Rather than post those big honking links, this time I'll just steer you to my ebay store, where you can see all the auctions still ongoing. That url is:
http://stores.ebay.com/John-Barnes-Science-Fiction-Store
I liked writing men's action adventure way too much; if it had made money for me I might have settled into it forever. Part of my problem is that it's hard for me to imagine anyone being as violent as the typical men's a/a hero, so I tend to explain them as being 1) so dumb they can't think of anything else to do except violence, or 2) so crazy they prefer violence. TIME RAIDER -- the Dan Samson books -- is the former, and basically the books are men's a/a with an overlap of New Ageish fantasy (and a link to Atlantis and the Wisdom of the East and the Matter of America and all sorts of stuff -- just not much of that in the three books that started the series, because Dan Samson didn't know much yet. Of course in a real sense Dan Samson was unlikely ever to know much).
Anyway, Harlequin liked TIME RAIDER but didn't want to continue it, so they asked for another series, "more sci fi," which they then paid for but decided not to publish because it was "too sci fi." That was TIMELINE WARS -- which was Chron Wars while it was at Harlequin -- which my agent later resold to Harper Collins. By the time he did I'd destroyed a lot of material I should've kept, so that collection is priced a little lower. Mark Strang, the TIMELINE WARS hero, used to be an art historian but now he basically goes to alternate histories and blows stuff up because he's on a vendetta against about a million timelines.
So one big amiable doofus, and one psychotic intellectual, and neither one worked out. If I ever do men's a/a again (doubtful, the field is dying), I plan to call that series PSYCHO MORON.
GAUDEAMUS is one of my Edmunds -- I got that useful term from John Boyd, who used it to refer to his wonderful THE RAKEHELLS OF HEAVEN, still my favorite sf novel. An Edmund is a book that is like Edmund in King Lear -- "a whoreson, but there was great sport in his making." I've had three Edmunds in my writing career -- One for the Morning Glory, Finity, and Gaudeamus -- and while they've distinguished themselves by a lack of sales (and a surfeit of fanmail -- as far as I can tell, everyone who does read them writes to me), I can't think of them in any way other than fondly. So I suppose whoever ends up as the Keeper of Gaudeamus should be warned -- there's a little extra piece of my heart in the box.
And now the letters of provenance --
LETTER OF PROVENANCE regarding Materials Sold as the "Time Raider (Dan Samson) Collection"
To whom it may concern:
On March 11, 2007, I sold to [NEW OWNER] the following items which were used in the preparation of my three book series, TIME RAIDER:
1. Wartide
2. Battlecry
3. Union Fires
To the best of my knowledge, this letter enumerates what each item is, its date of creation when known or an estimate when not known, its condition on March 11, 2007, and other information which may be pertinent to scholars and collectors.
If at some future time I discover further materials which would have been included in this collection if they had been found before March 11, 2007, they will be shipped to [NEW OWNER] at my expense, and with a similar letter of provenance, plus a revised version of this full letter.
PREAMBLE: This collection is sold as a unit. It is recommended that it be kept intact rather than broken up, particularly in light of [NEW OWNER]'s obligation to assist in scholarly access to these materials. (See the LETTER OF UNDERSTANDING).
DEFINITIONS: Besides the titles listed above, the following other titles occur in this collection:
Wartide was originally The Guns of Time, and in a proposal to revive the series it was suggested it be titled Soldier of Time
Battlecry was originally The Way To Dusty Death and in a proposal to revive the series it was suggested that that title should be revived
Caesar's Bicycle was originally A Mind Divided, and in a proposal to revive the series it was suggested it be titled Castle Thunder
ABOUT MISSING MATERIAL: There are no copy edits or page proofs here because Harlequin did not allow a writer to do a courtesy check of the copy edit or the page proofs. The editor did send an extensive list of line-edit type questions, to which I responded by email, and the finished books are very close to my drafts as originally turned in.
PRINT QUALITY: Except for Item E, the professionally produced publisher materials, and the research photocopies, all the drafts produced by me are "draft quality" dot matrix – i.e. gray not black, on fanfold paper. I was broke in those days and the objective was to get something I could mark up, since the books were submitted on disk anyway. They're all quite readable but not particularly pretty. Most are unburst fanfold.
TAG Short description Dating (as much as is known) Long description and commentary
A Rushes/Rough draft of the THE GUNS OF TIME July 15-July 22, 1990, inclusive First draft in eight days flat; monetary and divorce emergency caused that. First few pages (from 7-15) are hand numbered because I hadn't figured out how to make Word do page numbers yet. All other pages are dated.
B "safety copy" of A MIND DIVIDED Probably June 1991 Copy printed out as a backup, unmarked, very close to the final printed version, on one unburst fanfold.
C Photocopied research used to prepare an outline for the next three books (if the series had continued) October 1992 There's not much of this; it was used to prepare a document which is now apparently lost, but which was one of the sources of Item E about a decade later
D Second draft of THE GUNS OF TIME July 1990 Prepared from Item A. Many hand markings on this copy for corrections entered before it was sent to my agent and the publisher. THE GUNS OF TIME was published as WARTIDE.
E 5 page outline for continuing Time Raider for another dozen books or indefinitely Summer 2001 There was actually publisher interest in re-launching and continuing Daniel Samson's adventures in August 1991, so I spent one day in the library and another day speed-re-reading the books, and drafted this. The publisher decided it was too much of a gamble after all.
F Outline for proposed "Guns of Time" Written July 1990, these prints are probably later Prints have been extensively marked up. Many penciled notes about how many words to take to accomplish an event; I worked with this at my side and tried to hit or exceed word counts on every event while writing Item D. The Guns of Time was published as Wartide.
G Mixed rushes for The Way to Dusty Death Earliest, Dec. 26, 1990; last, 5/29/91 These rushes occurred off and on, mostly over Christmas break and then after grad school let out; I finished the book in early June 1991. Many duplicated pages, lots of rewriting and markings. Contemporaneous with Item L. The Way to Dusty Death was published as Battlecry.
H Mind Divided daily rushes June 14-24, 1991 Draft of the book, partly rough and partly transcribed from handwritten, done in ten days (which is practical in a short book if one pays no attention to quality). Very rough draft, each page dated on the day it was written. A Mind Divided was published as Union Fires.
I Research for Time Raider Spring 1991 There wasn't much; these were the things I kept on my desk, mostly pictures of horse tack and Civil War era weapons. In men's action adventure, you have to get the hardware right (but not much else).
J Catalog flyer for Gold Eagle 1992 Publishing Program with promotions for Time Raider November or December 1991 This is what Gold Eagle sent to bookstores, distributors, and its own sales force. You'll discover that the very unsuccessful Time Raider books had a "big brother" that suceeded brilliantly – the Deathlands saga began in the same program
K Promotional cover flats for Battlecry and Union Fires December 1991 Mint condition except for one hole punched in each. Sales and promo info on back
L 144 page green steno pad with about 45 pages of rough draft and some research notes for The Way to Dusty Death. May 1991 in the same pad there are numerous apartment hunting notes and some rough beginnings of my short story "Bang On!" The Way to Dusty Death was published as Battlecry.
M 80 page steno pad with 27 pages of handwritten first draft of The Way to Dusty Death August 1990 Also contains a bunch of notes to myself about the Intro to Theatre course I was about to start teaching at Pitt. I wrote most of this during lunches and breaks while driving from Missoula to Pittsburgh. The Way to Dusty Death was published as Battlecry.
John Barnes Date
LETTER OF PROVENANCE regarding Materials Sold as the "Timeline Wars Collection"
To whom it may concern:
On March 1, 2007, I sold to [NEW OWNER] the following items which were used in the preparation of my three book series, TIMELINE WARS:
1. Patton's Spaceship
2. Washington's Dirigible
3. Caesar's Bicycle
To the best of my knowledge, this letter enumerates what each item is, its date of creation when known or an estimate when not known, its condition on March 11, 2007, and other information which may be pertinent to scholars and collectors.
If at some future time I discover further materials which would have been included in this collection if they had been found before March 11, 2007, they will be shipped to [NEW OWNER] at my expense, and with a similar letter of provenance, plus a revised version of this full letter.
PREAMBLE: This collection is sold as a unit. It is recommended that it be kept intact rather than broken up, particularly in light of [NEW OWNER]'s obligation to assist in scholarly access to these materials. (See the LETTER OF UNDERSTANDING).
DEFINITIONS: Besides the titles listed above, the following other titles occur in this collection:
Patton's Spaceship was variously titled Crux, Crux of War, and Crux of Battle
Washington's Dirigible was at one time titled Flying Yankee
Caesar's Bicycle was titled Kill Caesar!
While the Timeline Wars series was at Harlequin, before it was re-sold to Harper Collins, it was called Chron Wars.
The fourth title in the series, which Harper Collins said they did not want, was to be Nixon's Frozen Head. (For anyone who is wondering, I have no idea how the same conceit cropped up on Futurama some years later, but strongly suspect pure coincidence. Anyway, what they did with it and what I would have done with it are utterly different).
The Timeline Wars materials also include material from a short story, "Upon Their Backs, to Bite'em," which was published in the anthology Drakas! from Baen Books.
ABOUT MISSING MATERIAL: When Harlequin paid for the books and then canceled the series in 1993, I had thought that was the end, and disposed of most of the materials (I'm surprised that Items A, B, G, I, and K survived) but thanks to my never-give-up agent, Harper Collins picked the books up in 1996 and issued them in 1997.
Harper Collins did not return my manuscripts because at the time they were experimenting with a new electronic submission system, where they accepted word files from me on disk and printed out "editable" copy edited copy which showed all the changes they had made to make it easy for me to approve or disapprove. The system worked very well, by the way. So there is no "final draft" in my typescript of any of the three books, but there is my hand correction of each of the three copy-edits, and my further hand-correction of each of the three sets of page proofs, as well as the usual mix of handwritten drafts, partially typed drafts, promo materials and so on.
TAG Short description Dating (as much as is known) Long description and commentary
A 144 page green steno pad, general notepad with several scenes from FLYING YANKEE including a rough draft of first chapter, in handwriting September through November 1993 Pad I was carrying around for general creative work. Many scribbles and ideas for other creative projects as well, some notes toward my dissertation and toward a research trip to Cologne and Paris
B Rough draft of CRUX handwritten in green 144 page steno pad First page dated 4-13, has to have been 4-13-1993 Crux was the original title of Patton's Spaceship. The draft occurs in several separate runs of pages, with numbering 1-55, 1-4, 1-2, along with about ten pages of detailed outlining. A couple of pages from (43-44) from an early typescript are folded in the notebook
C Page proofs of PATTON'S SPACESHIP, on loose 8 1/2 x 11 sheets Sept 19, 1996 (handwritten note says "Author 10/1", probably when they sent them) Perfectly normal page proofs with very few markings; this came out of copy edit and typesetting in very good shape. In excellent condition. Probably there are few markings because this was delivered simultaneously with the copy edit and most corrections were made on that rather than here.
D Page proofs of WASHINGTON'S DIRIGIBLE, on loose 8 1/2 x 11 sheets Nov 27, 1996 The pages all seem to be here but there's no markings I can find; this is in accord with the generally high quality copy edit and typesetting these books received. In excellent condition. Probably there are few markings because this was delivered simultaneously with the copy edit and most corrections were made on that rather than here.
E Page proofs of CAESAR'S BICYCLE, on loose 8 1/2 x 11 sheets April 8, 1997 More markings here than in Items D and C, but still a very clean copy. Markings in blue ball point are in my handwriting. In very good condition – somewhat more rumpling probably because it needed somewhat more work. Probably there are few markings because this was delivered simultaneously with the copy edit and most corrections were made on that rather than here.
F Book proposal for NIXON'S FROZEN HEAD May 1997 (from diary) My attempt to sell Harper Collins the fourth book in the series; obviously it didn't succeed.
G 51 page singlespaced typescript, early draft of Kill Caesar! Spring 1993 Kill Caesar! became Caesar's Bicycle. This typescript has no handwritten marks and is in excellent shape so probably it was supposed to be a carry around copy and then never got used as one
H Publicity cover flats for CRUX OF BATTLE, PATTON'S SPACESHIP, and CAESAR'S BICYCLE Late fall 1996 CRUX OF BATTLE was the title of PATTON'S SPACESHIP up to almost the very last minute; we were unable to devise two more "Crux" titles so it was decided to go with the alternate "Famous General's Name in the Possessive Case Plus Anachronistic Device" titles.
I Four handwritten steno pad pages, abortive start on CRUX OF WAR October 1992 (from surrounding notes in notebook, which mostly contained Mother of Storms material) CRUX OF WAR eventually became Patton's Spaceship. I often try out a few pages of an opening to see how the story might start to sound, or find a first-person voice; I don't think I used much from these few pages in the eventual book. There's a good chance I did this waiting in line or riding a city bus, just as an exercise.
J Copyedit of Patton's Spaceship 9/19/1996 See details above about this unusual mark-up version of a copyedit. Includes full set of copyeditor notes. Many corrections in my handwriting
K Research materials on .45 automatic July 1992 I got a lot of help from Bruce Bethke on getting the Model 1911 right; these are some articles he gave me, which I carried around in my bag while I worked on the early drafts of Patton's Spaceship.
L Final typescript of "Upon Their Backs to Bite'Em" Summer 1999 Short story for S.M. Stirling's DRAKAS! anthology, brough Mark Strang over for a visit into the Draka universe
M Copyedit of Washington's Dirigible 11/23/1996 See details above about this unusual mark-up version of a copyedit. Includes full set of copyeditor notes. Many corrections in my handwriting
John Barnes Date
LETTER OF PROVENANCE regarding Materials Sold as the "Gaudeamus Collection"
To whom it may concern:
On March 12, 2007, I sold to [NEW OWNER] the items listed below which were used in the preparation of my novel GAUDEAMUS:
To the best of my knowledge, this letter enumerates what each item is, its date of creation when known or an estimate when not known, its condition on March 12, 2007, and other information which may be pertinent to scholars and collectors.
If at some future time I discover further materials which would have been included in this collection if they had been found before March 12, 2007, they will be shipped to [NEW OWNER] at my expense, and with a similar letter of provenance, plus a revised version of this full letter.
PREAMBLE: This collection is sold as a unit. It is recommended that it be kept intact rather than broken up, particularly in light of [NEW OWNER]'s obligation to assist in scholarly access to these materials. (See the LETTER OF UNDERSTANDING).
TAG Short description Dating (as much as is known) Long description and commentary
A Large deck of 4x6 cards used for a matrix method to reorganize the novel March 2002 I've played around with various randomizing and "matrix creativity" methods for a long time; I was having a hard time getting the book to re-start (after taking more than a year out to finish some others) and was hoping this would help. Most of the cards now make no sense at all to me
B Research note cards, 3x5 December 2002 and January 2003 Prepared by my research assistant Jessica Tate, part of planning a research trip to the San Luis Valley
C Steno pad labeled Gaudeamus notebook 1 March or April 2000 first draft of what turned out to be the opening of the finished book. In the same pad, if you flip it over, there's a lot of proprietary material from the consulting business, on the flip side, because this was the only notebook I happened to carry to a conference on voting machines (I'd already entered the text, I just grabbed the wrong pad from the pile). That conference was in fall 2002, and everything about it is proprietary.
D Page proofs with my handwritten corrections of Gaudeamus June 1, 2004 Very clean proofs. Only about 35 pages have any marks, and mostly those are last minute changes of mind
E Research file on UFO sightings in the San Luis Valley September 2002 File assembled by my assistant Jes for planning further research and to get a sense of just how big the UFO thing was in the San Luis (answer, it's a major industry!)
F Tor's copyedit of GAUDEAMUS November 2003 Good copyedit. Very smart notes from copyeditor and lots of marks from both me and the c.e. In pretty rumpled shape since it spent some months bouncing back and forth in the mail and around a publishing office.
G Second draft of full version of Gaudeamus (just prior to final draft) 4/19/03 and 4/20/03 were date of printout Markings in my handwriting on many pages but mostly minor fixes because it was pretty close to done
H Rough outline drafting of GAUDEAMUS Mostly summer 1999 Several pages are duplicated; this outline/proposal got a lot of re-writing because at the time I thought it would be written while dictating/driving, as FINITY had been, and I needed a really clear outline. If this outline had been written GAUDEAMUS would have been about 4x the length it came out (and I suspect not at all funny).
I Run-up of about the first 152 pages of Gaudeamus Internal heading date is June 3, 2000. Probably this copy was printed after August 2002 and handwritten corrections probably entered before February 2003. A run-up is an edited printout that I use to get back into a book, in this case after a 2-year layover. One thing that's very noticeable is that I'm purposely very vague about much of the action in locations like Albuquerque, where I hadn't actually gone, driven the roads, explored the neighborhoods, and taken the photos yet. Corrections don't include research corrections so it was marked up sometime before the research trip in Jan/Feb 2003.
J Four page typewritten letter setting up research work for my assistant, Jes August 2002 Notes in my handwriting and hers; there was a huge amount to find and decide about, and this letter basically functioned as our checklist/communication system. Very worn from all the times it passed back and forth
K 60 min Microcassette (recorded at 1.2 ips): Gaudeamus, II February 2003 Gaudeamus II contains a note for revisions on the June 3, 2000, run-up (Item I), but it's clearly made after the January 2003 research tape, and material in it is included in the April draft. First draft of the scene where Hale tries to extract Travis from the bad situation in the hotel (up to about where Trav gets beaten up). There's only about ten minutes of this and the B side is blank
L Interview with Judy Messoline at UFO ranch recorded on 60 min microcassette (1.2 ips) January 2003 The UFO Ranch outside Hooper, Colorado, is a fascinating place; Judy still raises legacy breeds of cattle but she makes more money from UFO enthusiasts. The interview was conducted by me and my assistant Jes, who is a much better interviewer than I am (leaving me free to listen and take notes). Some material on both sides (turned tape over early to make sure we didn't lose anything, this was such a great interview). PLEASE NOTE: Judy's comments are proprietary to her and she gave the interview for the purpose of this book. Quotation beyond Fair Use would require her authorization (on the other hand, she's pretty pleasant and cooperative and not at all hard to contact)
M CD of UFO research trip photos Copy of material from Jan-Feb 2003 Not strictly part of the collection, just a copy, but likely to be of some use to scholars; pictures from the research trip down to San Luis Valley in January/February 2003, taken by me and Jes and later edited by Jes (who may be held responsible for some of the silly captions). I wrote the last 2 1/2 drafts while playing these photos in rotation on my screensaver, a different set in rotation for different parts of the book obviously. Directory/folder structure is in Mac OS X format, pictures are jpgs.
N 60 min microcassete (recorded at 1.2 ips), Gaudeamus I May 21, 2000 (established by memory+tax record) Made this tape while driving back from a research trip to Boulder (research for other purposes). First part is me doing vocal improv as Travis Bismarck. Material on pretty much all of A side and first 1/5 or so of B side. Material from this appears in the June 2000 run-up (Item I).
John Barnes Date
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