(Speaking of UBIK, here’s an interview with Dead Dick. Courtesy of the Bardotown Gazette.)
Bardotown Gazette Reporter (BG): Dick, how do you like being dead?
Dead Dick (DD): Tell me the truth, did you really like your first beer or cup of coffee? Didn’t it take a bit of getting used to? Death, like beer and coffee, is an acquired taste. As it is now, I wouldn’t want to live without being dead.
BG: Have you been working on any new books since your terminus?
DD: I have made some furtive attempts at ghost writing. So far I have not been able to find any Lightsiders that could put themselves and their own interests aside long enough to get even a novella out. I shouldn’t make it sound so negative. I have a coup
le of good prospects even as we speak. The trick seems to be to let them think that they are stealing my ideas and style for their own purposes. You may see some pretty interesting material during the next few years. I only hope they can learn to spell, punctuate and use grammar. Don’t you know that it must be a law somewhere that “those who are able are not willing and those who are willing are not able.”
BG: Were you satisfied with your recent lifetime, Dick?
DD: As you know, I am many different authors scattered throughout history — much like fingers poking through a piece of paper. From one perspective they look independent. But, when one is aware of the “hand-ness” that connects them, the synchronicities of action and cooperativeness of efforts no longer looks miraculous or mysterious. It is taken for granted that the fingers of a hand will work in concert. My most recent sojourn into the Lightside was quite useful. However, I think the most satisfying was
that cave thing in France. To tell a story within the constraints of a single wall was quite invigorating. I just wish we’d had a better blue to work with.
BG: Do you have anything that you would like to relate to our Lightside readers?
DD: First of all, has it occurred to you that your experience of me is just ink on pressed wood pulp? If you look too closely (as with a magnifying glass) even this black and white existence is shown to be a semi-organized chaos of dots. It’s all in the reading.
