: : Andre Norton does best; the story of a young man who tries his best.
: Alas and Alak, according to the fameous Starlog interview, the :manuscript for the fourth Sword book was thrown away along with :two sequels to The Prince Commands and a book about Victorian
THANK YOU! That chunk of info. did me a lot more good than I can talk about!!!
:women writers and something else I cannot remember. She said :this to remind writers to never,never,never throw anything away. I disagree with that on "anything," but since even she is muchly on disk these days, it's easier to save stuff. You should see what my wife saves (re "anything" -- she used to be a news writer); there is a limit to old envelopes and notes on scraps of paper....
:later asked the Lady about the 4th Sword book(set in South :America) She said that there was very little to it, maybe an :outline and a few paragraphs. I once dreamed (right after :reading the starlog interview) that an excavation in a Cleveland :landfill turned up all these "lost" manuscripts somhow :miraculously preserved and I was able to get them published. :Later, I realized that these "Manuscripts" were probably not :even complete enough for publication, but the dream was :nice.later--Paul
Oh nooooo no no. With no mss, outline or otherwise, surviving, it makes it easier for ... some future publisher ... to simply take the title and idea, ask if she remembers anything (probably not), and just get a colaborator to write "Sword Points South," set in both Central and South America, and then moving outwards into the universe and future.
When I read the existing three, in a borrowed Unicorn Star set, they had to be returned. I didn't have them in hand later, so I thought the total word length was less than it was. When I got my own set, I discovered/counted that ... some future publisher ... might have a bit worse time publishing a three in one volume than I originally thought.
Instead of a 3 in 1, followed by a "completed 4th," and then a "take it to the future 5th," ... some future publisher COULD do a FIRST TWO in one, and sell both to libraries and to collectors who could otherwise not get a hold of #2. Then there COULD be a 2nd volume containing the existing 3rd book plus an "all new but based on memory of the uncompleted 4th." It would, one would hope, sell to both collectors and libraries, as well as a few fans and Amazon buyers.
Your info. was a clue than might make something like that much much more practical ... for somebody ... sometime ... maybe ... and don't quote me on any of this.
Irv
