"Kim Stanley Robinson - A History Of The Twentieth Century, With Illustrations" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robinson Kim Stanley)

"They're new to publishing, they come from computers and this is the kind
of numbers they're used to. It's a different scale."
"That's for sure. I still don't want to do it."
"Frank, come on, you're the one for this! The only successor to Barbara
Tuchman!" That was a blurb found on paperback editions of his work. "They
want you in particular - I mean, Churchill on the twentieth century, ha
ha. It's a natural."
"I don't want to do it."
"Come on, Frank. You could use the money, I thought you were having
trouble with the payments-"
"Yeah yeah." Time for a different tack. "I'll think it over."
"They're in a hurry, Frank."
"I thought you said turn of the century!"
"I did, but there's going to be a lot of this kind of book then, and they
want to beat the rush. Set the standard and then keep it in print for a
few years. It'll be great."
"It'll be remaindered within a year. Remaindered before it even comes out,
if I know coffee table books."
His agent sighed. "Come on, Frank. You can use the money. As for the book,
it'll be as good as you make it, right? You've been working on this stuff
your whole career, and here's your chance to sum up. And you've got a lot
of readers, people will listen to you." Concern made him shrill: "Don't
let what's happened get you so down that you miss an opportunity like
this! Work is the best cure for depression anyway. And this is your chance
to influence how we think about what's happened!"
"With a coffee table book?"
"God damn it, don't think of it that way!"
"How should I think of it."
His agent took a deep breath, let it out, spoke very slowly. 'Think of it
as a hundred thousand pounds, Frank."
His agent did not understand.

Nevertheless, the next morning as he sat under the bright white ceiling,
doodling with a green pen on yellow paper, he decided to go to England. He
didn't want to sit in that room anymore; it scared him, because he
suspected it might not be working. He was not sixty percent better. And he
didn't want to shift to drug therapy. They had found nothing wrong with
his brain, no physical problems at all, and though that meant little, it
did make him resistant to the idea of drugs. He had his reasons and he
wanted his feelings!
The light room technician thought that this attitude was a good sign in
itself. "Your serotonin level is normal, right? So it's not that bad.
Besides London's a lot farther north than New York, so you'll pick up the
light you lose here. And if you need more you can always head north again,
right?"

He called Charles and Rya Dowland to ask if he could stay with them. It
turned out they were leaving for Florida the next day, but they invited
him to stay anyway; they liked having their flat occupied while they were
gone. Frank had done that before, he still had the key on his key-ring.