[JenStevenson]

FicusFan, jeez, you sound really scarred by this experience!

I guess this means I'd better be really careful about what expectations I raise for the reader and where their loyalties lie, relationshipwise.

Dunno where the Brass Bed crew is headed, ultimately, although I know what their 'external plot line' is about. The part people care about, clearly, is the core relationships. I expect when it becomes apparent that Jewel will choose one or the other of these two guys--or god forbid a third, lordy, I don't think I can imagine that yet--then the series will have to come to a close.

This is tough. I've grown very fond of Clay, who was planned merely as a foil to my Regency lordling (Randolph Llew Carstairs Athelbury Darner, Third Earl Pontarsais) turned sex demon (Randy). Randy's all dark and dangerous and self-serious. Clay is the beta male, the guy who messes with Jewel's mind instead of ripping her bodice, which is SO Randy's department. Hm.

[FicusFan]

Well not scarred, but seriously pissed.

I think when you are writing a series and you set things up and the core parts are respected for 7 books you have set up not only expectations but an agreement with your audience. It would have been better for her to end the series and do something else. It wasn't like she was loosing money or readers with the series before the advent of the pod people.

I do think that you can make changes as an author, and LKH did, but at the start they were slow, well explained and within the scope of who the characters have been developed to be. So write your story and develop your characters, and have a good time, just leave the pod people and the Deus ex Machina in the drawer :) .

Part of the reason the reaction is so strong is that the books and the characters were so good, and touched a chord. I am actually much less pissed than I was :eek: , and much clamer and more rational than a lot of others who are on some of the lists dedicated to Anita or LKH. :eek: Just now they have erupted again because of the 3 new chapters. :rolleyes:

[Duanawitch]

It seems like this month was one of the busiest of my life: new job, my grandfather in hospital (and then, thankfully, out and well again), friends to stay. :o Phew. And through it all I was reading my way through Trash, Sex, Magic and loving it. :) But I still don't have time to post my full thoughts, so I'll direct you here (http://www.fantasybookspot.com/?q=node/view/216). Its a review I've written of the novel for FantasyBookSpot.com and it encompasses lots of my thoughts. Hope I'll have the energy to come back and discuss it all tomorrow. :)

[JenStevenson]

WOW, Dunawich, that's probably the deepest anyone's every reviewed this book. THANK YOU!

If you have any questions now's the time to ask. Well, actually, you can ask now but I won't be back from the RWA National Conference in Reno until Tuesday. I might be able to check in while I'm on the road...if I can remember my bloody password.

Wow. Great review. I'd like to post it on my website...is that okay?

Hope your life at home reorders itself in a satisfactory manner.
Jennifer

[Duanawitch]

Wow. Great review. I'd like to post it on my website...is that okay?

Thank you very much :) and yes, I'd be honoured for you to post it on your website so long as you don't mind mentioning where it came from (www.fantasybookspot.com) and that it was written for the website by me. I'm an Associate Reviewer there and my off-line name is Victoria Hoyle.

If you have any questions now's the time to ask.

I do have a few. :) Did you set out to write the novel with an ecological agenda? Or consider it a comment on contemporary sexual or social politics? I thought that the power of the Somershoe women was fascinating given their socio-economic background...you opened up a culture I have no actual experience of in a very different light (I'm British, have never been to America and am only familiar with the concept of trailer trash from TV).

And have you ever thought of writing a short story about the tree before Alexander? I'd love to read one. :)

I have more, but I'll leave it at that. Don't want to create a swamp of questions. And if other SFFWorld peoples want to join in on these topics then please do.

[intensityxx]

Duanawitch, another fantasy novel (very different and very comic) is one by Christopher Moore, called Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove. :D

edit: I meant to say fantasy novel about trailer trash.

[JenStevenson]

Dunawich, you write:
>>Did you set out to write the novel with an ecological agenda? <<

Yes. My mother's side of the family--well, coming down through her parents anyway--is all involved in the ecology movement. My mom has a wetland in my home town named after her. My grandparents were Sierra Clubbers and Save-the-Dunesers and Prairie-Pathers back before it was a national buzz. My brother was a radical ecologist. My own involvement has been strictly through fiction--not so noble, perhaps, but maybe fiction reaches more people.

>>Or consider it a comment on contemporary sexual or social politics? I thought that the power of the Somershoe women was fascinating given their socio-economic background...you opened up a culture I have no actual experience of in a very different light (I'm British, have never been to America and am only familiar with the concept of trailer trash from TV). <<

Actually I was using Rae and her mother to comment on something to the side of sexual and social politics. Trash Sex Magic is a gauntlet thrown down in a fiction arena where those issues play out.

To expound. (Oh, no, not that!) I've been part of the science fiction convention scene for about 30 years, and I've heard a lot of baloney about how 'magic in fantasy must operate by internally consistent rules,' which simply isn't valid. This 'rule,' as well as the entire social structure of most fantasy novels, is part of the huge bias many SF and fantasy novels have toward middle-class ideas, mores, politics, what-have-you. We simply don't notice this bias because we're pretty much all middle-class.

My feeling is, Magic is not tidy. It isn't something you go to Druid School (college) for. You can't tell the magnitude of a wizard's power by the length of his beard or the height of his pointy hat (tenure).

People who use magic are more liable to be unaware they're doing it, and they're likely to hurt themselves with magic just as often as they accomplish something with magic. You have to be a little dumb and a little naive and more than slightly unhinged from the mainstream culture (suburbia) to be any good at magic, and by definition people like that don't function well in ordinary (middle class) society. They forget to renew their driver's licenses. Mold grows in their shoes and broken cars and broken glass grow on their lawns.

Terry Pratchett's witches make more sense to me than anything Llewllyn ever published.

Jennifer, who is done ranting for the moment

[JenStevenson]

BTW I'm sorry I haven't posted promptly; I was in Reno at the RWA conference. Back now obviously.

Dunawich writes,
>>And have you ever thought of writing a short story about the tree before Alexander? I'd love to read one.
I have more, but I'll leave it at that. Don't want to create a swamp of questions. And if other SFFWorld peoples want to join in on these topics then please do.<<

Never thought of a short story about the tree before Alexander, actually, but now that you've asked for it, I'll be thinking about it!

Ask all your questions!

And Intensityxx--I've read all Christopher Moore's books except LAMB, which I bought but haven't got around to yet. FLUKE was a stitch. As usual with Moore, the best part of FLUKE was not the fantastical part but the wholly believable story about the two women whale-ologists who get caught in a boat between two mating whales.

Did you read BLOODSUCKING FIENDS? My favorite part in that one was the frozen turkey bowling league, and other mischief with the stockboys.

Jen

[intensityxx]

Duanawitch, another fantasy novel (very different and very comic) is one by Christopher Moore, called Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove. :D

Ack! Somehow I forgot to say "another fantasy novel about trailer trash..."

I bet that made no sense at all, OMG. :confused: :eek: :D

[mu emperor]

I just wanted to say that I almost bought this on amazon the other day because I love Kelly Link. She's probably my favorite living writer besides Gene Wolfe or McCarthy(maybe Rushdie). I got a misfits cd, instead somehow. Anyway I will definitely be ordering it now.