Inconceivable!

Mike Schilling

Mike has been a software engineer far longer than he would like to admit. He has strong opinions on baseball, software, science fiction, comedy, contract bridge, and European history, any of which he's willing to share with almost no prompting whatsoever.

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8 Responses

  1. Anne says:

    This has been a rough week. Two important influences on my life gone. Thanks for this @mike ShillingReport

  2. Jaybird says:

    I absolutely adored the book and it was years before I realized that there was no original book that I had a moral obligation to read instead of the version with just the good parts.

    He did so very many things (I didn’t know that he did Marathon Man! I didn’t know that he did Butch and Sundance!) and I imagine that it bugged him on one level that there are a whole bunch of people who, like me, think of him as the The Princess Bride Guy.

    There’s this itch in the back of my head that tells me that I should think of him as A Major Writer or something rather than as The Princess Bride Guy. It feels a lot like the itch that told me that I should read Morgenstern’s book.

    Maybe someday.Report

    • Mike Schilling in reply to Jaybird says:

      There’s a story that Goldman left out of the movie because it didn’t fit, and that I didn’t tell above, because it didn’t fit there either. Here it is:

      Butch was in prison in Utah for train robbery. The governor, who liked Butch as much as everyone else did, came by one day with an offer.

      “Butch, if you’ll promise to stop robbing trains, I’l give you a full pardon.”

      “Governor, that’s a very fine offer, but I couldn’t make that promise in good conscience. But here’s what I can do: If you pardon me, I promise I’ll never rob anther train in Utah.”

      This was close enough, and the deal was made.Report

  3. atomickristin says:

    Wonderful piece. Thank you.Report

  4. Saul Degraw says:

    The main thing I love William Goldman for was his non-fiction book on Broadway. The Season is still the best book written about American theatre even though it is 50 years old at this point:

    https://www.amazon.com/SEASON-Candid-Look-At-Broadway/dp/0879100230Report

  5. North says:

    Princess Bride was the first book I read that made such astonishingly good use of footnotes. One of my favorite things in this world. RIP.

    *Along with stew.Report