A publication update about The Bammo Ten Card Deal Dossier from Bob Farmer.
Do you want some cheese with the whine? You’ll be asking me that after you read this. Or if you want to skip all this blather the conclusion is: the book is coming out in late January.
My close friends are well aware of something I call (and they have come to know as) the “Farmer Effect.” Murphy’s Law looks like good luck compared to the Farmer Effect. It’s a genetic thing. My father was a quality control manager in an electronics company. He could walk out on the line as hundreds of thousands of little widgets were shuffling their way to the loading dock and pick out the only one which was defective. It was a gift. For him. For me. Not so much. More a curse. I’ve lost count of the number of times a repair man/retail store salesman/computer company/music company/etc./etc. has said to me, as I returned something I’d just bought that was defective: “Jeez, we’ve never seen this before.” And it’s not just that kind of stuff. If I buy a mystery book, I’ll get the only copy that has the last page missing. Order at a restaurant and I’ll get the only waiter who finishes his shift and is never seen again (and the food never arrives).
Being an optimist, I just go with the flow, because otherwise I would be upsetting the Karmic balance (or maybe I’ve already upset it).
The Bammo Ten Card Deal Dossier though full of the other kind of Farmer effects, the magic ones, has also suffered from the Farmer Effect here under discussion. The book was finished and ready for the printer in the summer. I envisaged an early fall release. But there were technical issues, the details of which wouldn’t have applied to Gutenberg, but with computers and printing company requirements, another month passed while adjustments were being made. It’s too boring to explain here. Then my computer died (an HP) so I bought another HP and spent the usual week or so transferring backups to the new HP. It lasted for about six weeks and then it died. In between, my day job was taking up all my time and energy, no time for the book, so it sat silent.
When the second HP died, I decided that HPs were the General Motors of computers and maybe I should switch to a Volvo (now owned by China) which I did. A Lenovo (also owned by China) was purchased and the whole backup process had to happen again, which finally finished last Friday.
The last thing I want to do, even if the timing allowed it, would be to bring this book out at Christmas. It would get buried in the season. Anyway, it’s November 24 as I write this, so timing doesn’t allow it because it would never be printed on time.
I’ve received many, many emails and posts asking about the book, and I only ask your indulgence for a bit longer. I want it out even more than you do.
Bob Farmer November 2014