[Rob B]

June starts, let the discussions begin!

[Erfael]

I am only halfway through so far, and enjoying it with only a few gripes that I'll save until I'm finished.

I do have to say, though, that I would NEVER have gone into a book store and picked this book. There is nothing about the actual presentation of the book that gives any indication what goes on in the book. The presentation looks like a toss-off YA book--Not a good YA book, but one that was thrown together in the hopes that a few people would pick it up and maybe profit a little.

The art is cheesy, with all of these serious people standing around with ships blowing up in the background. There is no indication in the blurbs at all about what it is.


Mankind faces extinction at alien hands.

The only thing that stands in their way?

THE DARK WING
________________________________________

Where man may have to fight genocide with genocide if he hopes to survive.



That's the back of the American version. Maybe I'm being petty, but it doesn't even look like the publisher took the book seriously.
Hopefully the rest of the international community got a little better presentation.

That said, I am enjoying it. Thank you Fitz for nominating it and pushing it through to June BoTM. I'l be back in a couple days with more thoughts. Erf.

[FicusFan]

I will jump in and say I loved the book. I am eagerly awaiting the second one to go into paper so I can snatch it up.

I thought it started a little slow, and I didn't like the timeline that jumped back and forth around the sneak attack. I was also getting worried that is was just going to be routine MilSF, when there was finally a chapter with the Zor in it. Once that kicked in I was hooked. I really loved the chapters with the Zor, and the Humans who were fighting them. I really liked learning about the Zor culture and seeing things from their point of view. I particularly liked the grunt (forget his name) on the space station raid who started to channel the High Lord. I liked the little touches about the traditions on the Naval Space Ships.

I was less crazy about the political, and Intelligence stuff, and the Stone situation, but I think that is all foreshadowing for stuff that happens later in the series. I think there are supposed to be 4 books in all.

In terms of the cover art and the blurbs -- they didn't really appeal or detract from the book for me. I bought the book before we selected it, because the author has been to my discusion group twice (once after each book came out in HC). I missed him the first time but others there said it sounded very interesting. They said it sounded like he was writing stuff close to how CJ Cherryh writes: a combo MilSF/ Anthropological SF. So I bought the book when it went into PB.

[Rob B]

Originally posted by Erfael
The art is cheesy, with all of these serious people standing around with ships blowing up in the background. There is no indication in the blurbs at all about what it is.
I don't think the cover is all that bad. To me it invokes some of the pulpy SF of the Golden Age of SF. I really found out more about the book from SFRevu (http://www.sfrevu.com)

Originally posted by Erfael
That said, I am enjoying it. Thank you Fitz for nominating it and pushing it through to June BoTM. I'l be back in a couple days with more thoughts. Erf.
No problem Erf, glad you like it.

Myself, I just started it this morning and got through the prologue. (was busy into BDT for Fantasy and a book for review for SFFW)

[hotc]

I received e-mail from the Forum Moderator that my book was chosen for the book of the month. I'm flattered that it is getting attention and positive response.

As I'm obviously in possession of the complete set of spoilers :-), I won't chime in on the plot, but will be happy to answer questions about the book or the series if I can.

Regarding the cover art, I have to say that I'm pleased with it overall; the second book cover is actually a scene from the book - how often does that happen?

Regarding the publisher, they make decisions on first-time authors that they think will sell the largest number of books; your mileage may vary. I don't feel that I can comment one way or the other on that, as I don't have input on how the book is marketed (or what goes on the flyleaf or inside cover). Glad that you bought the book anyway.

Regards,

Walter H. Hunt

[Erfael]

Well, gee. I guess now we all have to be well behaved about what we say about it. :D


I suppose my last night's experience says a lot about what I though about the book. I stayed up all night to read the last half of it. I really enjoyed it thoroughly.


I thought the mix of mililtary, political, intelligence, religious, and alien elements was a great mix that really kept me interested in where things were going to go next. I felt that the transition from the primarily military beginning where Marais was considered a soft, staff man into the later parts where we really got to see how many different aspects of both the human and zor socieites were affecting the struggle was very well done.


Something that I thought quite a bit about as I was reading this book was how history was handled. Even though the story took place in the early 2300s, there are few references to anything that has occurred in our recent history. Initially, I was a little put off by this, that there wasn't often a continuity of history exhibited as it was in, say, Hyperion. In Simmons' work, he would tie things in by lists of events that we would be familiar with extended into the future: Bach, Beethoven, Rachmaninoff, 20th Century Guy, 21st Century Guy, etc... In working through Hyperion I was very impressed with this method.

Back to The Dark Wing: In reading I thought a lot about the very occasional references to, say, the 20th Century in TDW, versus those in Simmons' work. I have to say, that upon thinking on the subject throughout TDW, I have been swayed to think that its treatment of history is better.

When most people today turn on the radio and hear a song, they usually don't even consider how the recent history of popular music, say from 1950, led into what they are listening to at a given moment. Even in politically charged situations like we have in the world now with GW Bush and his war on terror, many people don't even go back as far as the end of the second world war and look at exactly how the Middle East came to be shaped in the way it is now. People certainly don't think on a regular basis how events of 300 years past have helped to bring the world to the place that it is now.

After thinking about many of these things, I came to the conclusion that I would much rather see history treated, on the whole, as it is in TDW than in some way that everyone is constantly mentioning events from hundreds of years back. Granted, for any who may nit-pick, The Consul was a classical music buff and should know how different composers led into one another.

I do think is a good exercise to be able to tie things together over time and relationships, though. (Is this too much of a drift here?) The jazz professor at the school of music that I attended in college would frequently stop a big band rehearsal and ask someone in the group the connection between two seemingly unrelated pieces of music or two people who never directly worked together. And it was usually some long convoluted line of who worked with whom over the course of twenty or so years, but in performing the music appropriately, it's important. It's important because it answers the question: "Why?"

Again, back to TDW: Marais is the first person to delve into the zor and ask that same question. "Why do the zor do this? What is the driving force behind them?" It is only through these questions that humanity comes to some sort of terms with the zor. Simple retaliations of the course of sixty years didn't solve anything. Coming to terms with the zor on the grounds of mutual understanding ended the war.

I feel that a lot of this applies to many things that are going on today. People in politics are making political foreign or domestic policy decisions that don't necessarily solve the problems. They are playing the same game that the emporer and the assembly are playing. "What will keep us in power?" They never ask the question, "What will really be better for people as a whole over the course of time?"

I should stop this for now, but I am interested in some debate on these topics. I think the book has a lot to say about how a government reacts to things without necessarily taking history or future into consideration beyond the question of how to stay in power.


Mr. Hunt, I am curious to hear (perhaps toward the end of the month after we hash things out a little more here) what some of your thinking was as you approached the writing. I am also curious (not necessarily at the end of the month) what some of your biggest influences are. I have a few that I might pick, but I'm curious what you have to say about it. Erf.

[hotc]

Originally posted by Erfael
Well, gee. I guess now we all have to be well behaved about what we say about it. :D

Well, I wouldn't worry too much about that. I'm pretty thick skinned :-)


>Even though the story took place in the early 2300s, there are few references to anything that has occurred in our recent history.
...
After thinking about many of these things, I came to the conclusion that I would much rather see history treated, on the whole, as it is in TDW than in some way that everyone is constantly mentioning events from hundreds of years back.


I tend to agree with this. I have been working on some material that takes place between the present and the events in DW; I'm writing a short story about the founding of the Solar Empire now.

>I do think is a good exercise to be able to tie things together over time and relationships, though.

So do I, and it's important to realize that there's a whole lot of stuff packed into even recent history. I try not to make references just for the sake of making them.

>Mr. Hunt, I am curious to hear (perhaps toward the end of the month after we hash things out a little more here) what some of your thinking was as you approached the writing. I am also curious (not necessarily at the end of the month) what some of your biggest influences are. I have a few that I might pick, but I'm curious what you have to say about it. Erf.

Let me ponder an answer to that (as soon as you stop calling me "Mr. Hunt") :-)

Walter.

[Erfael]

Sorry. Didn't know if you might be an oldie that would prefer Mr. Hunt......:rolleyes:

[hotc]

Originally posted by Erfael
Sorry. Didn't know if you might be an oldie that would prefer Mr. Hunt......:rolleyes:

I'm not sure how old one must be in order to be qualified as an "oldie". First names will certainly do, though my books are shelved under H :-)

Walter.

[hotc]

I realize that this discussion is primarily focused on The Dark Wing. My thoughts these days have been primarily on the third book, currently in MS. form at Tor, with the working title "The Dark Ascent". One of my fellow writers, after reading the second book, informed me that he assumed I was "about to commit Trilogy", and he was almost right - I'm in the process of committing Tetralogy. There's actually a fourth book that completes the cycle; I've only written about 20% of it.

Probably the hardest part of discussing the first book is to exclude comments on the subsequent work. Even leaving aside the issue of spoilers, it's hard to remember exactly what I've revealed and what I haven't; a recent poster made some comments about history, and I've been checking back to see what I actually mentioned.

More answers as I invent them :-)

Walter.