VE Freedom Fest Award Winners

Congratulations to all the award winners and a big thanks to everyone who participated. Also a special shout out to our friends at the Heinlein Society for making our appearance at Freedom Fest a memorable experience!

On the Road with VE

May 23rd through the 27th The Virginia Edition was represented at the ISDC Conference in San Diego, CA.

This coming July 10th through the 13th the Virginia Edition will be in Las Vegas in cooperation with the Heinlein Society attending the Freedom Fest convention at Caesars Palace. Among those representing the Virginia Edition will be William H. Patterson, Jr., noted Heinlein Scholar.

Citizen of the Galaxy Blog Site

The Citizen of the Galaxy blog is now on line. Visitors can now monitor the progress of the graphic novel and see the latest art concepts. Our Kick Start supporters can view their names in a special section of the blog. Viewers can also link back to the Virginia Edition blog site and also link to the Virginia Edition page. 

Since the Kick Starter site has been live we've received several inquiries about the Virginia Edition which has resulted in at least one sale. Not a bad start!

Citizen of the Galaxy Graphic Novel

Citizen of the Galaxy will be the first graphic novel adapted from Robert A. Heinlein's Virginia Edition which is the complete and definitive 46 volume collector's set of all of Heinlein's works. This project is approved by the copyright owner, the Heinlein Prize Trust and will be produced with the support of the Virginia Edition Publishing Company. The purpose of the Heinlein Prize is to encourage and reward progress in commercial space activities that advances Robert and his wife Virginia's dream of humanity's future in space. The Virginia Edition Publishing Company is responsible for the production and distribution of the authoritative text of all of Robert Heinlein's published fiction and non-fiction - The Robert A. Heinlein: Virginia Edition Collection.

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?