Arriving in town a day early for this weekend’s Nebula Awards ceremonies and the LA Times Festival of Books, Rebecca and I met with other members of the Roswell Six project for a celebration dinner.  We came bearing a stack of the slick new posters for the Terra Incognita: Beyond the Horizon CD (and I also brought hardcover copies of Enemies & Allies for everyone).  Shawn Gordon from ProgRock Records arrived with a bunch of the finished, shrink-wrapped CDs, which had just arrived at his warehouse the day before.

Our cello player, Mike Alvarez, was the first to arrive, and we chatted about various science fiction topics.  Mike had come nearly three hours just to make the dinner.  Chris Quirarte, our drummer, arrived next, and we all got to know each other.  Shawn and our bassist Kurt Barabas drove together, and made a detour to Burbank to pick up one of our vocalists, John Payne.  Later, our second male vocalist, Michael Sadler, came in, and we all sat around a large table autographing 200 copies of the CD booklet for those who had ordered the limited-edition signed book and CD.  In the middle of the chaos, as the brewery restaurant got louder and louder with dinnertime crowds, Erik Norlander (who wrote the music, played keyboards, and mixed the tracks) called in to attend the dinner virtually from Northern California.  (Only the day before I had met Erik’s wife Lana Lane, our female vocalist, on the phone—Lana was one of our very first choices when brainstorming this CD.)

I’ll post photos as soon as I download them from my camera.

We had not previously met Michael Sadler, John Payne, Chris Quirarte, or Mike Alvarez.  Everyone was very satisfied with what they had done on the project, and several had never heard the whole CD before and were looking forward to listening to the tracks they hadn’t worked on; a couple of them have not had a chance to read the novel Edge of the World yet.  When we finally adjourned, Chris Q gave us a ride back to our hotel.

Those of you who have preordered the CD from either ProgRockRecords.com or AnderZoneshop.com will receive your copies well before they are available in stores.  You still have a chance for a sneak preview if you place your order before the release date.

Our meeting took place exactly two years to the day from when Shawn and I first talked about the idea for this project.  We hope you all will listen to the music and read the novel.

KJA