylla's Crown (formerly Gunpowder God), the next volume in the Kalvan Saga. I'm making progress on the first draft and should have it completed in time for publication in 2007. It was Victoria's idea that we should finally feature Great Queen Rylla on a book cover and I'm very pleased at how it's coming out, as I'm sure you will be, too. It's been a busy month as we just received the galleys for War World: the Battle of Sauron to proofread, as well! You can find the artwork for this upcoming book in the Gallery. The Battle of Sauron is scheduled for publication in September. See our new ad for the new edition of Great Kings' War on the back cover of the July Locus: The Magazine of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Field. Best, John
April 23, 2006 News From John... Dear Readers, Welcome to the new Kalvan web site! First, lets give a big round of applause to Mark Richardson for all his great work in creating our new Hostigos home. He’s really come up with an outstanding format and I’m very pleased to add him to the Kalvan staff. Thank you Mark! Also, thanks go to Ed Hebner for all his help in keeping the old web site up and running for the past three years! Hostigos.com will continue under Mark’s stewardship as our new webmaster. Mark and I have taken this redesign opportunity as an opportunity to create some new features, like the Gallery, while recasting some of the former features and making them easier to navigate and access. We've also trimmed away some of the older and redundant material. Another big plus: our Buy the Books feature now has direct access to PayPal. There are some new venues for you to visit such as the Road to Hostigos, which tells the story of how H. Beam Piper began the Kalvan Saga as part of his Terro-Human Future History series. It’s fortunate that the novelette, When in the Course…, was never published during Piper’s lifetime; otherwise, there would have been no Lord Kalvan or any series to continue. Most of the information in the Road to Hostigos has never been previously published and appears here for the first time. Great Kings’ War is at the printers now and we hope to have copies within the next eight to ten weeks. For a picture of the new Great Kings’ War dust jacket cover, go to Gallery. Gunpowder God is past the halfway mark and on schedule for publication in 2007. My next book, War World: The Battle for Sauron, is at the typesetters and it will be appearing in about six months. See the Gallery for the preliminary color sketch for the War World dust jacket cover. If you have any suggestions, ideas or comments about the new web site, please send them to Otherwhen@aol.com. Thanks! John
February 26, 2006 News From John... Dear Readers, While unpacking and proofing the final manuscript of "Great Kings' War" last year, I discovered, much to my delight, several lost scenes. These were scenes that Roland and I had been forced to cut from the original manuscript when Ace Books informed us that the book was too long. After reading and enjoying them, I decided they were worth restoring and put them back into the book. With the other previously written new scenes and expanded text, the Revised Edition of "Great Kings' War" will contain 60,000 more words (equal to another book the length of "Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen") of text than the Ace Books original paperback! This edition will also feature three brand new maps, including a two-page map of Hostigos and a map of the Six Kingdoms. In addition, there will be a street map of Hostigos Town. Late last year, after our move from Granada Hills, California, I met Dennis Frank (Chief of the Kalvan Map Team), in person for the first time. We had been e-mailing back and forth for several months regarding the geographical details of the new maps that were to be included in "Great Kings' War." When I mentioned to Dennis that I was thinking of creating a Map of Hostigos Town, he suggested we meet in Bellefonte (aka Hostigos Town) for a walking tour of the town. Two weeks later we met at the Bellefonte Railroad Museum and spent the first half of the day going over topographical maps and discussing the geography of Hos-Hostigos. After a great lunch at Schnitzels Tavern, we went on a tour of downtown Bellefonte, where we investigated the various possible locations for Ptosphes' Summer Palace, the Red Halberd Inn, the High Temple of Dralm and other Hostigi landmarks that needed to be included on any worthwhile map of Hostigos Town. Over the next few weeks, I put together a list of streets, temples, and other notable places mentioned in the Kalvan books, along with many others I created on the spot, and then sent them to our mapmaker, Alan Gutierrez. This Hostigos Town Map was the labor of several months, as Dennis, Alan and myself debated places of significance, street names, landmarks and the style of the drawings. From the beginning, I told Alan I wanted two maps: a colour one for the Hostigos website and a black and white one for the book. The colorized map of Hostigos Town is now on the website for all to enjoy. Alan did a superb job. A slightly different black and white version of this map will appear in the new Limited Edition hardcover of "Great Kings' War." I've been busy fixing up the house and organizing my office since my last post. Victoria and I are really enjoying both the change of scenery and actual seasons we experience here in Centre County, Pennsylvania! The new office remodel was finished in late December so I now have an ideal workspace with a beautiful view of Mt. Nittany. Plus, I'm making good headway on the next book in the Kalvan Saga, "Gunpowder God." Victoria Carr and the Copyediting Team of Chief Chris Corley, Dwight Decker, Eric Oppen and Richard Oakley have proofed the galleys for the new and revised edition of "Great Kings' War". I'm fortunate to have a wife who not only loves to read, but is also an excellent copyeditor. Roland Green, who is recovering from serious health problems that have plagued him for the past three years, also gave them the once-over. With their large number of exotic spellings, geographical descriptions and a huge cast of characters, the Kalvan books are daunting for even the most proficient copyeditors. Let's all give a hearty Hostigos cheer to these volunteers! We are still on track for having the revised edition of "Great Kings' War" in print before the end of spring. For those of you who would like to visit the Otherwhen site of the mythical Princedom of Hostigos, May 20, 2006 is the date of the 3rd Annual Hostigos Irregular's Muster. This year we will be meeting at Webster's Book Store. For those who are unfamiliar with this celebration of Piper Country, the Irregular's Muster is a daylong celebration of H. Beam Piper's creation, Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen. The meeting is held in State College, where there are a number of affordable hotels and fine restaurants. The day is spent meeting friends, visiting those places mentioned in the Kalvan books and in good fellowship. Dennis Frank and Fred Ramsey are the tour guides. Dennis has done a lot of work locating and documenting the Hostigos sites mentioned in "Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen" and "Great Kings' War." Visit Dennis's website at http://users.penn.com/~djfrank/Home_Page.html for more information, maps and photos of Hostigos and other places of interest, as well as a complete appendix to "Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen." After our tour of Bellefonte, Dennis drove me to the exact spot where Calvin Morrison rolled out of the Paratime Police transtemporal conveyer onto Aryan-Transpacific, Styphon's House Subsector soil! He devoted a lot of effort in researching the area and finding the exact farmhouse where the escaped prisoner was holed up. All the clues were there, including proximity to Bellefonte (Hostigos Town), the small cliff and the bubbling creek mentioned in "Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen." Visiting that spot was a moving experience for me; I felt like a Muslim visiting Mecca for the first time! Maybe we can convince Dennis to lead another expedition to this out-of-the-way spot again this year at the Irregular's Muster. Now that I'm living in Hostigos, I will be attending the Irregular's Muster to answer questions on H. Beam Piper and give an update on the Kalvan Saga, including the new Kalvan book, "Gunpowder God," currently a work-in-progress. My goal is to finish the book this year and get it to Pequod press for publication in 2007. In other book news, plans are now underway for Pequod Press to publish a trade edition of the long awaited War World novel, "War World: The Battle of Sauron" by John F. Carr and Donald Hawthorne in the fall of 2006. During the late 1980's and early 1990's, Baen Books published five collections and two novels in the War World shared-universe series edited by Jerry Pournelle and myself. These stories all take place on the planet Haven, a world in the CoDominium and Empire of Man future history. The new book will chronicle the fateful Battle of Sauron and the attack on Haven. If this volume is well received, there are two more complete and unpublished War World collections to follow. John
September 24, 2005 News From John... Dear Readers, Sorry for the long delay, but things have been very hectic with the Carr household. Since my last post, we sold our house in Granada Hills (a MAJOR undertaking in time and effort!) and as of September 1st, moved to Centre County, Pennsylvania, aka Piper Country. Victoria, myself and our two cats (Holstein, named for his cow markings, and Little Girl) all made the flight from LAX to State College in good order, considering we left on the Washington DC red-eye out of LA! After arriving, we spent the next two and a half weeks waiting at the State College Motel 6 (where they let us keep our cats) for our 'stuff' to arrive from Granada Hills... It was an interesting time. The cats were very well behaved, I won't say as much for the humans involved... However, while waiting, we were able to accomplish some minor repairs to the house, as well as paint and put in new carpet. The movers arrived last Friday with some 500+ boxes, not including furniture, which took them 7 1/2 hours to unload. To this day, I'll never understand how I survived for so many years without a basement. However, it is true that we hadn't used our garage for parking cars since the Northridge Quake! We have a nice home in Hyllos Town, with a great view of Nittany Mountain. As I drive though our densely wooded neighbourhood, I keep waiting for Sarrask of Sask to ride out of a copse of trees on his destrier waving his sword, or a tankard of ale! The new address for Pequod Press is P.O. Box 80, Boalsburg, PA 16827. I've been fighting off a virus so I haven't been able to set up my office or do much work, yet. However, we are still on target for spring publication of the revised and expanded hardcover edition of "Great Kings' War." Alan Gutierrez has completed the expanded cover for the new wrap around dust jacket and I couldn't be more pleased with it! It should be posted at the website shortly for your enjoyment. I do agree with a number of readers that "Siege of Tarr-Hostigos" is the best of the "Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen" sequels, although "Kalvan Kingmaker" will always be a favourite, like middle children, middle books have it rough. I've always seen these 3 books, starting with "Great Kings' War, as the first of 3 Kalvan trilogies. I've rustled up a devilishly good plot for the next 3 books, starting with "Gunpowder God," and expect them to fully live up to the standard we set with the previous volumes. Without the entanglements of LA traffic and my former 8-to-5 job, you can expect to see a lot more progress on the Piper/Kalvan front! Yours, at last in Piper Country, John Carr
October 5, 2004 News From John... Dear Readers, The rewrite of "Great Kings' War" is finished. It took a lot longer than I planned, but on the other hand, I ended up writing a lot more new material than I had planned. I added a new Prologue, a dozen new scenes, about 15,000 words of new material inter-woven into the text for continuity and filed off a few rough edges. The book now contains forty-one chapters and runs about 172,000 words. Special thanks to James Landau, Richard Oakley, Eric Oppen and Chris Corley for their fine work on the continuity and copyediting of the Revised "Great Kings' War." I divided the book into two versions. One is a modified version of the original novel, less the new scenes, but with the new prologue: this is the one that is now, as of October 1, 2004, available at the Baen Books Free Library. Roland and I both hope this free version of "Great Kings' War" will introduce a new generation of readers to the Kalvan Saga. There are no plans to do e-books of any other Kalvan novels, either now or in the foreseeable future. Pequod Press hopes to publish the expanded 'Revised Edition' of "Great Kings' War" in the next year or two. I'll let you know as soon as there is a firm publication date. A hearty welcome to our new readers from the Free Library! For those readers who are looking for copies of "Kalvan Kingmaker" and "Siege of Tarr-Hostigos," we still have copies for sale. See Buy the Books for details or contact Pequod Press at PequodPressPub@aol.com John
March 5, 2004 News From John... Dear Readers, Almost all of the pre-orders of "Siege of Tarr-Hostigos" are in the mail; if you don't have yours yet, it will be arriving soon. I just received the slip case editions last week and will be mailing them out over the next two weeks. I am very pleased at how well they turned out. We still have a few copies left of the 50 slip cover editions, but once they're gone -- they are gone! I've been getting some great letters from readers letting me know how much they're enjoying "Siege of Tarr-Hostigos." Thanks! The consensus (and it's pretty much unanimous) is that "Siege of Tarr-Hostigos" is the best book of the three sequels to "Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen," including "Great Kings' War" and "Kalvan Kingmaker." I know it's my favourite. I recently finished the outline for the next book in the Kalvan Saga, "Gunpowder God," and I'm real excited about this book as it takes Kalvan into uncharted territory, introducing the Upper Middle Kingdoms, a civilization older and more complex than the northeastern Five Kingdoms. John |