ETA: Next book
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It would have been simpler if this mechanic is not available. As it is, it is likely to lead to Fridge Logic and great many plot holes.
Yes back in time, but hey, old doesn’t mean bad. Read great many old books. Have you read History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibon? How about The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin? Early medical books are realy interesting. I also read a lot of those “Classic” titles like the Anne series and Pride and Prejudice. Though some of those books have a really old fashioned writing that is kinda hard to read.
That mechanic may not exist, remember you are talking to Tizzy…
And not to put words in Tizzy’s mouth, heaven forbid, I would never want to do that…
But I don’t think he was implying anything bad about older books. Remember he’s more centuries old than anyone seems to know (or at least care).
I myself am pretty jaundiced on newer works. By the time Robert Jordan came on the scene, I’d been so exhausted by the old archetypes that I’d already started on DoA, just for something different.
Now, there’s been a lot of great stuff since then, but the market has also expanded tremendously and so weeding the garden for the gems (mixed metaphors) is a big chore.
Jane Austen rocks, I think she’s the best English language plot generator since Billy Shakes…and quite frankly neither of them originated their plot lines they just perfected them to the point that everyone thinks they’re the core script for everything since. Sort of like Lucille Ball and the sitcom.
So random hits of old books/authors I really like:
The Faerie Queen (tedious)
Le Morte d’Arthur (tedious)
Canterbury Tales (decent)Jane Austen, Dickens, Shelly, Stoker, Cervantes, Baroness Emma Orczy (Scarlet Pimpernel), Alexander Dumas, Poe: All Great
Thomas Hardy, anyone named Bronte: Bleck….ick ick ick
Jules Verne: extremely original and good adventure (technical writing ~)
ERB (Edgar Rice Burroughs): original and good adventure (technically worse than Verne)
CS Lewis: Decent/light, get over the allegory already.
JRR Tolkien: Why read this guy when you can read Terry Brooks? :^o
Charles L Dodgson (Lewis Carrol): Lot’s of fun!
Frank Baum (Wiz Oz): I enjoyed these books.EE Doc Smith: Totally bogus SF, but what a blast!
Alice Mary Norton (Andre Norton): Probably second to Heinlein in terms of prodigious quantity/quality. Not quite there on overall strength, but pioneering.
Robert Heinlein: The Grokiest and most versatile SF writer ever.
James Blish: Cities in Flight–in my memory that says it all. But he did a lot of other great stuff.
Ursula K. Le Guin: Wow.
Gardner DoZois: Fascinating
Philip K Dick: yes, they do dream of electric sheepAnd with these last masters we are drug into the 60’s/70’s and what I consider modern SF/Fantasy. Add Frank Herbert in there to put some icing on the cake.
I could then go into a huge post on my favorite 60s/70s/80s authors. I think SF (not Fantasy) pretty much peaked during those 3 decades, Dick and Gibson signally the top of the mountains. (see manned space flight and moon landings, birth of computers)
Once we get to the ‘post modern era’ things start to dry up in terms of the greats.
Brom, Stephensen, Gaiman, GRRM…and others I am sure…but the bodies of work just isn’t there yet for me to perceive them at these stratospheric levels.
But I’ll take suggestions!
(in the pre-post modern era: A.Rice, PZB, Storm Constantine, Jordan until he sold out, Modessit until he sold out)
And if we want to talk authors that don’t know when to end a story…I just have to throw in Piers Anthony (late modern), a guy who comes up with (CAME up with) some of the best ideas and greatest first, second and maybe third book, and then drives the story into the ground with a steam pile driver…
PS: And what I mean by sold out is, milking a story/series to death rather than creating new original storylines after the $$ starts rolling in.
PPS: Advanced Warning: If I can get a 99 book deal from some publisher, I may change my definition of sold out, and I may end up being Tizzy’s slave!
But don’t demons have an easy time returning to the abyss regardless of where they are as they are literally bound to the plane and can will themselves back unless actively bound, and this still can’t bind them if they suffer enough damage. Demons would do great in some high tech civilizations as they might people to pass off as another race with unknown tech, who would make great bankers, as nobody could find their bank and they are greater at following their interpretation of their own words. Though it’s interesting that god’s aren’t affected by native mana level, implying they are bound to their god pool, as demons are to the abyss, if anybody could figure out how to tap into abyssal power they would be nigh unstoppable, as a demon anyways. Near as I figure the abyss is an abyss that tends to suck anything that enters it to places beyond reach unable to escape.
Also how common are telepathics in the tech/magic worlds that are just right as mentioned earlier?
Getting to the magic worlds is probably the bigger problem for the demon, it’s the creating the body on that plane that’s hard to do. That’s why you spawn half demon babies to go around collecting mana to help you come into the world.
Getting back short of dying is also very hard. In a really low mana world you either need to use Astral Travel (and so need another plane), Die (lose the expensive body) and return to the Abyss, or have someone with a lot of mana create a gateway from outside for bodily travel.
Telepathy is a form of animagic every where you go…the mentalists do it in Astlan (and Mind Reavers) so what you find in other worlds is pretty similar to that…it doesn’t generally have a high energy requirement so it’s great when levels are lower.
“Mutants” with a gift for ESP/Seeing/Scrying/Telepathy/Empathy etc are pretty common. These are people with a real gift for animagic….
@The Author Guy:
The Stinky Cheese is a picture book! Don’t expect too much!
I have stopped reading Peirs. Have developed distaste for them.
I think I stopped around the fifth book in the series that started with On A Pale Horse I know I got to the Devil…think I bought but didn’t read the god one…
Holy Crap! I just went to Amazon to check out dates for that….
On October 21, 2014 Xanth #39 will be released.
AGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
](*,)
I know I joke about 99 book commits or book #36…but please…if I write that many DoA books, everyone come and do an Intervention!
Oh my G! The number of books for such a mediocre book series is just ridiculous. Couldn’t he just make a new series? Or much better, a stand alone book.
Well, I would intervene if the series somewhat degraded. But if not, well, I would ask you to continue.
Well, he used to write a LOT of series.
I’m scared to go and check out the other series for fear they are also all in the 20’s and 30’s.
I actually bet that a lot of those books are cowritten by others (or more likely ghost written and they get cowriting credit) and he just takes a big chunk of the cash.
That is a possibility. I can’t remember a very big difference in writing styles in the series though. Or maybe there are but was not observant enough at those times?
I’m not against very long series as long, as each part is good, but most serries that run very long do tend to deteriorate in quality.
I think he does it after about the 6th or 7th book.
Actually MZB had some cowriters, especially in anthologies and those generally worked pretty good. Darkover is a complex enough world with a long history to write in that there are a lot of stories, and none are super long. So that’s one place where it works. Of course, those are about lots of different people in different times. Only a few of the stories were actual multipart books.
I think world books can go on for a very long time and still be original. Thieves World is a particularly good example, and there’s a lot of authors writing there.
But a single set of characters…not sure that can legitimately go longer than 6000 or so pages…other than A Song of Ice and Fire, of course. There are always exceptions.
Anyway, I love long series if there is a story being told, but if it looks like the author is just cashing in, then i cash out.
[quote=Tizzy;898]You do know that books were invented in the Abyss by demons to torture mortals.
We use a process called Fiction Addiction to torture people.
We get you hooked on a book, then make you wait and wait and wait for a sequel.
When you eventually get the sequel, you get it, you start reading it avidly to fix your addiction, and then a few days later (or less) you are done with it and desperately wanting the next book in the series…and so the torture begins again.
We were really successful with this torture strategy for books, and then Movies and TV Shows.
Unfortunately, things like Netflix that allow one to binge watch are putting a real hit out on us. Fortunately, once you are done binge-ing a series/season, we do get to torture you waiting for the next series/season.
Obviously GRRM has taken this torture to new heights. Perhaps he is the Concordenax?
[/quote]
I havent’ been on in like a month and now i find that i dodged a bullet. Your evil crazed fiction addiction had limited success on my otherwise sane mind that is totally sane by my standards…maybe not yours but yeah.
What other definition of sanity can there be, but me?
I assure you that I am the gold standard of sanity in the Abyss!
:d/
@The Author Guy:
I haven’t really read much anthologies becuase I always end up feeling that I wasted money on it as I will not always like all of its contents. I always end up liking only 2 or 3 of the stories an just skip everything else. It feels to me like the authors is trying to make us pay for the stories we won’t like.
And for those worlds where many authors write… don’t really like them either. Maybe I just keep ending choosing those horrible ones but previous experiences do influence selection, and now I tend to avoid them. I seen the Thieves World but it is obvious what this kind of work is and I have never bought and read one. Maybe I give it a try next time.
As for stories… Have you read books that doesn’t seem to be telling a story at all? Those are the worst.
@Tizzy:
On being sane in insane places… I feel sorry for you.
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