[bksvol-discuss] Re: A Memory of Light
- From: "Evan Reese" <mentat1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 12 Jan 2013 14:34:28 -0500
Yeah, I don't care for the mixing of Fantasy and SF elements either, which is
why, although I enjoyed the earlier books he wrote in that series, I have no
real interest in reading the later Shannara books.
Evan
----- Original Message -----
From: Roger Loran Bailey
To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Saturday, January 12, 2013 2:27 PM
Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: A Memory of Light
I didn't specifically remember that bit about Shannara being the future
of our real world. I was thinking that the prequel introduced that. Anyway, if
magic takes the place of science that makes it fantasy. It still remains,
though, that I find the whole mixing of science and magic extremely irritating.
On 1/12/2013 12:32 PM, Evan Reese wrote:
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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