As I’ve been spending the better part of three days working on the “bible” (which is a compilation of notes, back story, history, etc.) for the fantasy adventure novel I’m in the process of revising (I needed a break from it, but wanted to remain within that “world”), it has occurred to me, “Hey, Jesse. You’re writing a serial-style adventure story that is largely sword and sorcery fantasy*. But you don’t even really like fantasy literature. What gives?”
Archive for the ‘Books’ Category
My Problem with a Lot of Fantasy Lit
Saturday, January 23rd, 2010The Wheel of Time Will Never End
Sunday, April 26th, 2009I jumped into the Wheel of Time books right after “A Crown of Swords” came out in 1996, some six years after the series started. I was looking forward to finally, after all of these years, to finally have the story finished, as Robert Jordan said the twelfth book, “A Memory of Light,” would wrap up the series.
Then, unfortunately, Mr. Jordan died.
His wife and editor, Harriet McDougal, hired fantasy writer Brandon Sanderson to finish the twelfth book that Mr. Jordan had started, using copious amounts of notes and recordings that he made once he knew the end was coming. So, it seemed like the twelfth book would finally arrive and wrap everything up after all.
Guess again.
New York, NY: Monday, March 30, 2009
Tor Books is proud to announce the November 3rd, 2009 on-sale date for The Gathering Storm, Book Twelve of The Wheel of Time and the first of three volumes that will make up A Memory of Light, the stunning conclusion to Robert Jordan’s beloved and bestselling fantasy series. A Memory of Light, partially written by Jordan and completed by Brandon Sanderson, will be released over a two-year period.
Robert Jordan, one of the greatest storytellers of the 20th and early 21st centuries, passed away in 2007 after a courageous battle with the rare blood disease amyloidosis. Brandon Sanderson, the New York Times bestselling author of the Mistborn books, was chosen by Jordan’s editor—his wife, Harriet McDougal—to complete the final book.
The Wheel of Time series has sold over 14 million copies in North America and over 30 million copies worldwide with translations into 28 languages. The last four books in the series were all #1 New York Times bestsellers, and for over a decade readers have been eagerly awaiting the conclusion to the epic story.
Harriet McDougal said on the process behind A Memory of Light: “The scope and size of the novel was such that it could not be contained in a single volume. It was a piece of marvelous good fortune that Brandon Sanderson undertook the work. He is a great pleasure to work with, as well as a wonderful writer.”
President and Publisher of Tor Books, Tom Doherty, also expressed his happiness with A Memory of Light, saying: “It is a magnificent closure to a great American epic fantasy whose journey began almost twenty years ago. There is no way Robert Jordan would have squeezed it to a single volume, and somehow it seems fitting that what began as a trilogy will also end as one.”
The first ever JordanCon will take place this April 17th – 19th, 2009 in Alpharetta, GA. Harriet McDougal, Tom Doherty, Brandon Sanderson, and other members of “Team Jordan” will attend as featured guests and speak personally on The Wheel of Time and The Gathering Storm and the stories behind the rich literary legacy of Robert Jordan. JordanCon will also include a special preview of The Gathering Storm.
This year will also see major publications of Robert Jordan’s The Wheel of Time comic books and graphic novels with the launch of The Eye of the World comics in May and the New Spring graphic novel with bonus material in November. The Dabel Brothers will be releasing the comic book series, which will then be collected and published as graphic novels by Tor Books.
Universal Pictures acquired the movie rights to The Wheel of Time in August 2008, and currently plan to adapt The Eye of the World as the first movie.
Stephanie Meyer is Lucky Her Hand Wasn’t Cut Off By a Radial Arm Saw
Monday, April 13th, 2009Oi, it’s been five days since an update. Where have I been? Well, I’ve been having internet issues primarily and the extent of my access has been reduced to Facebook on my cell phone. But the internet seems to be working fine this morning, so I thought I’d sneak in a post.
Over at CHUD, Nick Nunziata has been doing a series of articles decrying the success of the book “Twilight” and its dominance of the teen lit genre as well as its film adaptation (you can read part one, two, and three but if language isn’t your bag, be warned - he swears). Nunziata just posted part four, which is actually his commentary on an interview that Stephanie Meyer did with “Entertainment Weekly” a little while back. Now, while I don’t really agree with his cracks at Mormons (I’ve got some friends that are LDS and they’re good people), I do share his bewilderment at the fact that Stephanie Meyer isn’t familiar with the vampire genre of literature or film outside her own adaptation. When asked by the magazine if she’d read Bram Stoker’s “Dracula,” she says:
MEYER: No, but it’s on the list. I should’ve read that one a long time ago, but right now I can’t read any vampire novels. I tried, after I wrote Twilight, to read The Historian, because it was the big thing that summer. But I can’t read other people’s vampires. If it’s too close [to my writing], I get upset; if it’s too far away, I get upset. It just makes me very neurotic.
That just blows my mind. I’m writing a fantasy novel and I know enough to realize that one should at least be familiar with the genre one’s writing in, to have a touchstone, if nothing else, for one’s own work. I’ll admit, I haven’t read a lot of fantasy, but you better believe that I’ve got the granddaddy of fantasy literature - The Lord of the Rings - under my belt (in addition to some more popular fare - The Wheel of Time series, Harry Potter series, Chronicles of Narnia, etc). It just doesn’t make sense to me that a writer would blindly write about something. They even continue:
EW: Is it true that you’ve never seen a vampire movie?
MEYER: I’ve seen little pieces of Interview with a Vampire when it was on TV, but I kind of always go YUCK! I don’t watch R-rated movies, so that really cuts down on a lot of the horror. And I think I’ve seen a couple of pieces of The Lost Boys, which my husband liked, and he wanted me to watch it once, but I was like, It’s creepy!
I don’t know; as a writer, I find this irresponsible. It’s like playing with power tools without learning how to operate them first. And one may argue that she didn’t need to learn how to operate them and point to the success of the novels as proof, but success doesn’t always ensure quality. The movie Twilight was extremely successful, but I’ve seen it and frankly, as I’ve told many friends, I wanted to punch myself in the balls afterwards - it’d have been less painful.
And no, I’ve not read the novels, which is typically a “Twilight” fan’s question when they find out that I felt tortured and immasculated by the movie. The fans all say the book is better than the movie, but name one instance in the history of the film adaptations of books where that wasn’t the case? Still, I think I’ve decided, in an effort to shut up “Twilight” fans that try convincing me of the literary worth of Meyer’s contribution to the vampire genre, to give the first book a try. Personally, I don’t think I’ll be swayed by it, but you never know. So, look for my review of “Twilight” by Stephanie Meyer in the forthcoming weeks. We’ll see how I feel about this phenomena afterwards and whether or not that I’d wish the radial arm saw would take off her hand after all.