We'd like to inform you that the underground publishers Krumb&Korcy in joint effort with the Speaking In Tongues magazine of literary translation are making an attempt to electronically publish a Russian translation of your novel Involution Ocean. The project has been launched as strictly non-commercial, and all individuals involved decidedly do not wish to turn it to a "filthy lucrative" venture. The idea is purely to introduce Russian-reading public to what we believe a major work of its genre by an almost cult-status figure, such as yourself. The project has barely begun, and you could see the first three chapters of your novel at http://vladivostok.com/Speaking_In_Tongues/bruce.htm together with a short foreword and original graphics to each chapter. The translation is being made by Nick Kirilov, a great fan of your books, who had previously translated works by Harlan Ellison. The Speaking In Tongues magazine is the electronic-only (absolutely no hard-copy) publication that serves to educate "Russian netizens" in regard of the modern world literature.

We hope you will give this project a thorough, yet not unkind, consideration and allow us to continue this, very valuable, project. We would also hope for and appreciate several lines from you as a matter of introduction to this, first, publication of Involution Ocean in Russian.

We would welcome any comment from you,

Remaining

Very truly yours,

In fact, at the end of September I am going to the Russian Science Fiction Writers Conference in St. Petersburg as an official guest. I am plan to stay in St. Petersburg for two weeks, and to write about the city for WIRED magazine in the USA. I also plan to talk to my Russian publishers at Terra Fantastyka, who are not "underground electronic publishers" but actual, normal, print publishers. They have been introducing the Russian-reading public to my work for some time now. They pay me for this, too. We sign contracts. It's a conventional business arrangement, like those in most other countries on Earth. I think it would rather hurt their feelings if I began giving away novels for nothing.

Admittedly, my very first novel, INVOLUTION OCEAN, is not a very good novel. It's just not worth very much. All the more reason for you *not* to pirate it. I know it wouldn't do much harm to run the book as a samizdat translation, but you know, sooner or later this sort of activity comes back to haunt you. You might want to become legitimate, commercial publishers some day soon. Why don't you translate HACKER CRACKDOWN instead? The electronic version is free, and it's of direct relevance to electronic communications. I also have a lot of other material that I've gladly given away on the Internet, such as "The SF Workshop Lexicon." You should be translating that material. That would probably be much more interesting to the Russian electronic community than a 20-year-old galactic adventure novel. I'd be glad to send you this stuff. I might even write something about it, just for you.

I know that Vladivostok is a very, very long way from St Petersburg, but maybe you should take the Trans-Siberian Express while I am in Russia, and we can have a long talk about this and related subjects. Perhaps I can even publicize your underground efforts in WIRED magazine. That would get you a lot of attention in American electronic-frontier circles. I am a great believer in the idea that "information wants to be free," but there are ways to do it that work, and other ways that just don't work.