About J. Neil Schulman
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J. NEIL SCHULMAN is the author of two Prometheus award-winning
novels, Alongside Night and The Rainbow Cadenza,
short fiction, nonfiction, and screenwritings, including the
CBS Twilight Zone episode "Profile in Silver."
He's also been the founder of SoftServ Publishing, the first
publishing company to distribute paperless bookstm via
personal computers and modems and is now the proprietor
of Pulpless.Comtm, which is distributing the works of bestselling
authors through the World Wide Web. Pulpless.Comtm will also
electronically distribute Schulman's own books.
He's lectured on electronic publishing
for Connected Education/the New School for Social Research in
New York, and Northwood University in Midland, Michigan. He's
currently at work on a third novel, Escape From Heaven.
The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction's article about
Schulman calls his books, "very influential in the LIBERTARIAN-SF
movement" and says his books "are motivated by a combination
of moral outrage and a fascination with the hardware of politics
and economics."
During 1992, he hosted The J. Neil Schulman Show, a
program of interviews and music, on the American Radio Network's
Kaleidascope program, and wrote frequent articles for
the Los Angeles Times and Orange
County Register opinion pages which were reprinted in
numerous major newspapers across the country.
Schulman's first novel, Alongside
Night (Crown hardcover 1979, Ace paperback 1982, Avon paperback
1987, SoftServ 1990, Pulpless.Comtm 1996),
a prophetic story of an America
beset by inflation and revolution, was endorsed by Anthony
Burgess and Nobel laureate Milton Friedman, and received widely
positive reviews, including the Los Angeles Times and Publisher's
Weekly. The novel, published in 1979, anticipated such 1980's
and 1990's problems as increased gang violence and homelessness,
economic chaos such as the 1980's stock market crash and S&L
crisis, and political trends such as the economic and political
unification of Europe. In 1989, Alongside
Night was entered into the "Prometheus Hall of Fame"
for classic works of fiction promoting liberty.
The Rainbow Cadenza (Simon &
Schuster hardcover 1983, New English library paperback 1984, Avon
paperback 1986, SoftServ 1989, Pulpless.Comtm 1996)
was his second novel, winning the 1984 Prometheus Award, and was the basis
for an all-classical-music LASERIUM concert which played for several
years in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Boston. It's the story
of a young girl in the 22nd Century who must fight the sexual
exploitation of her era to pursue a career as a performer of
"lasegraphy," a classical form of visual music evolved
from the current laser shows. The book received favorable comments
from such diverse authors as psychologist/bestseller Nathaniel
Branden, British author Colin Wilson, and Robert A. Heinlein.
Schulman also wrote the "Profile in Silver"
episode, exploring the JFK assassination, for The Twilight
Zone TV series on CBS, which was run three times
in network prime time in 1986 and 1987, and which can now be seen
in syndication.
Schulman is also author of the popular Stopping Power: Why 70 Million Americans
Own Guns (Synapse-Centurion hardcover 1994, Pulpless.Comtm 1996), which Charlton Heston called "the most cogent explanation
of the gun issue I have yet read." In Stopping Power, a collection of forceful,
dramatic, and often funny polemics (including four Los Angeles Times articles),
Schulman challenges the distortions and misinformation that pundits
ranging from network anchors to ill-informed doctors are
promoting about guns. The book received rave reviews from The Los Angeles Daily
News, and from talk-show hosts including Dennis Prager and Michael Jackson.
His latest book, Self Control Not Gun Control (Synapse-Centurion hardcover 1995,
Pulpless.Comtm 1996), is Schulman's magnum
opus on both current controversies and timless questions, and he hits whatever he
targets with magnum force, whether it's guns, revolution, New Age thinking,
liberal hate speech, his vision of "The Coming Golden Age," or 226 words which
give us "The Meaning of Life." Dr. Walter E. Williams says of it, "Schulman
interestingly and insightfully raises a number of liberty-related issues that we
ignore at the nation's peril. His ideas are precisely those that
helped make our country the destination of those seeking liberty.
The book's title says it all: personal responsibility, not laws
and prohibitions, is the mark of a civil society."
The Robert Heinlein Interview and Other Heinleiniana (SoftServ, 1990, Pulpless.Comtm 1996)
collected Schulman's writings on an author who was not only particularly influential
on Schulman but also a friend for fifteen years, and features
Schulman's 25,000 word interview with Heinlein
for the New York Daily News, in 1973.
Schulman's short story, "The Musician," a psychological
mystery about a violinist whose career takes a sudden bizarre
turn, was dramatized for Los Angeles radio, broadcast several
times in 1980 on Pacifica/ KPFK FM's "Hour 25"
show, read by the late Mike Hodel, and with classical violin accompaniment
by the author's father, Julius Schulman.
In addition to his opinion pieces for the LA Times and
Orange County Register opinion
pages, some of which have been syndicated in major newspapers
nationwide, Schulman's writings have appeared in magazines and
newspapers including Reader's Digest, National Review,
the Los Angeles Times Book Review, Reason Magazine, Liberty,
Gun Week, The American
Rifleman, The Lamp-Post, and The Journal of Social
and Biological Structures, and he's delivered talks at World
Science Fiction conventions and other conferences. Mr. Schulman
has been written about in magazines and newspapers including the
Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Shooting Times, Analog,
and Byte Magazine, and has been interviewed on CNN, ABC's
World News Tonight, and numerous radio talk shows coast to coast
on subjects ranging from his novels and screenwriting, to electronic
publishing, to firearms issues.
In September, 1993, the Second Amendment
Foundation awarded Schulman the James Madison Award
for his Los Angeles Times article, "If Gun Laws Work,
Why Are We Afraid?" and in November, 1995, the 500,000-member
Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms awarded
Schulman its Gun Rights Defender prize.
Readers of this book wishing to communicate with the author
may do so (for a written reply please enclose a self-addressed
stamped envelope) to
J. Neil Schulman
P.O. Box 94
Long Beach, CA 90801-0094
Voice & Fax: 500-44-JNEIL (500-445-6345) (maximum 10 pages)
Internet: jneil@pulpless.com