Digression from main topic follows: I’ve come to think that the editors were probably right about making the book more linear. Why? Because it’s the beginning of the end of the series, that’s why!

Actually that’s the explanation that I came to when I finished the book, so when there was another past life incident in “The Spirit Stone” I was surprised.

I’m braced more for the end of the series than the way in which it is told.

I’ve been following the series since the second book came out in the UK and the idea that the characters and setting will be “frozen in amber”, never to develop or change again beyond their final state, is a sad one - perhaps an interesting topic for another blog, it’d be enlightening to know how it feels from the author side of things.

It is, however, also a sign of success in producing characters (and the kingdom of deverry is as much a character as the people IMO) that develop and have personality - wanting to know what they did next, even after “the plot” is finished, that’s the sign of a master storyteller.

Anyway, I’ve headed way off the original topic now, I’d best stop.

Digression from main topic follows: I’ve come to think that the editors were probably right about making the book more linear. Why? Because it’s the beginning of the end of the series, that’s why! I got one email from a reader who thought “Gerran gave up too easily about getting Branna.” Well, the point was that Gerran had learned from past experience, though he couldn’t remember the details. That’s one point of the entire series, after all. Everyone knows that Neb and Branna will get together. Why build up false suspense?

The last past life incident is the one in STONE, which closes the pattern set up in Books 1 and 2. There won’t be one in THE SHADOW ISLE. I tell you this now so you can brace yourself. Things have to come to an end somewhere. Of course, now that I saw this so confidently, my unconscious mind will probably demand some kind of flashback . . .

I tend to find that reviewers can often be quite poor at explaining just why they think something is bad, it’s all too easy for them to be dismissive and say that something is bad, but it’s more effort to produce a reasoned argument to support the conclusion.

I imagine you probably have less of an issue with, and are less bothered by, reviews that are critical but leave you understanding that “well, that’s their taste, I happen to disagree.”

Whereas a throwaway lead-in comment like “After the disappointment of THE GOLD FALCON” leaves no explanation of why they were disappointed and gives you no (though I hate the term) closure. It nags away at the back of your mind wondering “why were they disappointed?” It’s a badly written bit of reviewing in that it provides no context, only judgement, and even though it’s not the main point of the review (which is about a different book), it sticks in your mind.

I actually agree with the reviewer: “The Gold Falcon” was “a disappointment”. Not because it was a bad book - it was an excellent book, I loved reading it - but because it wasn’t what I expected. The hallmark previous-lives of the series were missing and the whole was much more linear than the others. I bought the book expecting one thing and got something else, and in that sense there was a disappointment, despite the fact that I still thought the book was fantastic.

In that respect, reading “The Spirit Stone” was a “return to form”. If I were a time and word-count pressed reviewer, I can imagine condensing that down to “After the disappointment of…”, but without the explanation it’s a much more hurtful and negative comment.

Without explanation it leaves you unable to learn from the experience and improve your craft, or to decide that the negative comment is irrelevent to what you want to achieve.

Of course the fact that you’re being criticised personally for something that you had forced on you only makes it seem even more injust and will get under the skin that much more.

On a closing note, in case any of my negative comments rankle, I consider the Deverry books (all of them, no exceptions!) to be in my top-three must-read recommendations to anyone who is even thinking of picking up a fantasy novel. I’d give my reasons but it’s off-topic and I’ve gone on way too long already…

No book of mine has ever gotten uniform reviewes, good back or in between. I suspect that the same is true of every book ever written, at least those written after the invention of reviews.

Sadhu, there is no way that Salamander will ever be the same person he was before abusing his dweomer powers and going completely mad, to say nothing of losing the women he loved in various ways. Even in genre novels, characters grow and change, often for the better.

I try to keep this in mind, but it still hurts like spit, at least at the time. It’s the long run that really counts.

The New York Review of SF does this fairly often — for instance, they got Brian Stableford to review the recent Hartwell/Kramer space opera behemoth, knowing full well that he disagreed with their version of the subgenre’s history — and it usually works well, producing interesting reviews. I think there’s something to be said for giving a book like that to an avowed sceptic, rather than someone who already agrees with it.