Brian Aldiss (photograph (c) Mike Gerson

E-Reads
171 East 74th Street
New York, NY 10021
www.ereads.com

January 17, 2012

For Immediate Release

E-Reads Acquires Brian Aldiss Backlist

E-Reads, a leading independent e-book publisher and a powerhouse in fantasy and science fiction, has acquired US e-book and print rights to fifteen titles by British science fiction Grandmaster Brian Aldiss, winner of two Hugo Awards, a Nebula Award and a John W. Campbell Memorial Award. Included in the trove are his Helliconia trilogy, the Squire quartet, and such other classics as Greybeard, Dark Light Years, and Galaxies like Grains of Sand. E-Reads will also publish a new work, Finches of Mars.

The reissue program will begin with fifteen titles, but E-Reads has an option to acquire the balance of Aldiss’s enormous output. The author is writing new introductions.

The deal was handled by John R. Douglas of E-Reads and Robin Straus of the Robin Straus Agency, Aldiss’s United States literary agent. Says Douglas, “I’ve been reading Aldiss for more than forty years and had the pleasure of working on the original publication of some of his works. It’s a privilege and delight to bring his books back as e-books. And to publish an original work of his – Finches of Mars – is a huge bonus.”

Brian Aldiss

Brian W. Aldiss (http://brianaldiss.co.uk/) was born in Norfolk, England in 1925. Over a long and distinguished writing career, he has published award-winning science, bestselling popular fiction including the three-volume Horatio Stubbs saga and the four-volume The Squire Quartet and many other iconic and pioneering works including the Helliconia Trilogy. His most famous story, Super-Toys Last All Summer Long, was adapted for film by Stanley Kubrick and produced and directed after Kubrick’s death by Steven Spielberg as A.I. Artificial Intelligence.

E-Reads

E-Reads (www.ereads.com), founded in 2000 by Richard Curtis, is a leading publisher of backlist fiction in such genres as fantasy, science fiction, romance, mysteries and thrillers. Brian Aldiss will be in the company of such masters of fantasy and science fiction published by E-Reads as Piers Anthony, Greg Bear, Jeff Bredenberg, Jeffrey Carver, John DeChancie, William C. Dietz, Dave Duncan, George Alec Effinger, Harlan Ellison, Alan Dean Foster, James Gunn, Fritz Leiber, R. A. McAvoy, John Norman, Rudy Rucker, Pamela Sargent, Dan Simmons and George Zebrowski.

For information, contact John Douglas, 212 772 7363, johnrjdouglas@gmail.com
Robin Straus, 212 472 3282, robin@robinstrausagency.com

We asked Dave Duncan to write something for us about Lord of the Fire Lands, the middle novel in his King’s Blades trilogy. When he did he revealed a secret that many readers may find incomprehensible but every professional writer will recognize.

**********************

When asked how I write, I always stress the importance of knowing the ending of a book before writing the beginning. There are exceptions, though, and Lord of the Fire Lands was certainly one of them.

In its first version, it ended with the treaty negotiations, a scene that is still there. I was working well ahead of my submission deadline back then, so I put the MS aside to marinate while I worked on something else. When I came back to it to apply a final polish, I decided that the ending was too abrupt. So I wrote some more. That didn’t work. I tried again, with the same result. And again.

At that point Radgar, who is probably the most complex character ever to emerge from my word processor, completely took over. I have had characters awaken to a life of their own and try to upstage everyone else—Katanji in “The Seventh Sword” series, for example—but none quite as vividly as Radgar did then. He dictated the ending you will now find.

“You can’t do that!” I protested. “It’s barbaric. Moreover, you are completely ruining the final book.”

“The third book is your problem,” he replied, “and I certainly am a barbarian. This is my story, and this is how it must end.”

I argued as much as I dared, but Radgar was both armed and exceedingly dangerous, as you will see. Eventually he convinced me that this was indeed how he would act. The proof was that I did not need to change anything that had happened earlier, so “his” ending was correct for his story. I didn’t approve, but I had to let it stand. I took the dog for a long walk and worked out how I could salvage the rest of the trilogy. When the hardcover came out, I received so many protests from readers that we added a warning in the mass market edition, to the effect that you could read any book in the series, but not two, or you would have to read all three.
+ + +

E-Reads’ release of Firelands plugs a hole in the first series, “Tales of the King’s Blades”. The first book, The Gilded Chain, and the third, Sky of Swords, have never been out of print.*

The second series, “Chronicles of the King’s Blades” is also available in its entirety; these three books follow the Blades’ adventures after the reign of King Ambrose: Paragon Lost, Impossible Odds, and The Jaguar Knights.**

I also wrote a trilogy of YA novellas, “The King’s Daggers”, which E-Reads has re-issued as a single novel, The Monster War. That fills a story gap in the first series. So now you have all seven to look forward to.

PS: The Blades have been translated into at least seven other languages. Take a look at the cover of the French edition of The Gilded Chain and you will see how they struck a chord in the land of d’Artagnan.

Dave Duncan

November 23, 2011

* The Gilded Chain and Sky of Swords are available as HarperCollins e-books.

** Also available as HarperCollins e-books

Smashwords Introduces Ebook Publishing and Distribution Service for Literary Agents

Powerful, Proven Tools to Manage Ebook Publishing, Metadata, Distribution and Sales Reporting

LOS GATOS, Calif., November 17, 2011 — Smashwords, the leading distributor of indie ebooks, today introduced a new service for literary agents. The service provides literary agents simple but powerful tools to manage the publication and distribution of their clients’ indie ebooks. Service highlights include free ebook conversions, centralized metadata management, distribution to major worldwide ebook retailers, time-saving aggregated sales reporting across all retailers, and special merchandising at Smashwords.com.

“Literary agents will write the next chapter of the indie ebook revolution,” said Mark Coker, founder and CEO of Smashwords. “Agents represent the most commercially successful authors. These authors are now asking their agents to add e-publishing services to exploit the potential of their reverted-rights works and unpublished works. Although all authors have the freedom to self-publish, many would prefer to delegate the e-publishing and back office duties to their agent so the author can focus their energy on writing.”

Over 32,000 authors, small presses and literary agents have utilized Smashwords to release 85,000 ebooks in the last three years. 7,500 of these titles were released in the last 30 days.

Until recently, the Smashwords platform labeled literary agents as “Publishers,” even though most agents consider their authors the publishers of record. To address this subtle but important nuance of metadata labeling, Smashwords created this new service expressly for literary agents.

Agents have the ability to upload multiple books on behalf of multiple clients.Agented books appear as “Written by [Author Name], Agented by [Agency Name].”

When Smashwords distributes the book to retailers such as the Apple iBookstore, Barnes & Noble, Sony, Kobo and Diesel, the author is recognized as the publisher, not the agent.

Smashwords has also introduced a new home page catalog to showcase agented works, making it easy for readers to browse ebooks represented and curated by literary agents.

To work with Smashwords, agents simply sign up for a free Smashwords account, upgrade the account to Agent status (also free), and then upload books and metadata on behalf of their clients. A co-branded bookstore within Smashwords showcases the agency’s clients and allows readers to view books by recent releases, best-sellers, and highest rated. When readers browse the book pages of agented books, they enjoy contextual discovery links such as “Other books by this author” and “Other books from this agent.”

The Smashwords Agent service makes e-publishing fast, free and easy for literary agents. Service benefits include:

• Centralized metadata management – Agents control the book’s price (Smashwords retailers don’t discount), marketing description and other metadata at their Smashwords Dashboard. They make a single change once and Smashwords propagates
the update to all retailers.
• Aggregated sales reporting saves time – Each quarterly payment includes a downloadable report that makes it easy to map earnings to each of the agency’s authors. Agents can perform custom queries to provide authors granular sales reporting by title, date and retailer.
• Distribution to leading e-retailers – Smashwords distributes to the Apple iBookstore (32 countries), Barnes & Noble, Sony, Kobo and the Diesel eBookstore. Amazon distribution is available through Smashwords on request. Books are also distributed to the native catalogs of leading mobile e-reading apps including Aldiko for Android devices and Stanza for the iPhone/iPod Touch. More distribution points in the works.
• Free – No fees for ebook conversion or setup. Smashwords earns a 10% of list price commission for books sold through major retailers (agent receives 60% list). The commission for sales through the Smashwords.com retail store is 15% net after credit card fees, with 85% net going to the agent.

Multiple literary agencies – including Dystel & Goderich Literary Management, the Beverley Slopen Agency and Larsen Pomada Literary Agents – are utilizing Smashwords to publish and distribute ebooks on behalf of their clients. Diversion Books, a publisher founded by literary agent Scott Waxman, is also a Smashwords client.

What literary agents are saying about Smashwords: “Smashwords has offered what many other self-publishing platforms do not, a way for agents to be involved with digital publishing without having to take on the title of ‘Publisher,’” said Abby Reilly, E-Book Project Manager at Dystel & Goderich Literary Management, based in New York. “Giving our clients a space in the new and exciting world of digital publishing, while continuing to shepherd all aspects of their literary careers, is a thrilling challenge for our agency. We are delighted to be working with Smashwords to make this happen.”

“Smashwords makes it easy to begin exploring the new digital terrain,” said Beverley Slopen, whose literary agency shares her name and is based in Toronto, Canada. “It is an exciting time in publishing, a time like no other, and our authors want to be there. They are pushing us to broaden our knowledge and our skill set. While ebook publishing is not a substitute for traditional publishing, it adds an amazing new dimension.”

“I have been an avid Smashwords supporter since its inception, and over the past three years have integrated digital publishing initiatives in the career plans of all my clients,” said Laurie McLean of Larsen Pomada Literary Agents in San Francisco. “Most of my clients have both traditionally published books and ebooks in their bag of tricks, and it is exciting to see how they complement each other. While many people have been bashing literary agents as gatekeepers of the old guard in publishing, I feel that digitally-engaged agents are the perfect mentors to guide authors through these turbulent waters of opportunity. The new Smashwords Agent service has made my job even easier.”

Literary Agents – How to Get Started with Smashwords

Visit www.smashwords.com to sign up for a free account in the name of your agency. The confirmation email you receive will walk you through next steps. The “How to Publish at Smashwords” link on the home page at https://www.smashwords.com/about/how_to_publish_on_smashwords provides helpful links to a vast array of Smashwords resources.

For an online presentation outlining the opportunity for agents to serve the indie e-publishing needs of their clients, see this post at the Smashwords Blog and its accompanying Slideshare presentation, the Literary Agent’s Indie Ebook Roadmap: http://blog.smashwords.com/2011/08/literary-agents-indie-ebook-roadmap.html
or visit www.slideshare.net/Smashwords

About Smashwords
Founded in 2008, Smashwords is the world’s leading distributor of indie ebooks. More than 32,000 authors, small presses and literary agents publish over 85,000 indie ebooks at Smashwords. Smashwords has released over 7,500 ebooks in the last 30 days.

Smashwords makes it fast, free and easy for the world’s authors, publishers and literary agents to publish and distribute multi-format ebooks. Smashwords distributes to major online retailers such as the Apple iBookstore, Barnes & Noble, Sony, Kobo and the Diesel eBook Store, and also distributes to the leading mobile e-reading apps such as Aldiko, Stanza and FBReader. Smashwords is based in Los Gatos, California, and can be reached on the web at http://www.smashwords.com/. Visit the official Smashwords blog at http://blog.smashwords.com/.

CONFIDENTIALITY, NON-CIRCUMVENTION AND NONDISCLOSURE AGREEMENT

AGREEMENT, entered into as of this __ day of ______ between Company X (“X”) and Company Y (hereinafter referred to as the “Recipient”).

WHEREAS, X has developed certain valuable information, concepts, ideas, or designs, which X deems confidential (hereinafter referred to as the “Information”); and

WHEREAS, Recipient is in the business of using such information and wishes to review the Information; and

WHEREAS, X wishes to disclose this Information to the Recipient; and

WHEREAS, the Recipient is willing not to disclose this Information, as provided in this Agreement.

NOW, THEREFORE, in consideration of the foregoing premises and the mutual covenants hereinafter set forth and other valuable consideration, the parties hereto agree as follows:

1. Disclosure. X shall disclose to the Recipient the Information, which concerns but is not limited to ____________________________________________________________
2. Purpose. Recipient agrees that this disclosure is only for the purpose of the Recipient’s evaluation to determine its interest in the commercial exploitation of the Information.
3. Limitation on Use. Recipient agrees not to manufacture, sell, deal in, or otherwise use or appropriate the disclosed Information in any way whatsoever, including but not limited to adaptation, imitation, redesign, or modification. Nothing contained in this Agreement shall be deemed to give Recipient any rights whatsoever in and to the Information. Recipient agrees not to directly or indirectly contact any persons or companies which X may disclose to Recipient and which X deems confidential sources or vendors or to enter into discussion directly or indirectly with such persons or entities except with the approval of X. Recipients shall not directly or indirectly provide access to the Information to others unless such persons to whom such disclose is made are approved by X on a “need to-know” basis and are made subject to this Agreement. Upon the request of X the Information shall be returned to X.
4. Confidentiality. Recipient understands and agrees that the unauthorized disclosure of the Information by the Recipient to others would irreparably damage X. As consideration and in return for the disclosure of this Information, the Recipient shall keep secret and hold in confidence all such Information and treat the Information as if it were the Recipient’s own proprietary property by not disclosing it to any person or entity. Information shall not include Information that was in Recipient’s possession or known to Recipient prior to gaining knowledge from X; or is or becomes lawfully available to the general public without the fault of Recipient; or is or becomes lawfully available to Recipient from a source other than X; or is displayed by Recipient under obligations created by court or government action.
5. Miscellany. This Agreement shall be binding upon and shall inure to the benefit of the parties and their respective legal representatives, successors, and assigns and shall be interpreted in accordance with the laws of the State of New York.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, the parties have signed this Agreement as of the date first set forth above.

By Officer of X _____________________
By Officer of Recipient __________________________

PRESS RELEASE

Rakuten to Acquire Kobo

Kobo, a Global Leader in eReading Expands Rakuten Offering
to Include eBooks and eReaders Worldwide

TOKYO and TORONTO, November 8/9, 2011 — Rakuten, Inc. (JASDAQ: 4755) and Kobo Inc. today announced that they have entered into a definitive agreement under which Rakuten intends to acquire 100% of total issued and outstanding shares of Kobo for US$315 million in cash.

Kobo was founded by and spun out of Indigo, the largest book, gift and specialty toy retailer in Canada, in December, 2009. Since that time, Kobo has become a fierce competitor in the eBook marketplace, with a family of innovative eReaders, a wide range of eReading apps, one of the largest eBook catalogues, an innovative social platform and retail partners around the globe.

The acquisition marks a major step forward for Rakuten, one of the world’s top 3 e-commerce companies by revenue, as it continues to expand its unique B2B2C borderless e-commerce business globally, by adding an ecosystem to provide downloadable media products to consumers, starting with eBooks.

Hiroshi Mikitani, Chairman and CEO of Rakuten, commented on the acquisition, “We are very excited about this next step. Kobo provides one of the world’s most communal eBook reading experiences with its innovative integration of social media, such as Facebook and Twitter; while Rakuten offers Kobo unparalleled opportunities to extend its reach through some of the world’s largest regional e-commerce companies, including Buy.com in the US, Tradoria in Germany, Rakuten Brazil, Rakuten Taiwan, Lekutian in China, TARAD in Thailand, and Rakuten Belanja Online in Indonesia, and of course, Rakuten Ichiba in Japan.”

“From a business and cultural perspective this is a perfect match,” commented Kobo CEO Michael Serbinis. “We share a common vision of creating a content experience that is both global and social. Rakuten is already one of the world’s largest e-commerce platforms, while Kobo is the most social eBook service on the market and one of the world’s largest eBook stores with over 2.5 million titles. This transaction will greatly strengthen our position in our current markets and allow us to diversify quickly into other countries and e-commerce categories.”

Upon closing the acquisition, Kobo will continue to maintain its headquarters, management team and employees based in Toronto, Ontario.
The global eBook market is one of the fastest growing segments of the consumer technology industry, with a compound annual growth rate of 36% through 2015*. The global content market size is also expected to grow dramatically to reach approximately US$10.6 billion per year by 2015 (estimates exclude China).

*Sources: Based on forecasts by IDC, Yankee, BCG analysis & NRI for Japan 1USD= 80JPY

The transaction is subject to customary closing conditions, including approval by Canadian regulatory authorities in accordance with the Investment Canada Act and is expected to close in Q1 2012.

About Kobo Inc. (www.kobo.com)
Kobo is a global eReading service with more than 2.5 million eBooks, magazines and newspapers – one of the largest eReading catalogues in the world. Read Freely – Kobo believes consumers should have the freedom to read any book on any device and has attracted millions of readers from over 100 countries across the globe. Kobo has top ranked eReading applications for iPad, iPhone, BlackBerry, Android, Windows and MacOS, and is the eReading application of choice for leading tablet OEMs. Kobo eReaders, including the Kobo Touch and the newly launched Kobo Vox are available at leading retailers, including Indigo, Wal-Mart, Best Buy, Target, Future Shop, WHSmith, FNAC, Collins Booksellers and Whitcoull’s. Kobo’s innovative Reading Life is an industry-first comprehensive social eReading experience – Kobo users can earn awards simply for time spent reading and encouraging others. Kobo is backed by majority shareholder Indigo Books & Music Inc., Cheung Kong Holdings, and institutional investors.

About Rakuten
Rakuten, Inc. (JASDAQ: 4755), is one of the world’s leading Internet service companies, providing a variety of consumer and business-focused services including e-commerce, travel, banking, securities, credit card, e-money, portal & media, online marketing and professional sports. Rakuten is expanding globally and currently has operations throughout Asia, Western Europe, and the Americas. Founded in 1997, Rakuten is headquartered in Tokyo, with over 10,000 employees worldwide. For more information, visit http://global.rakuten.com/group.

For investor and media inquiries, please contact:

Rakuten:
In Japan:
Public Relations (Japanese, English)
Rakuten, Inc.
Tel: +81-50-5817-1104
E-mail: pr@mail.rakuten.com

For Investors:
Investor Relations (Japanese, English)
Rakuten, Inc.
Tel: +81-3-6387-0555

http://corp.rakuten.co.jp/en/ir/

In North America
Kelley Joyce
IF Communications
Tel: +1-917-566-0808
E-mail: kelley@if-communications.com

Kobo:
Wendy Zaas
Rogers & Cowan
Tel: +1-310-854-8148
E-mail: wzaas@rogersandcowan.com

Novelizations of movies and television shows are among the most intriguing subspecies of commercial fiction. I say subspecies because they obviously cannot be spoken of in the same breath as The Magic Mountain or Portrait of a Lady; indeed, even commercial novelists look down their noses at novelizations as possessing not a shred of redeeming social value, as the literary equivalent of painting by numbers. On the spectrum of the written word, tie-ins are as close to merchandise as they are to literature.

Tie-ins are kin to souvenirs, and in some ways are not vastly different from the dolls, toys, games, calendars, clothes, and other paraphernalia generated by successful motion pictures and television shows. Those who write them usually dismiss them with embarrassment or contempt, or brag about how much money they made for so little work. Yet, when pressed they will speak with pride about the skill and craftsmanship that went into the books and assure you that the work is deceptively easy. And if you press them yet further, many will puff out their chests and boast that tie-in writers constitute a select inner circle of artisans capable of getting an extremely demanding job done promptly, reliably, and effectively, a kind of typewriter-armed S.W.A.T. team whose motto is, “My book is better than the movie.”

How are tie-ins created? Their birthplace of course is the original screenplay. The Writers Guild of America Basic Agreement entitles the screenwriter to ownership of literary rights to his screenplay. When he sells his screenplay he may retain the novelization rights or include them, at terms to be negotiated, in the screenplay deal. Most of the time the screenwriter sells his novelization rights to the buyer—the film’s producer or a studio. The new owner of these rights now tries to line up a publication deal for the tie-in. He contacts paperback publishers and pitches the forthcoming film.

If the film has a big budget, terrific story, bankable actors, unique special effects, or other highly promotable features that promise a hit, publishers will bid for the publication rights, (In the case of television tie-ins, the producers almost always wait till a series is a hit before arranging for tie-ins. And one-shot movies of the week seldom trigger novelizations because of the brief period—one evening—in which they are exposed to the public.) A deal is then struck, the publisher paying an advance against royalties to the producer or studio.

The publisher then engages a writer to adapt the screenplay. It should be readily apparent that if the movie is indeed shaping up to be a hit, or the television show is already a hit, the publisher will be forced to pay such a high advance and royalty to the producer or studio that little will be left for the writer. That’s why novelizations are generally low-paying affairs, with modest advances and nominal royalties of 1 or 2 percent. Flat fees are by no means unheard of. And, because the competition among writers for novelizations is intense, few writers are in any position to bargain. But if the pay scale is so miserable, why do authors seek novelization assignments so ardently? Because they think it’s easy money. Sometimes it is. But it’s not like falling off a log, as we shall soon see.

Publishers are nowhere near as enamored of movie tie-ins as authors are, and they weigh the profit potential of such books as critically as they do that of the thousands of other manuscripts submitted to them annually. They know that most movies do not translate well into books. There are also technical and timing problems with tie-ins that are daunting to publishers. For instance, the screenplay may undergo alterations, some of them radical, right up to or even during the shooting of the film. By the time filming is complete there is insufficient time before the release of the movie for a writer to write the novel and the publisher to publish it.

A notable instance of the timing problem occurred in the filming of 2001: A Space Odyssey. Director Stanley Kubrick insisted on complete control over the writing and publication scheduling of the novelization. The author of that novelization was a chap named Arthur C. Clarke, and since Kubrick kept changing the script as he went along, particularly the wild and mystical ending, Clarke had to keep changing the novel. His publishers bit their fingernails to the quick as the days rolled inexorably toward the release date of the movie. Worst of all, the book tie-in deal was for publication of a hardcover first, then paperback. It had been assumed that the hardcover would be brought out before the movie was released, then the paperback would be issued to coincide with the release of the film. But because of the delays there was no lead time whatsoever for the hardcover. The publisher wanted to drop the hardcover and go straight into paperback, but Kubrick insisted on hardcover. Thus we had a case, unprecedented in anyone’s experience, of a hardcover novelization. The publisher did get his paperback edition out soon thereafter, but the situation was a mess and the book didn’t do anywhere as well as it might have if the timing had been better.

Kubrick, incidentally, plays a role in one of the more bizarre movie tie-in stories I have ever heard. It seems that a novelist named Peter Bryan George wrote a nuclear apocalypse novel called Red Alert. It was acquired for the movies by a producer who couldn’t put a deal together, so he laid it off on Kubrick. Kubrick adapted it, and rather broadly to say the least. Red Alert was a very solemn book; the adaptation was blackly humorous. He called it Dr. Strangelove. In fact, so different was the movie from the book that the producers decided to hire somebody to write the novelization. They hired Peter Bryan George, the author of Red Alert. So George novelized the movie version of his own novel! His novel had been published by Ace under the name of Peter Bryant; his novelization was published by Bantam under the name Peter George.

Another problem for publishers is the greed that has set in at the studios. Originally, tie-ins were regarded as free publicity for movies, and publishers regarded them as little more than list-fillers. For a modest payment to the studio a publisher would get the screenplay, stills, cover photo, and promotional material, and everybody was happy. Then the studios began to smell profit, and arranging tie-ins became a little less complex than building a space shuttle.

The first big breakout tie-in was Last Tango in Paris, according to novelist and publishing columnist Leonore Fleischer, who has been dubbed Queen of the Paperback Novelizers for the fifty-odd tie-ins she has written. Last Tango was followed by a number of other hits (tie-inwise as well as box officewise) like The Omen and Star Wars. The bidding began to spiral, and the studios started charging publishers for all the material they’d formerly give away as part of the tie-in package.

The climax came with the bidding for a tie-in of F.I.S.T., the Sylvester Stallone film following Stallone’s smash hit, Rocky. Dell paid a $400,000 advance for the novelization rights, and, needless to say, took what is known in Spanish as El Batho. Soon afterward the tie-in market collapsed – “F.I.S.T was your ultimate South Sea Bubble,” Fleischer told me – and it never quite recovered. It has revived somewhat, principally in the area of special effects-type films such as Alien, E.T., and Raiders of the Lost Ark, but publishers have become too cautious and sensible ever to get quite so hysterical again.

Anyone who thinks that tie-in writing is a mere matter of adding he-saids and she-saids to the screenplay dialogue has certainly never attempted such an adaptation. For one thing, most screenplays are too short to convert page for page into book manuscripts. Therefore, even if you are following the script scene by scene, you are required to amplify on character, action, and location descriptions. Any good novelist can translate a terse screenplay direction (“EXTERIOR, OLD MACDONALD’S FARM, A STORMY NIGHT”) into a few pages of descriptive prose (“A bitter, shrieking north wind lashed the trees and hurled sheet after sheet of icy rain against the clapboard siding of Old MacDonald’s farmhouse . . .” etc.). The problem is that when you analyze screenplays you realize that most of them don’t lend themselves comfortably to scene-for-scene conversion. In fact, many of them present nightmarish challenges.

The reason is that movies are seen with one lobe of the brain, and books read with another. If you’ll take the trouble to compare a novel with its film adaptation, you’ll immediately realize that whole chapters have been cut or reduced to takes that last a few seconds on the screen; or that, conversely, a sentence or paragraph has been dramatized into a full-dress scene that consumes five or ten minutes of movie time. This is because some material in books is distinctly more cinematic than other material. (It also explains why few novelists make good screenwriters, and most screenwriters are dreadful novelists.)

By the same token, owing to the demands of the book reader’s imagination, elaborate scenes in a movie may seem far too long to merit the same expansive treatment in a novelization; fast transitional scenes, flashbacks, establishing shots, short takes, and the like may require a novelizer to build them into whole chapters. Some years ago I was hired by Bantam to novelize John Carpenter’s horror film Halloween. The film had already been released and was showing at only a few small theaters around the country, but the Bantam editor felt the movie was a sleeper, and he was right; It became one of the most profitable independently made films of all time.

It was most fortunate for me that the movie has already made, for in many cases the novelizer has only the screenplay to go by, or perhaps a rough cut of the film, and therefore has little visual material to aid him as he attempts to translate screenplay into book. After seeing the movie, however, I was troubled by some serious technical problems in adapting one medium into another. The movie opens with a five-year-old boy who, on Halloween, slashes his teenage sister to death with a long kitchen knife. We then jump some twenty years to show the little boy, now a grown man, escaping from a mental institution in which he has been confined, stealing a car, and returning to his hometown to go on another bloody rampage.

One of the great things about movies is that they move so fast, you don’t have time to think about logic. Novels are a more reflective medium, however; at any time you can put a book down and think about what you’ve read. And it worried me, for instance, that my readers would put my book down and wonder how the hell someone who’d been institutionalized since he was five would know how to drive a car. So I had to concoct a whole chapter describing the fellow’s stay in the asylum (which was okay, since I needed the five thousand words anyway) and showing that because he’d been a model inmate and trusty, he’d been taught to drive a truck and use it to run errands on the asylum grounds.

Even more serious was the fact that at the climax of the film, this malevolent individual is shot half a dozen times at point-blank range by a .357 magnum, yet steals way into the darkness leaving not a drop of blood where he fell to the ground, apparently dead; leaving, in fact, only the distinctive aroma of a sequel film. Now, all this is well and good for the moviegoer seeking a good scare, but for a book reader it raises some disturbing questions: Did the man who shot the guy from three feet away actually miss? Did he accidentally use blank cartridges? Did he simply graze him, or fail to hit any vital parts, or shoot him in such a way as to draw no blood? (Three fifty-seven magnums are so powerful they draw blood even when they miss!)

Or—was this maniac actually a supernatural entity invulnerable to high-calibre death-dealing sidearms?

There was no indication whatever in the movie that he was. Yet, in order to make sense out of it at all, I had to endow him with supernatural characteristics and invent a rationale, which went like this: ever since his execution during a Druid harvest ritual (whence Halloween is derived), this monster returned to earth every few years on Halloween to seek blood vengeance. My invention strained credulity to the limit, but at least it unified the book and brought me another seventy-five hundred badly needed words.

Every tie-in writer talking shop will tell you how he or she overcame such challenges, challenges complicated by the insistence of the producer on approval of the novel or a run-in with some middle-management studio exec who demanded that whatever was in the movie must go into the book, and whatever wasn’t in the movie must not go into the book. The fact that novelizations may take only a few weeks does not mean that many, many hours of thought and years of writing experience did not go into them. Novelizers earn every penny, and for all but the biggest books, pennies are what they make. Leonore Fleischer, one of the genre’s top authors, earned a total of some $45,000 in royalties for a labor of less than a week on the film tie-in of Annie, but that is exceptional. Joan Vinge, who wrote The Jedi Story Book, a juvenile tie-in to The Return of the Jedi, did it for a modest flat fee for Random House. The movie was a phenomenal success, and so was the book, but Vinge was not entitled to a penny of royalty. Only by the goodness of Random House’s heart, tinged perhaps with a dollop of guilt plus a healthy measure of pushing by her agent, was she awarded a $10,000 bonus.

The best advice I can give prospective tie-in writers is, if possible never write one for a flat fee, no matter how dumb the movie, no matter how quick and simple the job. Years ago, Ace hired me to write a tie-in for a perfectly dreadful and quite disgusting horror movie called Squirm, which portrayed in all its graphic revoltingness what happened when a small town was invaded by millions of bloodsucking earthworms. Ace offered me a flat fee of $2,500, and, seeing the prospect of earning $250 a day, I grabbed the deal. The movie came and, blessedly, went. But my book went through numerous editions for Ace, and was sold to English and other foreign publishers where it endured for years.

My book was better than the movie. Big deal! That and a good agent would have earned me a nice profit. Unfortunately, I don’t have an agent. I don’t trust them.

- Copyright 1996 by Richard Curtis, All Rights Reserved.

Early in the fall of 2011 we were contacted by a representative of Mystic Radio requesting a phone interview with John Norman. Mystic describes itself as “a small nonprofit radio station whose listeners either follow the Gor books or BDSM lifestyle.” We regretted that Mr. Norman doesn’t give live interviews but told Mystic that he might respond to written questions. Below are those questions and the author’s answers. You can read them or listen to Mystic’s audio reconstruction here.

1. Q: You have the longest running Sci Fi series; you’re a well-known writer; yet in the late 80’s you were blacklisted. Did you anticipate this? What were your feelings?

A. I think that there was, and may still be, a German science-fiction series, the Perry Rhodan series, or such, which might be longer, and so on. I am not sure of this. As far as I know, however, the Gorean series is the longest, most complex, and most carefully worked out single-world science-fiction series written to date. The German series mentioned, I think, may have been a multiple-world series. I believe Wendayne Ackerman, the wife of Forry Ackerman, translated several of the German books into English. I mention this in part because I think Forry Ackerman, “Mr. Science Fiction,” literally coined the expression you used above, namely ‘Sci Fi’. He was a wonderful human being, and a dear friend. Incidentally, I think the German series mentioned may have had several authors, over the years, as opposed to being written by a single individual. The important thing, of course, is not so much the length of a series, but its quality, its popularity, its difference, its originality, its power, its courage, its importance, and so on.
I did not anticipate the blacklisting, which probably bespeaks political naivety, and, I suppose, a misplaced conviction that America was still a free country, that free speech was acceptable, that the possibilities, the glories, the potential wonderful multitudes of positions and views possible in science fiction, its myriad imaginative worlds, the joys of creativity, proposal, and vision, were literarily, intellectually, and morally legitimate. I did not anticipate a one-restaurant town, with only one item on the menu. I have never felt that art should be limited by, or prostituted to, an ideology. But then I never lived in Nazi Germany, Mussolini’s Italy, or Stalin’s Russia.
With respect to my feelings, as I am a writer, and, in a way, an artist, or something in that direction, I was naturally disappointed to learn of the blacklisting, not so much personally, as morally, and culturally, this having to do with its effects beyond myself, effects having to do with the chill message it transmits to other writers, who might like to write freely and honestly. For example, if an individual with a track record of millions of books sold can be blacklisted, and such, the rest of you folks had better look out. Obviously, in such a case, the market is not economically driven, nor is it freedom- or tolerance-driven. It is politically or ideologically driven. Accordingly, if you want to publish, write what the small, politically uniform minority which controls science fiction, which determines what you will and will not be permitted to read, wants written. Take into consideration in your work the obtaining ideological filters, and strive to celebrate the current orthodoxy. It may be different tomorrow. Choose prescribed ruts and trim your sails to prevailing winds. Do what you are told. It is not so hard to catch on to what is wanted, so do that. Writers of the world, unite, in the way they tell you. You have nothing to lose but your integrity. Science fiction has nothing to lose but its future.
I do not think a free, honest literature is evil, but the censors, the thought police, the ax grinders, the promoters of agendas, might well disagree. We should recognize this sort of thing and respect their views, just as we should respect other views which are similarly narrow, smug, bigoted, uninformed, and stupid.
I personally favor natural liberty, private property, a free market, a free press, limited government, and such, so I gather I am about as politically incorrect as possible. I do not try to be that way. I just manage it. So, say bad things about me, and pretend you do not know me. Big Sister is listening.

2. Q: Why do the books have such a drastic change in characters? In some Tarl isn’t even mentioned.

A. This question is probably best addressed to the books, since they pretty much write themselves. I am grateful that they show up.
In retrospect, it seems to me a good idea to have a variety of protagonists, backgrounds, and situations. I suspect that the hero of the books, so to speak, if one were to look for one, is, at least in part, the Gorean world and its ethos. Too, it seems to me that different central characters might add a freshness and diversity to the series. On the other hand, as I suggested, the books pretty much write themselves. They do what they want. Who am I to object? Sometimes I am surprised, and, as mentioned, grateful. As the Eskimo saying has it, “Who knows from whence songs come?”

3. Q: There have been books written about, or involving, warriors, Priest-Kings, slaves, Kurii, and such. Does the future hold a book about the Free Women of Gor?

A. The most recent book, Mariners of Gor, deals substantially with Flavia of Ar, who would be about as free as one could get, as she was the confidante of Talena, during her reign as Ubara of Ar, under the hegemony of the occupational forces, after Ar’s defeat. On the other hand, to be sure, she does not remain free very long. After fleeing Ar, to escape impalement, following the restoration of Marlenus, she is captured and enslaved, and finds herself on the ship of Tersites, as it undertakes its long, hazardous journey across Thassa, to the World’s End. To be sure, the narrator, so to speak, and leading character, is Callias, a Cosian oarsman.
In general, I think that something like 99.9 percent of writers are currently busy writing about free women, as they had better do, if they wish to get through the political obstacle course currently in place. Conform, or forget it. Accordingly I do not think John Norman needs to attend to such matters. Everybody else is doing it. That job does not need John Norman. It is being done very nicely, by about everybody else, those who know the score, the ideological requirements, the way the wind is blowing, and so on.

4. Q: Why did you feel a need to change things, like money, and such, in some of the later books.

A. Following Earth likelihoods, given Earth’s obvious cultural influence on Gorean civilization, gold is regarded as the most valuable metal, moneywise, followed by silver, and copper. I think there are two things to take into consideration here. First, Gor is extremely decentralized, without gigantic nation states, or international currency commissions, concerned with standardizations, and such. Accordingly, most money exchanges, between different currencies, would be likely to be done by scale, by weighing coins, and such. A silver tarsk of Market of Semris might not have as much silver in it as one from Venna, or Harfax, or Jad, for example. In short, there is something of a mix, or chaos, amongst cities, but not, presumably, within cities. Also coins might be shaved, currencies debased, and such. Accordingly, one should expect a variety of coinages, and values, in such a situation. Second, as one would expect, given the preceding, differences such as that the number of tarsk-bits in a copper tarsk might vary, depending on the conveniences of exchange. For example, in a major port such as Brundisium, small change might be locally very useful, for example, one hundred tarsk-bits to a copper tarsk, the bits tiny, like drops, perhaps, whereas in many cities there might be eight tarsk-bits, larger, triangular coins resulting from the division of a single copper tarsk, to a copper tarsk. In such a situation, as in others, one supposes money changers might equate, say, two tarsk-bits of one city to, say, fifty tarsk-bits of another. Also, coins may differ from city to city. For example, in Brundisium, “staters” are mentioned, but we do not hear of them in, say, Ar. In passing, one might also mention something which may not be clear to some readers, which is that coins, on Gor, tend to be valuable. Indeed, much exchange, and such, undoubtedly takes place by barter, particularly in the open country; similarly, local gardens would be likely to supply more produce per family than would be expected in a modern urban environment. For example, some slaves might be sold for as little as fifty copper tarsks, or such.

5. Q: Do you specifically have a map of Gor and / or pictures of some of the items and animals that are in the books that are not of earth that were done by an artist according to your specifications?

A. There are several wonderful maps of Gor available on the internet, here and there. They are speculative, of course. All, I think, represent intelligent conjectures. Each is, as far as I am aware, compatible with descriptions in the books. I welcome them all. I appreciate them all. With respect to animals, there have been animals on various covers, in independent art works, and so on. I think all that is available, here and there. There was once a project to produce a graphic novel based on a Gorean book, which project, unfortunately, failed of fruition. A number of fine drawings were worked out there, based on descriptions in the books. I would suppose the rights to those drawings would belong either to the artists, or to the individual, or company, which was undertaking the project. I would guess that a graphic novel based on one or more of the Gorean books might be an interesting and remarkable project. There is, however, nothing in the works along those lines at present.

6. Q: You had originally started writing as John Lange, and then changed to John Norman. Since Lange was already known, why the switch to Norman?

A. I think there may be a mistake in the assumption behind the question here. It is an easy mistake to understand, and a very natural one. The first three Gorean books were all written by “John Norman,” but the first three were copyrighted under the name “John Lange.” After the first three, they were copyrighted under the name “John Norman.” I do not know why the change was made, as I had nothing to do with it, but it does seem a good idea to copyright the books under the name “John Norman,” as that is the name under which the books are written. There are, incidentally, various reasons for using the “John Norman” name. Most obviously, it separates fiction from nonfiction, from, say, scholarly books, articles, and such. As considerable differences between these sorts of writing are involved, that seems a good idea. Pretty clearly science-fiction writing, or adventure-fantasy writing, is one thing, and academic writing is another. The worlds are quite different, at least allegedly. A minor reason is that it seems very few people can pronounce “Lange,” but almost everyone I have met is really good at pronouncing “Norman.”

7. Q: Why is there a new money measurement/calendar system, and other alterations, in the later books that differs from the first ten?

A. This question seems to overlap somewhat with question 4, above. I understand that that is the case because the questions are proposed, at least to some extent, by different individuals. At any rate, one might refer back to question 4, dealt with above. With respect to the calendar, if one means by the “calendar” the Gorean year, its divisions, and such, that is the same throughout the books, with the possible exception of mentioning a holiday, or such, here or there, not mentioned in the earlier books. If by the “calendar” is meant Gorean chronology, one should note that Gorean chronology, like that of the ancient world, is diverse. For example, Ar’s chronology is based on years “Contasta Ar,” or “from the founding of Ar,” rather as Roman chronology is on years “Ab Urbe Condita,” or “from the founding of the city.” On the other hand, in Port Kar, years are reckoned, following the establishment of the Council of Captains, rather as, in year such-and-such of the Council of Captains. Other polities might reckon time in terms of Archon Lists, years of a Ubar’s Reign, and so on. For example, one would not expect Babylonians, Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, and so on, to reckon time in the same way. Even in the modern world there are diverse calendars. There are, of course, “alterations” in a series, as it progresses. One may hear of a new city, a new river, and so on.

8. Q: In the 70’s, the books started to gain followers and people started living according to your books, calling themselves Goreans, some even believing there is a Gor out there. It was either the sci-fi group went to Trekies or Goreans. What was your first reaction to this and what are your current feelings? What are your feelings toward individuals who have chosen to follow the life of Gor as a lifestyle? How is it that you wrote about such things and in a time when it was more shunned than accepted? Were you worried about the erotica side and how it would sell? How to you feel about the way many have embraced the books as a way of life? Did you anticipate there would be such a following when starting to write the series so long ago?

A. This seems to be a “suitcase question,” namely, a question which, actually, contains several questions. I will try to answer a couple of them. I think that is about all one has a right to expect. Hopefully the answer to all, or most, of the preceding questions is at least implicit in what follows.
1. The Gorean books are fiction, and are meant to be read and enjoyed as such.
2. One does not know if a “Gor,” as an astronomical world, exists, or not. Given that there are billions of stars in a galaxy, and that there seem to be billions of galaxies beyond these, stretching on, far out of sight, and so on, and that extrasolar planets are common, between six and seven hundred having been detected to date, it seems possible that a Gor exists somewhere. There are many fascinating issues involved in these matters. Much depends on whether life is abundant or rare in the universe. My bet is that we are “not alone.” Simulations of primeval environments have resulted in the abundant, natural formation of organic molecules, but, so far, no cells, no civilizations. Perhaps one should give such experiments a billion years or so.
3. I think the Gorean phenomenon is largely independent of what would normally be taken as “science-fiction fandom.” With all due respect to “typical science-fiction fandom,” which I very much respect, and toward which I have very positive feelings, the Gorean books are not written for “typical science-fiction fans.” Indeed I am not sure they would understand them. Some science-fiction writers apparently don’t. They are written for adults, highly intelligent, highly sexed adults, of both sexes. Similarly, the Gorean books are not simply adventure fantasy, but intellectual, philosophical, and psychological novels. Also, some of them certainly have elements of sensuous romance. The Gorean books are their own country, their own world, not a part of someone else’s country, or someone else’s world. They are not out, for example, to think up the 673rd variation off genetic engineering, denounce capitalism, woo antimenite editrices, or such.
4. Interestingly, I know very little about the “Gorean phenomenon,” other than the fact that it apparently exists.
5. Interestingly, also, I do not regard the Gorean books as “controversial,” as they are based, for the most part, on history, anthropology, biology, psychology, and such. It is true, of course, that certain ideologies, and certain competitive ambitions, are more likely to prosper if certain facts are overlooked, ignored, or denied. I think one should accept human nature, and the profound, wonderful differences amongst human beings, sexual and otherwise, for what they are, and then worry about putting together a world in which humanity might flourish, rather than be lied to, threatened, coerced, sickened, and stunted. To be sure, this is a value judgment. Some people doubtless prefer a culture that is a penitentiary, assuming they are, or expect to be, the guards and wardens.
6. Presumably one either writes for a market or one writes what one feels like writing, and hopes for the best. I went at things the latter way. There is money in flattery, sycophancy, and hypocrisy. But I would rather make money, if I make it, another way, honestly, so to speak.
7. Sex, and sexual needs, and sexual natures are part of life. These things have been selected for, in diverse species, in thousands of generations. It is hard to believe, for example, that the human species has been wrong up to now. I suppose that a fifty-thousand-year mistake is possible, but it seems unlikely. Perhaps raccoons and giraffes have been wrong up to now.
8. I am in favor of people being safe, healthy, happy, fulfilled, and so on. What makes people safe, healthy, happy, and fulfilled? That probably depends on the individuals involved. I think the test of “life consequences” is important here. I have no objection to individuals involving themselves in safe, healthy, happy, fulfilling Gorean relationships. Master/Slave sex, for example, can be emotionally and physically rewarding for both partners. I am not in favor of cruelty, to a slave no more than to any other animal. The slave is to be cherished, and know herself the belonging of her master. She exists to love and serve her master. She is not to be abused, but enjoyed. In the collar there are many rewards. The Gorean relation has nothing to do with hurting people. If it is not beautiful, it is not Gorean.
9. I did not anticipate the success of the Gorean world, its popularity, and so on. I did not even anticipate the blacklisting, for example, and it still seems surprising to me, as I am not clear, really, that there is anything there to be blacklisted about. I am naive, I guess. Also, I did not anticipate the extent of antimenite power in publishing. That, too, was naive. It did not occur to me that women might exist who have serious reservations about half of the human race. Interestingly, the Gorean books have a large, grateful, warm female readership. Indeed, supposedly some sixty percent of the Gorean readers are women. That did come as a surprise to me. So I gather that not every woman is turned on by, or thrilled by, antimenite-approved males, when they recommend males.

9. Q: The women’s movement really didn’t come fully into effect until the late 70’s. Prior to that, many individuals were raised to believe women should be submissive to the male. They were to care for the man and meet his needs. You grew up in a time when this was so, and were an adult as the change occurred. Was the Gorean life of women submissive to men your belief or fantasy.

A. There is no Woman’s Movement. There are several women’s movements, historically, and presently. For example, when a woman provides the unsolicited and not particularly interesting information that she is a feminist, she is not likely to be doing much more than proclaiming her alleged political correctness, and that she is to be immediately and uncritically approved. What is she telling us? Not much, I am afraid. Is she an Equity Feminist or a Gender Feminist, a Difference Feminist, or an Identity Feminist, or some other kind of Feminist, or some combination of these, and other sorts, or what? Feminists range from loving wives and devoted mothers to man-hating lunatics. Some major divisions seem visible, the Votes-for-Women movement, ending in the Nineteenth Amendment; the glamour-jobs-for-middle-class-white-women movement, the affirmative-action-special-privileges-based-on-gender sort of thing; and the far-left agenda of some portions of contemporary Feminism. (It is interesting that when the media interviews a woman for the “woman’s view,” they always select, or so it seems, a woman from one of the leftist movements, a radical, so to speak, and not a representative sample of the other 99.9 percent or so of the female sex.)
I was never, personally, raised to believe that women should be submissive to men, nor, as far as I know, were many others of my generation. If one is a Christian, and takes St. Paul seriously, on the other hand, one might. I think he said that wives should submit themselves to their husbands. In that sense, there might have been religious views along these lines. The three possibilities seem to be that wives should yield to husbands, or husbands to wives, or there should be a fight, as in a democracy of two. I think the usual situation is that the wife submits to the husband in some things, and the husband to the wife in others. That seems to work pretty well. After all, husbands usually know more about some things than wives, and wives usually know more about some things than husbands. I do not think it would be a bad idea, personally, if wives submitted themselves to their husbands. I think that is a good idea. Perhaps I will call it to the attention of my wife. On the other hand, I was never taught that sort of thing.
The Gorean books are obviously fantasy. On the other hand, their popularity, and their impact, is largely a function of fantasy mirroring reality. Without this they would not have the power, the impact, the reality they do.
What is crucial here, given our present context, the Gorean books, and such, is biology, and what is fulfilling and what is not fulfilling. To many women, it is sexually thrilling to be collared, stripped, chained, and knelt, to be subjected to indisputable male dominance, and many, in their hearts, feel something profoundly right and beautiful in being owned by, and handled by, a strong, possessive, uncompromising master. What is important here, again, is the test of life consequences. I do not presume to impose my views on others, and I would prefer that they do not attempt to impose their views on me, and everybody else.

10. Q: One of your readers wanted to know what the 12 slave kisses were. They were mentioned, but not explained.

A. I do not think they had better be explained. Would you explain them? Some would seem obvious. This matter, I conjecture, is best left to the imagination. Needless, to say, as a portion of the training of a slave girl, they would most likely have to do with a variety of ways of pleasing a Master.

11. Q: What would your ideal kajira be? You write of various personalities. Do you have a favorite kajira?

A. I do not think I have a concept of a single ideal kajira. Women are wonderful, different, and unique. I think rather than a single ideal there would be a thousand ideals, and, perhaps, one for each woman. I see no reason why Margaret’s kajira and Allison’s kajira might not both, in their own way, be ideal. Might we not bid heatedly on either one?
I am fond of almost all the kajirae in the books. I am not sure I have a favorite. Let each male conjecture his favorite kajira, and let each female conjecture her ideal Master.

12. Q: Many times we write from personalities that we have met in our life. Are any of your characters made from individuals met within your life, over the years.

A I think this question cannot well be answered. I would suppose that the individuals one has met, and the individuals that one has read about, and so on, might influence one. That might well be the case. Indeed, one might take one aspect from A and another from B, and so on. I think the character of Torm, the Scribe, might be based on the Dutch Humanist, Erasmus of Rotterdam,. On the other hand, I think the safest general answer to this question is either “No,” or “Not to my knowledge.” Sorry.

13. Q: Where do you see Ar going, once Cos, Tyros, and the other occupational forces have been driven from her walls?

A. I prefer not to publicly speculate on these matters. I think it is much better to wait and see where the books go, and what they do. To be sure, in Mariners of Gor, we discover the series risking the vastness and turbulence of Thassa, the sea, as the ship of Tersites essays its perilous voyage to the World’s End. At this time, Marlenus is restored to power in Ar, and Talena, who served as a puppet Ubara during the occupation, has become a fugitive.

14. Q: There are a number of lengthy plot arcs within the books. How far in advance did you plan them? Did you take it a book at a time, or did you have some grand vision from the start? How far back were you thinking about the fall of Ar, for instance?

A. The series is constructed in a rather Ptolemaic manner, namely, in terms of a great cycle associated with its epicycles. In short, each book, though complete within itself, should advance the series as a whole. For example, the “others,” “those who are not Priest-Kings,” the Kurii, did not emerge immediately in the series. It did seem appropriate to balance the power of the Priest-Kings, which otherwise would not seem challenged, by a counterpower, one vast enough, and of sufficient sophistication, to threaten them. The Gorean humans would seem caught between these two dangerous, titanic forces. They seem scattered, small, and weak, but even a mighty scale, suitably poised, weighing worlds, might be tipped by so little as a grain of sand. Both Priest-Kings and Kurii, of course, enlist humans as allies, when it is thought to their advantage.
I do not know what will happen in the series.
The books have not yet told me.

15, Q: There are rumors, due to the change in style of writing in some of the later novels, that you have been getting help and/or others, such as your sons and students, are writing them. What is your response to individuals who are stating this?

A. I am not personally aware of any changes in a style of writing, or such, in the series. On the other hand, Tarnsman of Gor was first published in 1966. So it is quite possible that changes, in one thing or another, or of one sort or another, may have taken place. As far as I know, however, things are pretty much the same.
In any event, I am, and remain, at least to date, the only author of the series.
I wish you well,
John Norman

Read John Norman’s latest installment of the Gorean Saga, Mariners of Gor.  And for all John Norman’s books, click here.

Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) today announced the launch of 47North, the seventh imprint from Amazon Publishing, focused on science fiction, fantasy and horror. 47North launches with 15 books, including “The Mongoliad: Book One,” the first in the ambitious, five-book, collaborative Foreworld series led by Neal Stephenson and Greg Bear. All of these books will be available to English readers in Kindle, print and audio formats at www.amazon.com, as well as at national and independent booksellers. 47North will publish original and previously published works, as well as out-of-print books.

“Amazon customers have a huge appetite for science fiction, fantasy and horror books, and we are thrilled to have the opportunity to introduce readers to new and established voices in these genres,” said Victoria Griffith, Publisher, Amazon Publishing, West Coast Group. “We are especially happy to have a diverse list at launch, and look forward to publishing across a wide range of subgenres.”

47North will launch with the following books & series:

* Together, Lee Goldberg and William Rabkin are the authors of “Successful Television Writing” and have written and/or produced scores of highly successful network television series, including Diagnosis Murder, Spenser: For Hire, Baywatch and many more. Their digital-first novel, “Face of Evil,” which will publish in October 2011, is the first novel in The Dead Man series. Protagonist Matthew Cahill gains new sight into the netherworld after a terrible accident, making each day a living nightmare. Four more installments will also publish in October, with a new adventure following each month thereafter. Additionally, a print compilation of the first three novels will publish in January 2012.
* Prolific science fiction and fantasy writer Dave Duncan’s “Against the Light” tells the story of a young, magical missionary’s arrest for heresy and treason in the land of Albi. Duncan is best known for fantasy series The Seventh Sword, A Man of His Word and The King’s Blades. “Against the Light” will be published in January 2012.
* Arwen Elys Dayton’s action-packed science fiction novel, “Resurrection,” centers on warring alien races and the two star-crossed pilots who hold the key to salvation. The fan-favorite novel has been out of print for years and will be brought back into print by 47North in January 2012.
* Aric Davis’ previous novel, “Nickel Plated,” was named by Booklist as one of the Top Ten Crime Novels for Youth in 2011. Now, Davis turns his attention to the macabre in the all-new “A Good and Useful Hurt,” in which tattoo artist Mike’s life is torn apart when a supernatural, psychopathic killer targets him and those he loves. “A Good and Useful Hurt,” Davis’ first adult novel, will be published in February 2012.
* A new edition of the first book in Evan Currie’s popular military space opera Odyssey series will be published in March 2012, now entitled “Into the Black: Odyssey One.” 47North will also publish its sequel later in the year.
* Best-selling UK author Stephen Leather’s new Nightingale series will be published by 47North starting in March 2012. “Nightfall,” “Midnight” and “Nightmare” are fast-paced supernatural thrillers that follow former cop and struggling private investigator Jack Nightingale who is forced to confront the possibility that demons exist after inheriting a supernatural mansion.
* Hugo and Nebula Award-winning authors Neal Stephenson and Greg Bear have teamed up with an ensemble of respected authors and newcomers to create the Foreworld series. The series will begin with The Mongoliad trilogy, an epic tale about the birth of Western martial arts. The Foreworld series will begin with the publication of “The Mongoliad: Book One” in April 2012.
* New York Times best-selling author Chris Roberson lends his ear for humor and the otherworldly in “Further: Beyond the Threshold,” to be published in May 2012. Roberson is best known for his DC Comics/Vertigo work in the Cinderella series and iZombie. “Further” is a novel about a space explorer who is kept in stasis for too long and awakens to a universe that is terrifying and unfamiliar.
* B.V. Larson has published over 20 novels in genres ranging from military science fiction, to epic fantasy, to paranormal romance. 47North will publish the next two novels in his urban fantasy series, Unspeakable Things, in June 2012. In the first book, “Technomancer,” Larson’s detective Quentin Draith is tasked with solving impossible crimes, and each clue leads him further into a world that exists between the raindrops of the known world.

47North, whose name is based on the latitude coordinates of Seattle, joins sister imprints AmazonEncore, AmazonCrossing, Powered by Amazon, Montlake Romance, Thomas & Mercer and the New York imprint in the Amazon Publishing family.

For more information on 47North and upcoming titles, visit www.amazon.com/47North. For more information about all imprints of Amazon Publishing, visit www.amazon.com/amazonpublishing. 47North is a brand used by Amazon Content Services, LLC.

About Amazon.com

Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN), a Fortune 500 company based in Seattle, opened on the World Wide Web in July 1995 and today offers Earth’s Biggest Selection. Amazon.com, Inc. seeks to be Earth’s most customer-centric company, where customers can find and discover anything they might want to buy online, and endeavors to offer its customers the lowest possible prices. Amazon.com and other sellers offer millions of unique new, refurbished and used items in categories such as Books; Movies, Music & Games; Digital Downloads; Electronics & Computers; Home & Garden; Toys, Kids & Baby; Grocery; Apparel, Shoes & Jewelry; Health & Beauty; Sports & Outdoors; and Tools, Auto & Industrial. Amazon Web Services provides Amazon’s developer customers with access to in-the-cloud infrastructure services based on Amazon’s own back-end technology platform, which developers can use to enable virtually any type of business. The new latest generation Kindle is the lightest, most compact Kindle ever and features the same 6-inch, most advanced electronic ink display that reads like real paper even in bright sunlight. Kindle Touch is a new addition to the Kindle family with an easy-to-use touch screen that makes it easier than ever to turn pages, search, shop, and take notes – still with all the benefits of the most advanced electronic ink display. Kindle Touch 3G is the top of the line e-reader and offers the same new design and features of Kindle Touch, with the unparalleled added convenience of free 3G. Kindle Fire is the Kindle for movies, TV shows, music, books, magazines, apps, games and web browsing with all the content, free storage in the Amazon Cloud, Whispersync, Amazon Silk (Amazon’s new revolutionary cloud-accelerated web browser), vibrant color touch screen, and powerful dual-core processor.

Amazon and its affiliates operate websites, including www.amazon.com, www.amazon.co.uk, www.amazon.de, www.amazon.co.jp, www.amazon.fr, www.amazon.ca, www.amazon.cn, www.amazon.it, and www.amazon.es. As used herein, “Amazon.com,” “we,” “our” and similar terms include Amazon.com, Inc., and its subsidiaries, unless the context indicates otherwise.

Forward-Looking Statements

This announcement contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Actual results may differ significantly from management’s expectations. These forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties that include, among others, risks related to competition, management of growth, new products, services and technologies, potential fluctuations in operating results, international expansion, outcomes of legal proceedings and claims, fulfillment center optimization, seasonality, commercial agreements, acquisitions and strategic transactions, foreign exchange rates, system interruption, inventory, government regulation and taxation, payments and fraud. More information about factors that potentially could affect Amazon.com’s financial results is included in Amazon.com’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including its most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K and subsequent filings.

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Introduction to Slippage by Harlan Ellison

The Fault In My Lines

Where to open the fissure: the earthquake or the heart attack?

The earthquake. It is officially listed as a 6.8-magnitude temblor by the U.S. Geological Survey’s geophysicists at the Earthquake Information Center in Golden, Colorado.

The Northridge, California “thruster.” It hit at precisely, exactly, 4:31 a.m. on Monday the
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17th of January 1994. It had been a pretty lousy year through the 16th, and 1993 hadn’t been too cuddly, either. Let us not even talk about ’92.

But as rusty as those first sixteen days of the new year had been, they were nothing but sunny days on the beaches of Ibiza by comparison to 4:31 in the dead black morning of January 17th.

First, there was the sound of it. Oh, yeah, trust me on this: first, you hear it coming. You don’t know that’s what the hell you’re hearing, but you catch the sound of it hurtling toward you before your bones and back teeth pick it up.

Let me try to tell you what it sounds like.

Because just the sound of it can scare your hair white, (Mine started to fall out in the months following.)

The unimaginative say it sounds like a train coming toward you. Bullshit. Nothing like a train. I used to ride the freights, like a bindlestiff, when I was a kid. Trains have a decent sound to them. A good sound. Tough, but willing to accommodate you. This damned thruster had absolutely nothing in common with a train. Then there are those whose best analogy is, “It was a deep rumbling noise.” Yer ass. A deep rumbling noise is what you get out of your stomach when you’ve had too many baby-backs and hot links. A cranky bear makes a deep rumbling sound. The radiator. The water pipes trying to carry the load. Krusty the Klown makes a deep rumbling noise. I’ll tell you precisely what that muther sounded like:

Ever see one of those Japanese samurai movies featuring the masterless ronin who travels around with his baby son in a wooden cart that rolls on big wooden wheels? The Lone Wolf and Cub films? What they call the “baby cart” series?

Okay, then: are you familiar with “corduroy roads”? They were common and plentiful in this country up until about forty years ago. Mostly, you could find them in backwoods or rural areas, where dirt roads were still in use, macadam hadn’t made its inroads, superhighways were distant myths, and country roads were used for hauling heavy loads. So, to make them capable of supporting the weight of a tractor pulling a backhoe, or a fully loaded hay wagon, logs were laid transversely, producing a kind of ribbed look–something like those speed bumps in parking lots that make you slow down–and the buried logs gave the dirt road the topographical surface of the cotten cloth we call corduroy.

When you drove down such a road, there was a metronomic bump-bump-bump sound. I’m trying to be specific here, trying to describe the indescribable. Explain the color red to someone blind from birth.

What it sounded like was this: a gigantic wooden-wheeled baby cart, as big as a mountain, bump-bump-bumping down a corduroy road. Underneath you. Deep underneath you.

I was awake at that hour. I was upstairs here in my office, working. On the second floor of the office wing I designed and had built some years ago. Walls floor-to-ceiling filled with reference and non-fiction books I might need when working, arranged alphabetically by subject. Several thousand books, mostly hardcovers. And an open central atrium that looks down on the first floor of the office wing. And my desk and typewriter over here next to the French doors that give onto the balcony and a view of the San Bernardino Mountains thirty-seven miles away across the San Fernando Valley. My office looks out due north toward those mountains.

At 4:31 in the morning, the thruster zazzed laterally across the Valley floor, west to south, reached the foot of the Santa Monica Mountains (at the top of which my home sits)…and had nowhere to go but up.

(Pause. Know-nothings who live in parts of the country where they endure sub-zero weather, tornados, floods, killing pollution, drought, blight, sand storms, provincial bigotry, ultraconservative censorship, hurricanes or Jesse Helms, have been known to remark, “How can anyone bear living in Southern California with all those earthquakes? They must be really stupid not to flee the state!”

(And go where?

(It’s the same everywhichplace these days, folks. New Orleans or Pittsburgh; Kankakee or Kansas; Eugene, Oregon or Oklahoma City. If the twister don’t get you, the rabid militia will.

(L.A. is okay. I like it here. But I’m no dope. Long before the thruster, I had hired both seismic engineers and structural experts, as well as soil analysts, to tell me how safe I was here on the crest of the North Benedict Canyon slope. Core drilling had been done, and I was heartened to learn that the house sat solidly, a mere five feet above bedrock. Of even more salutary note was the advisement that not only was the house secure just five feet above bedrock, but the seam ran north-south, in line with the house. Meaning: not even the worst of the “rolling” temblors we knew so well in Southern California could trouble me overmuch. If the rolling came, it would not affect the solid cut under me. I was sanguine. And when the Landers quake hit a few years ago, I barely felt it, despite all the serious damage done in other nearby areas. I was sanguine. “The only way you’re going to be in any trouble,” said an engineer from the Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena–a reader of my work who had offered to bring in some ground-testing equipment as a favor–”any trouble at all, is if the whole damned mountain collapses.” I was sanguine.)

The fault line came diagonally across the Valley, got to the base of the mountains, had nowhere to go…so it went up.

The house was lifted with a 4g thrust. It takes only 6 gravs to throw a rocket to the moon.

I heard it coming, and I bolted from my typing chair, and got across the office to the deco stairwell before the first wave hit. The house, and everything in it, went straight up. I was lifted off my feet and thrown across the stairwell, crashing face-first against the south wall of the second-floor landing. The right side of my face smashed into a framed photo of the blind Borges in Baltimore in 1983, sitting at the foot of the memorial to Edgar Allan Poe, running his fingers over the bronze commemorative plaque, paying homage, one great fantasist to another. I hit it so hard it shattered the glass and broke the frame.

Then I was thrown sidewise, as the second wave struck. Thrown left down the winding deco staircase–everything now in pitch darkness–all electricity had gone out across the city–and bent double over the pony wall, cracking my forehead on the leading edge of a Lucite shelf holding pewter figurines of The Ten Greatest Inventions of History.

And then the main torque hit.

I was picked up and thrown forward, never touching the final flight of steps from the lower landing to the first floor. I was picked up and flipped heels-over-head to land flat on my back, missing the edge of the pool table by perhaps two inches. If I had been two inches to the right, it would have blasted open my skull; nothing less than a human omelette.

But before I could rise, off the wall to my left, a heavy painting slightly larger than 3′x3′ wrenched itself off its hanger, and crashed down on me.

(Pause: charming little ironies of near-death experiences. The painting is a surreal rendering of a large stone mausoleum with ominous faces perceivable in the walls. It sits on a hill under a dark blue, threatening sky. Carved into the lintel of the building is the legend 6000 SA MO BL. The painting is called “Six thousand, same old bull.” The irony is that 6000 SA MO BL is an abbreviation for 6000 Santa Monica Boulevard, the location of the cemetery crypt and mausoleum in Los Angeles where, among others, Al Jolson is buried. The painting weighs a ton. Well, that’s figuratively speaking. It’s heavy, because it has a double pane of glass on it–the second pane having stars painted on the inside surface, thus giving a very deep-dimensional look to the already eerie landscape–and when 6000 SA MO BL ripped loose, it plummeted and hit me full in the face, breaking my nose, blacking both my eyes, ripping open gashes in my face.) Knocking me unconscious.

Not for long, I guess. It was dark, the earth was still growling, I was woozy–maybe a concussion already, I don’t know–and even if there had been light, I couldn’t have seen anything. Too much blood in my eyes.

I started to pull myself to my feet, using the edge of the pool table, when the next wave struck; and this time it threw every book on the upper level out of the bookcases, hurled them over the railing, and down on me in the open space below the atrium. I was struck by hundreds of reference books, knocked to my knees, and then clobbered unconscious for the second time.

Everything after that, for two years, was recovery, rebuilding, and lamenting the loss of art and possessions I’d spent a lifetime gathering. No need to dwell on it, I’ve conveyed the part that’s pertinent to this book. So now we can move on to the heart attack.65

New York, NY, – In a first from a major trade publisher, HarperCollins Publishers today announced “Comprehensive Backlist.” This program will allow all physical bookstores, from the largest to the smallest, to promote and sell the HarperCollins backlist through in-store “Digital-to-Print at Retail” (DPR) using the Espresso Book Machine (EBM). The program will enable bookstores to offer thousands of trade paperback books from the HarperCollins catalog through a mix of traditionally printed books and DPR, as space and cash flow restrictions will no longer be a factor. DPR editions will be sold on an agency model. It is expected that the independent bookstores that already have the Espresso Book Machine in place will join the program.

At launch, HarperCollins will work with On Demand Books, LLC, the maker of the Espresso Book Machine, to enable instant distribution of books that are not currently stocked in stores. With the push of a button, books can be printed, bound, and trimmed to a bookstore-quality, perfect-bound paperback book, with a full-color cover, in minutes.

“Even as digital book sales grow, bookstores continue to be an important place for customers to shop for physical books. The goal of this initiative is to give the local bookseller the capability to provide customers with a greater selection of HarperCollins titles in a physical environment,” said Brian Murray, President and Chief Executive Officer of HarperCollins Publishers. “For authors this is a win; titles will be more broadly available, which increases sales with full print royalties. Depending on the size of the store, 25%-80% of our backlist titles are not stocked due to physical space limitations. DPR technology means the books will be there for the consumer at small and large bookshops.”

“We are delighted to add HarperCollins to the Espresso Book Machine network,” says Dane Neller, Chief Executive Officer of On Demand Books. “By committing thousands of titles to the program, HarperCollins is showing its clear support for bookstores and authors, and reaching more readers. Digital-to-Print at Retail is a powerful new sales channel for publishers. It eliminates lost sales due to out-of-stock inventory and provides a new marketing platform in partnership with bricks and mortar booksellers.”

“The ability to have available any book that our customers could possibly ask for is key to our vision of how to thrive in this challenging environment,” said Jeffrey Mayersohn, Owner of Harvard Bookstore. “The HarperCollins partnership with On Demand Books brings us much closer to realizing that vision. This is great news for independent bookstores everywhere.”

“With HarperCollins making their titles available for the Espresso BookMachine, the original vision and full potential of the machine will begin to be realized. Thousands more titles will be directly available to my customers, and we will capture many, many sales which are currently lost,” said Chris Morrow, Owner of Northshire Bookstore. “I hope other publishers see the potential of this sales channel and get on board. This can be a key element in the development of the bookstore of the future.”

HarperCollins trade paperback books, including adult and children’s titles, will be available on Espresso Book Machines starting in November. Titles from Zondervan and HarperCollins Canada will be available early next year. Booksellers who are interested in exploring HarperCollins “Comprehensive Backlist” offer should contact their HarperCollins sales representative to determine the optimal level of core print books that stores should carry, relevant incentives, and merchandise opportunities. The program will be available to any bricks-and-mortar book retailers. Book retailers can work directly with On Demand Books, or the vendor of their choosing, to install the machine in stores. Booksellers can contact their HarperCollins sales rep for more information.