I had a dream last night in which I had been summoned to see Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson, but had no idea why. I went to his hotel, at which I found him surrounded by his minions, some of whom were massaging his feet. He had me sit on a couch opposite him, and instructed two of his helpers to remove my shoes and massage my feet as well. While we sat there, we talked about science fiction and fantasy. I thought, as I looked at him over the foot massagers, this is a little weird, but hey, it’s Peter Jackson!

Then he got to the real purpose of his invitation. It had absolutely nothing to do with me—he’d been trying to reach one of my writers, Eric Baker, a longtime friend whose fiction and non-fiction I’ve been publishing as far back as the Science Fiction Age days, and who I’d met long before that. Jackson said that the phone and e-mail information he had for Eric didn’t work, and he hoped I had better and more recent info, because he really needed to get in touch with him.

So I pulled out my BlackBerry and searched for Eric’s entry in my address book, but for some reason, no matter how I typed in his name, I couldn’t find it. Other friends and writers kept popping up, but Jackson didn’t want them, only Eric, and there was no Eric. I woke still looking, with Jackson being very disappointed, and me being disappointed I was disappointing him.

Sorry, Eric—I guess this means Jackson won’t be calling you about that gig!