I see dead authors...

[ffutures]

I've just been indulging in my favourite pursuit of trying to find authors who have gone out of European copyright, and realised that James Joyce will be out pretty soon, since he died in 1941.

I suspect that we will shortly see a shitload of crap from people who think that they are capable of doing his work justice... or not, e.g. Ulysses - With Zombies!

Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed. A semiautomatic shotgun, shoulder-slung, was sustained gently behind him on the mild morning air. He held the bowl aloft. Outside zombies intoned:

"— Brainzzzzz"

This is just a promise that I will NOT attempt to write Ulysses - The Role Playing Game or any variant thereof.

All of which reminds me to say that if anyone can suggest any good SF authors who died in e.g. 1930-40 I would love to know about them - the Weinbaum RPG has been getting some very positive feedback, and eventually I might want to venture into this period again.

Comments

[whswhs.livejournal.com]

I think Finnegans Wake would work better. It largely takes place in the Dreamlands, after all.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Definitely 100.000% NO!

[pauldrye.livejournal.com]

Philip Francis Nowlan died on February 1, 1940. So you get Buck Rogers, though I rather imagine it was kept in copyright. There's other work, though.

Ford Madox Ford died in '39. Didn't he write an SF novel with Joseph Conrad?

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Re Buck Rogers - The books themselves are out of copyright, but I'd imagine that there are all sorts of trademark etc. issues associated with the characters. It's the sort of legal mess I prefer to stay clear of. Nowlan's other work doesn't seem to be around much, though I'd imagine it's available somewhere - I'll have to do a search.

The Ford book was The Inheritors - not a particularly good one for an RPG, I think. The setup described looks a bit too much like ordinary 20th-century politics.

[heliograph.livejournal.com]

Abraham Merritt!

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

He's 1943, and I'm really looking more for SF anyway.

You're well to keep clear of Joyce

[murphys-lawyer.livejournal.com]

By all accounts, his grandson took advantage of the EU's 20-year copyright extension to get very rich off people who'd used his grandad's works when they temporarily fell into the public domain under the old 50-year rule.

He's no lover of "fair use" either - he once refused a composer permission to use 18 words from Finnegans Wake because "to put it politely and mildly, my wife and I don’t like your music".

Re: You're well to keep clear of Joyce

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Charming. Oh well, no doubt plans are already in motion from several publishers...

[pauldormer.livejournal.com]

Ulysses - The Role Playing Game would actually be a game that I'd be interested in. :-)

Steven R. Boyett did a book of Star Trek parodies called Treks not Taken. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Fan begins:

"Stately, bald Captain Picarus came from the turbolift, bearing a personal log on which a cup of Earl Gray lay steeping."

I came across this book at a Worldcon in Los Angeles when the author was doing a signing. I picked up a copy, turned to the Joyce parody, and burst out laughing. To which the author said, I really had to buy a copy now. But he did add a Joycean dedication (which I can't now read).

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Nice, but bearing in mind the "quality" of most of the literature I work with (Weinbaum and Walton being the big exceptions, of course) I really doubt I can do justice to Joyce.

[were-gopher.livejournal.com]

I know this list is more fantasy than SF but it's what I could come up with by putting "193X deaths" writer into wikipedia then scanning for names (x of course being variable to keep the list down to a year at a time). Almost certainly missed some and deliberately left out people like J M Barrie and Kenneth Grahame but it's a start.

Thorne Smith (1934)
Robert E Howard (1936)
M R James (1936)
H P Lovecraft (1937)
Karel Capek (1938)
Luis Senarens (1939)
J H Rosny aine (1940)

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Thorne Smith was something I wanted to do, but his family still vigourously defend the US copyright - although he's been out of copyright in Europe for a while there are just too many problems.

Howard not really my style.

Lovecraft - already too much competition

Capek and Aine - the translations may still be copyright even if the original works aren't, it's a bit of a minefield. Again, probably more trouble than its worth.

Senarens - looks interesting, I will have to investigate.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Forgot to say that I do have all of Smith's novels that are out of copyright in Europe on my web site.