The Bulging Mailbox

I got the original manuscript back from Dell magazines in the mail today, along with a couple of author's copies. They were mailed August 3 but I didn't get them until today because they had to be forwarded.

They also included a sheet on how to buy extra author's copies, but I had already contacted the Dell circulation department directly and got a price from them. In fact, the order left in today's outgoing mail.

Actually, when I say I got the manuscript back, I mean the manuscript they worked off after Gardner and I finished with the story. The ending was changed, and after the Great One and the Meager Scribbler were in agreement, he had me e-mail the final version to the office in New York.

It has the final corrections in green ink (Sheila Williams is the only person I know who uses green ink). BTW, as a newspaper editor myself, I have to comment that Sheila is an EXCELLENT copy editor. She caught every small mistake that got by Gardner and myself.

I asked my wife if I should tape the manuscript to a piece of our bedroom furniture - because that's what paid for it.

Oh, and I also got my five copies of Andromeda Spaceways in the mail today. They had to travel all the way from Australia and get forwarded, but they found me. Neat little magazine. Each magazine was mailed in a separate postage paid Aussie envelope. I guess they had to do it that way. Between the envelope from Dell and the Andromedas, the mailbox was full.

Changing subjects completely, the wife and I were shopping at Casa del Wally last night, and I picked up a DVD in the dollar bin: "The Phantom Empire" with Gene Autry.

It's a 1935 serial that combines the the Western Singing Cowboy genre with a '30s sci-fi sensibility and a lost underground kingdom.

It was great. I'd heard about it before. It probably contributed a lot to Flash Gordon, which debuted the following year.

It doesn't make a lick of sense, but it's a hoot. Even my wife said it was fun.