Thursday, June 15, 2006

Jim Baen news

Steve Barnes has posted on his blog that editor/publisher Jim Baen has suffered a stroke and is hospitalized. I'm seeing lots of buzz about this online, but thus far nobody's come up with confirmation.

I met Jim, oh, maybe 10 years ago now, hosting him during Aggiecon. Which essentially meant I drove him around, kept him supplied in Subway sandwiches and made sure he got to his panels on time. He was a pleasant fellow, and advised me--aspiring author that I was--to set as many of my short stories as I could in the same universe, that way I could either sell them later on as a fix-up novel or a themed collection. I've always kept that suggestion in mind, although I rarely follow it.

He wasn't very involved in that convention, unfortunately. That was in the months leading up to the publication of Newt Gingrich's much-ballyhooed 1945 alternate history novel, and Baen spent every free moment during the convention in his room doing heavy editing and rewriting of the Gingrich manuscript. What Baen told me about the process was interesting, to say the least.

Now Playing: Ettore Strata Music from the Galaxies

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