RoT Delay and Reflections/Re-read Update
Jan. 27th, 2019 06:51 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
ninedaysaqueen.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
queensthiefHey, reprobates! If you haven't heard the news about the delayed release date for Return of the Thief, read about that in Megan's own words HERE.
I was disappointed for about five minutes, but then remembered my sneaking suspicions about the general silence from Greenwillow and MWT. For a book coming out in less than two months, there has been no arc, no promotions, no early reviews, no book tour, and almost no buzz in stark contrast to the release of TaT.
As I said, I was disappointed for about five minutes, but then realized I'm actually very okay with this. The announcement of RoT came, literally, the week I was starting a new job and planning going back to school in the fall to become an evil accountant (like Kamet), so I'm much happier that we now have more time to plan a celebration fitting of the final book.
Speaking of, the current reflections/re-read will continue as scheduled. I see no reason to cancel it. We'll just have to start calling it the "not-the-release-date" party! Expect to hear from me this summer about planning for the release of RoT in the summer of 2020. I'd like to get more community members involved and come up with some new ideas.
In closing, I just wanted to leave a note to please show Megan support. It's okay to be disappointed, but remember, the river knows it's time. :) We've waited more than two decades for this, another year and a half is, honestly, nothing.
If you have ideas on how to celebrate the release of RoT next year, please don't hesitate to share them with me or Checkers, thanks.
I was disappointed for about five minutes, but then remembered my sneaking suspicions about the general silence from Greenwillow and MWT. For a book coming out in less than two months, there has been no arc, no promotions, no early reviews, no book tour, and almost no buzz in stark contrast to the release of TaT.
As I said, I was disappointed for about five minutes, but then realized I'm actually very okay with this. The announcement of RoT came, literally, the week I was starting a new job and planning going back to school in the fall to become an evil accountant (like Kamet), so I'm much happier that we now have more time to plan a celebration fitting of the final book.
Speaking of, the current reflections/re-read will continue as scheduled. I see no reason to cancel it. We'll just have to start calling it the "not-the-release-date" party! Expect to hear from me this summer about planning for the release of RoT in the summer of 2020. I'd like to get more community members involved and come up with some new ideas.
In closing, I just wanted to leave a note to please show Megan support. It's okay to be disappointed, but remember, the river knows it's time. :) We've waited more than two decades for this, another year and a half is, honestly, nothing.
If you have ideas on how to celebrate the release of RoT next year, please don't hesitate to share them with me or Checkers, thanks.
The river knows its time
Date: 1/28/19 01:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 1/28/19 02:34 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 1/28/19 03:40 am (UTC)It could be worse
Date: 1/28/19 05:49 am (UTC)That's Star Wars, as in what is now called "Episode IV: A New Hope." I haven't watched it in a while so I turned it on. And was reminded of the horrors that George Lucas inflicted on us when he decided he needed to change things in movies that were just fine to begin with, thank you very much. (FYI: Han shot not just first but only).
I did some poking around online and found other people who are just as irate, not only about what he did to the original films but basically about the entire second trilogy. And George Lucas has come out and said that he doesn't care that we liked the original movie, he wants to change it and what he says goes.
All this is leading to a long way of saying that while I'm sad that it will be another year ad more before the new book, at least Megan doesn't hold us in so much contempt that she treats us as Lucas treats his fans.
Which brings me to a game that might help to pass the time: If Megan Were George Lucas.
What sort of things would she go back and change (or have included in the later books in the first place)?
I start with two:
1. Costis and Kamet, in their journeyings around the Mede Empire, are accompanied by a large creature with eyes on stalks and weird, long, dangly ears, named NahrNahr, who speaks an odd form of the language and is constantly falling over things and getting into trouble.
2. Eugenides, instead of being silent after the sword falls at the beginning of QoA howls dramatically, "Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!"
Anybody else want to play?
RE: It could be worse
Date: 1/28/19 06:38 am (UTC)3: Irene goes from being an intelligent, highly competent queen in QoA to barefoot and pregnant in the KoA.
4: Nahuseresh turns out to be Eugenides's father.
5: An entire book has to be written just to fix a plot hole.
6: Megan re-edits her books each time a new edition is released for no reason.
7: Eugenides and Helen make out in the first book, because reasons... They're even framed like this - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Wars_(film) - on the book cover. In the second book, we find out they're cousins... 0-0
8: The most romantic scene between Irene and Eugenides is a conversation about olives.
Re: It could be worse
Date: 1/28/19 03:21 pm (UTC)Oh, I have another one:
For no particular reason, the elder Sounis' eyebrows are removed.
Re: It could be worse
Date: 1/28/19 05:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 1/28/19 05:46 pm (UTC)p.s. Does this make us MWT's Fandom in Waiting?
no subject
Date: 1/28/19 06:10 pm (UTC)So disappointing....but I get it. I can't imagine trying to write a book that's a culmination of 20+ years, with a deadline looming ahead, and rabid fans breathing down your neck.
Silver lining: this pushes back that bittersweet day of the beginning of the end. We're postponing the day when our lives go from the pre-series-end that we've been living with all these years....to post-series-end. I'm not sure who I'll be without that small part of myself that's always waiting for the next Thief book.
no subject
Date: 1/28/19 06:13 pm (UTC)My coworkers know me so well.
no subject
Date: 1/28/19 07:31 pm (UTC)I had pre-ordered the book and received that notification that it would not be out until August - of 2020! Please understand, I had done a happy dance (literally) around the room when I learned it would be out March of 2019 - yes, my visiting (from out of town) family looked at me like I was crazy. So, of course I didn't trust the notification and I came running to Sounis to be sure that this was a baseless, unfounded lie - and it isn't!!! *Gasp*
However, after a few deep breaths, I realized that I am fine with waiting... because I would rather wait for a beautifully crafted, detailed, amazing story from MWT (as ALL her stories are) than have one that isn't complete or is rushed. I don't think that qualifies as Stocklholm syndrome.
So please, dear author, take the time that you need - and if you decide that SEVEN books makes more sense, I'm ok with that too.
no subject
Date: 1/28/19 08:09 pm (UTC)It's been a light in dark places, hasn't it?
<3
no subject
Date: 1/28/19 09:13 pm (UTC)Yes, let's continue on with our reflections and rereading! Then we can do it again in 2020.
Re: It could be worse
Date: 1/28/19 09:42 pm (UTC)You think you're joking, but I would totally do this. ~mwt
no subject
Date: 1/28/19 09:45 pm (UTC)Asking for a friend.
~mwt
no subject
Date: 1/28/19 10:07 pm (UTC)Now that’s just mean 😡
no subject
Date: 1/28/19 11:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 1/29/19 12:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 1/29/19 02:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 1/29/19 04:09 am (UTC)Re: It could be worse
Date: 1/29/19 05:05 am (UTC)Re: It could be worse
Date: 1/29/19 06:04 am (UTC)- "1. Costis and Kamet, in their journeyings around the Mede Empire, are accompanied by a large creature with eyes on stalks and weird, long, dangly ears, named NahrNahr, who speaks an odd form of the language and is constantly falling over things and getting into trouble."
I almost, ALMOST wish this could happen, because I could see efficient, pragmatic Costis reacting as a reasonable human being and just reducing unnecessary baggage (re: NahrNarh).
Ok, here's what I've got, in order of 'I thought of it next':
10. A young Gen was left to grow up on the streets of Sounis, actually the gutter thief he appears in TT. He is found by an aged, grandfatherly figure who sees his potential and trains him in the way of The Thief, telling him that if he confronts Emperor Sounis (I mean, King) and steals his signet ring, he will be sent on a journey that will culminate in his name being carved in a stelae outside the basilica. After stealing the mythical MacGuffin, he meets Helen and learns that they are actually cousins. Helen is a warrior princess heading up a coalition with a rebel base in the mountains, seeking to return balance to the political powers on the little continent. Gen meets an Eddisian yeti in a cave.
11. Helen is captured by the Mede empire, and in an effort to make her give crucial details about the deployment of the defending armies (maybe the secret's hidden in that missing statue?), Eddis is destroyed by a volcanic superweapon of the Medes.
12. Gen's impetuous, hot-headed, petty, vain, and drama-prone tendencies become his only characteristics and he comes across as a self-indulgent, pouty teen with serious anger problems who can't act. Instead of various fancy prosthetics, he goes all-out and invests in a cyborg hand, and possibly wears a breathing mask just because it's cool.
13. In KoA, it was Teleus who punched first, not Costis. Costis becomes Gen's padawan.
14. In TaT, Costis and Kamet have an encounter with the Sarlacc instead of a lion
15. The Namreen wear armor that is innappropriate and ineffective for pretty much every terrain they encounter and for all that they're an elite guard, they're surprisingly easy to down. They pursue Costis and Kamet from stop to stop, searching shops and scummy/villainous taverns, and are heard to audibly say with frequency, "this isn't the slave we're looking for."
16. The books are split into 9 rather than 6, and each trilogy is released 7 years after the last (sorry Megan ;).
17. The Gods or legendary characters appear as blue, holographic-looking ghosts that appear for moments of celebration or to give such helpful advice as "Go to bed" or "pay the fastener".
And here's the horror edition:
- the series is bought out by Disney, and the long-awaited film is a cartoon in which Eugenides is played by Mickey, or live-action and the star is a hot teen from the Disney channel.
Sorry, the whimsy is strong with this one, and apparently it got fired up once I got started.
Re: It could be worse
Date: 1/29/19 04:24 pm (UTC)~mwt
Re: It could be worse
Date: 1/29/19 11:05 pm (UTC)It's not asking for much, really. We know you have all that on your laptop. Which is probably password protected, darn it.
Re: It could be worse
Date: 1/29/19 11:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 1/29/19 11:10 pm (UTC)Re: It could be worse
Date: 1/29/19 11:27 pm (UTC)Re: It could be worse
Date: 1/29/19 11:39 pm (UTC)I'm actually fairly certain that the book is, in fact, fiinished and polished, and she's just entertaining herself by tormenting us, laughing demonically all the while.
I suspect that somewhere there's an e-mail exchange that goes like this:
Editor: So, Megan, your deadline is coming up. Is the book finished.
MWT: Oh, yeah, completely. But I have this idea...
Editor: Oh? What?
MWT: How about if we tell the fans that the book's not finished and we're delaying publication.
Editor: .... That's *brilliant*! What a great idea! So, let's push it back to, say, June or July, maybe?
MWT: I was thinking more like summer of 2020.
Editor and MWT together: BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAAA!
Editor: I can't *wait* to read the comments online. Oh, hold on a sec, I want to tell my broker to buy a bunch of stock in Kleenex.
MWT: Won't it be fun?
Re: It could be worse
Date: 1/29/19 11:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 1/29/19 11:53 pm (UTC)Re: It could be worse
Date: 1/30/19 12:02 am (UTC)Don't forget that she then changes the appearance of one of these ghosts, making him suddenly much younger-looking and with a face that doesn't match his previous one.
no subject
Date: 1/30/19 01:21 am (UTC)RE: Re: It could be worse
Date: 1/30/19 01:22 am (UTC)- the series is bought out by Disney, and the long-awaited film is a cartoon in which Eugenides is played by Mickey, or live-action and the star is a hot teen from the Disney channel.
If I’d been drinking anything it would have ended up on my computer screen.
To quote: “Noooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!”
Re: It could be worse
Date: 2/3/19 02:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2/3/19 02:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2/3/19 02:46 am (UTC)Wailing ghost, tearfully: I never got to... to... read the last Queen's Thief book!
no subject
Date: 2/4/19 05:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2/5/19 12:31 am (UTC)Yikes, you’d think she’d know that sort of thing doesn’t end well!
no subject
Date: 2/5/19 02:58 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2/6/19 03:31 pm (UTC)AND they're so bloated! Hundreds of pages that keep a book from being tight and paced well. C'mon, editors!
no subject
Date: 2/15/19 05:04 pm (UTC)I sort of felt like I wasn't ready for the series to be over anyway. Like you said--we've come this far, there's not a chance in a million she will lose even one fan over this. :) I am sure that this book was hard to write for her--I mean, imagine all the cogs that she has to bring together.
no subject
Date: 2/15/19 05:07 pm (UTC)Re: The river knows its time
Date: 3/21/19 03:37 am (UTC)