Icons

Happy Holidays to all. I'm popping back in to work for a moment and found these wonderful images ready to go. I'll post 'em a few at a time.

Double Star



Destination: Moon

Beyond This Horizon:

In my defense, I was going to post Friday

Hello one and all,
By now, it seems that most of you have seen the letter in some fashion or another--I've received responses from about half the subscribers at this point, mainly positive response, which is a plus.
I was going to update Friday and got sidetracked by trivium--and I dearly wish I meant grammar, logic, and rhetoric. *ahem* Regardless, I found out we actually have access to Meisha-Merlin RAH's quickbook client lists! This simplifies things so very much so I've been spending a wee (not really) bit of time organizing our files so we've got full contact and subscription info on everybody. As painful as this is to do over a long stretch of time--physically, mentally, anthropomorphically--it's so very convenient to have a full break-down of everything on-hand in a single centralized location. I still hate doing it, though.
While it means we can't get the poster ready for Christmas, I've decided to let Donato take the time to work on the painting so it'll look nicer. I've also checked into it and we can get a special cut of the poster that'll be the exact right size without too much difference in the price.
Jeff Cook is going to take one last look through volumes 1-8 for us, which I certainly appreciate him taking the time to do. As for volumes 9 and 10, I'm personally uncomfortable with the state of The Past Through Tomorrow volumes as they stand. Rather than just tossing them forward, I've decided to send them through another round of proofing. I will be unabashedly--and probably undesirably--forthright and admit I'm feeling slightly tremulous at the moment; there've been rather a lot of comments about things that have gone wrong and I'm being a few steps more cautious than might normally be the case.
Fraser Sandercombe has been making icons to go on the spines of each of the books so they'll be more readily identifiable at a glance. They're rather nice; I'll upload them at the end of this. We've got two choices for Stranger in a Strange Land, so let me know which you prefer--I think the first one is better, personally.
I was going to update on Friday, but ended up consolidating our client info 'til 7 at night and decided to wait 'til this week. I'll be going to visit Family Friday-Sunday, Monday-Tuesday is Christmas and then, assuming I've managed to get everything into a simple, self-sustaining set-up, I very much plan to take two weeks off and be back around the 4th or so. Expect no real updates during that time period, though I will have access to my email if you have specific questions that desperately need answering.
I should be able to eke out the time to finish consolidating the subscriber info at which point I'm going to send out a mass e-mail (Don't worry, I'll BCC) just to double-check that they all work. If we've communicated via that email in the past, don't feel compelled to respond.

And now the pictures!

Edit: Okay, I can't actually upload PDFs--apparently!--so I'm going to see about getting jpegs or some such from the artist to upload.

Second Edit: Betsy asked if there was a way to contact me on the net. My work email is sean dot thompson at dula dot com.
I'm not entirely sure why the Meisha-Merlin website has *changed* to include credit card processing. I was under the impression that they were shutting down their site, but I'll check into that.
As for the new site, the new coding got patched up appropriately, I found the time to write the content, and at the moment Kevin Murphy is supposed to be updating it all and is turning it back over tomorrow. We purchased both virginiaedition.com and virginiaedition.net to host the site--as God is my witness, please, please, please do not visit those just yet. We've put up a flimsy shell of nothing but text so we can show it to the people we're getting our merchant account from. It is a hideous monstrosity and viewing it will yield nothing except unhappiness and lonely nights.

The world is filled with interesting facts. For example, did you know that neighborhood post offices don't have IRCs (International Reply Coupons) and so you've got to go to the main city branch? So it is in Houston, in any event. Another interesting fact: Office Space was not a work of fiction, printers really will tell you there is a paper jam when there is no paper jam. When there is a paper jam, printers will lie to you and tell you the jam is on the right side of the printer when, in fact, it is on the left.

All of which is to say that, after hours of struggling with the world's most accursed machines--finally bear-wrestling it into submission where it now weeps at my feet--the letter/update has been successfully mailed to everybody and, barring those outside of the US, should arrive by week's end.

For those who are especially anxious, I present the full text of the letter--less the papercut potential--for your perusal.

*ahem*

December 2007

Dear Virginia Edition Subscriber,

On June 29, 2007, the Robert A. and Virginia Heinlein Prize Trust sent you a letter discussing the proposed transition of publication of the Virginia Edition from Meisha-Merlin to the Heinlein Prize Trust. From the responses we received, it seems that a large number of subscribers did not receive our letter, so we are enclosing a copy for your information. If you did not receive the June letter and have not spoken with us about it, please feel free to contact us at your convenience.

In the June letter, we stated that volume seven would be published sometime in September, however, as we examined the situation, we found that the Virginia Edition, as begun by Meisha-Merlin, was economically unviable. While the Trust wanted to move ahead as quickly as possible, we realized that rushing into this project could easily doom the entire enterprise and we might never see a completed Virginia Edition. As a result, we have spent the intervening months examining how best to ensure the continued production and completion of the Virginia Edition as a quality set of books.

The Trust received no royalties from the subscription payments received by Meisha-Merlin. While the Trust has no legal obligation to honor contracts subscribers made with Meisha-Merlin, the Trustees do feel morally compelled to do everything within their power to ensure that the original Virginia Edition subscriptions are honored. Taking over the production of the Virginia Edition would create a potential liability to the Trust of over a quarter-million dollars. Since the Trust is a non-profit organization, this potential liability has complicated our business planning. On advice of our attorney, the Trust has organized a new company, The Virginia Edition Publishing Company(VEPC), to take over production of the Virginia Edition.

After taking many factors into account, the VEPC chose to completely republish the Virginia Edition. The new Virginia Edition will be in full leather, will be serialized from 1-2000, and will not have artwork or slipcases.

The respected and experienced folks at Windhaven Press have contracted to scan, typeset, and proofread the text. Bill Patterson will reprise his role in organizing Robert Heinlein's letters, fiction, and non-fiction within the volumes. The leather-bound sets will continue to be printed by Transcontinental Printing, and Apogee Books will handle marketing and distribution. Printing and distribution of the books will be done in groups of volumes. The first group of ten volumes will be printed in the first quarter of 2008. Following that, the VEPC expects to release ten additional volumes every three to four months, completing the Virginia Edition by the first quarter of 2009.

The Virginia Edition Publishing Company is making the following offer to all current Virginia Edition subscribers: Subscribers may return their books to VEPC and receive a full refund of the monies paid. Alternatively, subscribers who elect to retain their subscription at the original subscription price may keep the original six slipcased volumes and will receive a new complete set bound in leather at no additional cost. They will also receive posters of Heinlein artwork that the Trust has commissioned, and a poster of the painting originally designed for the Virginia Edition slipcase. Subscribers to the clothbound version will receive a free upgrade to leather; subscribers to the leather version will receive an entire second leather bound set at no additional cost, which they can keep, or donate to a library or school.. Exclusive edition subscribers will receive further communication from VEPC on this matter. Please send VEPC your response and confirm your contact details in the enclosed envelope. VEPC’s offer expires February 1st, 2008. After February 1, 2008, subscribers who have not made an election will be entitled to retain the books they have received in full satisfaction of the subscription price paid. Additionally, after February 1, 2008, the price of the Virginia Edition may fluctuate with the market.

We understand that you have all committed a substantial amount of money to the Virginia Edition and that the aforementioned problems have made this a trying time for everyone. We thank all of you for the patience you have shown while we have worked to ensure that we will not be subject to the issues that have plagued the Virginia Edition to date.

The Trust and the Virginia Edition Publishing Company invite each of you to share your thoughts and feelings about the Virginia Edition with us and the VEPC. The VEPC has established a blog at virginiaedition.blogspot.com to keep subscribers updated with the status of the Virginia Edition. If that does not provide enough information or does not adequately address your concerns, please feel free to contact Sean Thompson of the Virginia Edition Publishing Company at sean.thompson@dula.com or 713-861-3600.

Sincerely,

Arthur M. Dula
Trustee of the Robert A. and Virginia Heinlein Prize Trust

J. Buckner Hightower
Trustee of the Robert A. and Virginia Heinlein Prize Trust

James M. Vaughn, Jr.
Trustee of the Robert A. and Virginia Heinlein Prize Trust

Sean Thompson
Manager of the Virginia Edition Publishing Company

A Lengthy Post of Predetermined Girth

Hello all,,
I will begin by addressing the most recent points raised in posts before moving on to the meaty part of the update:

a) Contact with the subscribers:
A good point was raised about contacting the subscribers more regularly, perhaps using the email they registered when they opened their accounts. I see no real problem with doing this--I could send out an initial email and offer the option to unsubscribe to keep from pestering people. I feel rather sheepish admitting it, but I hadn't considered that possibility.

I am checking to see if there will be any way to tie this blog--or some form of blog format--to the new website for the sake of convenience. (Until then, blogspot supports atom feeds so simply visit virginiaedition.blogspot.com/atom.xml and you can choose to use firefox's live bookmarks to automatically see updates or import the address into a feed program of your choice and you'll be automatically updated.) I've no idea how much trouble there would be in embedding all of that, but we'll find out!

Some seem to feel that we've been ignoring, perhaps intentionally, subscribers, but I'd like to assure you all that that is not the case. We've sent letters to everybody at the addresses provided to us and we're honestly perplexed at how many have gone astray. When we get contacted by people that didn't get a letter, we're taking down their addresses and correcting them if they're off. If the next mail-out doesn't work, we may have to resort to rather excessive methods to try and get proper communication lines going. Regardless, we are not intentionally trying to shut people out or give them the cold shoulder. We have no reason to do so and, honestly, pretty much everything we're doing--and part of why this has taken so long--is with each of you in mind.

b) Time Enough for Love
Jim Bob, thank you for pointing out the error in the poem. We'll fix that.

On which note, we have a list of errors to fix, but if you have spotted errors in the first six volumes, please feel free to let us know.

c) The Next Three Weeks
As I've mentioned, we're sending a letter to the subscribes detailing what's going to be happening. Right now, I'm waiting to get confirmation back that there's nothing dramatically wrong with it before sending it out and, as such, it's likely to post on Monday. As soon as I do get confirmation, though--hopefully tomorrow morning--I will post the text here so that you, loyal readers, will be able to read it in advance.
The next few weeks should be the last of the chaotic times and see the following happen:
a) Website set-up properly
b) Books 1-10 to printer for prepress with printing to begin with the New Year
c) A poster of "Heinlein's World" (the Donato painting meant for the spine of the first twelve books) printed and sent to all the original subscribers. (On which note, while I'm looking at printing options, the painting is rather wider than tall such that a single print would probably end up having bleed on top and bottom--caption "Heinlein's World" on bottom, probably set the painting against a starscape. Would anybody prefer having two half-posters (the left half and the right half) that could be put together to form the whole painting?) My hope is to have that to everybody by Christmas.

Once all of that is done, most everything should proceed regularly and smoothly 'til the bitter sweet end.

Once again, I would like to thank all of you for the astounding patience that you've shown throughout this process. It speaks well of you.

Desperately Trying Not To Be Tacky

Let us imagine that information comes to me as a trickling spring--rather like an hourglass in a way--of quantum water. It comes slowly and isn't entirely sure whether it exists or not at any given moment. (Yes, I've probably just made a dozen quantum physicists weep.)

Nonetheless, charging right along.

To update information:
We ran into a hold-up with volumes 9 and 10. My original understanding was that they would be ready about the start of November so we could have the first print run done by December 15th and everybody could have a nice extra gift under the tree. (Our Christmas tree was always rather sparsely populated so the idea appealed to me.) As it stands, for reasons I won't go into unless everybody displays a particularly keen interest in the details, those won't be complete *until* the 15th. (9 and 10 are caught up in the transition between (edit)proofreaders and typesetters;* subsequent volumes will proceed at a production rate of about four a month with ten printed every two and a half months--add a couple of weeks either way for wiggle room.
Our choice has been to either go ahead and start with volumes 1-8 or wait for volumes 1-10. I must admit, I'm giving in to my personal sense of aesthetics here. By waiting for the first ten volumes to be finished, that gives us
a) time to have icons devised for the book. The icons will go on the spine and help identify each book at a glance.
b) We can start the new books with the new year and end with the closing of the year.

Also, somebody asked when we were planning on talking to all the subscribers about what's happening. We're going to send out another letter the week after Thanksgiving--as it seems a number of people didn't get the original, we're going to include a copy of that as well. In addition, the day we mail it, I will post a copy of that letter here. It will include the details of our new operating arrangements and the details for all original subscribers.

*I originally said "Copyeditors" here. I do apologize, I keep confusing the term "copyeditor" with "proofreader" and "typesetter."

Website: Where's Neal Stephenson's Metaverse?

We finally got the glitches out of the website design and I got to take a peek--sans any real content--and it's lookin' pretty swanky. I'll post links shortly.

Website *Wittiness goes here*

On the note of the website, as I understand it, there's one last bit of coding that's been giving the designer trouble and as soon as that's taken care of, we can load everything on to the HPT websites. Ah, if only I had world enough and time...

PS: I'm not the biggest Natalie Portman fan, but I still think it was rather a shame that her head was shaved in V for Vendetta.

Global Warming: Loquacity hath its price

The various contracts are all largely finalized, we're reviewing our production schedules with both Windhaven and Transcontinental so everything will flow together nicely. Right now, we're doing a final cost analysis to find the best place to set the new price and then we should be able to knock that first domino over.

Also, my last post received the following question:
If the Trust doesn't have our money, who does? How is the production of the new version being paid for, if not with our money? And how will the Trust break even or better if they have no money from any of the subscribers? I must have missed a memo somewhere; sorry if these questions have been answered before.

On the first point, we're investigating. As for the rest of it, the Trust is having to bankroll everything out of pocket. We're currently doing a cost analysis to figure out how much we have to charge to have any hope of breaking even. On their own, things aren't too bad and we can offer a pretty good deal and still hope to break even with a fair margin of comfort. Of course, we're also having to account for offering the original subscribers refunds. It's making a substantial dent in our comfort zone--particularly as the majority of subscribers paid in full up front--but, as I believe I've said, we feel it is a necessary step to maintain the goodwill of the community.
To summarize: We're looking for the money. We're paying out of pocket and aiming for a price that'll let us pay subscribers back as needed while still not hurting the Trust's stability.

Adjectives, adverbs, ad hominem, oh my!

Apparently, I'm horrendous at keeping track of time when I'm busy. Poor internal clock. Perhaps I should take a leaf from Mieville's page and have one grafted onto my arm. A portable clock, as it were. I could watch it.

It has been five weeks since my previous substantive post and it seems that something is long overdue. I'm afraid that most of our developments have consisted of the pebbles that form an avalanche, none really seemed quite worth reporting on their own.

We've a contract with Windhaven now and I'm expecting a production schedule from them any day now. Once we have the production schedule, I can talk with Transcontinental--incidentally, we've signed a contract awarding them the full 46 volume print-run in return for a discounted rate--to work out a printing schedule. Ideally, we would like to print about ten volumes at a time to minimize certain associated costs. The last thing we need before we can settle on a final price is determine what our storage costs are going to be; it *looks* like Transcontinental has a fairly cheap storage system set up, we just need to confirm the size of their storage skids.

We're pressing ahead with all of this on the one hand, on the other, we're trying to find out what it would cost to produce a set of slipcases and so on for original subscribers. Features which, in aggregate, are not feasible, may be conceivable when done for a small group of subscribers and we would like to see what we can do in bringing what you will receive closer to parity with what you ordered.

I've seen a sample of the new VE website and it looks like it will be quite attractive. I'm told that the designer is ironing out a bug of some sort--despite my best pretenses, I am not a technical person.

On a final note, there are a few things that I should clarify which, I believe, will also cut down on the number of nasty letters I'll receive.

The first is that the Trust does not have your money. Any of it. We've never received any of it and so it is not in our possession. We are offering refunds, out of our own pocket, because we feel that we possess an ethical obligation to help protect the investments of those who purchased the Virginia Edition. It is not a particularly light burden, but one that seems incumbent upon us to bear.

Secondly, if we've taken several months to get to where we are now, it is because we're attempting to plan out everything we can to ensure that once we begin actual printing and marketing again, we can be reasonably certain that the Virginia Edition will be able to stand on its own, will not be diverted off into any terribly dark alleys, won't bully other limited editions, and will not prove a financial burden to the Trust which would dearly love to at least break even on this venture.

Just so you know, I haven't forgotten any of you. We should be able to deliver the final details--y'know, give or take--early next week.

In reference to one question asked of the last post, we don't actually have more information on the status of the previously printed volumes yet, I meant "Keep reading..." in a general sense.
To clarify, however, we are contractually obliged not to sell the books individually or in any way except as a complete set. This may mean we will have to request the original volumes be returned at our cost, naturally, but we'll have to see if that's necessary (also entirely leaving aside the question of how easily we will be able to make people return books...)

You call it a grain transport, I call it a rail gun.

Today--several days late, I admit--I reveal what we've been working on with regards to the Virginia Edition and why there've been such delays. I'll be completely straightforward and honest and all I ask is that you read through to the end.

In taking over the publication of the Virginia Edition, the first thing we've had to do was to check on the financial status that had been left to us. Without delving too deeply into the details, matters were less than peachy-keen. One of the major roadblocks that we ran into was that the pricing of the edition--both production cost and selling price--was untenable. For those interested in an example, the slip cases that come with each book cost significantly more than the books themselves.

The Heinlein Trust's main goal in publishing the Virginia Edition is to create a quality set of the works of Robert Heinlein that can be afforded by most people and which will thus serve to ensure the availability and further the legacy of Mr. Heinlein. It is with that in mind that we are initiating the following changes in the set:

In order to reduce both production cost and selling price, we will no longer be producing the slipcases for the set nor do we intend to gild the edges of the pages. We are also removing the artwork by Donato from the spine--as we have acquired the rights to the painting that was to be used for the first set of twelve books, we would like to produce a poster of the full painting for all of the current Virginia Edition subscribers. In place of the artwork, we will print the title of the book on the spine and front cover.

On a somewhat brighter note, we will be eliminating the cloth-bound edition and printing entirely in leather at a significantly reduced price. We would like to let all the current customers keep the six volumes they already have, however we're investigating to see if we'll actually be allowed to do so. Keep reading for more information on that.

As starting these changes with volume 7 would result in a severely mismatched set, we are going to reprint the first six volumes--and take a little time to make sure some of the errors from those volumes are solved--when we next go to print. (That, incidentally, is the reason volume 7 hasn't been published when I said it would, when we realized we might be reprinting, we put it on hold.) In the interim, we've also managed to ready volume 8 and get substantial work done on volumes 9-12. Depending on how much longer our talks with the printer go (see below), we'll be printing at least 8 volumes.

This is still subject to change--for reasons I'll go into later--but we expect the new VE price to be in the $1800 dollar range. As this is below the previous cost of the cloth edition--and even further below the cost of the leather edition--we will be issuing refunds equal to the difference between the new cost and the old cost. If you've been on a subscription plan, we'll either reduce your total number of payments or reduce the size of the payments.

Refunds:
We are currently investigating to see if there's any way that we can carry the burden of producing a limited print-run of the original version of the Virginia Edition--sans Donato artwork--for the original subscribers and for the Exclusive edition subscribers, however, if we cannot, or if you're simply infuriated with the blasphemy that we're perpetrating and want no part in any of it, we will offer a full refund of your money in lieu of the new set of books.

Other details:
We are currently contracting with Windhaven Press--a small editing group that has had experience with Heinlein's works--to continue the editing for the project. Under this set-up, we hope to move through the editing process quickly and efficiently. Assuming no major problems crop up, our optimistic goal is to have the editing and layout work done by around January, pessimistically by April or May. Once the lay-out work has been completed, we can print any that hadn't yet been printed--we're hoping to print in at least sets of six every few months--and subscribers could have a full set by the end of next summer.

One of the few remaining hurdles we have to face right now is nailing down some of the details with Transcontinental Publishing--we've gotten a few sets of conflicting numbers and so we're looking to see where the error lies there--and that's been a factor in some of our delays.

We are also considering replacing the publication of "Grumbles from the Grave" with "Requiem" edited by Yoji Kondo. I've spoken with Mr. Kondo and he was excited about the possibility. Our rationale for considering the change is that "Grumbles from the Grave" follows several volumes of Heinlein's personal correspondence and including "Grumbles" would be largely repetition and so "Requiem" might be a welcome substitution.

At this time, I would also like to take a moment to recognize the work done by Bill Patterson. Bill Patterson is the official Heinlein Scholar and he is putting a lot of his time and effort into acquiring our source texts, putting together introductions, and sewing together the letters of correspondence, collections of non-fiction and short stories.

'tis all for now.

Send love and hate mail to sean (dot) thompson (at) dula (dot) com or leave comments on the blog. We really do want to hear from you, your feedback is important as we proceed.

In Reference to Responses

In my last post, I said that I would not be revealing my hand and it has been pointed out that--fairly, I believe--that at the least I should make an effort to post at least once a week anyway to let people know what's happening, even if that is subject to change.

I believe I properly expressed the reasons for my reticence in revelations, but in any other position, I would be starving for information of any kind and so what I propose to do is to make at least one weekly post on the events of the past week with the caveat that what I say/post is still subject to change. As of now, that's the best offer I can reasonably make without being forced to retcon myself down the line.

EDIT: The new Virginia Edition website is currently being produced and scheduled to go online around the very end of August or start to mid-September at which point we will finally be able to take down the Meisha-Merlin page on the Virginia Edition.

Also, Fred asked about contact information and I would highly suggest sending questions to sean (dot) thompson (at) dula (dot) com. That is my email address and while I'm going to start reviewing two of the main Heinlein email accounts to make sure that things don't get missed, it'll be much easier--and probably more swiftly responded to--if you write to my email directly.

The Internet Has Many Abandoned Alleyways. This Is Not One of Them

Realizing that it's been several weeks since my last post, I wanted to check in and make sure everybody knew that I hadn't forgotten about you, we've just been very busy trying to finalize all the arrangements that need to be made. I've been holding off on revealing too much because there have been bits and pieces that were in flux and I realized it might be a tad frustrating to see things mentioned which were later not done--if you keep up with the video game industry at all, we'll call this the Molyneux Fable Effect.

Thus, as much as I hate to disappoint, I will not be revealing my hand today in the hopes that I can make a full and dazzling report about two weeks hence when I hope to have the final status report of this Interregnum period.

Buzzword: Progress (Until the Luddites attack)

I thought everybody would appreciate a quick update on our current status.

Volume 7, as it has been ready to go, and is merely awaiting our final decision. Thank you all for bearing with us as we press forward with this.

Volume 8 (Destination: Moon) is nearly ready to be sent in for an estimate.

Volume 9 (The Past Through Tomorrow Part 1) is being proofed and we expected it to be ready by the end of August.

Volume 10 (The Past Through Tomorrow Part 2) is going through the initial proofing stages and Bill Patterson is preparing his introduction. Hopefully, this volume will be prepped and ready by the end of September.

Volumes 11 (Stranger in a Strange Land) and 12 (How To Be A Politician) have been scanned in and should be ready for proofreading. Assuming everything continues on schedule, these should be ready in October and November.


Also, somebody raised the following question: I am curious if the quality of the books, i.e., acid free paper, etc., is going to continue with the rest of the books in the series.

Yes, we do intend to maintain the same quality of book that has been enjoyed previously.

Lensman Clarification

I feel I should clarify an error I made in the first post. Meisha-Merlin has not declared bankruptcy. They are merely unable to fulfill their obligations to the Trust. I apologize for any confusion which may have resulted from my error.

Times of Change and Change of Time

It's been a bit longer between updates than I'd hoped.

I blame Sasquatch.

Question: Do you still intend to offer the limited "exclusive" Virginia editions to the current subscribers?

The Exclusive editions will continue to be provided to those who have ordered them. As I write this, I understand that we have sold all twenty of the exclusive editions. The Trust was the organization providing the memorabilia and we are more than happy to continue providing the exclusive edition to those who have ordered it. On that note, those who ordered the exclusive edition should have received or will shortly receive a copy of the program book from the Heinlein Centennial.

We're one step away from formally incorporating the new entity that will be responsible for the Virginia Edition, we're just waiting for Trustee approval and we'll be up and running, rather like a well-tuned piano.*

In other news, we're holding off one more week on publishing volume #7. We understand that everybody is impatient to get the next volume and see the next piece of the painting--I hear Snape kills Voldemort--however while speaking with the printer, we found something we believe could be amazing for all of the subscribers. I don't want to say too much in case it doesn't go as planned, so I'll leave you with that tantalizing tidbit.



*I am aware that, under normal circumstances, pianos do not run.

Commentary and Riposte I

Question: With whom are you affiliated? Are you with Meisha Merlin RAH, or with the Heinlein Prize Trust? Other? Will you be at the Centennial to answer questions?

I am an employee the Heinlein Prize Trust. Meisha-Merlin is now a defunct organization; further progress on the Virginia Edition will be handled by a new corporation set up and guaranteed by the Trust. I will be at the Centennial along with Buckner Hightower, one of the Heinlein Trustees. We will be available throughout the Centennial to answer questions and I believe Mr. Hightower intends to have a question-and-answer session on Saturday or Sunday.

First Steps: Excitement Abounds

My name is Sean Thompson; I'll be the center of operations for ensuring the publication of the Virginia Edition. This blog will serve to keep the Heinlein community updated on the latest progress concerning the Virginia Edition.

I will try to keep this posted and updated on a daily basis--or as often as warranted--and will address any questions I receive in the comments section. This blog isn't meant to be an entirely one-way window; we want to hear from you with your questions, comments, concerns and ideas.

To summarize the events of the past few months for those who are unaware:
Meisha-Merlin, the publishers who won the contract for the Virginia Edition, went bankrupt sometime after publishing the sixth volume. Due to their inability to continue activities, the Trust has stepped in to ensure the continuation of the VE. There was an unavoidable delay while we evaluated the status of the project and determined what the best course of action was. As I write this, volume 7--Beyond This Horizon--is at the printer and we expect it to be ready in the next two months while volumes 8, 9, and 10 are currently being proofed.

Ad Astra