As it was in the beginning...

To all Virginia Edition subscribers, prospectives, and general belligerents, It gives me great pleasure to announce that the final volumes of the Virginia Edition have finished printing and arrived at the fulfillment center to be shipped to customers over the next week. We will be making a formal announcement on May 25th at the National Space Society's 30th International Space Development Conference. For those that don't know, the National Space Society was formed from a merger of the National Space Institute and the L5 Society. Mr. Heinlein was director of the L5 society for a decade prior to the merger and so we are especially excited to be able to announce his complete works at ISDC. That has been a long project--longer than we anticipated though I casually note that we are still ahead of the original project's completion date--and rather than belabor the point and bore us all to death, I will simply say my thank you's and be done. Thank you to Bill Patterson and Robert James for helping with volume notes and correspondence. Thanks as well to Robert Gorsch, David Wright, Sr., Geo Rule, and Perry Chapedelaine for their help with the Heinlein-Campbell correspondence. Thank you to Windhaven Press for their editorial and layout work in the face of remarkable hardship. Thank you to the Robert A. and Virginia Heinlein Prize Trust for supporting this project and for vigorously supporting Robert and Virginia's vision of humanity's future in space. And, of course, thank you to all of our subscribers who bore with us over the last several years with remarkably good grace. Your support and kind words have made this experience enormously more bearable than otherwise. Never forget to pay it forward, Simon Jester

Last week I was working on the cover icons for 3 of these last five books.
We did test stampings, and here is what they looked like.

This is the icon for Letters Volume 3, which looks kind of like Ginny, if she were of Asian descent and got punched in her left eye.  Oh bad.  I think this icon is based off of this photo:

Here's to hoping the next round is much better.

These junks are for Tramp Royale.  They look ok, but the black and white has way more detail that didn't show up due to the blurring/spreading effect stamping has.  The original file was:

We reversed it upon suggestion from Transcontinental that it would be nice for the boats to be gold rather than leather, which also meant I needed to add the ring.

Here is Screen Writing 1 - the black and white has more detail but this looks good, too.

Screen Writing 2 was more tricky since some of the the detail did show up.  So we tweaked it and are waiting to see what the changes look like.

And lovely Requiem which came out perfect.

This morning I received an email from Julie at Transcontinental letting me know that the three I had worked on were not different enough.  So I worked on them for several hours this morning and sent them back to her and should hear back tomorrow morning.

This is the last stage of the getting everything printed so they can be bound and shipped.  As far as I know the interiors are already printing.  It is just dear Ginny's face that I still have reservations about.  I hope it comes out pretty.

Tuesday, February 28th, 2012...


Today has been a slow morning while waiting for the last of the hard copy text proofs to be delivered.
I received an automated call from FedEx telling me it would be here by 10:30 and to make sure someone would be here to sign for it, unless I completely spaced and they were telling me it would be here on Wednesday, but I am pretty sure the automated lady voice said Tuesday.  Either way it is noon here in Houston and it still isn't here.  There was one false alarm a couple of minutes ago, but it was just the regular mail, with a package that did not require a signature, and was not for me, but that our lovely mail deliverer always rings the bell when something will not fit in the box.  


Other than the above, we are quite close to beginning actual printing.  Most of the other texts are in their final form and through Transcontinental's pre-press department, which shines them up even more than when Windhaven sent them in before hitting the presses.  Specifically as follows:


TEXT
Letters 3 - good to go
Tramp Royale - good to go (hard proof reviewed for surprise picture)
Screenwriting 1 - this is the one I am waiting for
Screenwriting 2 - good to go
Requiem - good to go


COVER
Letters 3 - ready for hard proof (this one may cause trouble, I already redesigned it once)
Tramp Royale - ready for hard proof (also may cause trouble, but not as much)
Screenwritting 1 - ready for hard proof

Screenwritting 2 - ready for hard proof
Requiem - ready for hard proof


Usually we do not do hard proofs and have stuck with soft proofs, but given the trouble with JWC's face in the last set (and RAH's as well, but which wasn't pointed out to me) and the time and money spent on redoing all the covers for L1 we are taking extra precautions with the stamping.  Also there are more graphics and pictures in these last ones and some of them didn't measure up to Trans' standards and had to be altered (since we had to open them all up I also cleaned a lot of them up).  


AND NOW THE MAIN POINT OF THIS POST!!!!


PROPHETS OF SCIENCE FICTION on DISCOVERY'S SCIENCE channel

About the Show

Executive Producer Ridley Scott presentsProphets of Science Fiction.

The "Science Fiction" of the past has now simply become "Science". And the science of the future was strangely prophesied by a group of visionaries whose dreams once may have deemed them renegades and "mad scientists," have become reality!

TOMORROW IS ROBERT ANSON HEINLEIN!!!!

Robert Heinlein 
Premiere: Wednesday, February 29 at 10PM e/p 
Sci-fi legend Robert Heinlein is a walking contradiction. His stories address themes of patriotism, and duty while stressing the importance of personal freedom and expression. His groundbreaking stories like Starship Troopers and Stranger in a Strange Landcontinue to challenge readers with a steadfast theme: what is freedom?

It is February!

I know, I know, I skipped January, but only because I was hoping to have the best update I could give - that we were finished.  It turned out we weren't so my procrastinating has slipped into the next month.
However, I do have good news - we will be doing no more read-throughs of the books!
In turn this means that all we have left to do is to review layout and previously submitted lists of edits.
Depending on the speed with which Windhaven applies the last two lists (or so) of edits we have going, we should sign off on the text by close of business Monday.

These are some of the unique things included in this last set (which in a large part are also the reasons it has taken longer):
The last volume of correspondence - which some of you may be anxiously awaiting - and is 648 pages long
The two volumes of screenplays - which have never been printed in this arrangement before (there is a Subterranean Press edition that contains some of them) - totaling 1166 pages
Tramp Royale - has been out of print since the mid 1990s and includes an awesome picture, which I am refusing to tell you about b/c it will ruin the surprise - @ 336 pages
A updated version of Requiem - which includes new tributes - 384 pages

As you can see there is still a lot to read and some of it is probably brand new (unless you have been thoroughly trolling the archives).

On a side note - in first reading through The Rolling Stones and information about it, it was pointed out that Star Trek's "Trouble with Tribbles" episode gave a nod to Heinlein for using something very similar to Martian flatcats.  Earlier this week in reading through one of the tributes in Requiem, someone remembered Heinlein saying that he didn't invent them either so it was ok from his perspective.

Does anyone know where RAH got the idea from?  (I do have the recollected answer, but I want to know if anyone else knows.)