It’s About Making Babies!

Blogging Through Thursdays asks about what authors you have met. I met a couple.

In the 1980′s, Anne McCaffrey did a book signing in Mountain View, CA. I worked in Mountain View, at GTE Government Systems. Her new book at the time was ‘Nerilka’s Story’ – not just your average fantasy / science fiction. Ms. McCaffrey began writing in general fiction novels, with a romance novel leaning (as understood before the pulp ‘Harlequin’ type romance genre). Early romances include “Mark of Merlin”, later works “A Stitch In Snow” – both titles now somewhat obscure, I have both. Nerilka’s Story is almost a romance novel, set completely in the Pern series of stories and novels. Anyway, I still have the signed copy, and one other copy of that book. I also have a copy of “Dragon Song” I had just purchased, a very solid young adult adventure novel, again set in the Pern universe. She was white-haired, and gracious. I still smile as I read her old ‘author notes’, that other things ‘change without notice’.

Commuting from Colorado Springs to Denver about 1993, I noticed a book signing at a bookstore on the north side of Colorado Springs, so I stopped by – for a book for my sister. I hadn’t read “Tangled Vines”, and wasn’t really intent on picking up something non-science fiction. But I ended up buying three copies in hard cover, that Janet Dailey signed for me and my sister, and one unsigned for my mother. See, Mom thinks that a book needs to be given away to the library, even though they just sell them for pennies or discard them. I tend to re-read books, and “Tangled Vines” is still around here somewhere. Ms. Dailey was very busy that night, courteous, and very patient.

I am not sure about author. I was privileged to hear Admiral Grace Hopper speak at an Association for Computing Machinery conference in Silicon Valley, in the 1980′s. Adm. Hopper is credited with creating the programming language COBOL, Common Business Oriented Language. She was working for the US Navy at the time, and COBOL is still available for Windows, Unix, and most other operating systems today. And still in use.

I met Jack Vance at Octocon, a Northern California science fiction convention in the 1980′s. The topic was Mr. Vance’s research into the region in France where Mary, mother of Jesus, moved and lived out her life after Jesus’s death, and the travels of the merchant Joseph of Arimithea (the donor of the tomb used for Jesus’ remains, the one with a stone at the opening). I have since come across a couple of other references to Joseph’s trading and travels in the British Isles. And have brushed shoulders with other authors about various cons from Minneapolis to Baltimore to Florida. In Las Vegas (job interview), a Star Trek convention had George Takei and James Doohan. I did get to meet and speak with Mr. Doohan, and have read a couple of his ‘Flight Engineer’ light novels. I recall Scotty’s observation of how Star Trek stopped his career. From regular stage and bit parts until the show started, he stopped finding any work at all for 20 years, until the first Star Trek movie.