Which, as you know, is the largest island in the Marquesas group, and the one in whose harbor we are now anchored so that our shipmates may storm ashore in search of tapa cloth and guaranteed authentic ironwood carved war clubs.
Betty Anne and I, shipboard, 2009.
The other thing about Nuku Hiva is that it is the last dry land we are going to see until, after seven more days at sea, we dock once more in San Diego. This has certain consequences, among them the fact that something we do with our computers is incompatible with something the local comsats do up there in orbit. I won’t bore you by providing a more technical explanation of the problem (as if I could!), but what it means is that the posts I have been writing for transmission to our blogmeisters, Dick and Leah, aren’t going to get transmitted anywhere until we are back in our own home. And then they may not get to you in the proper order, as planned for your maximum reading enjoyment.
Ah, well. Sorry about that. I’ll try to do better. Meanwhile. . . .
I said in the beginning that I intended to provide reminiscences of some people who might interest you, and you might like to get an idea of who these people are. They appear to come in five categories: writers I have collaborated with to one degree or another (Williamson , Kornbluth, Asimov, Hubbard, etc.), writers who were my clients when I was a literary agent (Asimov, Budrys, Wyndham, etc.), writers I published when I was an editor (Asimov, Niven, Doc Smith, Heinlein, etc.), writers I hung around with a lot (Asimov, Silverberg, Ellison, etc. — you will note that some people come under more than one of these headings) and, the smallest of these categories, the nonwriters. This includes editors and publishers (the Ballantines, John Campbell, Horace Gold, etc.) and a few assorted scientists, politicians and other special cases (Carl Sagan, a local Democratic Party boss, a U.S. senator and so on).
Quite a few of these I have already written about in one form or another and those bits just need touchups to pass on to you, and so I will start them soon and keep them going as long as my right index finger permits. Along with whatever other kinds of comments I think you might be willing to sit still for. And I hope you’ll enjoy.
Antlop says:
Thanks for writing at all, Mr. Pohl.
February 11, 2009, 11:00 amFathercrow says:
Yeah, thanks for giving us all a peek behind the curtain.
February 11, 2009, 5:24 pmJoseph says:
This is a great journal, I am looking forward to your stories about all the famous authors, including yourself of course. It is really great!
February 12, 2009, 1:53 amLee Gold says:
It’s a fascinating blog, but…
John Campbell as a “non-writer”? What about “Who Goes There?”? “Forgetfulness”? “Cloak of Aesir”? And what about his monthly editorials?
I can see counting them as non-fiction, but surely they still count as writing?
And I wish whoever linked Campbell’s name to a webpage had found a more accurate one, one that would credit him with writing “Who Goes There?” rather than with “The Thing from Another World.” The Wikipedia article isn’t bad.
February 13, 2009, 10:35 pmTina B says:
You folks are looking good in that picture.
February 14, 2009, 12:54 pm