So I was going through a pile of old “Analog” science fiction magazines, checking out which ones I have that are redundant and that I can – with luck – sell. One such issue is the March, 1974, edition:

For no readily apparent reason, I pulled this spare aside and cracked it open to check out the contents. Lo and behold, this was the issue that had Larry Niven’s fact article, “Bigger Than Worlds,” where he explained to teenage version of me, sometime in the mid 1980’s, that humans could, at least in principle, build structures bigger than ships, bigger than cities, bigger than nations, continents, even planets. Bigger than solar systems. And perhaps, just maybe, structures to rival the scale of galaxies.

So in the interests of nostalgia, I opened the magazine to the article, and there I saw:

Whoops.

Took me a second to remember just what I was looking at. And then a vague recollection: sometime, a few decades back, I went to a science fiction convention where Larry Niven was in attendance, and got him to sign this issue.

I suspect I should probably separate my “signed editions” of stuff. I’m not a big collector or seeker of such things, but I do have several… a number of Robert L. Forwards, an Allen Steele, I *think* I’ve got a Buzz Aldrin, and now that I think on it, I kinda think one of my several copies of “Footfall” is inscribed by either Niven or Pournelle (though that interesting factoid suddenly becomes difficult to verify, as *none* of my copies of Footfall are to be found just now).

Anyway… in a few days I’ll probably have a mess of books and Analogs and such available for anyone who wants ’em… but this issue won’t be among ’em. Almost was, though. Coulda been a  mite embarrassing.