Latest Update: 1 January 2009
Barry is the first writer to win the Hugo, Nebula, and John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer all in the same year. In addition to his acclaimed Enemy Mine Series, his works include the Circus World and Infinity Hold series, SF & fantasy novels, recovery and writing instruction works, and numerous short stories. He has just completed the first novel in his Redcliff Series, Turning The Grain, and is currently researching his new Civil War mystery-thriller and working on a ghost story (See: In The Works).
Because of my story in the January issue of F&SF, "The Monopoly Man," there have been questions about my book, Yesterday's Tomorrow. Yes it is in print and is available from this site, Hazelden, or almost any of the online booksellers. It is the meditation book for those who sometime need a little grit beneath their wheels or a kick in the ass to make it up that next hill. A sample:
PUTTING DOWN THE PADDLE. The regulars at the meeting had heard this line from this same person a dozen times or more, each time just before he was preparing to go out and use again. "I needed every last drink, drug, and destructive act that brought me here," he said. "I've had a lot of slips, but this time I'm back for good. This time I've really hit my bottom."
"You know," drawled a voice from the back of the room, "if you hit your bottom often enough they call it a spanking."
Barry Longyear's INFINITY HOLD\3. They found a planet no one wanted and upon it created an unsupervised gravity well for unwanted human debris: political activists, terrorists, the criminally insane, and the insanely criminal. It was a dump in the middle of a lethal desert with no support facilities, authority, control, or law. They named the planet after the deepest of Hell's hells: Tartaros. This is the story of a man and murderer, Bando Nicos, who was condemned to Tartaros and became the planet's first police officer.
Infinity Hold\3 is the complete Infinity Hold trilogy: Infinity Hold, Kill All The Lawyers, and Keep The Law. What does a society of rejects and criminals dropped into a crucible of horror and desperation come up with as a legal system?
Best Wishes . . . Happy Birthday . . . Good Luck With Your Writing . . . Congratulations!
Want your book copy signed, personalized, want to give a signed copy of a Longyear book for a present? I am happy to deface your book(s). Send what you want autographed to Barry Longyear, PO Box 100, New Sharon, Maine 04955. Include return postage and packaging stuff along with the name of the recipient and the occasion (birthday, holiday, graduation, release from incarceration, etc.). bbl
The Book & Movie Emporium is turning out to be very useful in finding the hard-to-find easily. If it's listed in our Movie Old Favorites, with but rare exception it's available on DVD (and sometimes VHS). If it's not in the Old Faves, the Emporium has a handy Amazon search button that can track down your find. No science fiction nor fantasy fan need ever go without.
All of my books (except for the media tie-ins) are in print and available. If you buy and read them all, it will save you from that embarrassing moment meeting me at an SF con just after you've said, "I've read everything you've ever written," and I begin quizzing you. "So, what did you think of The God Box? And, please be specific."
Those looking for copies of the Jaggers & Shad tales that appeared in Analog, we have bunches of them in the office. Until we can get the #@*<&!!! Paypal cart working, Email me for prices and shipping.
INTERESTED IN WRITING? Click the icon for a free look at the first two chapters of The Write Stuff Online Writing Seminar. Object: To learn how to write the best stories of which you are capable.
Know someone who wants to write? This is the gift that could really make a difference. Give it a look.
Barry Longyear's THE ENEMY PAPERS. Beginning with an expanded version of the multiple award winning "Enemy Mine," THE ENEMY PAPERS covers war and peace from a man's point-of-view, a woman's in The Tomorrow Testament, and an alien's in the final novel of the trilogy, The Last Enemy. It was an impossible war to end and planned to be that way. But the pain of war against the fantasy of peace has a funny way of making all kinds of beings think along new paths.
In addition to the complete Enemy Mine trilogy, this work includes a Drac-English English-Drac Berlitz for galactic travelers, the collected fragments of the Drac Talman, and two essays: "On Alien Languages" and "Run Drac Run." The former tells some of the fun and frustrations of inventing languages for creatures from outer space. The latter is the full, uncut, never-before-told tale of the writing of the trilogy, including the making of the motion picture Enemy Mine and surviving the writing of Enemy Mine: The Movie Tie-In novel (with David Gerrold).
