2005 - 11/2005 Meeting

age Created: 09/25/10. Last Updated: 11/27/10. Last Google Group Page Update: 06/03/08.

DARRELL SCHWEITZER

Novels:

The Mask of the Sorcerer

The Shattered Goddess

The White Isle

MEETING SUMMARY:

Meeting Date: November 12, 2005.

Meeting Site: Saddle River Valley Cultural Center, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey.

Official Attendance: 27.

Meeting Program: Talk by Critic/Author/Editor/Publisher.

Notes:

Meeting Memories:

Newsletter Account:

The November 12, 2005 meeting of the Science Fiction Association of Bergen County was held in the Saddle River Valley Cultural Center in Upper Saddle River, New Jersey. Author / editor Darrell Schweitzer was the guest.

Pre meeting attendance for the Final Frontier discussion of TV predictions and Anime Associates screening of PLANETES was strong given the number of attendees for the General Meeting.

Guest speaker Darrell Schweitzer is an author, a critic, an editor, and a poet. He has written three fantasy novels: THE WHITE ISLE, THE SHATTERED GODDESS, and THE MASK OF THE SORCERER. He has also penned over 250 short stories.

His editorial credits include work in both magazines and books. He has had stints at AMAZING STORIES, ISAAC ASIMOV'S SCIENCE FICTION MAGAZINE, and WEIRD TALES, and has also edited both fiction and non fiction book anthologies like DISCOVERING H P LOVECRAFT and THE VAMPIRE SECRET HISTORY.

Mr Schweitzer gave an anecdotal talk, moving from topic to topic as the whim and the audience questions move him. Some of his best lines follow.

"The reason everyone [at parties i the sf writers community] talks about money is that if everyone were to talk about their artistic creativity, no one would stand each other."

"Writing is like putting a manuscript in a bottle. You have to get it out. No one will read it if you never send [i.e. submiit] it."

"I have occasionally committed scholarship. I have published a play by Lord Dunsany which had never been produced."

"It's about time for someone to do a bibliography of fake NECRONOMICONS."

"Books used to be rare and expensive. Then Frank Munsey came up with pulp printing where 200,000 words could be up out for $ .10. It changed everything. Early pulps like ARGOSY published everything from Horatio Hornblower to Tarzan. Specialization soon set in. There were pulps devoted to sports stories, mysteries, zeppelin stories, and so on. It became evident that there was a need for a magazine devoted to fantastic stories, and so WEIRD TALES was born. I'm responsible for reproducing an issue of [the non existent pulp] WEIRD TRAILS: THE MAGAZINE OF SUPERNATURAL COWBOY STORIES. I've thought about publishing an issue of SPICY ORIENTAL ZEPPELIN STORIES. It would have a lead novel, a bunch of shorts, and a fictitious letter column. If you are interested in old pulps but cannot afford them, to to <girasolcollectibles.com>. They do some facsimile editions."

The discussion wandered into STAR WARS territory. Mr Schweitzer presented a different take on the relationship between screen writer / science fiction author Leigh Brackett and THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK. He said that contrary to what some people in our group believe, Ms Brackett did indeed produce a useful EMPIRE script. Her work was never designed to be the shooting script for the movie. It was instead a draft deliberately intended to be overlong, but which would develop the ideas Lucas had for the flick into dramatic form. It was designed to be a road map to the shooting script. While it is correct to maintain that she did not write the screenplay of EMPIRE, it is wrong to say that she turned in a script which could not be used and had to be completely rewritten. She accomplished the task assigned to her. He said that this information was from people who had spoke to her shortly before her death.