It is the first of March, and winter lies still and heavy upon much of the country. So I will tell you a tale of the South Seas. Of swaying palms and balmy trade winds. Of a lone young writer, only twenty-six, on his first trip overseas.

I arrived in Tahiti in June of 1973 intending to spend the summer lolling on sandy beaches being fed maitais by willowy vahines. Immediately I learned that the authorities frown on beachcombers of whatever age (they want you staying in their expensive hotels), and that the willowy vahines were all spoken for by very large and formidable local gentlemen. Prior to embarking from California I had taken some lessons in Tahitian dance and language. I asked the lady who taught me if there were any friends or relations I could say hello to for her while I was there, and she gave me a couple of names. Two days after arriving, already tired, hot, and somewhat discouraged, I presented myself at the door of the house of a woman named Miri Rei. It was a considerably bigger house than I had expected...a virtual Polynesian mansion. I was welcomed in, cordially delivered my greetings, and prepared to go on my way.

"Where are you staying?" the jovial Ms. Rei asked me.

"Oh, here and there. On the beach, I imagine."

With a twinkle in her eye (a permanent twinkle, I was soon to learn), this delightful lady of sixty-five gave me a radiant smile and replied, as if it was the most natural thing in the world, "Nonsense. You're staying with us."

Here is a picture I took of Miri Rei on her property as we chatted about some charming inconsequentiality.

As I spent the summer in Paea, at Ms. Rei's, I learned a bit of her history. That she had once been in love with a wealthy American who had wanted to marry her, but that he could not abandon his family business in the U.S. and she could not leave Tahiti. That they had parted, and she had never married, but with the money he had bestowed on her she had raised a number of adopted children. On her property facing the lagoon were several homes in addition to the Big House. In one lived Fredo and Esther Tetuamanuhiri, with whom I actually resided. Fredo was a big, charming Tahitian policeman with an easy manner and sly wit. Out in the lagoon he would fish for lunch or supper while I snorkeled until my skin raisined. Esther, one of Miri's adopted kids, was a ball of energy with a smile that echoed Miri's. From time to time I would take days off to fly to Bora Bora, or Huahine, or Raiatea. There were no willowy vahines for me there either (I was too much of a nerd, I suspect, and still learning how to communicate with the other species). But there was the nude model on Moorea, and Lucy on Bora Bora. The journey was, indeed, all that I had hoped for and a good deal more. Three months later I departed with memories of friendships never to be forgotten. Two years later Tahiti was the last stop on our honeymoon and JoAnn got to meet Esther and Miri as well.

May, 2006. In the middle of a two-part cruise across much of the South Pacific I have one day in Papeete, Tahiti's capital. I leave the ship and take the bus to Paea. Much, alas, has changed...even Le Truck (the buses). Now there are walls where once chickens and children gamboled free and unrestrained from property to property. Miri Rei is gone, having died in 1999 a couple of months shy of her ninety-first birthday. Fredo is very ill, but I think (I hope) remembers me. But Esther is much the same. We talk, and share memories of times gone by. My ship moves on. On Bora Bora there are twelve hotels and four more abuilding where once there were three...and criminally, there are jetskis blasting around the storied lagoon. I cling to old images as we sail on toward the Cook Islands.

January, 2010. An email arrives...from Esther. The internet permits wonders. We chat, and exchange reminiscences. I start to learn more. Miri Rei was...Princess Maheta Rei, descended from royalty of Raiatea and Bora Bora. The wealthy American who loved her and whom she loved in return was Cornelius Crane, scion of the Crane plumbing empire. Esther remembers well the Crane mansion in Ipswich, Massachusetts and "Uncle Conny". For a time they sailed between Hawaii and Tahiti on crane's yacht Te Vega, one of the largest steel-hulled schooners ever built. I find that, unknown, I have been on the fringes of a great and wondrous love story as profound and moving as anything you will encounter at the movies. And there is more....

Long before she met Crane, Miri won a dance contest in Tahiti. It propelled her to New York, where she danced in the Ziegfeld Follies, and onward to California. Hollywood in the 1930's was much enamored of stories with South Seas settings. Murnau and Flaherty's TABU (Miri was friend of its star Anna Chevalier), John Ford's THE HURRICANE, MUTINY ON THE BOUNTY, and many more. I learn that along with every other Polynesian living in Southern California at the time Miri likely appeared as an extra in these films. Many years later she narrated a film Crane sponsored, THE TAHITIAN (1956), about fighting disease in Tahiti. I research everything I can, without much hope of finding anything, and then...a credit. For a Paramount production called WAIKIKI WEDDING (1937) starring Bing Crosby and Martha Raye. There is a credit for one "Miri Rei - specialty dancer". I enter the time machine, and forty-three minutes and twenty seconds into the film, right after the Hollywood volcano makes its appearance, I find myself gazing utterly entranced at a dance number featuring a twenty-eight year old ball of Polynesian fire flashing...a radiant smile that reaches out to me across time and space. Here is Princess Maheta Miri Rei from 1937. Requesat en pace, Miri. I am a better human being for having known you when. I wish I had been privileged to know you then.

When you live beside a live creek and the third largest rain event in the 113-year recorded weather history of the town where you live hits, you have a tendency to keep an eye on rising water levels. That's what we did last week, when our Willow Creek turned from a dampish stain in the sand into a maddened torrent that raged from bank to bank. Our house sits on a promintory that juts out into the creek, so the water winds around it. For some eight hours we could hear the flood clearly from within the house. Outside, it sounded like the world's longest freight train. No damage to the property. A few minor drip-leaks. Nothing like the storm of 1983 where our particular small area received 18 inches of rain in a twenty-four hour period. That was the storm that required evacuation and cost us half an acre of land. It's impossible to write or do much of anything under such conditions except marvel at the power of running water. And it always seems to happen late at night so I can't get any decent pictures.

I've never played d&d, or video games. Never could make the time. But when Wizards of the Coast asked if I'd be interested in writing something in a D&D setting, I said sure. I love trying new things. The result was THE STEEL PRINCESS, out in the current issue of their DRAGON magazine. I really did fall in love with the main character.

I apologize to all who were looking forward to STAR TREK: REFUGEES, which was to be released in May. This first sequel novel set in the new ST universe, along with three others by diverse hands, was pulled by the publisher. Speculation as to why this was done abounds on the web and in the blogosphere. My own opinion is that those who control the franchise wanted to make sure these four new tales did not in any way present possible conflicts with the story of the next film...whatever that may be. I suspect the books will be published one day, possibly once the screenplay for the second film has been more or less finalized. I regret that despite many requests I can't provide further details as to the story itself, except to say that I enjoyed writing it.

I'm not a particular fan of westerns, but when I was growing up they dominated night-time television. My one real favorite was HAVE GUN, WILL TRAVEL. Played by the redoubtable Richard Boone, the lead character, known in the series only as Paladin, was a sophisticated gun for hire, as comfortable in the San Francisco hotel where he resided as out in the mountains dealing with bad guys. Lately I've taken to recording and watching the series, which runs in the early morning on the Western Channel. As with THE TWILIGHT ZONE, I'm struck by the incredibly skimpiness of the show's budget. It was a time in TV-land when sfx consisted of a couple of guys at the studio hammering stuff together out of plywood and fiberglass. You had to compensate for the lack of spectacle with words. Few actors could express irritation and contempt at the follies of humankind better than Boone. Think Alan Rickman, only with physical mass. Notwithstanding the often primitive sets and camerwork, HGWT was a wonderful show. No other TV western made such a strong attempt to provoke thought among its audience. There's also the joy of seeing name actors in small TV roles, from Charles Bronson (who appeared in, I believe, six episodes) to Vincent Price, to last night's appearance by that busy western character actor DeForest Kelly. In one episode, Boone is menaced by Yavapai Indians. Pretty amusing considering that my home town of Prescott wraps around the Yavapai reservation

VCI Entertainment is preparing a special DVD edition of the cult SF film DARK STAR. Despite having nothing to do with the film (I only wrote the novelization), I was recently interviewed by them for the extras portion of the release. I expect this had something to do with my still being alive. You live long enough, you become history.

I will be competing in the NASA Arizona State powerlifting championships in Mesa, AZ on the 6th. Should anyone be in the area, I will be happy to chat or sign books during the (ample) downtime.

And a happy new year to all of you who made it through. Snow here last week, pleasant today. I had a call a couple of days ago from Peter Dolingo, son of the noted Russian SF writer Boris Dolingo. The Dolingos live in Yekateringburg. A major city, with the best airport I've ever used in Russia. Peter, who spent a recent summer working in San Francisco, asked if it was warm here. I told him it was snowing and cold. He off-handedly replied that it was thirty below there. Unusual for December, but not for February. Peter wins the cold derby.

One of the things I regret is that I do not have enough time to correspond with (much less visit) all of the friends I have made around the world. The globe has shrunk so much for me that everything and everybody seems right next door. This feeling cuts two ways. On the one hand, it's both strange and reassuring to know that I can hop from Turkey to Germany to India to South Africa to the Pacific (you get the idea) and be assured of being welcomed as an old friend. On the other, the place has just grown too damn small. Even the solar system is starting to seem...neighborly. Must be all those holiday shots from Mars and Titan. It makes me more pleased than ever that I write science-fiction and that my horizons (the mental ones, anyway) are not circumscribed by what can be visited on a two-day round-the-block ticket.

THE HUMAN BLEND, the first book of The Tipping Point trilogy, is set for a November release. I owe some anthologies a couple of short stories, which I hope to do this week, before embarking on a significant project that I hope to be able to discuss in next month's update. Still awaiting confirmation on OSHANURTH. I'll be competing in the NASA Arizona State powerlifting championships in Mesa next month, and the state RAW championships in March. That is, if I can lose the results of holiday cooking.

The Tipping Point books allow me to indulge in what I believe is a critical and oft-neglected feature of good SF: attention to future detail. Far too frequently, writers get lazy and fail to acknowledge how the passage of time affects everyday life. SF films are especially woeful in this regard. Think of the pile of Everyready batteries in Aliens 3. All too often the clothes people wear are unchanged, the food looks the same, nothing is updated save the central scientific ideas. FTL travel is common- place, but everyone still uses toothbrushes. Robots are advanced, but made of 21st century materials. An example of an SF film where the writers strove mightily to deal with this conundrum is WALL-E. I try very hard to keep the everyday science in my stories as updated as possible. But if you live long enough, science overtakes your earlier works. A fan pointed out that the downed lifeboat of the marooned humans in the ICERIGGER books should have been easy to spot by any orbiting satellite. Not to mention using the far-future version of a cell phone to contact the single human outpost on the planet. High-resolution satellites and cell phones didn't exist when the books were written. When they're reprinted, I intend to update the science.

When I teach a course in writing SF, I always ask student to envision science and society as they were a hundred years ago. Then two hundred, then five. When we start discussing those subjects as they existed in the year 1010, I then ask them to imagine that they're someone from that time trying to write about today's world. That's the trouble with trying to predict science and society in the year 3010...never mind 5010, and so on. It just cannot be done. But as conscientious sf writers, we should strive to do our best. That means...no flashlights powered by c-cells. No keyboards...typing will become an ancient skill, like pen calligraphy. Different ways of preparing food and drink. And on alien worlds, for heaven's sake...alien biomes.

First, a thank you to all who sent birthday greetings. Except for the isolated shedding of body parts (hair, an occasional tendon, etc.) I have the most peculiar feeling that like Benjamin Button, I'm growing younger. Either that, or senile infantilism is setting in. When people ask where the money went I've begun to find myself saying "My health is my wealth". As friends, acquaintances, colleagues, and miscellaneous eminencies of note begin showing up in the obituaries instead of on pages I actually want to read I find myself increasingly in the position of Stephen King's main character from THE GREEN MILE, outliving those I've known and loved. Fortunately, I keep making new friends younger than myself. Wheel of time and all that.

I'm finishing up the second and third books of THE TIPPING POINT trilogy, the first book of which I expect to appear from Del Rey next year (and depending on publishing schedules, perhaps the second as well). Still waiting for contract confirmation on OSHANURTH. Life moseys onward. I have a couple of trips in mind. One to the Middle East that would start with diving and exploration in Oman, thence to the UAE where I have friends, onward to Jordan. If I can figure out how to get a non-tourist visa I would love to spend some time in Saudi Arabia. The other trip would be to Zambia and Malawai. Zambia for leopards, as well as other wildlife, and Malawai because there is now a dive shop that makes diving possible in Lake Malawi. If possible, might even slip over the border into Congo. All depends on domestic considerations and work demands, of course, but I think half the pleasure of taking such trips lies in the planning and anticipation.

While in Los Angeles recently I spent a fascinating evening with Guy Orlebar. Formerly with Goldman Sachs Japan, Guy is married to a Japanese gal and speaks decent Cantonese and Mandarin in addition to Japanese. Deciding he'd much rather do films than figures, he moved to Hong Kong where he has already directed and produced one picture. His current project, which we discussed, would be the first Chinese-U.S. co-production science-fiction film. Live actors + CGI, with a most unusual attention to actual science. For example, artificial gravity would actually be addressed instead of being presented on spaceships as a given. The solar system would be depicted realistically. All manna to someone who winces every time they see easily correctible science errors thrown in their face every time they sit in the theater paying to see such stories. We'll see what develops.

Not much new beyond the usual frenetic work. There will possibly be a mid-November update of some importance, which subject matter must for the nonce remain unmentioned. News at 11.

Work proceeds apace on the last two books of THE TIPPING POINT trilogy. I love it when a gap in a novel outline suddenly fills itself in, not only logically but in directions one never anticipates. And when the characters start getting uppity and acting out on their own. Nothing pleases an author more than when he becomes a spectator to his own creation.

To tide you over, here are a few shots from the last journey.

Typical clothing shop in the capital of the French Comoros.. They make nice shirts.

Restaurant on the main street in the Seychelles capital of Mahe. More than a little ironic considering the trouble that country is having with real pirates right now.

Zanzibar is famous for its hand-carved old wooden doors, some of which are hundreds of years old. This one leads to...use your imagination.

STAR TREK: REFUGEES, the first book sequel to the recent film, has been turned in to Simon & Schuster/Pocket Books. I believe publication is scheduled for June of next year, and I hope I have done right not only by the film but by those of you who are waiting to see what can be done with the characters in a novel setting. I very much enjoyed writing the story.

I should finish SICK, INC., the second volume of THE TIPPING POINT trilogy, some time this month. It looks as if the OSHANURTH trilogy is accepted, but until contract details are agreed upon I can't announce the publisher. Look for that information in the November update. I'm delighted, as I have invested a great deal of myself in the writing and the opportunity to explore my love of the sea. While OSHANURTH is grand fantasy that takes place entirely underwater, the oceanographic details are as accurate as I can make them. They reflect and make use of many things I have seen and experienced.

A Russian friend of mine, an aspiring filmmaker from Ekaterinburg for whom I polished the English subtitles of his first film, has made his first commercial. Check it out...you won't be disappointed. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBby_n1hT6I

On the 17/18th of this month I will be competing in the RAW World Powerlifting Championships at the Riviera Hotel in Las Vegas. In between embarrassing myself, I will be happy to chat and/or sign books for anyone who might happen by. I guarantee a different atmosphere from the usual SF con, although some of the grunts may be recognizable. I'm going to try and break my Arizona state record. This past Monday I tried 305 and it went nowhere. On the other hand, I'm not dead, either.

Have a happy Halloween and remember...dark chocolate is good for you.

I will be attending DRAGONCON in Atlanta 3-7 Sept. and hope to see some of you there. It's been many years since I was last in Atlanta and I hope to see the new dinosaur exhibit at the natural history museum...and if I can manage the time, eat at Aunt Pittypat's. I reckon I'll give the Varsity a miss this time.

The rough draft of STAR TREK: REFUGEES, the first sequel novel to the ST film, is finished and I expect to turn in the final draft before the end of next month. I'm very pleased with it. I've a done a story for the second collection of original Zorro stories (what, you didn't know?). You'd be surprised who has done stories for both of these anthologies. And I've done an original story, POINT MAID, for the universe of D&D. The only problem with it is that I'm in love with the main character and can't use him outside the realm of d&d. But within...who knows what might eventuate?

Made the time to go and see DISTRICT 9. Very clever, and I'd applaud the film if only for the fact that it's not set in New York or Los Angeles. There are some social issues (especially if you're from Nigeria) and plot holes big enough to drive a small starship through, but it's wonderful to see an SF film made by fans of the genre who actually respect the genre. As to those plot holes...rocket fuel that doubles as a DNA manipulator, oppressed and mistreated aliens with access to hundreds or thousands of high-tech weapons who never use said weapons in their defense, a starship that just needs half a liter of home-distilled goo to jumpstart it, aliens who are removed from their starship by helicopter but never think to snatch one to return to it, an alien savior determined to rescue his poor benighted people and when he has the chance, promptly takes off and leaves them all behind...and the abandoned cheer his departure, overnight body changes from human to part alien....

Viewers and reviewers say the aliens remind them of prawns or insects. Me, I kept thinking Dr. Zoidberg (sorry). More alien than the usual funny mask and prosthetics, yes, but still bisymmetrical and with human proportions. It speaks volumes for the film industry's vision of aliens that the most alien ones we get are in something like GALAXY QUEST.

Westercon was a great deal of fun and it was good to see some old friends again. Raced back home to get back to work on STAR TREK:REFUGEES. I'm about a quarter of the way through and having a great time.

Some interesting (actually more than interesting) points of congruence between a book of mine and an upcoming SF film. See if you can work out the pairing, which has already resulted in some querying at this end (and no little gnashing of teeth).

Spent three days at Comicon in San Diego last week. The usual fascinating madhouse. Like sitting out all night waiting for good seats to view the Rose Parade, it's something everyone should do at least once. In addition to (again) meeting and chatting with old friends, I had the opportunity to have dinner across a long table with Mr. and Mrs. Patrick Oliphant. I wish the table hadn't been so full or so noisy. It's not everyday you have have the chance to chat with the number one political cartoonist on the planet. I'm afraid I struggled to make the most of a conversation that consisted primarily of shouted intermittent inconsequentialities.

Also met and spoke with Greg Evans, who does the award-winning strip LUANN. And spent a fair amount of time with Brooke McIldowney (of the strips 9 CHICKWEED LANE and the astounding on-line only PIBGORN) during which we attempted to solve all the problems of the world and, alas, failed. But his beautiful and brilliant daughter Nicola just might do it, if she doesn't get sidetracked by more enjoyable and less stressful pursuits. Picture of Brooke and I at Peohe's restaurant on the bay in San Diego.

STAR TREK: REFUGEES is coming along nicely, and I just finished a portion of a chapter that I've been wanting to write ever since the new film came out. You'll know it instantly when you read it (if they don't cut it). SICK, INC. awaits its final rewrite, following which I will conclude the Tipping Point trilogy with THE SUM OF HER PARTS. And on a less intellectual but no less stressful note, I won my age & weight division in the unequipped bench bress at the RAW Southwest Regional powerlifting meet with a lift of 275lbs.

I'm posting this a couple of days early because I'm due as GoH at this year's Westercon in Tempe, Arizona from 1 July to 5 July. I hope to see some of you there.

Many thanks to all of you who wrote in to say how much you enjoyed FLINX TRANSCENDENT. Perhaps when Flinx grows sufficiently bored (or a new idea strikes) we just might see him on the move again. He's a bit of a restless chap, and there's this starship sitting around....

The Mac is proving to be a lot of fun. It's infinitely faster than my old Dell and Safari is a pleasure. As soon as I figure out what I'm doing wrong with Fetch I'll try to start doing updates on the Mac instead of this charming HP netbook. What I probably need is an instruction manual for Fetch...the online help doesn't begin to answer the necessary questions.

Awhile back I wrote a novella, BOX OF OXEN, that the redoubtable Lou Anders purchased for the resurrected Argosy magazine. Unfortunately, the magazine folded. Lou moved on to bigger and better things at Pyr, but because of its length and subject matter the novella has had a hard time finding a new home. If you're curious to see my SFnal take on the Israel-Palestine situation, the novella is available for a couple of bucks via Scribd.com. As a number of readers have already written to discuss it, I'm curious as ever to hear additional feedback. Maybe one day it will appear in a regular magazine, but for now the Net has been its temporary savior.

I recently dropped the AT&T landline to my study in favor of telephony over the net via Vonage. There is an occasional echo (most oddly when I just call the house), but mostly connections are clear and sharp. And one third the cost. Vonage's service has also been excellent. Technology marches on. It also improves washing. When one of our water heaters went out, instead of buying a new monster cylinder for the kitchen we put an Ariston-Bosch compacter hot water heater under the sink area. It weighs nothing and because of the location delivers virtually instant hot water (and I mean hot!) directly to the hot water faucet. This isn't one of those little in-sink hot water heaters you see advertised for making soup and coffee: it's a 12 gal. heater. Plenty for washing everything except maybe the Thanksgiving dinner dishes.

What's that? Something about SF? Oh, right. I hope to finish the rough draft of the second book in THE TIPPING POINT trilogy, SICK, INC., sometime next month. Then I'll do the sequel book to the STAR TREK movie...still waiting for final okay on the outline from Pocket Books.

Well, it finally happened. Despite the presence of Norton Utilities, Windows Defender, a top-rated firewall, and much else my trusty old Dell finally picked up a boxload of trojans. Blocked access to all programs and files, including (cleverly) the Restore control. I took it into Best Buy and they wanted $200 to clean the hard drive. At which point I bought a Mac. Very nice machine. Still getting the hang of things, and I have to decide between Transmit or Fetch for updating this site, but so far no real problems. Biggest aggravation is the lack of a forward delete key on the compact keyboard. Naturally I had everything backed up on several separate drives, but I did lose saved email files. Nothing critical, though. And I still haven't found an easy method for transferring .wab MS address files into the Mac address book.

Meanwhile things including updates may move a bit more slowly than usual, though I'll still put something up every month. I'm using my old software on the HP netbook that I (providentially) bought a few months ago.

Bookscan, the industry system that tracks actual book sales, on their SF list, had STAR TREK at #2, FLINX TRANSCENDENT at #6, and TERMINATOR; SALVATION and TRANSFORMERS:REVENGE OF THE FALLEN at 11 and 14. Very flattering,that.

There is a very good chance that I will be doing a follow-up original novel to the Star Trek film. Details as they come....

For those of you interested in details on the numbered and signed edition of the STAR TREK novelization, you can go directly to the source

I apologize for the lack of an April update but the internet connection from the National Geographic Explorer, cruising the western Indian Ocean, was too intermittent for me to chance it. Starting from Dar-es-Salaam, we visited Zanzibar, Ibo Island (Mozambique), the Comoros, and the Seychelles, with an unscheduled emergency stop at the northern tip of Madagascar. Ibo was a major trading port until commerce moved north to Pemba and Zanzibar. Today the place is full of ghosts, memories, and decaying 19th-century buildings and streets. The place looks like a set for a Somerset Maugham movie.

The Mayotte brown lemur is a distinct subspecies endemic to the Comoros islands in the Mayotte group. Though completely wild, they have become habituated to people and cheerfully jump all around, atop, and over you. They are as gentle as they are hyperactive, sort of like arboreal otters. One kept trying to abscond with my earring, another with buttons off my shirt. The nearby Seychelles have some of the most beautiful beaches in the world. They also used to feature wonderful diving, until EU and Chinese longliners (several of which I saw preparing their miles-long nets in the main Seychelles harbor of Victoria) embarked on the on-going process of raping the ocean between Yemen and South Africa. This, of course, puts every fisherman in the area out of work. As everyone is aware, those in Somalia have been forced to turn to alternative business activities in order to feed their families. Perhaps some of the multinational warship armada scattered about the region could devote a bit of their spare time to catching and impounding boats from other nations that are illegally and unsustainably fishing out this beautiful and poverty-stricken part of the world. That would probably do more to moderate piracy in the region than blowing out the brains of the occasional starving, AK-47-armed Somali teenager.

The original novel bridging the storylines between the first and second Transformers films, TRANSFORMERS: THE VEILED THREAT, is now available. Long-time readers of my work will puzzle over some of the content, particularly the first 16 pages. That's because it has been rewritten by other hands. As an example, not a word of the Somali pirate sequence (how timely) at the beginning of the book was penned by me. Although a great deal of the final tome is still my work, the book as a whole is a corporate product, the final content of which was out of my hands. I leave it to curious readers to peruse the pages and decide what I scribed and what was contributed or adjusted by others.

In addition to the new heading picture on the bio/photo page (taken by frequent National Geographic contributor Michael Melford), the top of the photo column features one vidcap and two photos from the trip. It was a privilege to be able to see several of the 200 remaining wild Black Paradise Flycatchers, a truly spectacular bird, on the Seychelles island of La Digue, to be able to visit some of the most fabled beaches in the world, and to explore some exceptionally remote areas (the northernmost tip of Madagascar, the Farquahar Group of islands, etc.). We were also supposed to visit the World Heritage Site of Aldabra, but ongoing pirate activity in the area convinced the Captain and the Company that it was better to skip our scheduled visit. Sure enough, the same day we were supposed to be there the local Seychelles liveaboard dive boat the Indian Ocean Explorer was hijacked.

I would like to visit Somalia one day, but with outward bound ticket securely in hand.

Out this month in addition to THREAT: the novelizations of STAR TREK and, finally, the oversized and long- awaited FLINX TRANSCENDENT.

I sometimes wonder if the sea misses me as much as I miss it....

The completed novelization of the new STAR TREK film has been turned in to Pocket Books. I hope it does the film justice and that everyone enjoys reading it. I'm now in the process of finishing up THE HUMAN BLEND, the first volume of the TIPPING POINT trilogy, for Del Rey. Still no word on BLUE MAGIC, but I'm hopeful. I'm extremely proud of the book, the concept, and the storyline for that entire trilogy

Concerning the April update, I may try to do it from wherever I happen to be on the 1st. Probably either in the Comoros Islands or at Aldabra atoll in the Indian Ocean. Who knows...maybe I'll see a coelocanth. Not a T-Rex...not even a Dunkleosteus...but it would really be something to encounter. It's the right part of the world, but I won't be diving the proper depths. Still, all things are possible.

The April update would be accomplished with the netbook I bought. I chose a Hewlitt-Packard because of its fine (for a netbook) keyboard. 16g flash drive...why they even bother to make netbooks, whose whole rationale is portability, with rotating disc drives is beyond me. The HP works fine for short periods and handles the basics...word processing, web browsing, and a few other small tasks.

Here are a couple more pictures from the November trip...

The mountain town of Moulay Idriss, northern Morocco. One of the holiest sites in Islam. Closed to non-Muslims after sunset.

This was taken in Three Cities, Malta. I loved the textural contrast between the cat's fur and the age-worn doorway.

This month's update is going to be very brief. I had to fly into Los Angeles a week ago to, among other things, see the new STAR TREK movie at Paramount. Which in my opinion is, by the way, really, really good. And as I'm writing the book version, and as said book version must be completed really, really soon, I am going to be really, really busy for the next month.

Really.

So please excuse the lack of chat and the absence of photos, knowing that I am deeply immersed in a milieu we all know and love, and that it demands my full attention. But if anyone happens to drop by the NASA Arizona State Powerlifting championships in Mesa, Arizona, I'll see you there, where for one day at least I won't have to do much thinking.

Four photos from the recent trip to North Africa are up on the BIO/PHOTO page. Due to a bit of a programming glitch, they don't have captions. From top to bottom they are: young boy fishing, Three Cities harbor, Malta. The capitol building of the Roman/Punic city of Dougga, in North Central Tunisia, at sunset. Todra Gorge, on the eastern side of the High Atlas mountains, central Morocco. A hasty shot of yours truly just outside Marrakech, Morocco, and heading toward Ouerzazate, the first town on the other side of the High Atlas after you cross the Tich-n-Tichka pass, at 7127' the highest pass in Morocco... and quite a drive, especially if you have even a minimum fear of heights.

I hope you enjoy the pictures. Right now I'm finishing up the novelization of the next Transformers film...which of course, alas, I can't discuss here.

If you click on CURRENT INFO on the left side of the home page and then click on FAQs, scroll down to Countries Visited to see a map of the places, shaded in red, that I've been. Easier to visualize (and a bit exhausting for me to reflect back on).

Just returned from three weeks in North Africa. About a week each in Malta and Tunisia followed by a little more time in Morocco. All spent in the great good company of that artist supreme, James Gurney. You don't really know someone until you have traveled with them. I'm happy to say that in all the time we spent together, Jim and I did not have a single serious argument.

It was fascinating to watch Jim turn out sketches and small watercolors in cities like Fes and Tangier, Tunis and Valetta. His work always drew a crowd and was an instant ice-breaker. The only drawback came from those who, seeing his work, wanted portraits drawn of themselves. Jim obliged more often than he needed to, his good nature invariably overcoming the desire to do what he wanted. The result was a string of gratified and flattered sitters stretching from the mid-Mediterranean to Gibralter.

Malta (who hasn't heard of the Knights of Malta?) turned out to be far more interesting than initially anticipated, with a history stretching back to Neolithic times. The city of Valetta reminds one of San Francisco...if San Francisco's history reached back a thousand years. It's a living, walled city, one of the few left on Earth. Tunis and its medina and souks (ancient markets) were heavily gallicized, where Jim's French (far exceeding my own) helped us negotiate not only with salesfolk but with our wonderful art deco hotel, while my limited Arabic was put to good use fending off the innumerable and aggressive touts trying to sell us everything from tours to...well, to certain kinds of morally dubious "companionship". We also took a day trip via fast cat to Sicily where we caught a bus halfway up (unfortunately peaceful) Mt. Etna.

In north-central Tunisia we visited the ancient Roman cities of Bella Regia, with its astonishing nearly two-thousand year old mosaics (many of which were transported to the Bardo, a museum in Tunis). We also spent half a day at the ruins of Roman Dougga. For the last two hours of the day we had the entire ancient city wholly to ourselves. There Jim sat painting the remains of the capitol in blissful silence while I wandered among scraps of perfectly readable Latin incised in stone, massive pediments and foundations, silent public baths, and streets whose drainage system would be the envy of many a modern town. The evening sky was a steadily darkening steel blue, a full moon was rising among the ancient stones, and not a breath of wind stirred the delicate wildflowers that curled their resolute way upward through cracks in the ruins of Empire as strains of Resphigi's Pines of Rome echoed in my ears.

At Casablanca airport we rented a sturdy Fiat and drove hundreds of miles through north and central Morocco. Or rather, Jim did. I don't drive a stick, so he drove while I navigated. The roads in Morocco are excellent, but while driving in the country is a pleasure, ancient cities like Fes and Marrakech present problems that make commuting in Manhattan seem simple. Crossing the tiz-n-tizchka pass, the highest in North Africa, brought us to the edge of the western Sahara and the remarkable World Heritage city of Ait Ben Haddou. From Oeurzazate we drove north along the eastern side of the High Atlas, crossing back over another, lower pass to reach the ancient Imperial capital of Fes. After wandering its famous souks we headed north to Tangiers, a remarkably cosmopolitan city where Spanish is spoken as often as Arabic. We crossed the Straits of Gibralter by ferry...it being the off-season, we were two of six passengers on a ferry with a capacity of 1018. The weather for the crossing was perfect, and we were able to see both Pillars of Hercules as we crossed. Jim had an extra day in Gibralter, which had grown dozens of high-rise apartments since I had last visited there in 1993. But it's still the only airport in the world where you have to carry your own luggage across an airport runway to get from one country to another.

Pictures next month. Right now I'm busy reworking the mss. of the bridge novel TRANSFORMERS: Infiltration, to which I have been asked to make some rather extensive revisions. Then it's on to the novelization of the second film. As always, it's good to be home. Neither Jim nor I suffered any sickness on our travels, though Jim did have a Barbary ape pee down the back of his shirt.

Everybody's a critic....

Turned in TRANSFORMERS: Infiltration to Del Rey. I'm very pleased with how it turned out. Lots of action, humor, plenty of opportunities for interaction between the Transformers themselves as well as Transformers and humans. It's a true bridge novel in that it refers to incidents from the first film as well as the second. I also took pains to do my best to ensure that it does not contradict the storyline in the five-part comic series. Not easy juggling so many different components. Kind of like having four separate jigsaw puzzles that when thrown together also make up a single larger puzzle.

Readers who have asked for more audio versions of books are about to get their wish. Audible.com has contracted to do audiobook versions of all the Flinx and Pip books. Stefan Rudnicki, who has already done Flinx's Folly for them, will do the rest as well, so there will be excellent auditory continuity throughout the series. They even asked how I preferred to have the stories recorded: in chronological order or in order of publication. Naturally, I requested that they be done in keepng with the Commonwealth chronology.

As I will be in North Africa most of November, be wary of more spam than usual on the discussion board, since I won't be able to edit it out until I return.

Below is the cover for the new German edition of REUNION. While Pip is still not right (trying to do a decent representation of an 18" long creature that will be visible on a paperback cover is almost impossible), we finally have a Flinx who looks his age, and maybe even of galactic-savior intensity. His hair is even the right color. Wish the eyes were easier to see. And that this reproduction was better.

Did you ever get the feeling you'd forgotten something? It's been a bit more insane (insanier? insaniest?) than usual here, hence this delayed October update. I am contrite (actually I'm an Independent).

In part this was engendered by the need to completely rewrite TERMINATOR:SALVATION. Actually, a complete rewrite was not requested by the publisher. As is common with films, especially large and complex productions, many things changed between the version of the screenplay I was given to novelize and the final shooting script. The publisher requested four specific changes to bring the novel more closely in line with the final version of the film. This was thoughtful of the editor, since as I read through the final shooting script I encountered numerous other instances where the screenplay had been altered from the version I adapted. Being either a) a glutton for punishment or b) a trufan, instead of simply rewriting the four specified scenes, I rewrote the entire book. I simply cannot do a half-assed job because I am proud of my work, because I need to feel comfortable with the finished manuscript, but most of all because all of you miscellany-pickin' happy readers are always looking over my shoulder. So now the book conforms (hopefully) far more closely to the film that would otherwise have been the case.

Such intense work depends on whether my brain, my fingers, or my eyes will give out first. Fortunately, in this instance all three (just barely) held up until the end. I'm sure the sight of me (literally) staggering around my study as I struggled to keep my balance due to failing eyesight and having sat for so long in front of the computer would have made for an amusing photo-op.

COLD FIRE is now out in the November Analog. FREE ELECTIONS, the first new Mad Amos Malone story in a while, went off to my agents. This week I hope to finish TRANSFORMERS:Infiltration, the original novel that will provide a bridge between the first and second films. After that, I will cool my hands in a bowl of ice preparatory to embarking for three weeks in Malta, Tunisia, and Morocco in the company of James Gurney. I need the break and the sounds of the souk and the empty desert should provide one. Despite unpredictable visa policies that change from moment to moment, we're going to try and get into Libya for at least a day or two. Perhaps the Libyan ambassador to Tunisia is an SF fan. I've encountered readers in stranger places.

I have agreed to serve as the SF GoH at MidOhioCon, in Columbus, the weekend of 5 October. Hope to see some of you there. Details available at the con's website, www.midohiocon.com.

Finished TERMINATOR:SALVATION, am quite pleased with it, and sent it off to publisher Titan in England. I hope they like it as well. As I always do with such projects, I had the opportunity to inject a lot of characterization, motivation, and detail into the story. In other words, be a fan. I also did a couple of short stories: one for J.J. Adams's FEDERATIONS anthology, and in a change of pace, a very enjoyable tale of The Fox for Richard Dean Starr's second collection of original stories featuring Zorro.

The following cgi by reader Ben Gordon is titled "Commonwealth Dreadnought departing Earth". The image is a little dark here, but still atmospheric.

I'm on work hiatus until next week, when I should know if I'm going to start SICK, INC. (Book II of the TIPPING POINT trilogy) or charge into another novelization of another major forthcoming SF film. No, can't discuss it yet. More on 1 October.

For those of you who have inquired, prints of Todd Lockwood's cover for QUOFUM are available for sale from his website. Mike McCarty recently conducted an interview with me for Science Fiction Weekly that is available at: http://www.scifi.com/sfw/interviews/sfw18827.html. SF Weekly is the online zine of the SciFi Channel. The photo of me used in the interview was taken this past February on Fais Island, Yap state, Federated Republic of Micronesia. Very isolated place. 400 inhabitants, no airstrip, one or two supply boats a year. The remainder of the time the locals live a subsistence lifestyle based on fishing and agriculture. There are such places left in the world.

A few of you have asked about my work space. Following are some pictures of my study. This is located atop a garage (separate) from the main house. Being able to oversee the construction allowed me to do things like leave space on the walls for artwork, locate the windows where I wished, and order bookcases that would fit beneath the windows. It has all worked out very well.

Unlike the thumbnails on the bio/photo page, these do not enlarge. In picture #4, you will note the original Spirits of the Earth Makonde sculpture from Tanzania that inspires the ending of INTO THE OUT OF. In the upper far right is the original Dean Ellis cover art for the first edition of ICERIGGER. Visible in #2 (center) is the original Michael Whelan art for NOR CRYSTAL TEARS and to the far left, the Barclay Shaw art for THE SPOILS OF WAR. Center front in #2 and #3 is a very finely decorated didgeridoo signed by the Wiradjuri artist Talapagar. My desk (hidden) is at the top center of #5. The fabric covering the couch is a Hindu marriage-bed spread from Mauritius (but probably woven in India). The royal Saruk Persian carpet was my maternal grandmother's and despite much coaxing, alas, will not fly. The view in #6 is from the small deck outside the study which overlooks a more-or-less perennial creek some fifty feet below.