HUNTING LAKE by Mike Resnick In my life, I have written a grand total of three fan letters to writers. One of the recipients, Barry Malzberg, became my closest friend and occasional collaborator. Another, humorist Ross Spencer, also became a good friend. The third was African writer Alexander Lake, who died on Christmas Day, 1961, a month before I wrote to him. I've always regretted not meetiing Lake, who has been virtually forgotten by the American reading public, despite a number of bestsellers. I recently moved THE RESNICK LIBRARY OF AFRICAN ADVENTURE from St. Martin's Press over to Alexander Books, an offshoot of WorldComm Press. The primary reason was to bring Lake back into print. Sounds simple, right? I mean, hell, all editors do is sit on their judgment all day and see what comes in the mail. Well, sometimes it's not _quite_ that easy. Take Lake, for example. Hell, take the whole damned chronology: 1954: I buy the paperback edition of KILLERS IN AFRICA at age 12, take it to summer camp with me, read it in its entirety once a week for two months. From that day to this, I am fascinated by all things African, I take 5 safaris, I write 13 books and 18 short stories set in Africa, and I never forget that it is Alexander Lake who awakened this passion in me. 1988: St. Martin's Press buys Tor Books. St. Martin's also publishes Peter Capstick's LIBRARY OF AFRICAN HUNTING, a series of classic reprints. 1989: IVORY becomes a Nebula and Clarke nominee for Tor right after SANTIAGO hits #3 on the bestseller list, and the nice people at Tor look about for ways to keep me happily in their stable. I tell them that if Capstick ever dies or gives up editing the Library, I want to take it over. 1991: St. Martin's informs me that Capstick has moved to a different publisher, and I can edit the Library. I tell them that the first two authors I want to bring back -- they've each written two books -- are Alexander Lake and John Boyes, a scalawag who was one of the Kenya pioneers and at one time was the white king of the Kikuyu. They reply that they'll reprint the Boyes books, which were written in 1910 and 1928 and are in the public domain, but with so many classics available for free they won't spend a penny to purchase the Lakes, which we all assume are still under copyright. I reluctantly agree -- after all, no one else is beating down my door to edit books about killing animals in this Politically Correct year of 1991 -- and I select three books, by Boyes, F. C. Selous, and Arthur Neumann, for publication, writing new introductions for each. 1992: WorldComm Press, which specializes in small editions of trade paperbacks, is feeling expansive and approaches me about writing a mystery novel and editing a line of mass market science fiction. I agree, and suggest that I'd also like to bring the reprint series over from St. Martin's Press, which isn't making any money on them anyway and would probably be happy to let them go, so that we can at least make an attempt to get Lake's books back into print. The publisher, Ralph Roberts, has never heard of Alexander Lake. I loan him copies of KILLERS IN AFRICA and HUNTER'S CHOICE; he calls back two nights later -- he loves them, and he'll start up the African reprint line as soon as I'm ready. January, 1993: In an attempt to find out who owns the rights to Lake's books, I write to Doubleday's accounting department and ask who they are sending his royalty checks to. Their records only go back to the 1970s, and no royalties have been paid out since then. It takes them a mere 3 months to tell me that. April, 1993: Ray Feist suggests that I write to the Doubleday legal department to find out what literary agent represented Lake during the contract negotiations. (If he did it himself, I'm out of luck, and the search -- and project -- ends here.) Doubleday takes four months to respond that Lake was represented by the McIntosh and Otis Agency. August, 1993: I write McIntosh and Otis and ask who owns the rights to Lake's books. They write back to tell me that they've never heard of Lake. I write back and suggest they check their files back to the 1940s. They write back to say that they did, and they've still never heard of him. This correspondence takes nine weeks. October, 1993: Once more I write to the Doubleday legal department and tell them that McIntosh and Otis has no record of representing Alexander Lake, and could they please check the contracts again? They do, and finally direct me to Elizabeth McKee of McIntosh, McKee and Dodds. I write to her and ask who owns the rights to Lake's books. No answer. I write again. No answer. I phone. She's out of town on an extended vacation. January, 1994: Ms. McKee writes to tell me that yes, she did indeed represent Alexander Lake in the early 1950s, but she has had no word from him or his literary estate in more than a third of a century. She no longer has any records telling her who his literary heirs are. She has no idea where to look. February, 1994: I call my own literary agent, Eleanor Wood, explain the problem, and ask for suggestions. She gives me the number of the Copyright Department of the Library of Congress. Maybe, she suggests, the books are public domain. If KILLERS IN AFRICA's copyright wasn't renewed in 1981, it's mine for the taking; if it _was_ renewed, at least I'll be able to find out who renewed it. March, 1994: I call the Copyright Department. They ask what years the two books were originally published, then tell me to send them $40.00 for each title to track down the copyright status. I send them a check for $80.00 on my birthday, March 5. June, 1994: It is now two years since WorldComm has agreed to publish THE RESNICK LIBRARY OF AFRICAN ADVENTURE, and Ralph understandably wants to know where it is. I tell him that I moved it from St. Martin's for the express purpose of publishing Alexander Lake, and I'm not giving him any other titles until I know beyond all doubt the Lake is unobtainable. He runs his own copyright check -- evidently publishers have access to the Copyright Department's data -- and can't find a renewal. I agree that if they're public domain we'll publish them, but I won't be satisfied until I get it in black-and-white from the Copyright Department. Ralph mutters and grumbles, but agrees to postpone the LIBRARY until 1995. July and August, 1994: I call the Copyright Department weekly, trying to find out what happened to my request. I never get the same person twice, and no one there seems to know what's going on. September, 1994: I give up trying to get a response out of the Copyright Department. I promise WorldComm that if I still haven't determined Lake's copyright status by the end of the year, I'll give them a different title to kick off the new line. October, 1994: _Finally!_ The Copyright Department tells me that Lake's children, Storm Alexis Lake-Bartel and Richard K. Nelson, renewed the copyrights, and gives me their addresses as of 1987: Storm is at a post office box in La Honda, Richard is in San Mateo. I call Ralph Roberts to tell him the news. Now comes the tricky part: if either of them say No, that's the end of it, and my dream of bringing Alexander Lake back into print is dead...so I have to decide which of them is more likely to say Yes. All I have to go on is their names. There's a son, Richard, who _should_ be called Lake and isn't (I don't know at the time that he's a stepson; for all I know, he's a blood son who hated Lake and took on a stepfather's last name to spite him); and there's a daughter, obviously married, who could reasonably be expected to have dumped Lake's name but chose to keep it: Lake-Bartel. Easy choice. I write to the daughter. And two weeks later the letter comes back, Address Unknown. November, 1994: My very last chance is to make contact with the son. I write to the San Mateo address. It comes back, Address Unknown. I am so close and so far away, I hate to think of what it's doing to my blood pressure. I try to get Storm's phone number from the La Honda operator; no record of a Lake-Bartel. (It turns out that she got divorced sometime after 1987 and is once again going under the name of Lake.) Then I try to get Richard's phone number from the San Mateo operator. I don't have much hope; it's a common name -- there are probably ten Richard Nelsons in any fair- sized city. But just for once, Fate is on my side. Thank goodness he uses that middle initial, because while the operator doesn't have a Richard K. Nelson at the address the Copyright Department gave me, she _does_ have one in the area code. I take the number, call, leave a message on Richard's answering machine, he calls back, and five years after I start jockeying to bring KILLERS IN AFRICA and HUNTER'S CHOICE back into print, I finally make contact with the two people who can make it possible, and a week later we're in business. Easy job being an editor, right? If I make a dime an hour for the time I put in, I think I'll be ahead of the game. Anyway, as I write these words, KILLERS IN AFRICA is in print, and HUNTER'S CHOICE is a month from publication and will be in print long before any of you read this. Two-thirds of my Good Samaritan work is done: I got Lake back into print, and I got all of Barry Malzberg's recursive science fiction back into print in one big volume (PASSAGE OF THE LIGHT, written by Barry, edited by me and Tony Lewis, published by NESFA, and you should all run right out and buy it.) If I can just get R...
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