What a Long Strange Journey to See Al G. Manning Immortalized
In Summer 2023 when I first committed to seeing Al G. Manning immortalized by having all Al Manning books digitized and republished in eBooks formats on all of the popular platforms, I knew it wouldn’t be easy but I didn’t know it would end up being so hard.
If you had told me then it would take two years to see it through I would’ve laughed. Today I ain’t laughing but I’m smiling. After reading, reviewing and editing ALL of his books – plus two of Rachel Manning’s (available exclusively in the ESP Lab member’s section) I feel like I know him better than ever before and at a higher level. That’s not easy to say considering Al and I go back some thirty years or so, all told. For a man who taught me so much and truly made a difference in how my life turned out, seeing Al G. Manning immortalized was the right thing to do.
Turning all of the Al Manning books into modern ebooks was at times tedious. I had to work with… books. No Word files. Not even floppy disks. I would’ve welcomed going retro with a DOS PC – or even CP/M. As an ancient geek steeped in lore that would be easy. A pleasant stroll down memory lane. I was told his computer was dead so no go. I’d love a crack at the hard drives. I mentored an entire GeekSquad department for a couple of years and as head geek I know every trick in the data recovery business. Someday perhaps. Regardless, seeing Al G. Manning immortalized was inevitable.
It involved breaking the process for each book down to three phases – raw scan (outsourced to two specialized companies. I fired the first one for sloppy work. The B team shined through). Then my admins got to work on taking the raw scans and refining them to what were believed to be viable drafts. I was the judge of that. I scoured every single page of every single book. I made countless corrections on the fly, leaving the original work itself untouched right down to the last comma or semicolon. Period. I took no liberties. I revised nothing.
I detest revisionists in all of their fundamentally flawed forms. (Hey Jo, whadya know? ) BFF could stand for Be Fucked Forever. I’m a purist as historians go; preserve the history as it happened for posterity to figure out. I think I exercised editorial control just once and that was only to point out that modern-day Ishtar amulets and related merchandise were available for sale for the first time in about thirty years. Just send an email.
Don’t fret Al Manning fans! Astral Al left behind lots of gems. Stick around and explore them all over time. You can help me make sure Al G. Manning immortalized will stand the test of time.
