"Follett, James - Earthsearch 00 - Mindwarp" - читать интересную книгу автора (Follett James)

Another name for hell!


Children's skipping rhyme
Origin unknown

FOREWORD
Excuses. Excuses.
Or, wriggling convincingly off the hook.


It doesn't matter if you haven't read the other books in the
Earthsearch series because this book is a self-contained
novel. Also it's the Earthsearch curtain-raiser although it
was not written first.
Its appearance is a touch embarrassing, so if you find the
spectacle of a writer casting about frantically for excuses
is unedifying, you can skip this intro and plunge straight
into the story.
One of the pleasurable perks of being an author are the
invitations to give lectures (I prefer to call them talks --
it's less pretentious) around the country to arts festivals,
library groups, writers' circles, and science-fiction
conventions etc. During the question and answer session I'm
usually asked by loyal fans of both BBC series if I have
plans to write anymore Earthsearth books, to which I have
usually answered: no. To my shame, the reasons I've trotted
out are usually along lines about how I need to move on to
develop new ideas. There's some truth in this pretentious
twaddle, but the real reason is that I thought I'd played all
the aces in both books. I was convinced that there was little
left to provide fresh twists and turns in the plot and, above
all, surprises. Like everyone else, I was thinking in terms
of a continuation of the story from the end of the last book,
not realising that a story I've had simmering since 1975 is,
in fact, the beginning of the Earthsearch story: a failure of
that most precious tool of the writer -- lateral thinking.
Let me explain about 1975. This was the year when I
forsook an index-linked pension to become a writer, and had
the good fortune to meet the late George Markstein, a partner
in the literary agency, Marjacq Scripts. The other partner
was Jacqui Lyons, who still represents me. George was the
genius behind The Prisoner television series which he co-
conceived and script edited besides writing some of the
scripts. He was a great storyteller, and a master of
indirection which he later demonstrated in his novels. He
could also be a terrifying ogre, especially if he suspected a
writer was not giving an audience or readership their best.
Mindwarp was one of my very early ideas and George loved
it. I still have his enthusiastic notes and suggestions on