The story behind the book is probably more interesting than the book itself. For starters, let me tell you that Karen whatsername had nothing whatsoever to do with this book. Byron Preiss (recently deceased), the publisher, put her name on this because she is the WIFE of ROBERT SILVERBERG, famous SF author. He hoped that if he hired her as a copyeditor, Silverberg would look it over. Not only did Silverberg ignore it, so did she.
If this thing was copyedited, then why all the terrible typos?
This thing wasn't even SPELLCHECKED!
I rewrote this like, five times. Preiss took incomplete drafts from different rewrites of various chapters, and put them together OUT OF SEQUENCE so they contradict each other in places.
I have yet to receive complete payment after over FIVE YEARS.
Now that Byron is dead, I guess I will never get paid.
Well, it was nice to be able to say I wrote a book, but the unnerving experience of being screamed at by Byron's neurotic assistant editor who had never edited a book before, hardly made the task a joy. The result is so slapdash that I have never been able to open the covers and actually read it. GAD, there are so many TYPOS!
BYRON PREISS had a reputation and as soon I signed the contract and announced it to various zines and groups, other authors who had worked for Byron began to approach me to warn me about hiim.
So none of it came as a suprise. I KNEW what I was in for. But that didn't make it any more pleasant.
But...good things came of it, so it was well worth it. My nerves jangled for some time afterward, but that's life in the publishing biz in New York City. A real contest of egos. It is easy to face them down and I did so many times (all so childish) but it is so TRYING. It is a foolish way to do business. No adult should interact with another like a schoolyard bully.
I feel there is some good text in the book. Some very funny stuff. All the research I did on the characters was thrown out. The science is uneven because some chapters are, as I say, incomplete drafts. But I tried to write a lot of funny stuff. The editor felt it was unprofessional and kept cutting it out. I kept putting it in. After awhile I think he gave up. The editor was Byron's assistant, I think his name was Dwight. I've blocked him out. He was so shrill and brittle. Poor man. He must have been suffering the major brunt of forces above far more shrill than he. And he could NOT have been making much money. So he was trying to rush thru my little book as fast as possible because time was money. He had a dozen other projects that were on deadline and no time for me.
SO, if you want to be a writer, I warn you as I was warned--be prepared for everything I have described. It is a common story.
Not so bad in the scale of things. People are starving in Africa, the world is full of terrorists...In the scale of things.
Thanks for reading,
My best to you all,
=link