Stacer, recommend a book to me

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

Hrm... I never figured a game company would be the ideal place to get a novel published.

[Eagle Prince]

That might depend.  Lets say this is your first published novel and its a Forgotten Realms book.  There's already a fan base there, and not many authors are going to have a fan base buying their books when they are previously unpublished.  Imagine if you were unpublished but your first book was Star Wars: Episode III, that's a much safer place to be than starting a brand new series by an author nobody knows.

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

but then, in most cases, you're locked into a setting which a) doesn't pay much, and b) doesn't get as much respect and c) doesn't allow for as much independent work.

Who are the most famous D&D writers? Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman. THeir first was an entirely NEW setting. If you have the creativity and ability to make an entirely new setting, generally, you're better off not going to someone like WotC to publish.

[fuzzyoctopus]

And the best Star Trek novels (IMO) are the ones where they go to an alien planet and meet a new NPC that the author makes up themselves, who joins the party for the novel.

Or like with Diane Duane, write out an elaborate history of the planet Vulcan in a really cool fashion.

[42]

According to Dave Wolverton, the author gets a good half-million for a Star Wars book. He should know. However, he also said that the editor for the Star Wars series is kind of a dork. He usually only gives the author two to three weeks to write the book.

It just kind of depends how lucrative the series stays at. Going on to other series isn't impossible. Though it gets harder the more fanfics you write, or so I hear.

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

last time I heard from him he said that they don't pay as much as he got anymore, making the endeaver much less worth it.

[Mistress of Darkness]

Since this topic has your name in it, I thought I would put this here.

Stacer, or Brenna, or Fuzzy, have you ever heard of/read a story about a girl who's father is a tinsmith, and then he dies and she has to run away because her village is going to condemn her as a witch? Then she meets up with this dragon (a "golden" one) that can shapeshift into a human? Very 13 yo girly, but the fact that I can't remember the title has been bugging me since I was a freshman in college.

[fuzzyoctopus]

Umm, I think it's "Dragon's Bait" by Vivian Vande Velde, who has the COOLEST name in the world.


While you're at it, can anyone tell me the name/author of another book I can't remember.  It's about this family who takes in foster children, and one day a baby is left on their doorstep and his name is Floris (which I remember because everyone keeps saying "florist??") and it turns out he's from another realm, and he's a prince there.

[stacer]

Wow, I've never read either book. Makes me want to find the VVV book, just for the fun way VVV looks all together.

[Gemm: Rock & Roll Star; Born to Rock]

Kind of like the chick in Total Recall.

[Entsuropi]

Haha, i like how gemm remembers the important things in that film.

[stacer]

Ewwww.

[fuzzyoctopus]

Hey, so I'm 4 chapters/~100 pages into "Daughter of the Empire".  Is quite good indeed.  Has Chris read it? I can't help but think of him with all the Asian-ness to the culture.

[Spriggan]

I didn't like that series, Fiest shouldn't have had a co-author.  I think that's what ruined it.

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

I disagree. Janny Wurts has done a respectable enough job on her independent  work (though, like Feist, hardly Genius in most cases) and Feist needed that fusion. this set of novels sounds LEAST like an adaptation of a role playing game session of all his work, aside from, perhaps, Faerie Tale.