2000 - 06/2000 Meeting

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

Last Updated: 01/07/08.

GREG COSTIKYAN

Books:

Another Day, Another Dungeon

By the Sword

First Contract

One Quest, Hold the Dragon

MEETING SUMMARY:

Meeting Date: June 10, 2000.

Meeting Site: Borders Books & Music, Garden State Plaza, Paramus, New Jersey.

Official Attendance: 31.

Meeting Program: Talk by Writer / Game Designer.

Notes:

Meeting Memories:

Newsletter Account:

The following account is reprinted with permission from THE STARSHIP EXPRESS Copyright 2000 Philip J De Parto:

... Mr Costikyan is both a writer and a fame designer and developer. His numerous short stories have appeared in magazines like ABORIGINAL, ANALOG, and ASIMOV'S as well as original anthologies. He has written the fantasy novels ANOTHER DAY, ANOTHER DUNGEON; ONE QUEST, HOLD THE DRAGON (the first two in the Cups and Sorcery trilogy); BY THE SWORD, and the forthcoming science fiction satiric romp, FIRST CONTRACT.

He started early in both professions. He was 14 years old when he started his first science fiction fanzine. It was also the year in which he first became an employee of the fantasy gaming industry. A long since defunct game manufacturer fired its employees when they attempted to unionize. Replacement labor was in the form of teenaged gaming enthusiasts who were paid in the form of store scrip. When the enterprising youngsters began selling the scrip to cash customers of the store at .80 on the dollar, the boss realized that it would actually be cheaper to pay them the minimum wage.

Mr Costikyan actually produced his first game at the age of 16. He said it was terrible and that he is glad it is out of print. It started him on the road to bigger and better things, however. He is now a partner in a company which designs and distributes computer and internet games.

Greg Costikyan's gaming background landed him a position writing on-line adventures for Prodigy. Tor Books signed him to write the humorous fantasy, BY THE SWORD. Unfortunately, the author's on-line popularity did not translate into paperback book sales.

The idea for his latest novel, FIRST CONTRACT, came to Mr Costikyan in 1984. He wrote it as a short story, "Sales Reps from Beyond the Stars," but realized that the yarn had too much economics and not enough action.

The author read a chapter of the book, in which a shady operator has to quickly get off planet when the authorities discover that he cooked the books of an Initial Public Offering. The work is a science fiction romp, although some in the audience felt that it should be labeled as fantasy as it paints sales reps in a favorable light.

FIRST CONTRACT will be available in hardcover in July. There will probably not be a paperback edition as the midlist of science fiction continues to shrink, a lament we have heard before from other authors.

Our thanks to Greg Costikyan, and to everyone else who helped the meeting run smoothly....