Contact Me
Hi there. If for some reason the information you seek isn’t readily available to you in one of this site’s many pages and/or you feel the need to tell/ask me something but don’t feel that doing so in a publicly visible comment is appropriate, then here’s where you can leave me a private note.
I’m already more than a little bit inundated with email, so it may be a few days before I manage to send a reply, but that’s still faster than a reply by regular mail would reach you. It’s all relative.
If you never hear back from me, it’s possible that the website has (for reasons that make sense to its positronic mind) determined that you are a Spammer and has chosen to spare me your remarks. Ooops. Still a few bugs in the system.
I don’t remember if Bish had children, but suppose he did.
After the memory of him was erased, what would a child of his reply if asked about his father? It seems weird that someone would say they had no father!
09.08.18 at 10:07 am
Memory is resilient. Much like Druz recalls she’s the Senator’s aide in the first book and concludes that must mean she works for Jorl not Bish.
In the event that Bish has children (I don’t believe he does), they’d unconsciously fill in the blanks so that their reality made sense.
09.10.18 at 7:48 am
Hello
Do you read story idea?
Thank you
09.08.18 at 10:53 am
No thanks, I have too many of my own.
09.10.18 at 7:48 am
In Moons of Barsk, the number of planets colonized is referred to as 4000. But later, Abenaki gives a calculation that implies it is 400. How many are there?
09.10.18 at 7:31 am
Sounds like a typo to me. The number should be 4000.
09.10.18 at 7:48 am
When is your next book coming out?
03.06.19 at 2:07 pm
Hello!
I’m Tanmayee and I’m currently a student at the Illinois and Mathematics and Science Academy. A couple of my friends and I are doing a project where we create our own speculative fiction world, and our teacher, Ms. Tracy Townsend, recommended that we contact you to get a little more direction for our project.
Currently, we are piggybacking off of the concept of binaural beats, which is when a different frequency is played into each ear and the interference it creates activates a certain part of your brain. In the real world, it is mostly used for relaxation, but we were thinking about taking this idea to an extreme so that the purposeful activation of certain parts of the brain could be used as a means of mind control.
We know you are very knowledgeable about psychology and have a lot of experience writing about and performing hypnosis, which to a certain extent is pretty similar to mind control. We were just wondering how you draw the line between what is realistic in the speculative fiction world that you create and the real world when it comes to hypnosis. Do you also have any tips for how to include psychology into speculative fiction?
We look forward to hearing back from you!
03.06.19 at 2:09 pm
Dear Lawrence, I was wondering if you will be in the SF Bay Area any time soon. I’d like to get a book signed as a present for a friend. Feel free to email me and I’ll check back here.
Thanks,
Jennifer
05.20.19 at 2:53 pm
Mr. Schoen – I recently purchased a copy of “Barsk” and was wondering if you would be willng to sign my copy. I would ship the book to you inside another box (self-addressed, with the appropriate postage) for the return trip. If this is possible please let me know and if not, thanks for reading this. Best, Richard Unz
10.12.19 at 1:04 pm
Hey there! I just finished reading my free copy of the Left John Mucker book.Â
 I thought you might be amused to know that almost 30 years ago, I worked as a grant administrator for the Architecture Dept at UC Berkeley. I once wrote a grant for an art professor named Joe Slusky. In this grant, he proposed teaching students to draw with every orifice of their bodies. I ended up getting him the maximum award of $800 to buy privacy screens and big fat markers so that it would be easier for kids to draw with puckered assholes. I write Amazon reviews under the name of Rusty. I loved Slice of Entropy and can’t wait to read more. Thank you! Alice
02.11.21 at 3:54 pm
Dear Mr. Schoen,
I’ve been very impressed with Barsk for many reasons (still reading it, almost done) and have a question for you about Fants. Knowing that they are descendants of elephants, I naturally wondered about their size. I get the impression that their “risen mammal” incarnation is now far closer to human dimensions. Is this true? If so, how was this accomplished? Through a blend of human and elephant structural genes, suppressing some at the expense of others, etc? I’m no scientist but still I’m curious—I suppose the same question applies to the other large species scattered through the book, yaks, for example. And in the reverse direction, are otters now larger, along with gophers, etc?
Lastly, I’m curious to learn if the many races of the Alliance ever encountered truly alien species as they expanded through the galaxy.
Thanks for considering my questions and I look forward to your eventual reply.
Sincerely yours,
Robert Schulslaper
P.S. I recently bought Moons of Barsk, which I imagine will be as absorbing as its predecessor. Also, is “Earthlings: Ugly Bags of Mostly Water” available for streaming? I’d love to watch it.
07.20.21 at 9:45 am
Hello, I’m just stopping by to say I hope there’s a third installment in your Barsk series. It’s one of the most interesting, creative and uplifting SF series I’ve read in a long time. It’s a welcome respite from the formulaic space war novels that overwhelm the genre, and it was a pleasure to get get lost in the world of Pizlo and Barsk. Thank you!
08.22.21 at 6:21 pm
Lawrence , I am one of the 2 people you often had breakfast with at McDonalds. We are wondering how you are ? Me and the staff are all wanting you back. I hope you are ok and recovering nicely.
We are concerned . Let me ( us ) know how you are.
Best wishes, Al
12.17.22 at 10:19 pm
Remember me, KState grad school? I was Dr. Downey’s geriatric student. Is the unpronouncable dog winery still in production? Sure wish I’d bought one of those t-shirts; what a deal at only $6! I am in FL, where my family settled in the 1860’s. I feel like a tiny tidee-bowl pod, floating in the toilet which is Florida under DeSantis. So sad what he has done to our funky little New College, which I’ve always thought of as the island of misfit toys. Have you run across Dr. Jonathan Singer in Philadelphia? You two would like each other personally, and have similar interests. I’ve known him since he was a child. I live in Winter Park, am 79, singing with the Bach Festival Choir, big gig this fall is singing with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in Orlando’s new, acoustically perfect Steinmetz Hall. Yo Yo Ma said performing there was like playing inside an instrument. Jim Welch and I divorced, then got back together, but part of the renegotiated deal was that I keep my maiden name.
08.22.23 at 4:06 pm
Hello,
I have just finishing reading the Barsk and found it to be wonderful. Thank you for writing it. Captivating and opened my mind a little, which doesn’t happen often enough. Great job and story.
06.16.24 at 9:55 am