To the Virginia Edition world

My apologies once again for not being a good blogger.
However, here we go with another update.

We are moving along with the next 15, not as fast as I would like
as I do more jobs for Mr. Dula along side the VE.
This last week was spent trying to collect all of the financial
for VE and have it ready to present it to our main funders this
past weekend.

We have an intern for the summer, who is doing work for the Heinlein
Prize Trust and for VE when his brain fries from too much data entry.
He has done proofreads for 2 books so far. I am going to be reviewing
them this week as I need to sign off on them any way.

On another note, if any of you feel you have received volumes not up to the standard
please let me know. We do have extras from each print run, however they are limited
in number. Please keep requests to the most substandard volumes. I have complained
to Transcontinental and so far we have sent out a couple replacement books.

The next set of books I hope will be back up in quality to what we have come to expect
from Trans. The next books are a little rearranged - I believe I mentioned this in an
earlier post. We are moving all of the material for Heinlein century into other volumes.
HC's table of contents included some selected RAH pieces and several tribute articles
from space industry and naval personnel. The RAH pieces are going into corresponding
volumes and the tributes will be placed into an extended version of Requiem.

While doing some inclusion discussion with Bill Patterson and Windhaven our editors,
I was introduced to an RAH letter from 1973 (a letter Heinlein wrote to Niven and
Pournelle about Mote in God's Eye before it came to have that title). Heinlein use FYI :)
This prompted me to try and find the oldest recorded use of the initialism - which
apparently was in 1941 when a radio show aired under that name. I still found it
interesting as my presupposition was dashed about the Internet age being the source
of most acronyms and initialisms, useful or not.

Enjoy your reading, hope to have more information for you soon,
Leah Ott

The Books are coming, the Books are coming

Two things first:
My apologies for not keeping up with the blog - I am not a habitual blogger yet, but will work on it. Also, my boss had me focus on another project for a couple of weeks, leaving limited time for VE.
Second:
Thank you all for your words of appreciation and encouragement!

Now for the important news -
THE THIRD SHIPMENT OF BOOK IS ON ITS WAY
We had some delays relating to how long I thought it would take to get all of the official permission forms on file with both our editors and our printer. There was a week delay because the "Rasin" colored ribbons that serve as the page markers for this lovely collection were out of stock with the printer's supplier. We did not want to use a similar color since this is a limited edition collector's set. I also wasn't sure how "similar" the color would turn out to be. The ribbons did come in and shipping was completed by the printer Thursday April 29th. This means that while relying on various postal services the books should be in your hands this week!!! Hip-hip hurray!!!


As to the current status of the remaining volumes.
At different time we have posted the inclusion or not of a volume called Heinlein Century. We are still debating on the on or off status of this volume. I will let you know as to whether this remains a separate volume or whether we incorporate the material into the other volumes (specifically the Letters volumes and the Non-fictions). The current leaning is to take to pieces and incorporated them rather than try and pull enough pieces, with duplication, to have enough material for a 47th volume.

Creating a Genre is getting its last edits added to the text.
I am currently in process or reading through/editing The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress, which makes for a confusing edit since Loonies don't use standard American (or British) grammar. This volume also introduced me to Simon Jester :).
I also am in possession of New Worlds to Conquer and Glory Road.
- I am getting married in about 3 weeks and so will definitely be out of touch for about two weeks. However, while I am home I will be trying to complete The Moon and at least one of the others.

We are having some organizational complications with the Screenplay, Letter, and Non-fiction volumes. As you might imagine these are the most difficult to set up in a pleasant, readable fashion. We, Bill, Nancy, Andrew, and myself, are working to tie up all loose ends and get these volumes, a significant portion of the remainder, ready to be proofread as soon as all issues are resolved.

Some of you queried about a contact address for VE issues - the link on the VE website for contact should forward emails to me, but for a more direct address use:
leahmccarrick @ virginiaedition dot com

Once again thank you for following along :)

Changing of the Guard

Greetings to all those following the Virginia Edition Updates.

My name is Leah and I have taken over most of the Virginia Edition concerns while the previous fearless leader, Sean, has moved on to bigger, better, and more torturous things - namely law school.

I have heard some whispers about the project and finally figured out how to log into and update this blog that was started by my predecessor.

Let me bring you all up to speed on what has happened since July, 2009.

I began working for the Virginia Edition in October and we are just about to go to print with the next ten books. Four of these books were prepared and edited by Sean as is reflected in his last entry. The other six were my first foray into the world of RAH. The list of books shortly to be printed are:

1. The Future History of Robert Heinlein, Volume 1
2. The Future History of Robert Heinlein, Volume 2
3. Friday
4. The Number of the Beast
5. The Cat Who Walks Through Walls (my very first Heinlein)
6. Sixth Column
7. Job: A Comedy of Justice
8. To Sail Beyond the Sunset
9. Expanded Universe
10. Podkayne of Mars

The hand-off of responsibility and health issues with our editors have contributed to the silence on the VE front. Today I found out just how much it costs to print just one chunk of this collection. I was a bit staggered (which as I write that phrase seems mistaken somehow, but fitting). But finding out the prices means we are very close to actually printing them - hopefully within the next week the files should head to the printer (as long as we get some copyright issues resolved).

I'm off to write some reminder emails that were brought to my mind as I let you know what we were up to over here. I hope this give you an insight into the project for the time being. I'll write again soon.

The New Sean - Leah

In Which Your Humble Correspondent Deciidedly Does Not Die For Anybody's Sins

Friday has been reviewed and carefully sent away to have revisions implemented before it goes through prepress. Future History 1 came in well ahead of schedule--though I'm due an update on scheduling for the following volumes sometime today so we'll see how that goes--and I am currently working through # of the Beast.

Normally, as recurring readers may be aware, I keep my humble opinions to myself. I am simply the technician striving to bring you a quality product, no vain talking head I!

That said, I would like it known that I am currently reading through # of the Beast. Again. For what I believe is the ninth time. I have read the apocrypha, the Panki-Barsoom ending which, to my mind, calls up the ending of The Puppet Masters and is far superior to the published Beast ending in that it, y'know, has an actual ending. The conclusion *concludes.* Perhaps structure is simply madness in a post-modern world, I hesitate to comment as it was the...absence of substance or structure which once upon a time led me to decide against the topless towers of the English academe.

A quick search of # of the Beast turns up 16 uses of the word "teats," 11 uses of "nipples," and 2 uses of "Spung!" to describe nipples coming erect. I didn't think to search for "breasts" or any other terms. I think I'll write a "# of the Beast Unabridged Summary (Abridged)" as I go along to keep myself sane.

My point being, I'm reading this again. For you. Oh dear me.


PS: I'd like to draw people's attention to www.heinleinnexus.org which started yesterday--07/07/09, Heinlein's 102nd birthday--where a number of Heinlein afficionados are making an effort to centralize all the muck that's fit to rake about Heinlein. I encourage everybody to take a look, maybe toss in some content contributions or the like.

PPS: The absolute best way to get my attention is to email me at sean dot thompson at dula dot com

A subscriber (or two) pointed out to me that, email announcements to subscribers notwithstanding, I have not updated this blog in ages. Not quite the best of things considering this is meant as a window in for prospectives and the like. To keep from posting an absolute sea of text—from c to shining c—I'll aim to post several updates over the course of the week until we've got everything up to speed.
We lost a fair bit of time due to a series of unfortunate events that befell Windhaven, but they've recovered and are working towards the following schedule.
We will be printing the remaining books in two tranches. The first will go to the printer at the end of August and the second will go to print about mid to late January. At the start of July and December, I will confirm mailing addresses and instructions for each of you. We've decided to rearrange the print order somewhat as well. Volumes 22-47 will be as follows:
The Future History of Robert Heinlein Vol. I
The Future History of Robert Heinlein Vol. II
The Number of the Beast
Friday
Job: A Comedy of Justice
The Cat Who Walks Through Walls
To Sail Beyond the Sunset
Creating a Genre (Fiction compilation)
Sixth Column
Podkayne of Mars
Expanded Universe
The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress
New Worlds to Conquer
Glory Road
The Puppet Masters
Farnham's Freehold
Tramp Royale
Requiem
Heinlein Century
Nonfiction #1
Nonfiction #2
Letters 1 (Heinlein - Campbell Correspondence)
Letters 2
Letters 3
Screenplay #1
Screenplay #2

The nonfiction, letters, and screenplay volumes are all shaping up to be fairly hefty volumes and we felt it would be more aesthetically and functionally pleasing to collect these volumes towards the end rather than have them sandwiching the smaller volumes. At the same time, this allows the volumes to transition from the fiction volumes to the autobiographical Tramp Royale to the collections Heinlein Century and the nonfiction and letters at the end in a manner similar to reference papers.

Below follows the schedule we have at present for the completion of the of the next tranche of books. This is intended to leave a fair amount of wiggle room and we believe it not unreasonable that we will be able to move somewhat faster than this.

Future History Vol 2 (Complete)
6/12 - The Number of the Beast
6/25 – Friday
7/21 - Job
7/23 - Sixth Column
7/24 - The Cat Who Walks Through Walls
7/29 - To Sail Beyond the Sunset
8/3 -  Future History, volume 1
8/7 -  Podkayne of Mars
8/12 - The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
8/14 - Expanded Universe
8/18 - Creating a Genre
8/18 - New Worlds to Conquer
8/20 - Glory Road
8/31 - Farnham's Freehold

We will go to press with each volume we have ready by August 15th. We readily expect to manage the first eleven of these, however we believe it's reasonable to think we'll be able to manage several more for the deadline. More information will be forthcoming as it is available.

The Number of the Beast and Friday have arrived from Windhaven—Friday arriving a week early, in fact—and we seem to be progressing well at this point.

The New Year

A recurring question has been How was the order of the books decided on? The answer is that Meisha-Merlin worried that subscribers--who, under MM's plan, were to receive one book every two months and would have the complete set sometime in 2099 (Actually, somewhere in 2012; Mayan prophecy, anybody?). They worried that subscribers (who were paying between $50 and $75+) would stop their subscription as soon as they had the big name volumes like Stranger in a Strange Land or Starship Troopers. (Why anybody would shell out that kind of money for what would be an obviously incomplete set, I have no idea. Of course, on that note, if that was their goal, I don't know why they'd front-load the set with (what I consider) the major volumes.

Nonetheless...that was the legacy we had inherited with commensurate files. Had it been a project of the Trust to begin with--allowing for our capacity to invest in this project over a longer term than Meisha-Merlin could as a small commercial entity--I should like to think we'd have ordered them as chronologically as possible--making exception for the collections of course--and then released all of the books at one time. To critical acclaim. While doves dropped confetti from above and beautiful women lei'd me. Hmmm...perhaps not, but that's the gist of how we came to the book order we have.

The New Year dawns on us and, with it, what is intended to be my last year with the Heinlein Trust. We're still talking with Windhaven to get a new schedule prepared. If we can't find a way to make up the missing month, the end of the project will be pushed back a commensurate amount, but should still be on track for completion this summer. I'll keep you posted as I get more information.

The fine folk at Transcontinental caught an error in one section of Red Planet that will need to be repaired. I've told them to go ahead and fix it--they'll get me a more specific quote shortly--but, since all of the books are bound and then shipped together, it'll result in a push-back of the ship date. Until I get the quote, I can't even give a valid estimate. (On the basis of the size of the error, my hope is that it won't make more than a week or two's difference, but I have absolutely no basis for saying that whatsoever.)

I have a really cool announcement about an unrelated project the Trust is taking part in. I've wanted to announce it for well on a month now and I still don't have the clearance. Just to share that with y'all. (Y'all is a perfectly valid grammatical construction, taking the place of the traditionally neglected and non-existent second person plural.)

One of the people at the UC-Santa Cruz library--where the Heinlein Archives are located--tossed Heinlein's Hugo (for Starship Troopers or The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, I can't recall offhand and I'm not leaving my heater behind to go check) into a box with no cushioning and the lucite rocket shattered in transit. Thanks to the help o the people that run Worldcon, we're getting a replacement via their production folk.

The main reason I'm writing this particular post--aside from a pressing desire to work on something extremely simple and straightforward for a moment--is that one of our subscribers is the University of California -- Riverside (Home to one of the largest science-fiction collections in the world (or so I'm told). As you may or may not be aware, California's economy is less than magnificent at the moment and library budgets have been frozen. Their books are around half-paid for at the moment and I'm reaching out on their behalf to ask if anybody would like to help contribute to the cost of their set. I will check with the Trust to see if it might be willing to sponsor a portion of the remaining amount--perhaps a matching grant system?--however if anybody is interested in contributing to their account, please contact me at sean (dot) thompson (at) dula (dot) com.

To all and moondry,
I may start writing down my thoughts as I go back over each of these books. In many cases, this is the first time I've read one of these books since I was ten or eleven and it's remarkable to consider how much of the material I really failed to grasp. There is a great deal of material one misses simply through lack of context. Or, in another vein, the impact of a given book changes with time. Notably, as I read "Methuselah's Children," I am better able to engage with Slayton Ford's dilemma in dealing with the Families--particularly his reflection on the time it takes a man to become educated, to become known in his field, etc. I imagine that in another thirty odd years I'll have an all too great an appreciation for the dimming of the senses as well and perhaps it'll be time to take yet another glance through that book. (This, incidentally, is why updates become more sporadic during busy times, it's far too easy to philosophize with the Heinleinia and while away time better spent on productive affairs.)

After a great head-run through the bluelines to get them reviewed by the deadline, we are still on-track for our ship date of January 23rd for volumes 8-21.

I've finally received the artwork for Donato's "Heinlein's World" so I can take the steps to get that made into a poster for the subscribers--we'll definitely have enough made for ye current subscribers and, depending on Art's preferences, we'll probably go ahead and print another few hundred--the economies of scale on these things are absurd, as you increase the number printed, the price per unit plummets.

As of this past weekend, we have, in hand, all three of the letter volumes, both of the nonfiction volumes and both of the short fiction volumes. Effectively, the only thing we still need at this point are Mr. Kondo's files for "The Heinlein Century" when that's completed and the files for the Screenplay volumes from Subterranean Press.

I would like to take a moment once again to thank Bill Patterson for all the work that he's done to help us get all of this together. I think he's done quite a good job and that these volumes will be a substantial positive addition to the Virginia Edition.

So far as the subsequent sets--and since we moved the Future History volumes to print with Set 3, we've got one set of fourteen and one set of twelve books left to go before completion--I found out last week that, apparently, Windhaven did not have the introductions for the set 3 volumes and that was preventing them from doing the book layouts and thus from doing any work on volumes 24 onwards. This was not mentioned to me until I had sent repeated requests to find out what was happening with those volumes. While, normally, this might inspire a more than passing disquiet on my part, I am told that it will be possible to make up for the lost time without disrupting our printing schedule. As such, I will wait until I have had a chance to go over this with Windhaven and get an updated schedule. At that point, I will post it here. And there will be much rejoicing.

There have been a couple of issues with our billing system--affecting, at most, three or four people--which I've been researching and hope to have dealt with within the next week or so.

Once the New Year begins, I'll speak with Deb and Geo Rule--who manage all our website information--about a) updating our website with new and wondrous things (more the former than the latter) and b) the best way to go about setting Archives access for all subscribers so that Geo doesn't have to spend forty hours manually creating access codes.

When this project is completed, I have a strange desire to ask Art Dula if we can print a single book, any book, so that I can enjoy a simple project.