I forgot to plug The Count of Monte Christo!



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Those who forget the pasta are doomed to reheat it.

Is he leaking? :-)

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Warning! Product may contain Newts!

Probably not, but the book has a great joke about Champs-Elysees(sp?).



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Those who forget the pasta are doomed to reheat it.

I love Diana Gabaldon too.

BTW, the new Lord John book is NOT the same one that was published as an ebook. That was a short story called "Hellfire" and was originally in a mystery anothology called "Past Poisons", then later available as an ebook. I have a PDF copy if anyone's interested.

The new book (which is already out in Germany under a different title - Sea of Lies, I think) is called "Lord John and the Private Matter" and was originally intended to be another short story to go along with another in a single volume with Hellfire. But given the way she writes, by the time she'd finished it was long enough to be a novel.

To quote Diana, in a response to a question on the Compuserve Writers Forum:

Dear Allene--

<<Out of all the characters you created (the supportive cast) why did you
choose Lord John as the one to "star" in a new series?>>

Oh, I didn't. It was a complete accident--as the major developments of my
writing career seem always to be. <g>

For one thing, I never had the slightest intention of writing a new
series--last thing on earth I'd need, what with two more Jamie and Claire
books under contract, two mysteries ditto, a prequel novel and two
nonfiction books in the hopper--and Master Raymond kind of hovering out
there in hyperspace.

Basically, two things happened. First, a UK mystery anthology asked
me--several years ago--to write a short historical crime story for them. I
was flattered to be asked, especially since their other contributors
included people like Anne Perry and Steven Saylor (biggies in the
historical mystery field), and I figured that if I was going to write
mysteries (eventually <g>), it would be a good idea to have my name in
front of the mystery-reading audience. So I said yes, in spite of the fact
that I don't really know how to write short stories.

The question then was what to write _about_. I figured I didn't have time
to research a whole new period, not for a short story--so it would have to
be set in the British Isles, 18th century, about which I already knew a
lot and had a bunch of additional research material on hand. Same deal
with deciding on a character--it just seemed much easier to use somebody I
already knew, than to invent a totally new one. And also, I figured that
the story might help draw mystery readers who'd never heard of me into
taking a look at my novels, so it might be a good idea to set the story at
least within the universe of the books.
Lord John just seemed an obvious choice, insofar as a) I like him, and he
talks to me easily, b) he appears only intermittently in the course of the
novels, but must obviously have been off doing other interesting things
during the times when he _isn't_ in the novels, and c) he's in the army,
which gives me an excuse to deal with both politics and battles, which are
both good grist for stories.

So I wrote HELLFIRE and enjoyed it, and so did everybody else who read it
(or if they didn't, they were too polite to tell me).

OK, that was it. But then the anthology went out of print, in the usual
fashion of such books, but people kept asking me about the story, where
could they find it, and so on. So we tried e-publishing it for a bit
(actually, a couple of friends came to me and said they were starting up
an e-pub company, and did I have "any old short stories" that I could let
them have as a come-on for their site. That's the only short story I'd
ever written (still is, unless you count a few collaborations with my
kids), but there was nothing _else_ I could do with it, so I said sure).

We eventually parted ways with the e-publisher over a point of philosophy,
and they later went out of business, and that was the end of that.

But people kept asking about the story, and also started selling
copies--whether bootleg or legit, I don't know--of the disk version on
eBay for extortionate prices, which I didn't think was at all right.

So I thought, well, what if I was to write two or three _more_ short
stories about Lord John? Then we could put them in a collection, and print
them as a book, and people could get HELLFIRE and whatever else that way,
if they wanted.

So when I came back from the first round of book tours for THE FIERY CROSS
(which, I'm told is still on the _Der Spiegel_ bestseller list for
historical fiction, for the 45th week--though it's now #2; Lord John is #1
<g>), I figured writing a second Lord John story would be a good way of
getting back into my writing routine. So I started writing the second
story, more or less with my left hand, while picking up the threads of the
two novels I was working on.

OK. So, four or five months later, I came back from the _second_ round of
FC book-tours (to the UK) and stopped to have lunch in NYC with my agents
on the way home.

We were just discussing all the work under contract and where I was with
everything, and I mentioned that I was all but finished with a second Lord
John story, explaining my idea about eventually accumulating a collection
that could be published in book form. They thought that was a great idea,
and asked how long the second story was.

I replied that I knew they'd ask <g>, so I'd done a word-count the night
before, and it was likely to end up around 90,000 words. They glanced at
me, then at each other, and said (in unison), "You do realize that that's
the length most _normal_ novels are?"

"Um..no," I said. "I thought it was a short story." <g>

It wasn't, though, and they promptly took it off and sold it to assorted
publishers for sums of money that staggered _me_, coming back with offers
for a three-book contract (upon departing this lunch, they'd asked whether
I thought I could write more about Lord John. "Sure," I said, shrugging).

So there we were, and my domestic agent had already had an offer for me to
contribute a short piece to a fantasy anthology (which I accepted on the
same grounds as the mystery one; good to get your name in front of an
audience which would probably like your books, in a venue with Big Names
of the genre). Given that I intended eventually to end up with a Lord John
collection, it seemed to make sense to make him the star of _that_ story,
since it could later be gathered up and published along with HELLFIRE and
something else. Hence, LORD JOHN AND THE SUCCUBUS.

So like I said, it was all an accident. I do _like_ Lord John, though. <g>
Always have.

--Diana

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BTW, the problem with "The Firey Cross" was that they basically went to press with her rough draft, and didn't let her edit it at all. She wanted to prune out a few hundred pages. The last third of the book wasn't even copyeditied, and it shows.
She says that from now on she's not giving them any of the manuscript until it's finished to her satisfaction.



Post Edited (08-11-03 23:01)

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&quot;I've often said that the difference between British and American SF TV series is that the British ones have three-dimensional characters and cardboard spaceships, while the Americans do it the other way around.&quot;
--Ross Smith

That's amazing! Talk about slovenly publishing... or maybe cost cutting, who knows.



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If the English language made any sense, a catastrophe would be an apostrophe with fur.

Thanks Magda! I knew some of that, but definitely not all of it. Interesting, especially about FC.

Basically, the publisher wanted to get it out in time for the Christmas season, whether it was actually ready or not.

hmm. Not good strategy long term I'd have thought... v. interesting all that Magda, thanks!



_ _ _ _ _

If the English language made any sense, a catastrophe would be an apostrophe with fur.

"Hmmm" from me too. I'm not defending anyone, or indeed taking any particular stance here, but I would say one word of caution from many years of experience. You are only hearing one side of the story here.

True enough my experience is more with album artists and songwriters dealing with record labels and music publishers than with writers dealing with book and magazine publishers, but the principal is exactly the same, and I have heard some truly extraordinary stories from both sides - usually negligence and ineptitude on behalf of the publisher, but also phenomenal naiivety and sheer stupidity on behalf of the artist (although invariably both put forward an excellent case for themselves being in the right, of course, particularly in front of an audience).

Not for one moment am I suggesting that's what's happened here, but one should never ever make an assumption without hearing both sides...

FWIW, this was the 5th book in an extremely popular series in which the average gap between books is 3-5 years.

Very interesting, Madga, thanks for the info. It does a long way towards explaining why the 5th book felt so uneven, and frankly, dull, in parts.

didn't they lock douglas adams in a hotel room and force him to write?

No wonder the bloke died. Only way to get out of the contract....

Why should anyone need to be locked in a hotel room and forced to write? The problem I have is not writing!



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That which does not kill us makes us stranger.
(Llewelyn the dragon, Ozy and Millie)

Sarah

Douglas Adams was capable of writing immense amounts of stuff. He was also completely incapable of finishing them, mostly due to something else entering his brain about fifty seconds after he started working on anything.

Locking him in a room proved a remarkable tactic, and may be the only way to get me to do something...



PSD

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This is the work of an Italian narco-anarchic collective. Don't bother insulting them, they can't read English anyway.

Don't tempt Kaz!



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That which does not kill us makes us stranger.
(Llewelyn the dragon, Ozy and Millie)

Sarah

Number one: Locking PSD in a room is VERy tempting.

Number two: Only if I'm not in the room as well.

Number 3 : What room has he locked Ooktavia in?

I can say that another very good way of getting someone to write is to shut them in an open plan office then not actually give them anything to do! I've got nearly 1,000 words of a new story written already (and this is with office meetings today as well)

(Very bored at work... Though now that I'm officially on 'home time', I can go on the internet as much as I like, restricted to certain sites, of course...)



I drink to drown my sorrows. Unfortunately they've learnt how to swim.

Who is Ooktavia and why is she locked in a room?

What did I miss? Never mind, probably better off not knowing.