2001 - 06/2001 Meeting

Page Created: 09/25/10. Last Updated: 10/28/10. Last Google Group Page Update: 06/08/08.

TERRY BISSON

Novels:

Dear Abby

Fire on the Mountain

The Pickup Artist

Pirates of the Universe

Talking Man

Voyage to the Red Planet

Wyrldmaker

Novelizations:

Alien Resurrection

The Fifth Element

Galaxy Quest

Johnny Mnemonic

Jonny Quest: Attack of the Evil Cyber-God (as Brad Quentin)

Jonny Quest: Demon of the Deep (as Brad Quentin)

Jonny Quest: Peril in the Peaks (as Brad Quentin)

Star Wars: Boba Fett: Crossfire

Star Wars: Boba Fett: The Fight to Survive

The Sixth Day

Virtuosity

The X-Files: Miracle Man

Collections:

Bears Discover Fire and other Stories

Greetings

In the Upper Room and other Likely Stories

Numbers Don't Lie

Collaborations::

Be First in the Universe (with Stephanie Spinner)

Car Talk with Click and Clack, the Tappet Brothers (with Tom and Ray Magliozzi)

Expiration Date: Never (with Stephanie Spinner)

Saint Leibowitz and the Wild Horse Woman (posthumous with Walter Miller Jr)

The author's official site is: http://www.terrybisson.com/

MEETING SUMMARY:

Meeting Date: June 9, 2001.

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

Official Attendance: 33.

Meeting Program: Talk by Science Fiction Writer.

Notes:

Notes: Mr Bisson also spoke at the March 1990 meeting of the Association.

Meeting Memories:

Newsletter Account:

The June meeting of the Science Fiction Association of Bergen County was held in the basement of Borders Books & Music in the Garden State Plaza in Paramus, New Jersey on Saturday, June 9, 2001. The meeting ran remarkably smoothly, considering all the last minute scrambling around that had to be done to make it happen. To make a long story short, an internal Borders foulup had the store believing that our group would be there at 2:00 PM, and our planned meeting space had been given over to a band.

The pre meeting event consisted of readings by club members. These included Steve Spinosa reading Dave Harding's "Neighbors Shocked as Russian Spy is Nabbed in Virginia Suburb," as well as Philip De Parto and Taras Wolansky reading passages from Roger Zelazny, Jack Williamson, and Jack Vance.

The talented and personable writer Terr Bisson was the evening's speaker. Terry is an excellent reader of his works and his appearances normally consist of a few words and then a reading. He assumed that he would do his usual shtick and then disappear quietly into the night. He assumed wrong.

With a bit of reluctance at first ("Aw, Phil, no one wants to hear about that stuff."), Terry began to talk about growing up in a small town in Kentucky, coming to New York, and embarking on a career as a writer and in publishing. Some of these stories were so seldom told that his wife, who was in the audience, heard them for the first time.

He talked about editing soft porn and writing unpublished literary works. About working at a tabloid and seeing one of the owners pull a gun when an employee asked for a raise, and about going to his first convention to meet this really cool girl writer whose work he admired, and then learning that Kim Stanley Robinson is a guy (they became fast friends).

Mr Bisson is a lauded and multiple award winning writer so this was probably the first time he found himself involved in a discussion of his career as a novelizer of films. He had to rewrite the ending of GALAXY QUEST when they reshot the finale (it did not originally end at the convention). His best selling novelization was THE FIFTH ELEMENT. He figures that lots of people bought the book hoping the writer could explain what was going on in the film.

He also talked about crime and capital punishment (he has written an award winning story about cloning Timothy Mc Veigh 168 times so that the families of each of his victims could personally execute him), about "Bears Discover Fire" (an actual tabloid title), about being big in France, and lots of other cool stuff. Simply a great meeting.