What Are You Reading 2
- Thread starter Tonyblack
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I'm reading a Beryl Bainbridge book - 'Winter Garden'. I've read loads of her books, but not for ages and haven't read this one at all. I love her understated humour. The reader is often in on the joke even though the characters have no idea they are doing something funny. And she was an excellent observer of human behaviour.
One of her funniest books is Young Adolf which is based on the true story that Adolf Hitler, as a young man came to Liverpool to visit his brother and sister-in-law (who is an irish Catholic) in 1912.
One of her funniest books is Young Adolf which is based on the true story that Adolf Hitler, as a young man came to Liverpool to visit his brother and sister-in-law (who is an irish Catholic) in 1912.
pip said:
Won't that clash with the new JK Rowling one Tony 
Stonehenge is excellent, but be warned - it covers many years and has a cast of thousands. I compiled this list of characters several years ago (was it really that long?
) That might be of some help. Less of a collaboration, and more of a "I'm the bestselling author brand name, and you (partner) are a nobody, so in order to keep milking my cash cow I'll give you some general ideas and perhaps a rough plotline and maybe a bit of dialogue here and there but you'll do the all the writing and rewriting gruntwork in exchange for 40% of the profits.
Pterry himself has been doing these kinds of things for years. Sometimes the results are superb--like his collaboration with Neil Gaiman in Good Omens, which seemed to have 'equal voice' of Pterry and Gainman. Sometimes his collaborations with others just seems like he's tossing in a few ideas and letting someone else do the grunt work--asThe Long Earth, which seemed more like a Stephen Baxter book than a Pterry book in many ways. Then some books just look like he threw in some lower-shelf stuff to compliment the work done by others--like the not particularly engaging chapters he wrote for his part of the Science of DW books I'm not reading.
The worst is when an author whores out their concept to others with barely any involvement at all. Usually you know this has happened when the possessives start happening, i.e. "Frank Herbert's Dune" with some other nonentity writing crap.
Pterry himself has been doing these kinds of things for years. Sometimes the results are superb--like his collaboration with Neil Gaiman in Good Omens, which seemed to have 'equal voice' of Pterry and Gainman. Sometimes his collaborations with others just seems like he's tossing in a few ideas and letting someone else do the grunt work--asThe Long Earth, which seemed more like a Stephen Baxter book than a Pterry book in many ways. Then some books just look like he threw in some lower-shelf stuff to compliment the work done by others--like the not particularly engaging chapters he wrote for his part of the Science of DW books I'm not reading.
The worst is when an author whores out their concept to others with barely any involvement at all. Usually you know this has happened when the possessives start happening, i.e. "Frank Herbert's Dune" with some other nonentity writing crap.
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