It’s “You’re In The Wrong Place, Sucker.”
The Solid Gold 50th Anniversary Volume
It honestly seems over a decade ago when we all wrote those first stories. We
were a team! We sent them in with gusto and love, having fun-for a nickel a
word. That was as advance against royalties if the book sold enough copies to
generate any royalties. Hey, did it ever! What now? Another S.F. Book Club
volume, I hear, and is it three TW games or four? Translations into German and
French and British and Swahili and Newjersese! Interplanetary rights up for
bidding! Other publishers hot for novels about TW characters! Ace Books making
plans for the solid gold 50th anniversary volume! Asprin and Abbey buying the
state of Michigan and bidding for the Detroit Tigers!
You and we have made it quite a phenomenon. And I swear: it’s still fun! Thanks,
my fellow fan.
Without quite knowing why, I think I’m more comfortable in this town than any of
my cohorts-the rest of the TW family. (Baghdad, that’s the way I see it: Baghdad
or the great old caravan city of Palmyra, about a year after someone put in the
Interstate five or so miles away.) To hell with the invasions by Rankans and
Stepsons (their big horses making an even worse mess of our streets and
consuming so much of our valuable grain); to hell with the invading Beys and the
Beysa and the lords ‘n’ ladies in their palatial manses; with vampires and
walking dead and walking gods and Lon Chaney Jr.! Offutt’s an Ilsig who writes
about Sanctuary and its people. True, most often my people are Not What They