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rsbakker

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"Do you plan on writing an extensive summary and/or series of tales about the 'old days' of Nonmen glory, before the coming of the Vile?"

Nothing concrete, though their is a lot of new material by dint of all the new references.

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"Atrocity Tales: a few years back you mentioned your goal was to produce around 100k or so words of AT before submitting for publication. Is this still the current plan? How many AT do you plan on writing?"

They continue to accumulate! I'm quite a ways from 100k though, I fear. I always have a bunch of story ideas simmering.

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"Looking back on The Aspect Emperor, are there any structural changes you would consider making, if you could do it over again?"

As far as I can tell those who prefer PoN miss the continuous, often intense interaction between the characters. The Dunishness of PoN is missing from AE primarily because AE is a genuine quest tale, more LordofRingish, one split into four separate strands. The World becomes a much, much bigger character, which seems to alienate those who aren't world-junkies like us. I'm not sure if there's any way to accommodate this and keep steering true.

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"I ask this last question primarily do to my own opinion of the series: I feel it might have made TJE (and Sorweel's character) more epic and satisfying if the initial battle sequences from WLW had been juxtaposed against the Cil-Aujas chapters. This would have made Sorweel seem more prominent and given some palpable tension to the Ordeal arc"

Even this kind of expresses the issue, I think. An attempt to press characters together! These are exactly the kinds of technical things I would have tried initially. It's amazing how much differently chapters read depending on their antecedents.

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Hey Adam. I was hoping you would drop by, my brother.

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"Will the title of the Series That Shall Not Be Named be self-evident by the end of TUC based on how the book ends?"

Maybe. It all depends on how twisted you are. My guess is that you've already figured it out. ;)

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"For a more prosaic prequel story, something involving Achamian's younger days and his tutoring of Nersei Proyas would more directly lead into TDTCB, but that depends if there's a good enough story there to justify the exercise."

I've always thought this would make an excellent Atrocity Tale, simply because you could use it to cast some pretty interesting semantic shadows through the series proper. The "What has come before" idea has never occurred to me before, and bears serious thinking.

As for sales, there's difficulty and then there's difficulty. If you think SA gets some rough treatment here, it used to just be regularly and royally savaged over on the Mazalan board, and for far different reasons. We're all Silmarillion people, and I'm a wanker to boot. The hope is to use sheer epic awesomeness to convince people to read something they might never think of reading otherwise.

Besides, it feels as if it should be a slog for some crazy reason. It would make it easier for me to trust that way.

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1 hour ago, rsbakker said:

Hey Adam. I was hoping you would drop by, my brother.

Maybe. It all depends on how twisted you are. My guess is that you've already figured it out. ;)

I've always thought this would make an excellent Atrocity Tale, simply because you could use it to cast some pretty interesting semantic shadows through the series proper. The "What has come before" idea has never occurred to me before, and bears serious thinking.

As for sales, there's difficulty and then there's difficulty. If you think SA gets some rough treatment here, it used to just be regularly and royally savaged over on the Mazalan board, and for far different reasons. We're all Silmarillion people, and I'm a wanker to boot. The hope is to use sheer epic awesomeness to convince people to read something they might never think of reading otherwise.

Besides, it feels as if it should be a slog for some crazy reason. It would make it easier for me to trust that way.

Call it "shadows of the past" sort of a what has come before short story ( hattip to Tolkien) with conphas and achamian teaching moenghus and Proyas respectively about the earwa equivalent "history of the ring of power" in parallel, so to speak in a way that sets the stakes for the holy war and teases the world building backstory revelations from the end of TWP.

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13 hours ago, Michael Seswatha Jordan said:

@Happy Ent, id love to see you work a Lil Moe meeting Cnaüir and SS Serwe into that.

I'd like to see what HE does when finds his own meaning to deal with, rather than circling like a comedic vulture around the kills of others. >:]

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4 hours ago, Callan S. said:

I'd like to see what HE does when finds his own meaning to deal with, rather than circling like a comedic vulture around the kills of others. >:]

Or that. Whatever works. Just a suggestion, my my.

ETA: don't you ever think about if this scene does happen in the books? How does RSB handle that? I mean this has to happen right? And yet, I can see no convincing way it's NOT pure comedy gold when it does. 

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I would love an atrocity tale that provided some more background on Fane or the Cishaurim as the Fanim conquered the southern Three Seas.

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I don't know if this will end up being read, but I would like to say this:

Thank you, Mr Bakker.

It is rare to find these days fantasy with substance rather than fantasy for the sake of fantasy. The second apocalypse hooked me from the moment I read the opening to TDTCB (Kellhus leaving ishual), held me in an iron grip with some of the most compelling characters I have ever read ( my favorites were Achamian and Cnaiur in PoN) and still keeps me thinking and conjecturing about the fate of Earwa and its inhabitants. Personally, I finished TGO about 3 days ago and I am still reeling from the feelings... The Koringhus part was what stood out for me. Very nuanced and it gave me a feeling of awe without having to resort to difficult to understand italic WLW -speech (not that I mind that, I understand that it has its role as well) .

My only gripe with TGO was how the ending of the Mimara+Akka plotline didnt feel particularly climactic ( I mean Cnaiur's return came kinda out of the blue) but that's just me.

It is strange that SA hasn't become as well known as I would expect but then again the brightest gems dwell in the dark. I personally discovered SA through a goodreads recommendation and I am glad I decided to check it out back then. I hope TUC will be a worthy conclusion to all these stories that the SA contains and gives some answers to certain questions ( even though I am not sure the answers will be particularly pleasant...)

PS: Please don't kill Sorwa

   

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Scott if you are looking for a prequel story you should consider the decade prior to the start of the story proper. The politics and feint that led to the first holy war, focusing on the Scarlet Spires of High Ainon and the Cishaurim of the Cabin empire. Since the metaphysics of the Psukhe or the anagogis do not seem central to the larger story they can be explored without spoiling the greater story. And since the Cishaurim do not understand their art the metaphysics will not be spoiled. The discovery of the skin spies and the reaction to it, the internal politics of Cishaurim would be fascinating. moenghus and his struggle to master circumstances, what he was like in private, Maithanet and his defective siblings.  

The birth of the thousandfold thought and his struggle to bring it into existence, conditioning Martha for his role and trying to reach Ishual.

If you wished their could be flash backs of Moenghus in Ishual without spoiling the Dunyain. The inner court of the Scarlet Spires, a young Eleazaurus and a not as old Iyokus, the infamous attack that started there secret war. How they viewed themselves before the war. And there view of the Mandate.

The battle of Zirkirta, the Scylvendi before Conphas and Cnaiur before he fell into madness. This would cover the factions skipped over in PON without spoiling the main narrative.

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On 10/8/2016 at 11:57 PM, Werthead said:

Hi Scott.

Will the title of the Series That Shall Not Be Named be self-evident by the end of TUC based on how the book ends?

Malazan is published by Bantam UK in the, er, UK, which is not a massive SFF publisher. The few SFF works they do release they focus on a lot and put a lot of faith and work into them. However, much more to the point is that Malazan's US publisher is Tor, the biggest SFF publisher in the business. That makes a lot of difference.

That said, the last sales figures we had for Malazan (Erikson only) are between 2 and 3 million, which is great but it's also spread out over 12 books. The number of actual readers Erikson has is therefore only in the very low hundreds of thousands. It's the sheer number of books that he's put out plus the better-known US publisher which has helped him be more successful.

Hmm. For a more prosaic prequel story, something involving Achamian's younger days and his tutoring of Nersei Proyas would more directly lead into TDTCB, but that depends if there's a good enough story there to justify the exercise.

What might be helpful - although probably not for a first read-through - is assembling the "What Comes Before" sections into their own self-contained ebook you could either sell or give away for free via Amazon (or the vendor of your choice), which would then help reboot longer-standing readers who perhaps don't have time for full rereads.

I would like to see a Fanim Jihad against the Nansur as a prequel. Or the Nansur-Gaeloth war and the "ascendance" of Ikurei Conphas. More Akka and Proyas would be very cool though.

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Some stories about Fane would be great. I would also love to know something about the beginnings of Dunyain -- how their belief system was created. It always looked to me like a Flat Earth Atheism http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FlatEarthAtheist (traditional warning, TVTropes link) their possible contacts with Mangaecca and so on.

 

Also, the third series still is a thing, I hope?

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Well, I was ever so pleased when I discovered The Great Ordeal on Amazon at the end of last year.

I am just as pleased to see that Overlook have now listed The Unholy Consult for May 2017. That is superb news.

https://www.amazon.com/Unholy-Consult-Aspect-Emperor-Book-Four/dp/1468314866/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1476029098&sr=1-2

 

Synopsis in the link.

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On 10/9/2016 at 1:31 AM, Michael Seswatha Jordan said:

Or that. Whatever works. Just a suggestion, my my.

ETA: don't you ever think about if this scene does happen in the books? How does RSB handle that? I mean this has to happen right? And yet, I can see no convincing way it's NOT pure comedy gold when it does. 

Comedy minus time equals tragedy

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OMG OMG OMG !

Hi Mr Bakker !

excellent books !

[fanboy mode off]

now that i am over with my first very dignified response...

i dont have anything on the great ordeal , cause i haven't read it yet. i saved for next week when i go into surgery. Yay for medicated recovering bakker-reading. i wonder what dreams i will see. will report back

 

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On ‎10‎/‎9‎/‎2016 at 11:49 AM, Calibandar said:

Well, I was ever so pleased when I discovered The Great Ordeal on Amazon at the end of last year.

I am just as pleased to see that Overlook have now listed The Unholy Consult for May 2017. That is superb news.

https://www.amazon.com/Unholy-Consult-Aspect-Emperor-Book-Four/dp/1468314866/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1476029098&sr=1-2

 

Synopsis in the link.

Hmmmm... if accurate, definite spoilers in the synopsis.

Fairly minor as it would be something the average reader would probably guess would happen, but spoilers nonetheless.

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