I Receive Some Acknowledgment

Got a cool new book in the mail yesterday: Liberation: The Unofficial and Unauthorised Guide to Blake's 7 by Alan Stevens and Fiona Moore, imported to me all the way from Merrie Olde England, the original Home of Quality Low Budget SF TV. There are very few professionally-published Blake's 7 books out there, and, with the happy exception of Blake's 7: The Inside Story, most of them are, to be blunt about it, lame. Word of mouth (or, more accurately, keyboard) on the B7 mailing lists, however, says that this one is informative, entertaining, and intelligently written, though many of the authors' interpretations of specific episodes are pretty controversial. So I'm really looking forward to reading it.

I was also told, by someone who got their copy before I did, that my name was mentioned in the acknowledgments. Needless to say, the first thing I did when I got my own copy was to go and look, and sure enough there I am, listed with a bunch of other people being thanked for "insights into various episodes." Cool! I had a very long and, in my view, highly rewarding online conversation with one of the authors once, and I can only figure that it must have made an impression on her, which is extremely flattering.

You know, it's kind of funny... When I was much younger, I used to occasionally consider the idea that someday I might write a book. Well, that, I now think, is extremely unlikely to happen. I may have writing skills (or at least I like to think I do), but a novelist I most definitely am not. And while I could certainly write a book on Blake's 7 (or, for that matter, Farscape) myself, I strongly suspect that convincing someone to actually publish it would be nigh unto impossible. So I've pretty much put away the dream of one day seeing my name on a spine in a bookstore. Instead, in a half-joking/half-serious sort of way, I'd set my sights on a more achievable goal: getting myself into the acknowledgments of someone else's book. Alas, the RPG book I play-tested for ended up getting axed by the game company, and the two manuscripts I've beta'd for an aspiring-novelist friend have, as of yet, failed to find a publisher. I was beginning to think this was going to be one of those distant long-term goals, so imagine my surprise when I discovered that I'd achieved it entirely without trying to or even knowing I had!

The really ironic thing? They spelled my name wrong. Not that I hold it against 'em. Nobody spells my name right. I blame that Californian actor guy. Him and his stupid "e."