with Ray Nelson

"Was Earth too easy to conquer and too hard to hold?"

1st EDITION:

• ACE, pb, G-627, Jun 1967, 157pp, $0.50, (Jack Gaughan)

• UK 1st.: Arrow, pb, 005370-2, 1971, 192pp, 25p (photo collage)

OTHER ENGLISH EDITIONS:

•    ACE, pb, 27346, 1977, ?, $1.50 (?)
•  
•    Arrow, pb, 921490-3, Feb 1980, 95p (?)
•  
• Arrow, pb, ?, Sep 1987, ?, L2.50 (?)
• Severn House, hb, 1687-X, Dec 1988, 192pp, L10.95 (John Costellos)
• Legend, pb, 921490-3, Mar 1991, 192pp, L3.99 (Peter Andrew Jones)
•  
• Unknown edition (UK)

FOREIGN EDITIONS:

• Mondadori, pb, Urania 479, 1968, 168, Lit.250 (Karel Thole){tr. into Italian by L.A.Zucchini as L'ORA DEI GRANDI VERMI}
• Bergisch Gladbach (Bastei Lubbe), pb, 21082, 1976, ?, ? (?){tr. into German by Bernt Kling as DIE INVASOREN VON GANYMED}
• Mondadori, pb, 808, 1979, 174pp, Lit.900 (Karel Thole) {tr. into Italian by L.A.Zucchini as L'ORA DEI GRANDI VERMI}
  

• J'ai Li, pb, 1067, 1980, 224pp, ?, (?) {tr. into French as LES MACHINES A ILLUSIONS}

• Bastei Lubbe, pb, 24075, ?, ? ?(?){tr. into German: A part of this compendium of PKD novels in German}
• Mondadori, pb, 169, 1991, 176pp, Lit.6000 (Oscar Chichoni) {tr. into Italian by Luciana Agnoli Zucchini as L'ORA DEI GRANDI VERMI}

{For the best bibliographic info in French goto: www.multimania.com/ggoullet/pkdick/frames.html Thanks for the cover pix, Gilles}

PKDS-6    9:

   Dear PKDS,

    {... ...}

    Ray's mentioning that THE GANYMEDE TAKEOVER was originally titled THE EARTH'S DIURNAL COURSE is a bit confusing to me. Probably Ray is right in saying so --though the title would have been IN EARTH'S DIURNAL COURSE, a line from a Romantic poet, well-known, but I forget which one. The apparant fact that Phil's and Ray's THE GANYMEDE TAKEOVER originally had this title, till Scott Meredith changed it, surprises me because Phil had earlier put that title on some other novel published by Ace Books and it was Don wollheim who changed it -- I think it was DR. BLOODMONEY, OR HOW WE GOT ALONG AFTER THE BOMB, though I can't swear to that. (90% chance i'm right, no more). Since DR. BLOODMONEY was published in 1965 and THE GANYMEDE TAKEOVER in 1967, its quite possible that   after Don Wollheim had changed that title once, Scott Meredith may have felt it would be fruitless to submit another even partly PKD novel to Don under the original title.

    {... ...}

    {Terry Carr>PKDS, 1985}{See: THE UNTELEPORTED MAN for more of this letter}
    {See also below (SL 38) for possible alternate title for THE GANYMEDE TAKEOVER}

TDC 135

(Ray Faraday Nelson:) In the dream I remembered the brainstorming sessions I had had with Phil and the many other members of the San Francisco Bay Area science fiction community on those long lazy Sunday afternoons in East Oakland. Three outlines for novels had been developed during these sessions during which everyone threw ideas into the common pool, and I had gone home to put the resulting chaos into some sort of order. Only the first, THE GANYMEDE TAKEOVER, was actually written and published. (It has since been repeatedly published in the USA, England, France and Germany). The second, The Whalemouth Colony, was later recycled by Phil in part. The third and best, The Ring Of Fire, remains to this day little more than an outline, and a lot of scribbles on odd bits of paper... and perhaps, if I haven't erased it, a tape recording of a brainstorming session.

{For continuation see: TDC 136}

TDC 138

(Ray Faraday Nelson:) The fact is, we wanted to write Ring Of Fire, but we had to write something, so we wrote TAKEOVER

Since we were "only practicing" for "the big one", we wrote the book we did in a spirit of almost hysterical hilarity, enclosing weird newspaper clippings and Beatle bubblegum cards in the installments of the ongoing story we mailed back and forth. When we met --first at his place in East Oakland and later at his other place in Marin County near the water, we often spent more time smoking grass, dropping acid and flirting with each others' wives than working. Not for nothing is TAKEOVER dedicated to both Kirsten and Nancy. Joan Hiashi is a composite in many ways of these two remarkable women, and many of the concepts and plot twists were contributed by them in the nonstop brainstorming that always formed a part of our relationship. We never actually "swapped wives" or "swung", yet the emotional involvement of this foursome went far beyond what normally passes for friendship between two married couples.

SL-38 229

I am very anxious to get back from Ace the outline for THE STONES REJECTED (retitled by Ace, THE GANYMEDE TAKEOVER). Could you get the outline for me?
{PKD > Scott Meredith Feb 28, 1968}

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