@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