Moving Day in Drowned R'lyeh, Part Deux

[ecosophia]

I mentioned here a month and a half ago that the seven volumes of The Weird of Hali, my epic fantasy with tentacles, are on their way to a new publisher, and asked for help correcting the typos and editing mistakes in the first edition. Plenty of rugose, squamous proofreaders promptly slithered up out of the saurian ooze to assist -- thank you all for your help! 

Now I'm moving on to the next phase. 

As of now, the remainder of my Founders House fiction is now also on its way to a new publisher. As of September 30, all the following books will be out of print for a little while: 

• The Fires of Shalsha
• Star's Reach
• Retrotopia
• The Shoggoth Concerto
• The Nyogtha Variations
• A Voyage to Hyperborea
• The Seal of Yueh Lao
• Journey Star

If you want to have them any time in the next year, now's your chance; they're all still for sale via my Bookshop store, or any other online venue you like to patronize. When they come back into print, they (and The Weird of Hali) will all be available by one of the major US distributors and thus have a fair chance of finding their way into brick and mortar bookstores as well. 

In the meantime, I will again be grateful for help catching typos and editing mistakes that slipped through in the first editions. Thank you for your assistance with this, and your patience with the vagaries of publishing...

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Hi JMG,

I just finished reading The Seal of Yueh Lao for the second time. After reading it for the first time I had the feeling that something might be wrong with timeline but couldn't say what... this time I found what bothered me: When Molly meets Owen, you write that she is a woman in her thirties. But at the same time, Owen states that "they put on a really good show twenty years ago." So Molly started playing metal concerts as a (possibly young) teen?

And on the back cover there's a typo: "... a legacy that still troubles the family of Asenath's CLOSES_ friend".

I really enjoyed TSoYL. It's truly "a little thing", in a very nice way.

Cheers,
Nachtgurke

Molly starting Metal...

[emily07]

...didn't Molly mention to Brecken that she grew up in suburbs and that Metal did the screaming for her? It might have been pretty early?
(Ever heard of BeatBeatBeat? They startend kinda early too?)

[ecosophia]

Molly did indeed start playing concerts in her teen years. By the time Brecken met her at Partridgeville State, remember, she'd already played at JJs in Arkham! She got her first metal band going when she was in high school and was touring before she went to college; Owen saw one of her earliest shows outside New Jersey.

Thanks for asking, though -- I may want to clarify that Molly's in her late 30s at the time of TSOYL.

Lake Winnipeg

[(Anonymous)]

Is it part of the Lakeland Republic?

Looking at a map of North America it seems like it might be part of the orbit of the future great civilization centered around the lakes, anyway.

From the campaign manager for getting Lake Winnipeg officially recognized as the Sixth Great Lake:

Phosphorescent Unkempt Moose

Re: Lake Winnipeg

[ecosophia]

No, it's in West Canada -- in the Retrotopia future, remember, Canada also split up. into West Canada, East Canada, Quebec, and the Maritimes (which joined New England).

[(Anonymous)]

In The Seal of Yueh Lao on pp 122 - 123 Cassie talks about the cave by Arkham and mentions Arkham a second time in the same paragraph. I think you mean Dunwich instead.

I know you didn't mention The Weird of Hali Companion (you may be announcing the move later), but in any case, the entry for Wilbur says he is Molly Mazzini's kyrrmi. In WOH 7 Wilbur is Sylvia d'Ursuras's.

I don't know if you want to touch this, but I sort of feel that the population numbers in Shalsha novels don't really jive. The Directorate fell in 84 (I assume zero year is the landing) and kill millions in the work camps. That would suggest that the Journey Star carried at least a million people to Epsilon Eridani II. That seems unlikely even for a craft several miles long.

Finally, a frivolous suggestion you can certainly ignore. Have you considered, for the diehard WOH fans, a short post on the "lost" WOH novel - WOH Greenland? We know that the basic concept for Greenland eventually morphed into A Voyage to Hyperborea, as well I suspect The Seal of Yueh Lao, due to having too much story for the main series. But, for example, what was the original third sign of the Weird. Something to do with the Irem statue I suspect. As I said, I totally understand if this idea is ignored.

John of Red Hook

[ecosophia]

Thanks for these.

[(Anonymous)]

Hi,

it took me a while to reread Innsmouth and I hope I'm not late. This is what I found: Page 21: double and: [...]waste a couple of semesters worth of classes and and jump into [...] P 126: to instead of or?: [...]; the water in the shower was always either too hot to too cold, [...] P 132: epigenetics. Is this the right term? P 147: extra The: The there are a great [...] P 162: missing verb? [...]; they someone who could speak English [...]. I think the verb needed is missing. P 194: Missing closing " at the end: The Old One shrugged. "The thing was done.

Hope it helps!

[ecosophia]

No, you're fine -- Innsmouth hasn't yet gotten to copyediting, much less page proofs. Thanks for these.

[(Anonymous)]

The most blatant typo I remember is in WoH - Red Hook. Justin, leaving Agatha Sleght's shack, addressed her as "Mistress Van Brunt."

I note Owen addresses Keziah Mason as "Goody Mason," not "Mistress." A real difference in class? Or Justin's tendency to be polite?

[ecosophia]

Okay, that's a good one. "Van Brunt" was from an earlier draft. As for the different terms of address, it's a matter of education -- Owen's educated enough to know that "Goody," short for "Goodwife," was standard polite address when Keziah was born; Justin didn't know that, so guessed.

[(Anonymous)]

Tell the publisher that some of us are still voting for hardback. I have every single volume of your WoH series but I will buy them all again if they come out in HB.

[ecosophia]

I'll certainly pass that on.

[(Anonymous)]

Agree 100%. I would buy hardbacks as well. In fact, if there is any way to continue the extravagant hardback styling that was done for the first two volumes with Miskatonic, that would be a dream come true.

[open_space]

Interested in this too. My Insmouth copy has the pages following off.

[(Anonymous)]

Star's Reach I have. Could you recommend any of the others for a "tween" whose favorite reading material is magically tinged fantasy? Thanks.

[ecosophia]

Unfortunately the best of the lot, if that's what you're interested in, are the seven volumes of The Weird of Hali, and those are temporarily out of print. I'm not sure how well the four additional novels in the same world -- The Shoggoth Concerto, The Nyogtha Variations, A Voyage to Hyperborea, and The Seal of Yueh Lao -- will communicate to someone who hasn't read the core series, but you could give them a try.

Helicopters for "Voyage To Hyperborea"

[(Anonymous)]

I was in UH-1 Hueys in the Army years ago, so I have this to offer:

1) The controls. Helicopters have >3< kinds of controls:
- the familiar "stick" between your legs that makes it go forward, backward, or bank (turn) to one side or the other;
- the foot pedals which make the tail turn one way or another (i.e., the helicopter pivots around the axis of its main (top) rotor). These are used mostly at the hover, which is done near the ground. In forward flight the helicopter's body acts like a weathervane and the pedals aren't needed much. (Note: The kind of helicopters with 2 big rotors on top behave differently, and I'm not as familiar with how the pedals work on those.)
- The third control, unique to helicopters, is the collective lever, which makes the helicopter go up and down. It changes the angle of attack of all the main rotor's blades at the same time, thus increasing/decreasing its thrust. In Hueys the collective was at the pilot's left side and controlled with the left hand. Pull it up to ascend, lower it to descend.

So to take off, you pull up on the collective, then push the stick forward. At this time you also execute a nudge on the pedals to keep the helicopter from trying to spin around its axis as you pull up on the collective. (in the case of a helicopter with one big rotor on top and a smaller rotor at the end of its tail.)

2) Gas mileage. Technically, anything bigger than a Mattel Messerschmidt will burn aviation fuel (kerosene), not gas. A helicopter of any size gets about 1 gallon to the mile. So on those long trips across that lake, sufficient fuel is a definite concern. However, it is also possible to install auxiliary fuel tanks inside the body of a largish helicopter, thus giving it extra range.

3) Confined area takeoffs. If the helicopter is inside a barn, and you open the roof to take it off through the roof, that is a very narrow opening for a helicopter to fly up through, making it oh so easy to hit something with the rotor blades on the way out, scramble up the rotor blades in an instant, and have the helicopter fall back down in a ball of wreckage. "Airwolf" was incorrect. Helicopters are built very lightweight, and they are actually very fragile.

However, many models are also built with wheels (instead of skids), and can be pushed out through a set of large hangar doors onto the tarmac outside the hangar, from which it is much easier to take off safely. I have helped push a Huey across the pavement (with wheels installed onto its skids). It took about 10 people.
For larger helicopters there will usually be a motorized towing machine (I don't know its formal name) which you hook onto the helicopter to tow it out the doors. Example: https://skybrary.aero/articles/aircraft-towing

4) Maintenance. Helicopters require lots of attention-- about 6 hours maintenance for every hour flown. You could just leave it parked in the hangar for months on end like a car or truck, but that's not advisable. Who knows if it will work correctly when you really need it.

5) Passenger capacity-- if the helicopter is intended to evacuate the base in the event of a jokullhlaup, it needs to be able to carry that many people at once. How many people were at the research base again? If more than 8 you are looking at a "utility helicopter". Here's a list to shop from: https://www.ranker.com/list/list-of-all-utility-helicopter-types/reference

Hope this helps, and thanks for all you do!

late corrections on other thread

[(Anonymous)]

I posted corrections on the other thread on sept 6, was that too late and I should copy it to here ?

[(Anonymous)]

Hi JMG,

Noticed a few things in Retrotopia:
Pg 93 ln 28 "have to to some" should be "have to do some".
Pg 123 ln 29 Need to remove whitespace in "quite".
Pg 220 ln 8-9 Should "Bar-low" be "Bar-field"?
Pg 237 ln 1 "brought back" could be "brought me back".
Pg 250 ln 29 "ifanybody" should be "if anybody".

Hope that helps,
_grey_

[(Anonymous)]

Nyogtha Variations:
Pg 175 ln 26: "talk with June" might be "talk with Mark".
Pg 191 ln 34: "sat in" should be "sat on".
Pg 247 ln 28: "Melanie" should be "Melinda".
Pg 251 ln 21: Missing closing double-quote.
Pg 255 ln 32: Missing closing double-quote.
Pg 257 ln 29: "don't know," could be "don't know.".

[(Anonymous)]

Voyage to Hyperborea:
Pg 148 ln 14: "Justin" should be "Toby". - I recall someone else pointing this out on the earlier post.
Pg 314 ln 15: "dad" should be "Dad".

[(Anonymous)]

Seal of Yueh Lao:
This isn't an error, but it struck me. On page 28 about 2/3 down you wrote that Robin had been born, died and reborn. I'm quite sure I didn't read anything about that in any of the other WoH books, nor does the WoH Companion mention that. Bit of a jarring surprise to me.

Pg 46 ln 14,15: "even better than they were when I heard them." could be "even better than they were when I first heard them."; however, you use "first" in the next sentence, so perhaps "last" or "previously" or something else.

Hope that helps.

[ecosophia]

Er, it's one of the main plot points in Chorazin; you might want to reread that, and watch what happens with the boy named Robin in that book.

That said, thank you for all the caught typos! Much appreciated.

[(Anonymous)]

Robin Hale. How stupid of me to miss the connection! Ah, well. More meanings to consider then. :-)

Happy to help!

[(Anonymous)]

Shoggoth Concerto:
Pg 9 ln 7: "billion years as" could be "billion years ago as".
Pg 16 ln 32: "She let her lead him" could be "She let him lead her".
Pg 45 ln 10: "be what closer" could be "be somewhat closer".
Pg 115 ln 9: Should "Tuesday" be "Monday"? Later references on page 119 line 7-8 and page 127, 2nd paragraph imply "Monday".
Pg 163 ln 24: "quoted her" should be "quoted him".
Pg 234 ln 6: "her.yelled" should be "her yelled", although it might just be a blemish on the page of my copy.

Not sure if missing page numbers matters or not. I'm sure it's a quirk of the formatting to get chapters to start on the right-hand page with the left-hand page completely blank (usually). But if so, 18, 150, 151 and 170 are missing.

Nyarlathotep spelled wrong...

[emily07]

...finally found it: WoH Arkham page 245 nearing the ebd oft the page there's Nylarlathotep. One too many "l".

Re: Nyarlathotep spelled wrong...

[emily07]

Another double "l" Nyarlathotep in Dreamlands, page 201 near the end, when Owen explains the rules to Miriam.

[(Anonymous)]

What is the timeline for republication of Retrotopia? I don't recall specific typos off the top of my head, but I have some editing experience and I grew up near Toledo. I would be willing to take a day or so to go through the book.

I'll check back in a day or so to see if you are still responding to comments on this older post. I thought your site used to have a contact email, but I can't find it here or at the main blog.

[ecosophia]

Not even on the printing schedule yet. I expect page proofs sometime next year, so you've got plenty of time. Thank you!

[(Anonymous)]

Please send an email - you can reach me at aarpad at 602law dot com.

[scotlyn]

Hello, I just noticed this post, and am also on a (3rd) re-reading of WOH...

There was one tiny little jarring detail for me in No 4 "Dreamlands". This was when, on page 51, Myriam's kyrrmi Amber is still weak and needs help to climb up to Myriam on the sofa. And yet, this same kyrrmi had been (apparently) strong enough to be fit to climb up on the adult size toilet on page 20, having figured out what it was for. (The clever thing!)

Anyway, again, a tiny thing, but if now is the time for picking nits, here is my nit.

Best wishes with the move.