As always, I have numerous projects going on...short stories, a novel, RPG supplements, yeah, just my typical workload, but one project that I haven't mentioned is that I'm currently working on rewriting James Baker's novel Goatherds and Gods.
For those of you unfamiliar with the name James Baker, let me give you the backstory. Jim, as I knew him, was one of the pioneers of the science fiction and fantasy small presses. He helped to launch the careers of many small press writers, myself included, and a few of his early authors have also gone on to bigger things in the large press. Jim ran a small press publishing company, ProMart Publishing, out of his apartment in California. His early publications were, about what you'd expect from an older gentleman working at Taco Bell, they were photocopied and comb bound magazines. And, yes, sometimes you'd even find a page that the copier hadn't fed properly. Although the magazines weren't the glossy zines you saw from the major publishers at the time, or even that you see from the small press publishers now, there was a high quality of work in those magazines.
Some of the names of those magazines...Star*Anthology, Just Because, The Fifth Di..., and The Martian Wave. Yes, anyone that has followed my career probably knows that I continued to edit those last two magazines up until a few years ago. And even now, those magazines are still alive at Hiraeth Publishing. I can't think of any other zines from that time that are still around today. And why are they still alive? Because of Jim.
He kept a stable of authors, poets, and artists around to him that in many ways he took care of and nurtured, and even though Jim could be cantankerous (his word for himself), he took care of those that worked for him. Through emails and phone calls, Jim would help authors nurture their stories. I always thought of it as a small press version of what John Campbell created during the Gold Era of science fiction. Jim referred to us as his ProMartins.
When Jim passed away in 2002, I became the steward of his work. His novel The Poet, was released by Nomadic Delirium Press, and I put together a collection of his short stories, poems and essays that I titled Just Because, in honor of one of those old magazines. His second novel, Goatherds and Gods was never re-released however. I always loved this book, but I didn't want to release it in the format that it was in. As Jim liked to say, he loved to write, but he hated to rewrite, and the book clearly showed that. It also showed that I had a lot to learn about editing...
So, the book has sat waiting, and now, I've finally decided that it's time to rework the book. Jim was good about having talking heads in his stories...lots of dialogue with no attribution, and he also had a tendency to drop large amounts of information...telling, rather than showing. The story is amazing, and I really want to share it with people, so, this is my task now. I'm rewriting the book, and hopefully making it relevant to readers 20 years later. It will still be very much Jim's voice, but hopefully it will be easier to follow and understand. I owe it to the man to make it the best book that I possibly can.
If you'd like to get a taste of Jim's work, please check out Just Because. It gives a great taste of who he was, and it also features some notes from those of us that knew him. I will warn you that much of the work is raw, as some of it was just drafts that I had on file.
And if you read the last story, "Doppleganger," which could have been a third novel for him, you might get an idea of what I might be rewriting in the future...
Order Just Because from Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CGMBYVYQ
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