[bksvol-discuss] Re: A Memory of Light

  • From: "Evan Reese" <mentat1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Sat, 12 Jan 2013 12:32:28 -0500

Roger,

No, the author who took over from Robert Jordan didn't introduce any SF 
elements into the Wheel of Time series. He simply finished the story based on 
notes and outlines provided by Jordan before he died. 

Dornetta was simply saying that she didn't like either Science Fiction or 
Fantasy.

As for the Shannara series, he really didn't change it from Fantasy to Science 
Fiction arbitrarily. At the very beginning of the series, in the first book, 
The Sword of Shannara, one of the characters gives a brief historical review 
that basically said there was a great war in our current world and that magic 
emerged subsequent to most of humanity being destroyed and that elves, dwarves, 
and the other races are simply different kinds of mutated humans. So he started 
out with our current scientific world from the beginning, and the later Fantasy 
novels are set in our future when magic has taken the place of science. The 
books he wrote later simply fill in that "history" as it is viewed from the 
books he wrote earlier.

Evan

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Roger Loran Bailey 
  To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx 
  Sent: Saturday, January 12, 2013 12:18 PM
  Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: A Memory of Light


      I am not sure that I understand. I have read books that mix science 
fiction and fantasy. That irritates me. Stephen King's The Stand is an example. 
It was a really good science fiction novel that was, as far as I am concerned, 
messed up by the fantasy elements that were added. The Wheel of Time series 
seems to be a different matter though. I read some of the first volumes and 
kind of fell away from it before other authors took over from Robert Jordan and 
they seemed pretty solidly fantasy to me. I would suppose that when other 
authors took over there would be differences, differences in style at the very 
least, but I did not see much room for science fiction elements to be 
introduced. The entire world building that went into the setting seemed to 
exclude it. Are you saying that the subsequent authors introduced science 
fiction elements into it? I suppose I did see that in the Sword of Shannara 
series. It was a solid fantasy and then Terry Brooks decided that he wanted it 
to be science fiction, so he started writing prequels to force it to be science 
fiction. The trouble is that the other novels had already been written as 
fantasy and he was trying to drive square pegs into a round hole. The prequels 
had a flavor of fantasy to them too. I didn't feel like it worked at all. I 
certainly hope that something like that was not done to the Wheel of Time 
series.

  On 1/12/2013 2:15 AM, Dornetta wrote:

    You are right Roger, it is fantasy but still science fiction and/or 
fantasy...I do neither...thanks to the Never-ending Story and a few 
others...those talking trees scared the Hades outta me! 
    Netta 
    "Just because you are blind does not mean you lack vision"-Stevie Wonder 

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