1999 - 08/1999 Meeting

Page Created: 09/25/10. Last Updated: 10/25/10. Last Google Group Page Update: 05/18/10.

MADELEINE ROBINS

Genre Books:

Daredevil: The Cutting Edge

The Stone War

The author's website is: http://www.deepgenre.com/wordpress/author/madeleine-robins.

MEETING SUMMARY:

Meeting Date: August 14, 1999.

Meeting Site: Borders Books & Music, Wayne, New Jersey.

Official Attendance: 30.

Meeting Program: Talk by Fantasy Writer.

Notes:

Meeting Memories:

Newsletter Account:

The August 14, 1999 meeting of the Science Fiction Association of Bergen County was held at Borders Books & Music in Wayne, New Jersey. Writer Madeleine Robins was the evening's featured speaker.

Ms Robin's talk was preceded by a meeting of the Final Frontier, our new STAR TREK, etc media group. Gary Blog led a discussion which was both a review of the past season's science fiction shows, as well as a preview of the upcoming ones.

The meeting formally started at around 8:15 PM. Madeline Robins is the author of five historical romances, one comic book tie-in (DAREDEVIL: THE CUTTING EDGE), one fantasy novel (THE STONE WAR), and a smattering of science fiction stories (mostly in ASIMOV'S and F&SF). She has also worked for Acclaim Comics and Tor Books. Her talk touched on all these, and other, subjects.

The author's first five books were historical romances and came about in an unusual manner. She had to travel to England to take care of her ailing mother. She soon realized that various members of the household would make demands on every minute of her time unless she came up with a dodge of some sort. She decided that the time had come to attempt to write a novel, an endeavor which various members of the family had been encouraging for years.

"It was wonderful. As long as I was at the typewriter, people tiptoed around me to avoid disturbing me. It was like the Cone of Silence from GET SMART." She finished the work, sent it off, and was shocked to learn that she had sold it. Four more books followed before she decided that it was time to move on to something different.

Something different was science fiction. She attended the Clarion workshop and placed a few stories in the magazines. She talked a bit about one of them named "Willy." The impetus for the story was her viewpoint that 50% of the human race creates life and gets on with it. In FRANKENSTEIN, Mary Shelley's protagonist flees in horror. In "Willy," the Doctor's assistant observes the new creation and says "I think he may be hungry." The difference in treatment results in the scientist being faced with rearing a 6' 3" baby.

Madeleine Robins has always been a native New Yorker and proud of it, even when times were bad and the city flirted with bankruptcy. She got the idea of doing ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK in reverse. The hero is trying to get into the devastated city and people are trying to stop him. The barebones idea eventually became THE STONE WAR, a book which started out as science fiction but morphed into urban fantasy.

Much of Ms Robin's talk concerned her time at Acclaim Comics where she was involved with the new Classics Illustrated comics as well as other projects. She spent a substantial amount of time in a fascinating critique of how the comic book industry had maimed itself. The account is unfortunately far too long to be included here.

The write up does not even give a hint of what a fun and interesting guest the author was. If you missed the meeting, you missed a good one. We were happy to have her with us for a while at the Park West Diner afterwards.