As I have now hinted in two other messages, David Brin was in the DC area.
For those of you who are wondering if any fireworks ensued, I should point
out that the contrapositive is not necessarily true. Although I met Dr.
Brin, I'm not sure that he realizes just yet that he met me.
The problem you see, is that Brin was scheduled to speak for about an hour,
maybe an hour and a half - but got on a roll and ended up speaking for two
and a half hours until 10:00pm. Things were kind of chaotic afterwards,
as he apparently had to get somewhere, and I'm not sure that after
introducing myself, and mentioning Brin-L briefly, that he ever connected
me with "Oh.... that radical right-wing-crazed Republican ." Oh well....
maybe next time I'll try to arrange to meet him *before* he gtes on a roll
with a speech.
I can't really complain though, as I ended up with an autographed copy of
Heaven's Reach out of the deal, and picked up autographed paperbacks of
"The Transparent Society," "Foundation's Triumph," and "Startide Rising" to
complete my Brin Collection. (Don't get me wrong, I've lost three copies
of "Startide Rising" over the years that I have lent out and never had
returned.)
The most surprising part of the event, for me anyways, was that:
1) Brin is "short", or at least shorter than I am.
2) Brin has a fairly high-pitched voice (I'd bet that he sings tenor.)
Its amazing sometimes the images our brains develop of people we only read
about. In this case, I've always viewed Brin as "an elite", and as such
subsconsciously associated American alpha-male traits to him like
"tallness" and "deep voice."
Brin was certainly a captivating speaker, and definitely left little room
for boredom the whole time. Most of his talk was centered around "The
Transparent Society," but he manged to hit upon pretty much all of the
themes that we have seen from him on this list: why Star Wars is evil, why
Star Trek is great, why impeachment was wrong, why elites cannot be
trusted, why Harry Potter is evil, and, of course, why the Republican Party
is the root of all Evil. :)
Brin briefly mentioned some of his other novels, mostly in response to
questions. He took the interesting step of apologizing for the most
recent Uplift Trilogy. He pointed out that he is good with endings, but
not so good with beginnings. He noted that "those books should never have
been a trilogy, but I just got so wrapped up in this wonderful and
fascinating world that I was writing." His next Uplift Novel will be
based on the short story recently published in "Far Horizons", but it won't
be for quite some time "And Don't Rush Me!" :) (but we knew that. :)
He also read excerpts from "The Transparent Society," an unfinshed short
story called "Gawkers", and his current work in progress "The Kiln People."
"Gawkers" will apparently center around one young adult's frustration with
time travelling tourists that keep getting in the way.
(the most tiny of spoilers in here - but this is the last paragraph, so
trash this e-mail now if you want.)
"The Kiln People", as hinted at previously, will be about the consequences
of people being able to make instant copies of themselves. These copies,
or "dittos" operate independently, and at the end of their short lifespan,
are capable of merging their memories with the original's or "Archie's"
memories. Brin emphasized that these are most certainly not "clones",
because clones have to be raised - while these are instant copies. Brin
hints that at some point an "equal rights" movement for dittos arrises,
which greatly puzzles people, because dittos are just copies of already
existing people.
JDG
__________________________________________________________
John D. Giorgis - [EMAIL PROTECTED] - ICQ #3527685
"Never tiring, never yielding, never finishing, we renew that purpose today:
to make our country more just and generous; to affirm the dignity of
our lives and every life." - George W. Bush Inaugural Address 1/20/01
