1980-1982. An extensive correspondence file (15 typed letters signed and three typed notes signed), as well as an author questionnaire, giving a detailed play-by-play of the launching of May's "Exile" series, beginning with The Many-Colored Land. Note that Julian May was also known as Judy, and that she married SF editor Ted Ditky, and May uses a combination of first and last names in these letters. However, the first two entries here are formal letters of negotiation for the publication of "The Exiles," written by Ted Ditky on May's behalf. The first letter by May herself initiates the process of renaming the series' first book. There follows an unsigned contract. Her second letter responds, at length, to suggested editorial changes (specifically, to an expansion on the destruction of Finiah), and she also makes a case for including introductory recaps in the later books. The next letters continue with the subject of the title, but also discusses the chapter layouts, the maps, and the need to reach a new audience, beyond those who had only previously been exposed to SF which "takes itself very seriously for no good reason." May even suggests that those who are slated to receive proofs be chosen for their sense of humor, and she suggests Silverberg, Ellison, Bester, Sturgeon, Asimov, and Zelazny. At one point, she begs her editor to be vague about where she lives, as SF fans are "uninhibited," and she doesn't want to have to "move to Hawaii to get away from them as Frank Herbert is doing." She resists being personally used for publicity, calling herself "snotty, profane, impatient," and she requests that there be no photo of her on the first book, so as to "minimize the Female SF Author Curse." In the author questionnaire (which is a photocopy, but which has been edited in pencil in an unknown hand), May is terse in answers about herself or ideas for publicity, but she answers at length questions about the book itself and its writing. The Many-Colored Land is an "adventure thriller"; below that, a "psychological study of the characters"; below that, "a mythic-symbolic fabric with folklorish analogs"; below that, "a philosophic statement." "And you just thought it was good dirty fun!" May's championing of her vision for the book continues in a letter with a detailed 6-point objection to the suggested dust jacket art, petitioning for something that would convey that this book "is an entertainment for the thinking adult. It will take you out of the mundane world and into a many-colored land of fantasy," as opposed to the proposed art, with its "blatantly sexist female ass waving focal point from dead center," etc. Her next letter conveys a photocopy of a letter from Joe Haldeman offering praise ("...combining a meticulously reconstructed prehistoric Earth with one of the best-thought-out futures I've ever encountered in science fiction..."). Once the book is published, the conversation turns to reviews, and then to the timing of the next two books in the series, The Golden Torc and The Nonborn King, with a full page devoted to the merits of "nonborn" being unhyphenated. Several of the letters bear publisher's comments, with two of them having full draft responses written out on them; otherwise the lot is fine. A charming and insightful trove of correspondence. [#036715] $1,500