News
20 August 2000
Short ADF interview over at SFWorld.
Here's a link to that GameSpy interview that ADF mentioned on his official site. In it he talks about novelizations of computer games, particularly ShadowKeep.
29 April 2000
You have all probably seen Foster's frequent updates to the UPDATES section of his official website. Even HE isn't sure when his next book is coming out.
There are three more reviews in the ADFNotes section: The End of the Matter, the Icerigger Trilogy and Splinter of the Mind's Eye.
Rico, a fan of Foster who lives in Italy, has made up some detailed elements of the Thranx language, originally for a GURPS campaign, and put it up on his webpage. Information on all those Thranx whistles we keep reading about. Also, a collection of sayings from the Unitied Church's Holy Book of Universal Truths, and other Humorous Anecdotes.
Both Eric and Rico have sent me some scans of book covers. Cool stuff. A cover for Luana, the novelization for an Italian film, an early version of The Tar-Aiym Krang, English and Italian cover to Mission to Moulokin(two very different impressions of the Slanderscree), and Italian covers for Maori and Flinx in Flux. I put them in the Books section. Update 5/2/00: Added both Maori and Flinx in Flux english covers.
4 February 2000
Random House lists Dirge for a June 2000 release.
A Triumph of Souls: Journeys of the Catechist, Book 3 is coming out this month (February). Check out the page and enter an interesting contest to win an autographed copy of the trilogy.
Eric pointed me to a German book site that has scans of some of the German covers of Foster's novels. Can you guess the english title for Die denkenden Wälder ( literally, The Thinking Forest )?
The big news item is that Alan Dean Foster now has a website ( http://www.alandeanfoster.com/ ). All sorts of neat stuff including a listing of all his short fiction and publishing dates for his novels up through 2001. There are also colorful Commonwealth maps and an updated Commonwealth Chronology (if you don't like knowing plot information about unrealeased novels, don't look too closely at the Chronology).
8 December 1999
Jordan Drew just showed me where to get his half of the questions and answers for Alan Dean Foster.
Caleb Avery sent me a link to his page that contains a song by him that was inspired by Alan Dean Foster's novel Cyber Way. Check out some of his art while you're there.
5 November 1999
At the suggestion of my brother, I have decided to create a section on the site for original artwork or short stories created by fans that have something to do with Alan Dean Foster's novels. If you find something in one of his novels that you think is particularly interesting, draw a picture of it or write a story about it. Then send it to me and I will try to put it up one the site. For example, about a year ago I was learning how to use POV-Ray and made a picuture of Moth.
Here is a short interview that Foster did at the ComicCon International '98.
I have recieved some requests from people asking me where they can find some of the out-of-print books that are on the Book list page. Both Eric and I have purchased The Guide to the Humanx Commonwealth from the Advanced Book Exchange. It is a site where people can list books for sale. When I last looked they had quite a few Alan Dean Foster novels that have been hard for me to find.
29 September 1999
Mr. Foster just wrote me back with the answers to the questions that were submited. He also included information about his upcoming projects at the end.
21 August 1999
The guy that runs this Star Wars site and I are going to collect questions and get Alan Dean Foster to answer them by e-mail. I will accept questions starting now until the 12th of September, so don't delay in submitting them. We are only going to ask a limited number of questions and the final list will be written up by me and Jordan. This means that your question may or may not get asked, or may get asked in a different form. It really depends on how many questions I get, but I hope I can use all of them. Mail me with questions. No, I can't give out Foster's address.
4 August 1999
The University just informed me that they are switching student's fileboxes(I use mine for the web page) from the main VT server to another one. The new address will be http://fbox.vt.edu:10021/M/mastone3/foster/ . The old address http://www.vt.edu:10021/M/mastone3/ may cease to work at any time, so please update any bookmarks you have.
7 June 1999
Phylogenesis is out and there is a sample chapter online. In the In Depth section of the June DRIN, Foster talks about the birth of the Commonwealth series.
6 May 1999
This from the WORKS IN PROGRESS: Changes, Additions, Updates section of the May DRIN:
"ALAN DEAN FOSTER has turned in DIRGE, the second book in The Founding of the Commonwealth trilogy. He is hard at work on the next Pip and Flinx novel, REUNION."
17 March 1999
It's been a while since I updated the page. I always find it a little depressing when I visit a web site and find that the last update was done sometime in 1997. I hope this site never gets that bad, but 5 months is still a long time. I hope that I can start updating again at least as frequently as before. It has been even longer since I have done anything with the Commonweatlth section, and I don't know when I will get around to doing more of that.
Dinotopia.com has some information on The Hand of Dinotopia.
Eric Wilson sent me his latest Alan Dean Foster Notes. Reviews of Star Wars and Orphan Star. I have yet to read the Star Wars novel, mostly because I had seen the movie quite a number of times and didn't think I would get much more from the book. Eric's review makes me think that it might be worth a read.
Amazon.com has a cover for Phylogenesis (June) and also for the second book in the Catechist series called Into the Thinking Kingdoms (April).
3 October 1998
This from the News and Announcements section of the October DRIN:
"Alan Dean Foster has delivered DIRGE, and PHYLOGENESIS will be published next June. The third book in this trilogy (titled THE FOUNDING OF THE COMMONWEALTH) is forthcoming, and Alan is also working on the next Pip and Flinx novel."
6 September 1998
In case you didn't know, Parallelities is out in paperback. I bought it the other day and saw that in the back is a preview for the next Commonwealth novel (not Flinx and Pip, though, for those wondering) that is due out in September 1999. It is about the formation of the Commonwealth, and I think is the first book in the Humanx-Pitar Trilogy. I am going to try and put the preview up on the site.
25 June 1998
The transcript of the AzCentral Alan Dean Foster interview is now available.
9 June 1998
Online chat with Alan Dean Foster at Arizona Central from 6-7 p.m. (MST) Tuesday June 16.
I (fiddler) am going to try and be there. There will be a transcript avalible after, which I will link to from the Links section. (If you plan on attending, I recommend going to the site and creating a user account. The guest login didn't work for me.)Del Rey says that Parallelities will be released September 1998. Really.
1 June 1998
Carnivores of Light and Darkness is out. Must...resist...temptation...to...buy...hardcover...
5 May 1998
I was getting kind of jealous of some of those professionally done sites, so I decided to try to improve the page's navigation and graphics. Hopefully it's an improvement. Tell me if your browser has trouble with anything, and I'll try to modify it.
19 April 1998
A Conversation with Alan Dean Foster originally appeared in the January 1996 issue of Overstreet's FAN magazine. The people at Gemstone were nice enough to allow me to reprint it.
15 April 1998
Added a new section called Alan Dean Foster Notes written by a friend of mine. Some very nice reviews of some of Foster's books.
A source on the inside found Parallelities listed with a June shipping date.
I hope to add some cover art to the site. Before I put it up, though, there is still the small problem of locating it, and then seeing if the meg the university allows me will hold it all.
19 March 1998
Added description of Midworld submitted by Eric J. Wilson.
3 Febuary 1998
Information from amazon.com on The Hand of Dinotopia.
10 January 1998
I little while ago, I got an e-mail from Alan Dean Foster in response to my letter asking his permission to use the Chronology and Map of the Commonwealth on my page. He wrote back saying I could and told me a little about his upcoming projects:
FYI...Parallelities is stand-alone near-future SF, but it's (sorry) not a Commonwealth book. The Marexx project has gone dormant due to a severe attack of cold feet by the company's investors. I am just back from five weeks in Papua New Guinea, and will shortly commence The Pitar trilogy for Del Rey. These three books will tell more of the story of the first human-thranx interactions, of the young Bran Tse-Mallory and Truzenzuzex and how they came to meet, and of the humanx-Pitar war referred to in The Tar-Aiym Krang.He also said there would be a new Flinx and Pip book, but did not give any dates.
13 November 1997
If you have a Java-capable browser, check out my gravity applet.
7 November 1997
Decided the smaller white text looked better.
6 November 1997
I have been working on descriptions for the Commonwealth Races, Planets, and Characters, but I still have a lot of blanks. If anyone feels inspired to write a description for the names I have up, E-mail me.
If you have some time, take a look at my RecursiveDraw Applet Tutorial, or go directly to the actual Applet.
Comments? Suggestions? Want to talk about Foster's books? E-mail me