Letters, News, and Notes

An increasing number of libertarians are taking advantage of the expanded opportunities for small press publication in today's internet-driven economy. The next quarterly issue of Prometheus will review some of this work. If you are the creator of a libertarian-oriented book, comic, CD, or videotape being distributed primarily through online marketing, you're invited to submit a copy to Prometheus. Up to the limits of available space, all submitted material will be reviewed. A maximum of two works per creator will be reviewed.

Received from Steven Burgauer: Treachery on the Dark Side, an outerspace adventure story. Published in 2000 by zero-g press (SCIFI2@prodigy.net), $15.95.

Notice received from Thomas M. Sipos: Vampire Nation, a satiric horror story about Communist vampires in Cold War Transylvania. Published in 1999 by Thomas M. Sipos (tsipos@compuserve.com).

The February 24 issue of Sci Fi Wire brings the news that Victor Koman's novel The Jehovah Contract has been optioned for a feature film. Scriptwriter Robert Meyer Burnett will adapt the novel for producer Allan Kaufmann.

A German-American consortium has optioned the film rights to Vernor Vinge's True Names, one of the first novels to explore the idiom later known as cyberpunk.

Vernor Vinge's Prometheus Award nominated A Deepness in the Sky recently became available in paperback. Also recently published is his nonfiction book True Names and the Opening of the Cyberspace Frontier. A new collection of short stories is in the works.

On May 5-7. 2000, Vinge will appear as Guest of Honor at Con-Dor, a San Diego science fiction convention (http//soar.to/condor).

Steve Jackson Games noted March 1, 2000, as "an important 10-year anniversary, though not exactly one to celebrate." It was the tenth anniversary of the Secret Service's raid on the company's Austin, Texas offices, which led to one of the landmark cases in the evolving law of computers and the Internet. Steve Jackson notes that the fact that his company is still in business is cause for celebration. (See http://www.sjgames.com/SS/ for an online archive about the case.)

Liked this latest, esp. Vinge review-fascinating man. I wonder what was in the water to make UCSD produce so many sf writers of the hard sort: me, Vernor, K. S. Robinson, Brin, with Bear & others loitering nearby ...

Long time readers of Prometheus may remember my three part series on Libertarian Horror. One of the arguments I advanced was that Ayn Rand exempted the more romantic horror stories from her ire. The recently published The Art of Fiction (a Plume book) lends support to my position. In the chapter entitled "Fantasy," Rand praises both Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Frankenstein.