Message Board (offline)
The Cosmopolis
Literary
Supplement
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Status info and subscriber list can be found here
Who
Some time
ago, some of the former volunteers of the VIE decided that it would be nice
to have a bound version of Cosmopolis. After some discussion we decided to
make it happen. The committee to make this happen now consists of Brian
Gharst (who came up with the idea in the first place), Greg Hansen (one of
the founders of Foreverness), Thomas Rydbeck, Paul Rhoads, Joel Anderson and
Hans van der Veeke.
Why
We are committed to preserving VIE project history, an effort of 300
volunteers over 6 years. Just as the VIE volumes themselves, as opposed to
the electronic archive, is the project�s major accomplishment towards
preservation of the work of Jack Vance, so a printed and bound Cosmopolis
set will be the best preservation of this history. The VIE project has been
an important event in many lives, and, in our view, is the greatest and most
profoundly democratic honor ever given to a writer.
How
The bound Cosmopolis will be 3 folio volumes of about 500 pages each,
bound in a manner not identical but in harmony with the VIE volumes. We may,
or may not, offer a 'deluxe' version. There will be no color, so that color
pictures in e-Cosmopolis will be rendered in black & white. There will,
however, be a general table of contents, often more detailed than the
contents lists in the issues themselves, as well as an index, including
volunteer and subscriber names, Vance characters, other authors, and etc.
Price
The
estimate we have now is that the volumes will cost around 70 euros each�depending on design�plus shipping, and will be sold as a set
only. We are working with Stefania Zacco, who produced the VIE volumes and
who also gave us this estimate
We were
recently contacted by the president of the VIE board, who was responding to
a request, with the grant of a subsidy towards the preservation of
Cosmopolis, and the history of the VIE project it represents, through
publication of a printed version of the monthly VIE newsletter in three
volumes--what we are informally calling Cx3. The subsidy will be used to
bring the subscription price down, we hope by about 2/3s of the production
cost--for about the first 50 or 75 subscribers--to about 100 Euros,
or, we hope, less--depending on how production details develop.
Subsidy
Our researches suggest that 50 is about the number of subscribers who
will be interested, at the subsidized price, but there may be more, and
these, unfortunately, will have to pay full price. Our object, however, is
not mass distribution, but simply preservation of Cosmopolis, and thus VIE
project history, from inevitable digital death.
Note
The books will be printed in black and white only. So photo's and other
pictures will be converted from colour to B&W.