I got the proofs for “Citius, Altius, Fortius” e-mailed to me yesterday by the typesetter for TESSERACTS 11. I had a chance to go through them this afternoon (my schedule on vacation being so booked up with all that laying about and doing a whole lotta nothing). The only error I noted was one that was in my original manuscript (oops–my bad).

Instead of saying “fastest man on earth,” I had originally typed “fasted man on earth.” This slipped by my writer’s group, several other friends who read the tale, two editors and a typesetter, and me until right now. Not surprising I suppose, as the two words look very similar and I think your brain is anticipating what the phrase is meant to be.

But the other thing that surprised me was with the contract, which I received last week. It’s a very standard contract (quite generous with its terms, I thought) but it’s made between myself and Hades Publishing, the parent company of EDGE SF & F Publishing who will be putting out TESSERACTS 11 later this year.

Let’s just say with a names like Hades I read and re-read the contract a couple of times to make sure there was nothing about first-born children, immortal souls, and/or the requirement to sign in blood 😉

(I’m just kidding–Brian Hades, the eponymous president of Hades Publishing, surely has a lot of fun with such a colourful last name, and has doubtless already heard my lame joke a millions times before or the one about sounding like a James Bond villain. In fact, he bid at a charity auction to be a villain in a Rob Sawyer book, so he’s obviously got a good sense of humour).