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Authors who vanished from the face of the planet


Darth Richard II

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Barry Hughart is another author who disappeared.

I read somewhere that he had originally planned 7 volumes in his Master Li series, but was discouraged to finish them, because he was dropped by publishers repeatedly.

In some countries, however, his books have done really, really well (e.g. Germany).

 

I would have loved to read more Master Li.

 

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David Keck, author of in the eye of heaven and in a time of treason. Vanished after book two in his series. Don't know what happened.

 

David Bilsbourough, the Wanderer's tale.  This guy didn't come off well in interviews. Who knows what happened to him.

Spoiler

 

Spoiler

 

 

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1 hour ago, Andrew Gilfellon said:

David Keck, author of in the eye of heaven and in a time of treason. Vanished after book two in his series. Don't know what happened.

 


Nothing. He just took ages to write book three. It's coming out soon though.

He has a twitter, so he didn't really vanish. I assume his blog stopped updating because of said twitter, though he did post to announce that the manuscript for book 3 was delivered.

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2 hours ago, Darth Richard II said:

Yeah, Keck is a full time teacher songs only really has time to right over the summer, but he would post updates.

 

Bilsbourougb I assume just can't get published since his work is dire.

Yup,Keck is pretty active on twitter.

Wasn't Bilsborough supposed to be the 'next best thing' in fantasy at the time ? At least that's how i remember his publisher's promoting him.Thank god for blog reviews at the time,otherwise i would probably have bought and read it.:P

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Nathalie Mallet, the author of the Prince Amir Mysteries (The Princes of the Golden Cage,The King's Daughters, Death in the Travelling City). I met her at the 2008 WorldCon and had a fantastic conversation.  I know she was one of the authors that got screwed over in the Nightshade publishing debacle, but still managed to get the other books published.  I know she had a sequel planned after the Death in the Travelling City, but haven't heard peep since 2014.

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2 hours ago, AncalagonTheBlack said:

Yup,Keck is pretty active on twitter.

Wasn't Bilsborough supposed to be the 'next best thing' in fantasy at the time ? At least that's how i remember his publisher's promoting him.Thank god for blog reviews at the time,otherwise i would probably have bought and read it.:P

 

1 hour ago, Darth Richard II said:

I did buy and read it. I still wake screaming in the middle of the night.

As someone who has read both Bilsborough books (I attribute it to a temporary lapse of sanity) I can only express my pleasure that he hasn't said much more since then. Those books... so strange.. so clingy... just bad

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John Maddox Roberts has been radio silent since Beware the Snake  and The Conquistador's Hat in 2011.  I guess that he has reached the age of retirement, but I am surprised that a guy who was such an able technician and whose stories were so interesting hasn't written in half a decade.

In addition to his Stormlander books, he was also the main Conan writer for most of the 80s and 90s, plus he wrote the Cingulum series as well as co-wrote the Island World books with Eric Kotani.  His biggest successes, and some of my favorite takes on the late Roman Republic, were the SPQR series.

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11 hours ago, OlafK said:

Barry Hughart is another author who disappeared.

I read somewhere that he had originally planned 7 volumes in his Master Li series, but was discouraged to finish them, because he was dropped by publishers repeatedly.

In some countries, however, his books have done really, really well (e.g. Germany).

 

I would have loved to read more Master Li.

 

I read his A Bridge of Birds and loved it. I've kept my eye open for his complete compendium, but it's probably something I should just order online. A shame his works didn't sell better. I read he was rather upset his works were marketed as fantasy.

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  • 9 months later...

One year of radio silence for Stover, but it's been five years since Caine's Law now.  At least some other writers in the shadows have books theoretically supposed to come out. 

A few former Star Wars writers seem less visible than they once were.  Stackpole doesn't seem to talk about any new fiction projects.  Greg Keyes is still getting tie-in work, but it's coming up on almost a decade since his last original novel.  I believe Karen Traviss is self-publishing her latest novels.  Apparently Drizzt/Forgotten Realms novels are on hold, so perhaps you could even add Salvatore to the uncertainty list these days. 

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Are they? I just saw a new Drizzt novel not too long ago.

Yeah Salvatore had a series going with Nightshade, then dropped out of the NS deal then was back in the deal...and I don't know if he's even writing anymore, I think he's teaching now?

 

Edit: You got any links for that Salvatore news? I'm always interested to see how Hasbro fucked it up THIS time.

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I don't have an official link from the publisher, but Paul S. Kemp said in his most recent AMA that it looks like the line is going on hiatus.  Salvatore won't comment on more Drizzt, but said his next book is a new DemonWars.  Also reading through the Amazon reviews of the latest Drizzt book many seem to believe it's the last one.  So at the very least the rumor has gotten around.

 

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One year of radio silence for Stover, but it's been five years since Caine's Law now.  At least some other writers in the shadows have books theoretically supposed to come out. 

Stover has been clear that the Acts of Caine series has really not sold very well, and it's getting tougher to convince publishers to take a chance on them. He may self-publish future books, but he needs to build up a good career elsewhere to pay the bills. Unfortunately, I don't think Stover is the sort of writer who can churn books out for money. He only did Star Wars because he wanted to subvert it and put his own spin on it, which was fine for the 3 or 4 books he wrote but he can't extend that to churning out tie-in books forever for the money, although I do think of how amazing the Aftermath books would have been if Stover had gotten them and not Wendig.

WotC I think are struggling with Forgotten Realms. They know they monumentally fucked up the setting in 4th Edition and I suspect they really want to forget that ever happened and roll back to how the setting to how it was at the end of 3rd. The Second Sundering was supposed to do that, but people haven't been buying the novels in the numbers they used to even ten years ago, let alone during the setting's mega-heyday in the late 1980s and early 1990s (when every single Realms novel sold 300,000 copies, minimum, in its first year on sale, far more for a Salvatore or hardcover special).

My suspicion is that WotC are going to put things on hold, see how the movie does and then try to tie in with that.

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