Vol. 1 No. 4 June 1990

Inside This Issue:

• “The State of Where,” by Robert R. McCammon • An interview with Jeffrey Sackett, by Hunter Goatley

• Interviews with Al Sarrantonio and Kazue Tanaka, by Robert R. McCammon

• A letters column

• Reports on NECON X and the 1990 WFC • A Joe R. Lansdale update

• News of McCammon’s new novel Boy’s Life

\underline{Lights Out!}

“And Now, the End Is Near. …”

A Look at the Future by Hunter Goatley

Well, once again, finally! As you all know, I think, this issue has been delayed because my family and I moved again, this time from Knoxville to Bowling Green, KY. Again, I appreciate your patience and understanding.

Each time I go to press, the issue seems to change from what I originally intended. I’ve been telling you for awhile that this issue would feature a new McCammon short story— well, it doesn’t. It does, however, have an essay entitled “The State of Where,” written by McCammon exclusively for Lights Out! The essay describes where McCammon is in his career, and where he’s going. I think you’ll find it interesting.

Now the bad news. As you probably gathered from the title above, I’m extinguishing the lights on Lights Out! Despite my best efforts, finding the time to devote to the newsletter is becoming more and more difficult. The fact that I’ve only been able to do three issues in the last 13 months shows that something’s not right. There are several reasons that I won’t be able to keep up Lights Out!:

1.) Production costs have steadily risen as I’ve moved around the country. The last issue and this one were more expensive than the previous three issues had been; in fact, much of the subscription renewals went to pay for those issues. I also severely over-estimated the growth of Lights Out!—the renewals since June will not cover the cost of four more issues; more on that in a minute.

2.) I like my job now. In the beginning, Lights Out! was a much-needed diversion from a programming job that had become unbearable—only I didn’t realize it at the time. Now that I’m out of the “hell-job,” I find myself less willing to spend my free time working on Lights Out!

3.) I’ve been stepping up my writing for the technical journal VAX Professional. Since 1986 I’ve written 16 articles for them; this year I’m to start a series of programming articles that will probably be published as a book.

4.) I’m going to be teaching some programming classes this

fall at Western Kentucky University. 5.) And most importantly, my almost-two-year-old daughter

Margaret wants—and should have—more time to spend with Daddy. Lately, between work and Lights Out! she and Dana have had to spend too much time without me—and vice versa.

Since renewals have been lower than anticipated and new subscriptions have been virtually non-existent, I cannot afford to publish four more issues of Lights Out!—instead of offering refunds, I’ve decided that there will be one more issue of Lights Out! sometime later this year. This special issue will be longer than previous issues and will be available to current subscribers only. Book dealers will not be selling them and I won’t have any extra copies for sale.

Rick McCammon has been a joy to work with, and when I told him of my plans to discontinue Lights Out! he offered to help me make the last issue very special for you. Therefore, the next and final issue of Lights Out! will feature not one, but two excerpts from abandoned Robert R. McCammon novels!

Though Rick once told me that he would never show The Address to anyone, he has volunteered to let me publish what he had written at the time he shelved the book. That’s about 50 manuscript pages. Rick is also providing me with the beginning of The Midnight Man, a novel he started last year. In addition, the issue will feature a brand-new interview with Rick, where we’ll discuss Boy’s Life and more about Rick’s plans for the future. I’ll be driving to Birmingham in March or April to sit down and talk with Rick, so if you have any questions you want me to ask him, please send them soon.

As you can see, I’m planning for Lights Out! to go with a BANG! And since the next issue is for current subscribers only, there won’t be very many copies. I’ve got plenty of back issues of issues 2 and 3 sitting around being a fire hazard; if you’d like extra copies of those issues, send $1 for each copy and I’ll mail them out immediately. The $1 will cover postage and the envelope(s). There are no limits, except that the offer is available only to current subscribers. I still have some of issues 1 and 4, but I’m not sure how many; let me know if you want those issues and I’ll include them as long as they last. Please send all correspondence to the address at the bottom of this page. And thanks for your patience—the last issue will be out this summer.

On the cover: the artwork for McCammon’s upcoming novel, Boy’s Life, and a magazine illustration accompanying a Japanese translation of “The Thang.”

Lights Out!

The

Robert R. McCammon Newsletter

Vol. 2 No. 1 February 1991

Published by: Hunter Goatley

Lights Out! P. O. Box 1234 Nowhere, NA 12345-6789

Thanks to Paddy McKillop, Jodi Strissel, Paul Schulz, Adam Rothberg, & you. Thanks especially to Jeffrey Sackett, Kazue Tanaka, Al Dana & Margaret Goatley!

This newsletter was typeset on a Digital VAX 6320, using the TEX typesetting system developed by Donald E. Knuth.

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Sarrantonio, Joe Lansdale, and Rick & Sally McCammon.

Incredibly special thanks to

◯^{C} 1991 by Hunter Goatley. All rights reserved. Permission to reprint required.

The Robert R. McCammon Newsletter

Interview: Kazue Tanaka

Conducted by Robert R. McCammon; transcribed by Hunter Goatley

Editor’s note: Ms. Kazue Tanaka is a Japanese writer/translator who has translated Robert R. McCammon’s stories from Night Visions IV into Japanese. The following interview was conducted at the 1990 World Fantasy Convention, where Ms. Tanaka finished up a month-long visit to the United States. Ms. Tanaka is currently at work translating McCammon’s 1981 vampire epic, They Thirst.

RM: I’d like to know how you go about translating, say, one of my books. Do you read the book first?

KT: Yes. Usually I read the book a couple of times and then I start translating. Maybe you know that we have a completely different grammatical diction from English, so we can’t put a word in the same order in Japanese. Usually I read a sentence and grasp the meaning of it and reconstruct it in Japanese.

RM: I would think that would be very difficult to do.

KT: It is!

RM: I’m sure it is, because there’s such a great difference in the grammatical form. You have to be very careful, I guess, in terms of reading in English and translating to Japanese. That seems to me to be very difficult. How did you train to do this?

KT: Usually we have some kind of mentor or teacher.

RM: Were you like an apprentice, and someone teaches you to do this?

KT: Yes. We put the original stories [beside] the translations and compare the sentences.

RM: How long would it take you to translate They Thirst?

KT: It depends on how long the story is. They Thirst will take at least three months. How long did it take you to write it?

RM: Well, it took about six or seven months to write.

KT: Maybe I’ll need that kind of time, too!

RM: But it’s almost like, if you’re interpreting, you’re almost doing some writing yourself. If you’re making something more concise, or—do you do that? Are you abridging? Do you think anything gets changed in the translation?

KT: We try not to change, but sometimes a little change is necessary. We don’t have some things that you have here in America. For instance, some brand names. We don’t have the culture of your country, and the Japanese readers don’t know if I translated correctly, but it is impossible for Japanese readers to understand that culture. Maybe, in that case, things get changed sometimes.

RM: Do you feel that you interpret the story more so your countrymen can understand what’s going on in the book? Do you think you add more of your culture to the story?

KT: Basically, we don’t add anything, we don’t take away anything. But in that case, we explain [the cultural differences] after the story in an afterword.

RM: How many books have you translated?

KT: Maybe twelve, or something. Among them, Brain Child, by John Saul, and some mysteries. I’m going to translate some stories of Orson Scott Card’s.

RM: I think it would be very interesting, if I could read Japanese, to read my book and see what the changes are. Or how it’s geared toward that culture.

KT: Conversation—when people talk—is very difficult to put into Japanese. If the character is a woman, a man, a boy, or a girl, Japanese has a very distinctive way of speaking. Especially between a man and woman. English does not have as much difference.

RM: Well, that’s fascinating. I think it would be a very tough thing to do—to translate something into an entirely different culture and still have the flavor of the American version, at least. I wouldn’t want to do it—I don’t think I could do it very well.

KT: Your stories are very American—that may be why they appeal to Japanese readers.

RM: Really? I was going to ask you why my stories appeal—if they do appeal—to Japanese readers. Well, first, I didn’t know that horror fiction was so popular in Japan. Is it? Is it becoming more popular? What do you think the situation is?

KT: Your [novels] have not been translated at all yet. So, apart from you, Stephen King and Dean R. Koontz are very popular—they are as popular as other big writers. Other horror writers are not so well-known. Some very keen fans like American horror.

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RM: Why do you think that is? King and Koontz are definitely very American writers. Do you think that’s their appeal—the American style?

KT: Yes, I do.

RM: Not necessarily because of the story being told, but because maybe it’s told in an American voice?

KT: Yes, sometimes. I’m still trying to [learn] the American voice—it’s very hard to do.

RM: Well, I know that’s very tough to do, and I’m looking forward to seeing the books when they are translated.

KT: I’m looking forward to it too!

The final issue of Lights Out! will feature excerpts from Robert R. McCammon’s unpublished novels The Address and The Midnight Man, a brand-new interview with McCammon about Boy’s Life, more author interviews, and the latest news! Coming Summer 1991!

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