I just received and read the F Files today, particularly the section about certain copies of the limited edition of The Last Christmas having only 347 pages and no Afterword, as opposed to the 369 pages that the book was supposed to have, including the Afterword. I checked my copy of the limited edition that I bought from Gauntlet, and sure enough, it has 347 pages and no Afterword. I would sort of like to read the Afterword; maybe Gauntlet could provide it in electronic form to persons whose copies of the book omit it? I thought about simply buying the Kindle version, but according to Amazon's website, the Kindle version has 347 pages, whereas the (non-limited-edition) hardback and the paperback each have 370 pages, which at least suggests that the Kindle version lacks the Afterword (although it could possibly mean that the Kindle pagination is just different from the print versions, and the 347 pages is a coincidence).
I note that in the F Files FPW says that the copies missing the Afterward may be "a rare variant". I wonder if this means it will be as valuable as some currency with missing features?

I got the Secret Stories collection for Christmas. All of the stories except for "Cleaning Machine" are listed in the Secret History chronology, and are presented in the collection in that order. So the placement of "Cleaning Machine" between "Faces" and "The Barrens" narrows it down. At this point, shouldn't it be given an official slot in the chronology?

How many years do the 15 or 16 repairman jack novels, his adult years, encompass? Just curious because as I'm reading them (again), it seems like it's only about 4 or 5 years total, but I cannot get a straight answer from any of the online sources!!

Thanks.

As I was reading The Last Christmas, I highly enjoyed the first conversation between Glaeken and Madame de Medici. Glaeken’s warning to her not to use his real name but one of his aliases due to Rasalom hearing his name was spoken, and two pages later on 228 she calls him Glaeken. Was that a mistake or meant to be that way doc? Just curious.


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God help me ...I think I’m in love with Madame de Medici.

I just received my numbered copy (#16) of The Last Christmas this afternoon from Gauntlet!

I have been a long-time fan of Dr. Wilson and have read all of the books he has written by himself. Have not read many of the books he has co-written with other authors. (The only one I am sure I read was "Draculas".)
Which are considered the best of the co-written books? Thanks

I beg the indulgence -- and help -- of FPW fans in answering the above quesion.

In one of FPW's books in the '80s there is a scenario where a woman secretly gives a male mathematican colleague, who is a recovering alcoholic, some pure alcohol. This leads to a relapse as he walking by a bar. Later, she either tells him what she did or he learns of it and he feels betrayed. I seem to recall he suicides by walking in front of a truck on the interstate.

Can anyone please tell which book this is in?

Thank you in advance. All my books from the '80's are in storage and looking at the summaries of the FPW books of that era I just can't seem to figure out which one it was. The situation was memorable though so even after 30+ years I still remember it. But not the title!

The Beatles’ “She Loves You” had its initial US release in September of 1963 and flopped so badly it never made it to my radio. By contrast, when “I Want to Hold Your Hand” was released 3 months later, it sold 750,000 copies in the first three days (New York City alone was selling 10,000 copies an hour). Demand was so great that Capitol had to pay its record rivals Columbia and RCA to press extra copies for them.

Despite all that, “I Want to Hold Your Hand” was not a hit with me. I was drumming in my own garage band then, accompanying the likes of “Walk Don’t’ Run,” “Rawhide,” “Ghost Riders in the Sky” and other instrumentals, and developing an ear for what I liked and why I liked it. The melody of “I Want to Hold Your Hand” didn’t gab me and I thought the lyrics were hokey. My younger sister, however, was an instant fan. Soon the twelve tracks on Meet the Beatles were echoing incessantly through our house. Though they didn’t make me a fan, some of the songs grew on me.

I finally heard “She Loves You” upon its re-release in March of ’64 when it zoomed to number one on the charts.

Ba-dum-ba-dum (on the floor tom)
She loves you yeah-yeah-yeah!
She loves you yeah-yeah-yeah!
She loves you yeah-yeah-yeah-YAAAAAH!

Whoa! That last YAAAAAH! What was that?

As I said, I was a drummer. I hadn’t taken up guitar yet. I didn’t know chords and such. But I knew what I liked and I liked that YAAAAAH! I couldn’t remember ever hearing anybody sing something like that.

So I listened – really listened – to the rest of the song, wanting to hear it again. But alas, although they sang yeah! plenty of times, no YAAAAAH!...until the very end: an extended, echoey YAAAAAH! to close out the song.

Yes! I loved everything about the song – the tempo, the harmonies, the way the drummer switched from the hi-hat to the floor tom on the choruses, its overall exuberance. It made me happy. But I especially loved that YAAAAAH!

“She Loves You” wasn’t on either of my sister’s albums (she had Introducing the Beatles on the Vee-Jay label by then too) so I went out and bought the single and played it over and over to hear that strange YAAAAAH! I began listening more closely to the albums and appreciating the way these guys put their songs together.

Then they released the buoyant, contagious “Can’t Buy Me Love” followed by “A Hard Day’s Night” with its clang of an opening chord that no one on the whole bloody planet had ever heard before and I became thoroughly and permanently hooked.

But the tipping point had been that YAAAAAH! on “She Loves You.” What made it so special? I later learned it’s a G-major-6 chord and it almost didn’t make it into the song (or so I’m told).

Apparently on the initial “She Loves You” mix, that last yeah! had John, Paul, and George harmonizing to a simple G-major chord, singing G-B-D. But George Harrison wasn’t happy with finishing the song that way. He petitioned their producer, George Martin, to let him go back and overdub an E note above the basic three. Martin didn’t like the idea but finally relented. As a result, the G-B-D yeah! became a G-B-D-E YAAAAAH!

And not only made the song as far as this listener was concerned, but led him to become a Beatles fan.

Like they say, it’s the little things.

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

I joined the James Randi Educational Foundation. If you value critical thinking, you will too. http://www.randi.org/site/