Rick’s Comments (group member since Apr 14, 2020)

Rick’s comments from the The Assassination of Olof Palme group.

Anybody interested can now find a group just begun today by Todd Kimm, the chief of Maintenance Ends Press. I urge you to join. ME published Voices After Evelyn. At this point they have started at podcast, one of which featured David Vardeman, who read one of his stories from An Angel of Sodom, and soon there will be a podcast or series of the, of me reading a spoken novel exclusively thought up for Maintenance Ends called The Smiley Face Killers.

Vol. 1 is in production.

I have decided to print the book in 4 volumes. I'm thinking anyone who buys the first three will get the fourth free if they want it.
Look for an excerpt at coronasamizdat.com

The Olof cover will be the same except for eventual author name changes.

That's the new Driftless Trilogy cover. The back is on my profile page, I think, and it's as important as the front.

I saw that. No true bearing on this novel, hvala bogu.

...and that was when she put me in the soft lockdown, which to her, I suppose now, was a form of love...

I am just near to re-opening the Olof case. I had an adventure with almost getting Arjun and the Good Snake published, and now am trying to lay the groundwork for corona/samizdat's run of pocket books (which has begun with David Vardeman's An Angel of Sodom (and 13 stories), will be followed by Skulls of Istria, as that idiot publisher at Riverboat has run out of hard copies and is giving the epub away free (wihtout my permission) (I figured 5 bucks was fair, or free with a purchase of Eddie Vegas, which he no longer has). That will be followed by The Driftless Trilogy, which is now being proofed by me and two volunteers, then by George Salis' world edition of Sea Above, Sun Below. Next will be Bori Praper's Cynicism Management. Once I write something up about the press to serve as semi-manifesto and proto-catalogue, I will be free to re-open the Olof investigations.
Loved your book, by the way--so darn sentimental, I am...

Thanks, Mike. Well, you see how easy it was to get James Adler in the book--and he has written something from within the character I made him. I'm sure we have something for you, I mean a place. a little exploring, or an idea utterly your own, this is a very expandable-dible project.
r

Jimmy baby, you'll be James on the cover, though.

This is how it reached the book:

The notorious Brigada Rossa bomber Jimmy Q(Querini) came in from the cold, joining a meeting of ex-radicals held weekly in Padova in the early 1980s, a result of the sickening bombing at the Bologna train station.
The transcript from his introduction survives: Hello everyone, I'm James. You don't know me but I know you, kind of. I'm 23 years old and I was born and continue to live in Monfalcone. All my bombing info is snug within notebooks buried in my bookshelves, or stored safe with a messenger, delivered to myself. In other words, I don't get out much. The only income I've made from bombing is holding my mama hostage behind a pay wall on her birthdays. I'm just a road worker these days, but I've been around a bit. Don't know yet if I'll be any good for this, but hell be damned, I love a great bomb, I enjoy building them, and it sounds like a lot of work giving it up. This whole project intrigues the shit outta me and I'm honoured to have been offered a chance here.

James, for reasons I can't explain, we need to know if we can call you Jimmy.
Otherwise, as this is a 'People's Novel' you're in.
I particularly love your unguarded enthusiasm. Energy like that can take a project like this over the top (in both fine ways), off the cliff, too, which might be most appropriate by the time we're through.
What I love about this anthological book is that as it turns out it can take in a wide range of styles. Your paragraph above is sufficiently well-written to make it, if only there were a good excuse, like if you wrote everything exactly as is but Melbourne, Australia, and instead wrote Monfalcone, Italy--oh, and replace writing with bombing. In fact, I'll prove it to you by changing just that and including you in the preratta section right now and sending it to you.

You are definitely now a key member of the Olof cell.

So you STOLE it. Good. We need at least 1 good thief.

If rules could ALL be gathered and burnt. Thanks Chris.

Advanced complex forecasting needn't apply as a lab here on the coast of Slovenia with a direct view of the cliffs of Duino across the bay of Trieste has reached the testing stage of an online mag measuring device.
Facts coming soon--hold back on the bleach.

George's online publication is a tiny thing that has managed to capture for interview a marvelous range of literary folk, including Steven Moore.

Once we get going a bit, I'm thinking of a thread of contributions to the book. I have an excellent one from George and a simply means of bringing it into the novel.

Left Hand is due the day after my birthday, which is May 17. Yeah, that was it--birthday present.

The Soft Lockdown--you going to use it or am I?

Fascinating stuff all in all, if at times irritating and near condescending. This is the advantage of getting published--you have rendered such criticism superfluous. Or at least moved beyond the 'workshopping' critique.
I'm up for a piss and saw this, so more later. Amazing you know all this stuff. Looks like I can't wait so long to get your book, which is a pity as I told my wife I was finished spending (I borrowed to do this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4JUl... ) and the lender began acting like a cock the minute he released the funds. I paid him a third back right away but have spent 400 or so liberally, buying out of print books and each time hitting the button, going Fuck You, T. Well, so one more is on its way. The Left Hand. 60 years and i still have mine! Main point it I should be holding on to the dough so I can order more if necessary.