[Michael2000]

Well, my first published book is called The Defiler's Rule: Pure Intensity, but it was self-published so I've rewrtitten it and changed the title hoping to publish traditionally (I like the new titles for the series better). I'm trying to blend dark, urban and quest fantasy into the whole work. It is set in an alternate world very similar to ours. The main difference is the forgotten prehistoric people of Hunjan and their mythology. I will either imply or somehow directly state that their religion is the "common ancestor" for some Eastern and Western religions.

The first book has a relatively tight plot and only leaves a few loose ends to keep the reader guessing. In the sequels, I'm tossing a bunch of people (including the main character from the first) with different religious backgrounds together and sending them on a quest to end the Defiler's rule on Earth. Some of them won't get along too well, will they?

Then I plan to follow this one (it's planned as four books) with a trilogy about the Hunjan Tiger Clan 10,000 years in the past (in progress too).

EDIT: I had a look at the sites. I've read some of the excerpt for TDTCB and it looks very interesting. I'm going to read more once I've had a little more coffee. Thanks!

[Oreithyia]

I just read your article Why Fantasy and Why Now? and I have a few comments and questions, and also regarding your novels.

In regard to the article, it was thought provoking, but at the same time I have a criticism. I think you may have mischaracterised the Enlightenment, suggesting that it ushered in an age of rigid scientific rationality, and that this is a bad thing. I would argue that the Enlightenment philosophers themselves did not exclude other ways of knowing the world. They did not limit it to a scientific framework. There was room for myth.

I think it is only fair to note that science was an alternative to religious superstition at that time. The Enlightenment philosophers said, with the help of science, that "I can know the world" instead of being spoonfed theories of the universe from an oppressive Catholic Church. So science in itself is not necessarily a bad thing, in my opinion.

One thing that interests me is the expression of Enlightenment thought in the work of recent fantasy fiction. It seems that most characters exhibit Enlightenment ideals, even when in a pre-modern environment. They think for themselves.

I should add that I came across your article when I was searching out info on your books. I haven't read them yet (just finished Martin's) but they came highly recommended and they sound very interesting. I will definitely have to buy them.

[Scott Bakker]

In regard to the article, it was thought provoking, but at the same time I have a criticism. I think you may have mischaracterised the Enlightenment, suggesting that it ushered in an age of rigid scientific rationality, and that this is a bad thing. I would argue that the Enlightenment philosophers themselves did not exclude other ways of knowing the world. They did not limit it to a scientific framework. There was room for myth.

I don't recall saying all that much about the Enlightenment, aside from using it as a historical reference point for the gradual institutionalization of science. Otherwise, what scientists, enlightenment or contemporary, themselves believe, is actually irrelevant to my argument.

It's not that science is good or bad thing, it's that science is the only thing when it comes to the generation of reliable, efficacious, consensus commanding truth claims.

[Bond]

It's not that science is good or bad thing, it's that science is the only thing when it comes to the generation of reliable, efficacious, consensus commanding truth claims.

Thou shalt not kill.

Science came up with this?

[Scott Bakker]

I take it you mean a truth-claim of the form, 'Killing is usually bad,' or some such. I think it's pretty clear that it belongs with claims like 'Cooperation is usually good,' or 'Lying is usually bad,' and so on - in other words, that set of normative truth-claims which many different institutions take up, but no institution can take credit for because they are the result of our biological makeup. This is why so many religions, for example, tend to share the same basic moral values, even though the narratives they give and the claims they make to rationalize those values differ wildly.