Still waiting for editorial feedback on my Birthright monograph -- editor Paul Simpson has been having some health issues, so things have been delayed a bit, unfortunately. Glad to hear good things about the inaugural volumes.....
Hm.. I ordered a couple weeks ago and the order is still processing. Seems slow given the exorbitant overseas postage costs. Oh well.
Oh. You're writing on Birthright? That should be interesting. I mean, I expect I'll be buying all of the Gold Archives, but this seems like a particularly good match of author and subject. You're not paying for speed, you're paying because international postal rates are insane these days. And there's a global pandemic going on.
I bought the Disco volume, 'Through the Valley of Shadows' -- the Kindle edition, due to postage prices & times -- and I like it. I agree the author 'gets it' and nicely ties the Disco episode with Menagerie, etc. I've learned interesting tidbits of American history. The birds-eye view the author offers, with the time crystal being a metaphor for how the past & future of Star Trek is reflected in what's going on in this particular Disco episode, is illuminatingly synthetic. Whenever I encounter pretentious verbiage, I tend to revel in jubilant conviviality. ;-) However, this author has put so much thesauric effort in the piece that it hampers readability. He seems to be proud of how on his view the time crystal is a 'meta-fictional superstructure', a concept which is supposed to be familiar to the readers of his previous Black Archive entry. Whew. Come on. Just like not every two things form a 'dialectic', you don't need to call any element of an episode which relates to a different episode 'metafictional', and not every overarching form needs to be a 'superstructure'. (Also, isn't 'meta' with 'super' just too much? Wouldn't 'metafictional structure' suffice?) The book could've used another editorial pass. I think some sentences feature in two versions, one next to the other, with the second one being the corrected one :-) However, don't let me sound too negative here. This is good effort. It's a nice, informative, thought-through volume on an important Disco episode. And it's really cheap. I know I'll be buying more. (@KRAD 's piece for sure.)
The first three arrived today in perfect condition. I look forward to reading at least one of them this weekend. I should probably revisit the episode under consideration first, though.
That's certainly the plan. As KRAD mentioned a few posts back, the series editor is having some health issues.
Thanks, fellow fans, for the reminder. I ordered the first three volumes. They're now safely in Calibre and my Kobo. I'll start one once I finish my current read.
I think they were spreading them over a couple of batches anyway. I know I delivered mine, so it and the others should turn up in due course this year.
The editor, Paul Simpson, is recovering nicely from a surgical procedure, and according to his most recent status update, he should be diving back into editing the outstanding monographs (including mine and @Lonemagpie's) by month's end.
While everyone's waiting for the next set of Gold Archives to come out, we've created Lulu editions, which should hopefully cut down on the painful trans-Atlantic shipping costs for non UK readers... Return of the Archons Through the Valley of Shadows Spock's Brain
That's always been an annoyance I've had with Gallifrey Base. There are no public subfora you can browse before you join to see if you want to become a member. You have to join first, before you know if it's a forum you want to be a part of.
They announced that the line is officially ended: Obverse Books is sad to announce that, due to Paul Simpson’s retirement following his recent serious heart attack, we have decided to bring the Gold Archive to an end after only three volumes. When considered launching the Gold Archive in early 2021, I realised immediately that the only way it could work is if Paul, a former editor of Star Trek Magazine and an expert on the series, as well as a good friend, was involved. A long-time editor on the Black Archive range of Doctor Who books, it was he who commissioned the first set of Trek titles and worked with the writers as primary editor, and without his input there would be no range at all. The existing titles will continue to be available, but without Paul's involvement, there seems little point in continuing the series, as the knowledge and standards he brought are simply not available from anyone else.