April 15, 2008
I just learned that the H. Beam Piper biography, “PIPER: A Biography,” will be released at the end of May or early June, despite Amazon’s posted release date of March 30th. The biography was listed on page 3 of the McFarland Spring Catalog, but no publication date was noted. The good news is that the publisher used the “Piper in Paratime” cover I commissioned from Alan Gutierrez, although they’ve only highlighted about a third of it.
We recently received the page proofs from McFarland & Co.; Tori, my lovely wife and copy editor, is going over them now. The mostly never-before-seen photos in the book have been reproduced in amazing quality—hell, they look better than the originals! McFarland made very few textual changes and are including the complete appendix, which includes Piper’s History of the Future, Piper’s Story Log, my new piece on the Terro-Human Future History and Piper’s 1955 gun inventory.
McFarland also wants me to create an Index, which I’m working on now. After Victoria completes the first pass over the proofs, I’ll go over them myself. I don’t foresee any delays from our end.
Meanwhile, I’m working with Jerry Pournelle and Baen Books as we prepare our Imperial Stars anthology collection (three volumes) for e-publication. I’m quite pleased at how well both the stories and the essays hold up; if anything, in lieu of the debate over the “American Empire,” the books are more topical now than ever.
On February 28th, Dennis Frank and I drove to Altoona to take some pictures of Beam’s ancestral home on Chestnut Avenue before it is torn down. It was still standing so we felt very fortunate. It was the first time we’ve visited Altoona in winter and there was snow on the ground. Dennis got some good shots, which he’s posted on his web site. Click here for Dennis’s Kalvan site.
After our visit to Altoona, we went to Sevenhills Valley to visit some of the battle sites, such as the Battle of Fitra and Tarr-Dombra. The area is still undeveloped and doesn’t look much different than it would have in Beam’s day.
This year the Irregular’s Muster will meet on May 24, 2008. We will gather again in State College, Pennsylvania. This year we have plans to visit Williamsport and to try and locate some of the restaurants, businesses and landmarks mentioned in Beam’s diary. It should be a fun day! Please e-mail either me or Dennis (djfrank@PENN.COM) if you’re planning to attend or need more information.
John F. Carr
www.Hostigos.com
Otherwhen@aol.com
December 18, 2007
On Friday morning, November 23, 2007, Dennis Frank and I left Boalsburg at 9:00 a.m. to meet with Bill Shauf of the Altoona Memorial Studio. The day was slightly overcast but had a real winter bite -- temperatures in Altoona hovered around 27 degrees. The drive was pleasant, allowing us to catch up on current projects, my new War World novel which was just published and several Paratime projects. I recently finished a new Paratime short story (The Transtemporal Man) and the first draft of the new Kalvan novel ("The Fireseed Wars"). Dennis does all the background research for the Kalvan Time-Line maps that appear in each book; the new book shifts a lot of the action to the New York City area (Agrys City) and the Upper Middle Kingdoms (Great Lakes area) and we are working out the details of several new maps.
Dennis had worked up two nice designs for Beam's proposed granite headstone based on the conversations we had during our previous visit to Altoona Memorial Studio in late October. We were meeting with Mr. Shauf to go over our plans, pick out an appropriate granite headstone and work up a price.
We arrived at the Studio at 10:00 a.m., right on the dot. Bill was waiting for us and we went right to work; after viewing a number of samples, we finally decided to go with a gray granite stone with an unfinished surface as something Beam, a hiker and hunter, might have liked. We decided the black and white etching of Beam would be done in an oval of black granite set into the gray stone with the epitaph underneath. The oval will feature H. Beam Piper's head-and-shoulders taken from the painting done by SF artist Alan Gutierrez, which is the proposed cover art for my upcoming H. Beam Piper biography ("H. Beam Piper: A Biography" from McFarland & Co.).
We left Bill Shauf a disc with a high resolution scan of the original artwork; Bill will e-mail us some sample designs as soon as he meets with his artist. When we have a final design, I'll post it on my website and Dennis will post it on his for everyone to view.
Neither of us had realized the many grades of granite and other choices (flower pots, etc.) that faced us. Pricing headstones was a first for both of us and quite informative! As with most things, the more attractive and stronger granites cost the most: I suspect we'll choose the Rock of Ages granite as it's the only one with a warranty against cracking. The Memorial Studio offers a very reasonable insurance policy against vandalism, which will be included in the purchase price. Since the demise of the railroad yards, Altoona is no longer the safe harbor it was during Beam's youth... And Fairview Cemetery has seen much better days; fortunately, the Piper grave site is at the front of the cemetery, underneath a security camera, across the street from the Altoona Hospital.
After our meeting with Bill, we went to the Altoona Public Library to go over the old telephone directories for more information on Beam's Altoona residences. It was a good choice: we discovered an unknown Piper family residence at 320 Howard Avenue in the 1906-07 Directory, when H. Beam Piper was only 3 years old. The next surviving phone directory was the 1910 edition which listed Beam's father, Herbert Orr, at 400 Wordsworth. The 400 block is at the end of Wordsworth, about a quarter of a mile from a small stream, and was declared a flood plain in the 1970's, according to a local neighbor we questioned, and all the houses were bulldozed. On our previous trip to Altoona, we found evidence of several foundations on the 400 block, but none far enough from the "road" to be 407 Wordsworth.
The source of the 407 Wordsworth address is the heading of a September 21, 1939 letter from Piper to Ferd Coleman, which Don Coleman has preserved and photocopied for use in the Piper biography. We were unable to find any evidence of the 407 Wordsworth in the address in the 1939 telephone directory (unfortunately, there was no 1940 directory either on the shelves or on microfilm). The 1941 directory listing for Herbert O. Piper gives the Piper address as 400 Wordsworth. It's our conclusion that Beam mixed up the two address in his 1939 letter, after just having moved from 400 Wordsworth to 407 Howard Avenue.
We did make one serendipitous discovery: we found Beam's grandparents' address in the 1896-97 telephone directory! It listed the Piper address (under Mary E. Piper, widow of Henry Beam P.) as 2110 W. Chestnut Avenue. Also listed as occupants of 2110 W. Chestnut Ave. were Henry A. Piper, Herbert O. Piper (Beam's father), James E. Piper, Katherine E. Piper and William G. Piper. H. Beam Piper was named after his paternal grandfather, Dr. Henry Beam Piper, who fought in the Civil War and was also known as H. Beam Piper. It's obvious Beam was named after his famous grandfather: why he kept it a secret and told people his first name was Horace is anyone's guess...?
Our next visit was to the 320 Howard Street address which was near Fairview Cemetery, a location we've walked several times. Sadly, Piper's first home no longer exists and, like all three of the other known H. Beam Piper Altoona residences, is the site of a parking lot. In this case, a SubExpress deli parking lot...
We were disappointed, but not surprised; another reason why the Piper memorial headstone is necessary and important.
Also at the library we located three other residences (that have been torn down) on the 1950's 1314 8th Street Piper residence. Most of the foundations are long gone, which is why we were interested in finding out how many other 8th street residences were on the 1300 block. The corner house, 1300 8th Street, is still standing. Beside it is a large garage, with two two-door garage doors, that looks as if it pre-dates the 1950s. It's a small block and it's impossible at this time without a photo or map showing individual residences to locate the exact position of Beam’s final Altoona residence.
Our final stop was 2110 West Chestnut; not an easy location to find due to intersecting rail lines and dead end streets. To add to the confusion of finding places, many Altoona streets lack street signs at intersections. We finally located the house on an unmarked corner; it's a three story red-brick stately Victorian home, fallen on hard times. The neighborhood, like much of Altoona, is depressed and most of these stately old Victorians in the 2100 block of Chestnut have been broken up into smaller apartments and boarding houses. The Piper family home is a large old building in what was once one of the better Altoona neighborhoods. When we got out of the car and examined the house, we discovered several "Condemned" signs on the front door dating back to 2007. It appears we were just in time to visit it before the wrecking crew arrived! Regardless, we were ecstatic, since this Victorian is the first Piper residence of any kind either in Altoona or Williamsport that has not been razed and turned into a parking lot...
On our next trip to Altoona to finalize the Piper memorial design, we will take along cameras so that we can document it and add it to Dennis's website along with all the other Piper/Lord Kalvan related pictures he has up. Why not check out Dennis's Lord Kalvan web site.
Since our trip to Altoona, Dennis and I have been busy working out the details for a Piper Memorial Website to memorialize Beam and collect donations for his new memorial tombstone. Mark Richardson, the talented website designer of my own Hostigos website, agreed to help design and host the new H. Beam Piper Memorial website—thank you, Mark! We’ve spent the last month defining and creating with what we thought would be a site that was informative, entertaining and appropriate as a tribute to H. Beam Piper. Mark’s overall design, both tasteful and easy to access, exceeded all our expectations. We hope you agree.
It is our plan to raise enough money through contributions so that as a group of Piper fans and admirers we can replace the simple, grass covered, marker, with a solid granite memorial stone, which will include an etching of Beam and his epithet: "One line in our French divorce pleased him very much—it was: ‘He always maintained his independence,’ he said he wanted that on his tombstone. Betty Piper."
We are working towards dedicating the memorial headstone and having an unveiling in the summer of 2008. As soon as we have finalized the memorial website, we'll start collecting donations for the stone itself. We are hoping to involve the mayor of Altoona and Piper fans from all over the U.S., who will be there to join in our celebration of H. Beam Piper, an author who has brought us all so much reading pleasure.
John F. Carr
www.Hostigos.com
Otherwhen@aol.com