Plans have begun for the next Eaton Conference, to be held in May 2009. It's themed around Jules Verne.

The breaking news is: the second Eaton Lifetime Achievement Award will be going to...(roll on the drums, please)... Mr Frederik Pohl!

Info here:
http://www.pe.com/thingstodo/other/stories/PE_News_Loca...nconf25.3c40daf.html

And here:
http://eatonconference.ucr.edu/

(The first recipient of the award was, of course, RB - seen here with FP at the 2008 conference:


)

This message has been edited. Last edited by: philnic,

Well, we'll need to do some reading in Verne and see if there's anything interesting there. I like to try to do at least one conference a year. I'm not as familiar with Verne as I should be--given Bradbury's love of his work.

By the way, Great Photo of RB and FP. I missed this shot as I was off yakking. What a great shot this is!!

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Mr. Dark,

After Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, please read, The Mysterious Island, the story continues and I always thought the latter the better book. Read when I was very young.

Thanks. 20,000 Leagues is the only one I've read--very young, also. There's more to Verne than meets the eye. Was just looking at the North American Jules Verne society (linked from the Eaton page) and he wrote FAR more than I had imagined. Interestingly, he also had a law degree.

When I first READ Verne, long after I had become familiar with his work from the film adaptations, I was surprised at the thoroughness and sophistication of his work. The movies always tend to latch on to the high concept of giant submarine, firing people into space from a giant cannon, giant octopus (or is it squid?).

Bradbury once wrote an essay on Verne, "The Ardent Blasphemers", where he drew parallels between Verne and Melville.

If I could think of an appropriate topic, I would put in a paper proposal for the 2009 Eaton Conference. I am a bit stumped at the moment, though. (I'm considering the IAFA instead.)

Since Mr. Pohl was a guest along with Ray at this year's Eaton Conference, I though this would be an appropriate spot for this posting. The collaoration between Arthur C. Clarke and Frederik Pohl, THE LAST THEOREM, is set to be published on August 5. For a touching story about the completion of this novel during Mr. Clarke's final illness, see the story below:

http://www.cnn.com/2008/SHOWBIZ/books/07/29/clarkes.last.novel.ap/index.html