Was it really worth twenty billion to go to another planet? What about cancer? What about the slums? How much does it cost? How much does any dream cost, for Christ's sake? Since when is there an accountant for ideas? You know who was at the launch today? Not the President. After all, what's a walk on the Moon? But reruns! Aw, geez! And then suddenly everybody started talking about how much everything cost. Reruns, for Christ's sake! I could understand if it was the new Lucy show. You know, when Apollo 17 landed on the Moon, people were calling up the networks and bitching because reruns of I Love Lucy were cancelled. I remember when Glenn made his first orbit in Mercury, they put up television sets in Grand Central Station, and tens of thousands of people missed their trains to watch. Both bright and talented wise-asses, looked at me in my wash-and-wear shirt carrying on this hot love affair with my slide-rule, and even you were caught up in what we'd done. Willis, you and Walker, you came in about then. And then Armstrong stepped out on the Moon, and we cried. Captain Terrific and the Mad Doctor, talking about reaching the stars, and the bartender telling us maybe we'd had enough. I remember when you told me Kay was pregnant. ![]() I told everybody about this dream I had of conquering the new frontier, and they all looked at me like I was nuts. And me, all sweaty palms and deadly serious. You looked like you just walked out of a Wheaties box. Bru, how long have we known each other? Sixteen years. I have to start by saying that if there was any other way, if there was even a slight chance of another alternative, I would give anything not to be here with you now. For this speech alone, you can observe evidence of a cogent, compelling, thriller: Here's one of them (delivered by the great actor, Hal Holbrook). I wonder who originally wrote 'em? They're superb. The movie holds not just one superb monologue but TWO. Think about the quality of the acting in this 'mere' little action flick. Peter Hyams film, and it really grows on you over time. If so, he did a great job at summing up the American national character.Īnyway okay-this is a 'pseudo-book' in itself. Sure, it's just the novelization of a screenplay but there's strong evidence that Ken Follett himself handled this assignment. I've never read the Follett book, but thought it would interesting to compare the two, and maybe figure out why they did two different versions. with the same title which was written by none other than Ken Follett under the pseudonym of Bernard L. A completely different novelization was published in the U.K. A curious point of trivia is that Goulart's book is one of -two- novelizations of that same film. Despite a really terrific cast, I didn't much care for the film, but Goulart made the characters' stories interesting. As best I can recall, Goulart didn't follow the movie script with too much precision, but tossed in some wry witticisms and slants that reflected his ability to throw some humor in every situation. This is an unusual (I believe the only other such adaptations Goulart wrote were from the original Battlestar Galactica television series) novelization of a popular film that told the story of a faked-NASA Mars expedition, an obvious play to the conspiracy theorists who were sure that the lunar expeditions never happened. Having written for comic books, Goulart produced several histories of the art form, including the Comic Book Encyclopedia (2004). Goulart has also written several comic mystery series, including six books starring Groucho Marx. In the 1970s Goulart wrote novels starring series characters like Flash Gordon and the Phantom, and in 1980 he published Hail Hibbler, a comic sci-fi novel that began the Odd Jobs, Inc. Goulart’s After Things Fell Apart (1970) is the only science-fiction novel to ever win an Edgar Award. In the 1990s, he became the ghostwriter for William Shatner’s popular TekWar novels. ![]() Since then he has written dozens of novels and countless short stories, spanning genres and using a variety of pennames, including Kenneth Robeson, Joseph Silva, and Con Steffanson. Besides writing extensively about pulp fiction-including the seminal Cheap Thrills: An Informal History of Pulp Magazines (1972)-Goulart has written for the pulps since 1952, when the Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction published his first story, a sci-fi parody of letters to the editor. ![]() Ron Goulart is a cultural historian and novelist. Pseudonyms: Howard Lee Frank S Shawn Kenneth Robeson Con Steffanson Josephine Kains Joseph Silva William Shatner.
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