1993 - 01/1993 Meeting

Page Created: 09/18/10. Last Updated: 10/27/10. Last Google Group Page Update: 02/04/08.

C S (CELIA) FRIEDMAN

Novels:

Black Sun Rising

In Conquest Born

Crown of Shadows

Feast of Souls

The Madness Season

This Alien Shore

When Night Falls

The Wildling

The author's website is: http://www.csfriedman.com/frames.htm.

MEETING SUMMARY:

Meeting Date: January 9, 1993.

Meeting Site: Bergen Highlands United Methodist Church, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey.

Official Attendance: 29.

Meeting Program: Talk by science fiction writer.

Notes:

Meeting Memories:

Newsletter Account:

Although weather forecasts predicted snow of Saturday, January 9, 1993, the foul weather did not arrive until late the following day. Conditions were as nice as can be expected in January, although uncertainty about the weather did keep a few people away.

The meeting was held in the Bergen Highlands United Methodist Church in Upper Saddle River. There were three pre-meeting activities, all of which began around 2:30 PM.

The first was a meeting of the U. S. S. Asimov. The Starfleet Shuttle had a good turnout. Four new members joined, bringing the crew to 22. If all goes well, the Shuttle may upgrade to Ship's status in another month.

Philip De Parto ran a short adventure in his long-promised Advanced Dungeons & Dragons campaign. Unfortunately, most of the people committed to the game could not make this gathering, so he was forced to do a little fiddling with things. William Molendyk, Sabrina Sherman, and Christopher Wamsley were assisted by Joel Ryerson who filled in for some of the missing gamers. The adventure consisted of freeing a trapped intelligent giant crawdaddy.

The Writer's Group met at the same time. Charles Garofalo, Jeannette Kappler, and Patricia Nash were joined by Marylou Hopper and Laurie Ann Skutell after the Asimov meeting broke up.

Patricia Nash read "Lord Black," a space operish short story by Jeannette Kappler. Jeanette, in turn, read a chapter of Pat's trilogy-in-progress in which her hero, Michael Mc Carthy, has to explain to his fiancé why she is unlikely to meet his parents. Laurie Skutell read a chapter of IT'S ALL IN THE PRESENTATION, a collection of observations about life in these times. It's not science fiction, but the group found it quite funny. This was penned by Maxine Kappler.

Celia Friedman and her mother, Nancy, were joined at the Mason Jar in Ramsey for dinner by Philip De Parto, Marylou Hopper, Jeanette and Maxine Kappler, Steve Piva, Joel Ryerson, and Laurie Ann Skutell. Conversation, as you may imagine with this crowd, dealt largely with STAR TREK.

Celia S Friedman began her presentation with a reading from the first chapter of her novel, IN CONQUEST BORN. She talked about how hard she had worked on polishing the chapter to hook the reader and her editor, and how the book changed between acceptance and publication.

The book is an episodic account of two galactic empires that have been at war so long that no one really remembers what started it all. The Azeans started out as her good guys and the Braxana her villains, but as time went by, the author began to admire much about the Braxi and distrust a lot about Azea. She had been working on tales of the war for ten years and the theme of how it warps its participants arose naturally out of Vietnam and its aftermath.

Donald Wollheim loved the manuscript and planned to publish it in toto, but was in the process of turning the reins of the company over to his daughter. Betsy Wollheim had a number of reservations. Celia and Betsy bonded over dessert and realized that the revisions would work themselves out.

One of the fascinating things that Ms Friedman mentioned was that DAW asked her to fill out a Psychological Profile Questionnaire. DAW does not want the aggravation of dealing with nutcases and is looking for writers who can churn out books in a regular and timely fashion. While this seems entirely reasonable, I can't help but wonder how many of the biggest names in the field would have been screened out if this filter had been in effect from the turn of the century.

THE MADNESS SEASON was the author's second book written. That book was written without the benefit of ten years work and it showed. Ms Friedman scrapped it and started over.

THE MADNESS SEASON is a vampire novel in a science fiction setting. A lot of the conceptual background of the book goes back to the biblical injunctions against blood drinkers and to the long lifespans attributed to the patriarchs and others. What if there had been another "human" race with many of the characteristics of the vampire who had co-existed with humanity for many ages before they were cast out. Many thanks to Barry Weinberger whose questioning drew out Celia on the background of this books.

Ms Friedman's third published book (she also has a short story in the anthology CATFANTASTIC) is BLACK SUN RISING. This is the first in a trilogy of novels that will stand alone and has elements of both science fiction and fantasy. There was some discussion about whether it should be classified as SF or as fantasy. Science fiction elements include the arrival of mankind by starship and a purely rational treatment of its elements. Structurally, it is a classic fantasy quest with an unlikely group of heroes who band together to thwart a great evil.

Ms Friedman complained that she does not like most fantasy because the worlds of most fantasy writers are not believably developed. She talked about the research she did on everything from currents in the southern hemisphere to plate tectonics.

Among the tips she gave to aspiring writers are don't set too many scenes on a ship because shipboard life greatly limits an author's freedom to plot, and never become overly enamored of a particular scene. Sometimes even those scenes near and dear to the author's heart have to be jettisoned to make the story work.

The Association welcomes newcomers Scott Lappin and Laurie Ann Skutell. Mr Lappin, Patricia Nash, Joel Ryerson and Robert Yeager won door prizes.

The small diner crowd afterwards consisted of Paul Dellechiaie, Phil De Parto, Nancy Denker, Beth Grout, Chris Wamsley and Tony Pawlak.