And in the end ...

[Dave Monroe]

... well, just catching up on sev'ral days without access time, without
reading time, even, and, while it's a relief not to feel that I've
missed out on a whole hell of a lot, I'm also kind of sad to see things
winding down.  Those last several pages, say, from ca. V720 (sorry,
Bantam pagination not handy), and, esp., all those short episodes
leading up to the launch, that "final delta-t," are particularly dense,
and of particular interest to me.  That last page, that "Descent," alone
... where it all comes together, or, rather, apart? that "kreplach!"
factor, perhaps, even ...

But while most of the rest of you seem disappointed, well, as one who
might indeed have stumbled onto the list in its decline, I'd say that
things have been pretty much par for the course here.  Sure, I'd have
been happier with less contention, more "relevance" or whatever, as well
(and I'm still holding out for some suggestions about that denouement,
that ending ...), but I've seen worse, esp. in a medium where a certain
impersonality, a certain being-out-of-range-of-every-one-else's-fists
does not discourage a certain nastiness.  I just wish I had the time to
devote that some of you have, I wish I'd have devoted the time over the
years that many of you have, is all ...

Me, I haven't been discouraged from following up on GR as a pointedly
politicized, nigh-unto-apocalyptic novel developed and launched in
pointedly politicized, "interesting" in that Chinese curse sense,
times,  historically embedded amidst Vietnam, the Cold War, the arms
race, the space race, the military industrial complex, the civil rights
movement, drug culture, subcultures, the gay rights movement, science
fiction, the cultural role of WWII, contemporary fiction, cinema, the
Nixon Adminstration ...

And I'd appreciate any suggestions for further reading (of GR itself,
even) along those lines, onlist, offlist, telepathically, via subspace
radio, however.  For further reading, period.  Somebody kindly sent
along some of those Charles Hollander articles already, and I've been
hunting down out-of-print books (Dugdale, Eddins, Seed), but ... but,
well, might yet have a little something to say about GR, and am looking
forward to rereading, maybe even saying a little something about that as
well ...

Thanks, all ...