My condolences.
News R.I.P. - Margaret Wander Bonanno - 2021-04-08
- Thread starter Neroon
- Start date
A
Amaris
Guest
Margaret, you were such a good friend. There were times when we’d be at loggerheads over some idea upon which we disagreed, bicker back and forth about it for days via instant message, and then just laugh at each other because at the end of the day it didn’t really matter, because we genuinely cared for each other, and for every other person on this great big little world.
It was often quoted by you, when someone passed on, a line from John Donne’s “No Man Is An Island.”
“Every man’s death diminishes me,” you would say, and now I am greatly diminished. All of the fun we had talking, getting to know each other, just as personalities, minds trapped on each end of a fiber optic cable, but it still felt just as real as any friendship. I said it, I say it, I will say it again, you will be sorely missed, my dear friend.
Now, friend, you’re off to touch the stars, and I wouldn’t dream of keeping you back from that journey even for a moment.
The Goddess’ speed, Garamet.
Sincerely and with every blessing,
J.
It was often quoted by you, when someone passed on, a line from John Donne’s “No Man Is An Island.”
“Every man’s death diminishes me,” you would say, and now I am greatly diminished. All of the fun we had talking, getting to know each other, just as personalities, minds trapped on each end of a fiber optic cable, but it still felt just as real as any friendship. I said it, I say it, I will say it again, you will be sorely missed, my dear friend.
Now, friend, you’re off to touch the stars, and I wouldn’t dream of keeping you back from that journey even for a moment.
The Goddess’ speed, Garamet.
Sincerely and with every blessing,
J.
This is such shocking news!
Very sorry to hear this. Margaret was one of the pathfinders for Trek lit.
When we got the news yesterday that Margaret Wander Bonanno had passed away, I realized that the only Margaret Wander Bonanno Star Trek books I haven’t read are “Music of the Spheres,” which she very kindly e-mailed me, and her Mere Anarchy novella. I’m reading “Spheres” now and feeling sad I will never be able to e-mail her how much I love it. This has given me a resolution to reach to out to living authors more often and let them know what their work means to me. MWB is one of the foundational writers for me, someone whose work I have reread so many times it is a part of me, and someone who has influenced me as a writer in countless ways. Her works do follow her.
Most unfortunate. RIP.
I'm curious what format the copy of Music of the Spheres was sent to you in. I did some converting for Margret for this so it would be in more easily accessible for reading. If you want ePub, read my post above that give the link to the ePub version. It converts well if you need a Kindle version.
I converted the file into a Word document and I’m struggling with it. Would love to check out your post.
This is sad news. I agree with your sentiments about us as readers making the effort to reach out to authors to not only say we appreciated what they wrote but also what it was in particular, that excited us, touched us, raised our consciousness, made us laugh or cry or scared the crap out of us. As for Margaret, I wrote a review on Amazon after I read "Unspoken Truth" when it was released, and she and I had a few interactions on this site. I thought "Unspoken Truth" and "Burning Dreams" were amazing accomplishments.
I converted from the Word document Margaret sent me. The ePub is formatted as a proper eBook.
I'm thinking of rereading Music of the Spheres.
I have the Word document, too, and had been thinking of doing this very thing off and on for the last year or so. I'll take a look!
A friend had ten or so copies of Music printed up as a hardcover, another did the layout and designed the dust jacket. I have a copy, she autographed it at Shore Leave 2006, and she wrote, "With my eternal gratitude." I remember Marco Palmieri saying to me at that Meet the Pros Party, "I can't see that, but I want to see that." I handed it to him, he flipped through it, and smiled.
Strangers from the Sky has always been treasured by me, and, in my opinion, Burning Dreams was the best of the 40th-anniversary projects.
ETA...
I'm looking at it now... nice work! I've bought ebooks that aren't even a tenth as professionally done as this. I may tinker with your stylesheet in Calibre, but that's only because I'm a nerd.
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With the hardcover version, how is the cover compared to the one I used for the ePub? I think this should have been published as an official book. It's quite good. I've enjoyed all of Margret's Trek books. Both the ones you've mentioned are very good.
I'm looking at it now... nice work! I've bought ebooks that aren't even a tenth as professionally done as this. I may tinker with your stylesheet in Calibre, but that's only because I'm a nerd.
Thank you. I did use Calibre to convert the Word document and from there I edited it to be as I wanted. I don't recall if back then I used Sigil or Calibre had the editor. Feel free to tinker away. I tinker a lot with ePub CSS. I have no idea why most eBooks are not all that well formatted. I do like to format my eBooks so they look consistent and they work with Readers such as Kobo that have settings actually work. Also, the CSS is made to be fairly simple so if anyone wants to edit it, it's not going to be difficult.
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Given how long ago I did the conversion from Word to ePub for Music of the Spheres, I've had a quick go at it to fix the code a little. I've replaced the copy I linked before with the updated copy. Enjoy!
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=177182
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=177182
Very close. Different font for "Star Trek," different way of handling Margaret's name at the bottom. I'm having trouble embedding the image, but it's here on my server. The lighting in my office isn't great, and the cover is a bit reflective.
Yeah, I read "Music," I guess, twenty years ago, and I could never for the life of me figure out why Richard Arnold had such a tantrum over this book. Especially since the outline had been approved and the Star Trek office knew what they were getting.
Cool. I'll probably swap in the Standard Ebooks stylesheets. I like the look and feel of their books, and I've been using that as a code base for some personal projects the last two years or so.
I am likewise baffled by poorly formatted ebooks. I sometimes wonder if the publisher (which is sometimes, but not always, the author) even looked to see how the ebook actually looked on an ebook reader.
Wasn't it just that it was a sequel to Dwellers in the Crucible? He objected to continuing characters between books or comic storylines because he felt they overshadowed the TV cast. Although that wouldn't explain why he didn't object in the outline stage.