@RUTGERS.ARPA:sigel%umass-cs.csnet@csnet-relay.arpa (02/22/85)
From: Andrew D. Sigel <sigel@umass-cs> I spoke with him for a while at Boskone this past weekend, and elicited a number of facts that should be of interest to those who wrote the recent messages about his books: 1) The fourth McGill Feighan (pronounced Fee-in) novel, "Cliffs", will be a Dec. 1985 publication from Berkley Books. This is the fourth in a planned series of ten novels; O'Donnell has it all mapped out, so I'm sure we'll be meeting the Far Being Retzglaran before it's all over. 2) The two novels published by Bantam, "Bandersnatch" (1979) and "War of Omission" (1982), are both officially out of print, and the rights have reverted to the author. Unfortunately, no one has bought these rights. Berkley has expressed some interest, but are quoting some silly policy about not reprinting books first printed by other companies until five years after the books have formally been declared out of print. (Unfortunately, many companies leave a book as "out of stock" for months or years before getting around to admitting they're out of print, often to retain control over the rights, as they normally revert a set time after the out of print declaration.) As both books were "in print" for approx. two years, it will be a while before they appear again. I advise haunting the used book stores, though I understand that "Bandersnatch" is nigh- impossible to find. 3) O'Donnell writes, on average, one book a year, and always writes one non-Feighan book between the Feighan books. Due to the vagaries of the publishing business, this doesn't always appear to be so, but it is. So it'll be a while before the series is done. (Unlike some writers, O'Donnell needs to get away from his characters for a while between books.) 4) K. M. O'Donnell, who wrote up until the early '70s, is a pseudonym for Barry Malzberg, and shouldn't be confused with Kevin O'Donnell, Jr. Andrew Sigel