You can’t make this stuff up.
As followers of this site are likely aware, Powys Media lost the rights to Space:1999, which resulted in the print-on-demand service used to publish the books basically disabling the account, and low-and-behold, the entire book line is now unavailable.
So, in most depressing to least depressing news…
- Neither Powys Media nor your humble author have copies of Odysseus Wept for you, nor can we just make more.
- There is probably a limited supply of some Powys books still available from Amazon (who tended to order blocks of books from the print on demand service) — this would potentially include Resurrection, The Forsaken, Survival, and Shepherd Moon. I suspect these will go quickly (likely to be depleted within days or weeks of this posting), so strike while the iron’s hot.
- I am not going to say anything pro or con about any of the players involved in this recent turn of events, specifically because I don’t want to alienate anyone involved.
- I can make no promises! But I can tell you that the authors of the Powys Books own the copyright of their works (myself included), and collectively the copyright holders are working through a trusted representative on our behalf to see what options, if any, might be arranged to get some or all of the books reprinted. Powys Media supports this activity, so nothing’s happening behind anybody’s back, and we’ll remain hopeful that something positive will come of this — but there is NO timeframe that I can offer you and no guarantee that anything will happen.
In the meantime, I’ll make some general observations about what I would do as a fan/collector of something that became unobtainable.
- Libraries are a thing — but no libraries likely have copies of the Powys Media Space:1999 novels. However, all of you who have do have copies are effectively a library — the thought of mangling a collectible that will not look good if and when it ever comes back to you is probably a nightmarish thing to consider as a collector, but for anybody who’s ever seen Mr. Truffaut’s adaptation of Ray Bradbury’s “Fahrenheit 451” and remembers the ending with the “book people” — communities of book lovers want to share — I can’t organize this for you, but you can organize it among yourselves.
- Every year, this happens — Moby-Dick Marathon 2022 – New Bedford Whaling Museum. Keep in mind, Moby Dick is in the public domain — Odysseus Wept is not. Charging for it, or recording and selling the recording, of Odysseus Wept, is probably not wise — but meeting in groups, or having readings of portions at conventions, that sounds like a perfectly legit community of fans activity. Apologies that I made the book so darned long this time around.
At some point, it may make sense to lobby some organization or organizations to try to change the outcome. It’s probably too early to consider something like that right now, but as just one of several authors, I can say that I’m much more interested in people having access to these books than anything else. These books were always meant to be read.
Eventually, if there is no movement, I’ll likely create a plot synopsis of Odysseus Wept for anybody who wants to “know how it all turns out” but I think you can all imagine how that would not be my preference.
Sorry if this is all a nothing-burger for now. But for right now, we’re seeing what’s possible. Please don’t pick on Powys Media. They’d love to be selling you books right now if they could.