| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| The Hooded One |
Posted - 07 May 2014 : 18:17:19
(I was so impressed with Ed that I asked him for a formal interview, and here it is. Okay, INformal interview, because it's him and it's me.  )
THO: So here I am, draped shamelessly over my favorite chair with bare feet in the air, interviewing THE Bearded Elder Gaming God himself (yes, I know there used to be more BEGGs, but Ed’s almost the only one left) about his newest Realms novel, THE HERALD. Which I hear, Uncle Weirdbeard, can be purchased signed and inscribed by you directly.
Ed: Yes to the signed and inscribed part, but purchased from TheEdVerse.com, not me. I handle no money, I just push pens to make squiggly marks on pages. (Although I AM allowed to run with scissors.)
THO: Yes, I’ve heard Jeff Grubb explain that one. (Note to readers: running with scissors became part of the job description of TSR designers, and at a later GenCon Harold Johnson issued Ed with a white Elmore-dragon-head-on-the-back “TSR staff” T-shirt and told him he was “a TSR designer and had to behave like one.” A challenge Ed’s been trying to live up to ever since.
Ed: My attempts to do so have dramatically aged me, I’m afraid. I’m even starting to look like Elminster.
THO: Which brings up a good point. Some gamers not long in the hobby think that Elminster is your wish fulfillment “Mary Sue,” copied after you, long beard and all. Care to set them straight?
Ed: Sure. I did NOT have this beard when I was six years old. And that’s the age I was when I first started writing about Elminster. Or was I five? I’m getting old . . .
I was one of those child prodigies, and was reading (and writing, mainly horrible pastiches of whoever grabbed my fancy at the time) at the age of two or three, or some such. I can’t remember a time when I was NOT reading. Not childrens’ picture books, I mean my father’s books. Some of which I didn’t understand at all, of course, until I was older. Then I kept very quiet about what I had read, years earlier. My, my. Of course, by today’s standards, the things I read were VERY tame. Well, perhaps not THE STORY OF O, but that was an exception. But back to Elminster: I was a shy, young, bespectacled nerdy kid when I started writing about Elminster, and he was not my main character or my favorite character - - who would be Mirt the Moneylender, whom I’ve never really got the chance to build a novel around. He would be a GREAT protagonist.
THO: A hero? I can see that, but all the wenching, belching, lying, wine-swilling, breaking wind, and reeling around drunk would seem to point in the direction of buffoonery.
Ed: Well, wouldn’t that be a change of pace from today’s grimmer than grim mass murderer swords & sorcery heroes?
THO: Touché. In fact, by all means touch. But I digress, and that’s usually YOUR job.
Ed: It is? Innocent old me?
THO: Insert derisive laughter here. And tell me this about THE HERALD: was this one fun to write? Because it reads like it was.
Ed: Well, thanks to other projects, I had to write it in a tearing hurry, and proofread it even faster. But yes, it was great fun to write. My editor was Susan Morris, whom I love dearly (and who has a book she’s working on that I ache to read!!), and of course preceding the actual writing was the GOLDEN fun of secret summit meetings, at Wizards HQ in Renton and at GenCons, where we got to do the creative collaboration thing. I still can’t tell you some of the stuff we worked on, because it hasn’t been published yet, but boy, was it fun! And there’s more to come, that I can’t even breathe a word about yet!
THO: You know what I do for a living, dear, and I’ve found out some things. You’ve had some conference calls recently, haven’t you?
Ed: Yes.
THO: Yes. Don’t worry, I won’t say more. Instead, I’ll say thank you for revisiting some of my favorite Realms characters in THE HERALD, people we haven’t seen for awhile. I’d been wondering what had happened to them. You did sneak Mirt and Manshoon in, and the world knows about that now, because they’re in the introductory chapter Wizards released . . . but I’m thinking of certain silver-haired persons and an old tutor from El’s past and that glorious scene in the kitchen at the end. You know how to pull off happy endings, sir. Happy for this reader, at least.
Ed: Thank you. As I was writing it, I was thinking of how you and my other longtime players would react. Trying to picture your faces as you ran out of pages, checked to make sure there were no more, and closed the book.
THO: My eyes were wet, and I was smiling. You old rogue, you.
Ed: Oh, lah! Lah, good lady! You’ll turn my head!
THO: Into what? Back to THE HERALD, you scamp! You don’t have the eyelashes to bat them at me, sirrah!
So. Some things I expected in a wrap-up-an-epic book (big thundering battles, a resolution of sorts, the death scenes you’re not afraid to do, a few more skin-of-his-teeth scenes for Elminster, and you managed to sneak a beholder in), and some of your recurring themes: the price of duty, the war between the letter of the law and its underlying spirit, a few digs at authority figures—but also some surprises. Most of which are mega-spoilers, so let’s talk about those recurring themes. Behold the English professor in me struggling to get out.
Ed: You’re far sexier than most of my English professors, if you’ll permit me such a bold observation.
THO: Making bold observations are what writers are FOR, dear. Permitted - - as if I could stop you! So because I know this is one of your triggers, let’s talk about your tilts at authority in THE HERALD. Those arrogant elf High Mages, for instance . . .
Ed: Right. Some reviewers have commented ere now that they notice I have a problem with authority in my books (the parade of incompetent or overbearing War Wizards of Cormyr, for instance). As some apparently aren’t reading attentively enough (passing over all the perfectly competent and more or less pleasant War Wizards I also put in my books, for instance), or are seeing what they want or expect to see rather than what’s actually on the page, I’d like to clarify: I don’t have a problem with authority. I have a problem with authority ABUSED. Misused. And how power corrupts. We can all readily think of real-world politicians or athletes who have lied, or cheated, or stolen. Some of them may have been born as evil schemers, growing up really trying to get to where they can rule the world or behave just as they want, but I think it’s far more likely that your average politician, though they may come to LIKE wielding power, started out wanting to make the world, or their town or region, a better place. Probably by getting some specific things done, or preventing things they saw as bad or harmful or unfair.
And later on, things went bad. I’m interested in exploring HOW humans get seduced into bad behavior; I’m interested in the moral choices.
They are, after all, what makes a hero or villain: moral choice after moral choice. Your life and mine can be viewed as a series of moral choices.
THO: Ours just don’t often involve castle-shattering spells or who to plunge a magic sword into, or anything near as dramatic, that’s all.
Ed: Well said. You’re much smarter than I look.
THO: Not difficult, sailor, not difficult. Heh. Readers, I’m sticking my tongue out at Ed, and he’s miming stroking it, the naughty rogue! So let’s delve into the baelnorn next. They saddened me. So much . . . waste.
Ed: I want us all to mourn what’s lost and forgotten, what gets swept away. To value the past. And see uncaring evil at work.
THO: You served up a lot of comeuppance in this book. Though I notice you gave us a new generation, as survivors, to carry on.
Ed: Of course. For every loose end you tie off or up in the Realms, provide three new ones. Gamers and fiction writers in the months and years and decades ahead will need them.
THO: Well said. Though you quite thoroughly destroyed two places to adventure in, in this book, and shook up a third pretty thoroughly, too. Are there any genuine, uninjured monks left in Candlekeep?
Ed: Of course. Dozens. Did you like the balcony scene?
THO: Yes! I love seeing scholars erupt. They dither and avoid confrontation and shrink back—but when you push them hard enough and they get enraged, watch out! I also loved when Dove issued her challenge, and one by one those in the room followed her. That was stirring.
I wanted to tell you that I groaned when Manshoon walked into the book . . . and then you didn’t head where I thought you would, at all. He and Mirt become commentators we see only a few times; mere cameos.
Ed: I’m learning to resist the temptation to cram everyone into a Realms book, and have six subplots going at once around Elminster. But because this book wraps The Sundering, I had to give nods and mentions to a lot of characters, to update them for the reader—and to show the reader how bystanders were feeling, as all the tumult unfolded around them. The world is being saved for them; do they know that? How does it make them feel? And if life is going to go on, after the echoes of battle fade, these are the people who are going to be living out the rest of their lives in changed Faerûn. I also like to put pieces on the board, and set things up, for future books—by me or others. That was one of the big delights of the ED GREENWOOD PRESENTS WATERDEEP (ah, that name still makes me cringe!) books: seeing talented writers pick up pieces I’d put on the board and rush madly off in all directions at once with them! And what great stories they came up with, too!
THO: Agreed, but for once, stop tooting horns for other people and let me toot YOUR horn. Figuratively speaking, of course. To whit: this darned good read called THE HERALD. You can probably figure out that I liked it. No slow patches in this one.
Ed: Well, saving the world does tend to involve a lot of breakneck running around, these days. And blowing things up.
THO: And blowing things up. Yes, I think you covered THAT angle. We got the blockbuster movie scenes, all right. But we also got that monks making soup scene. I LOVE that about your books. More sex, next time?
Ed: Yes, please! Oh, you mean in my next book?
THO: Sir! My reputation! You uphold it scandalously well! Of course I mean in the next book!
Ed: Sex only if it’s integral to the story, but plenty of romance and flirtation. They’re some of the things humans do. Gossip is another.
THO: And we saw plenty of that at the beginning, but things were pretty much too rushed and violent later on. And I find myself hesitating now, because we can’t talk too much more about specifics in the book without getting into “spoilers that really spoil” territory. So let me ask this, instead: how much of this plot was Eddie making it up as he went along? And how much, thanks to it being a six-book saga, was worked out ahead of time, and approved by Wizards?
Ed: The overall plot was hammered out in a series of back-and-forth e-mails between Fleetwood Robbins, my initial editor on the book, and me. If there are going to be “big thing destructions” and character deaths, everyone involved has to buy into it. It’s the only courteous and practical thing to do. No one wants to share a sandbox that one kid takes or wrecks all the toys from, moves the box, and dumps out the sand. The WAY I told the tale was mine, after agreement had been reached, and I believe that was the same for all the writers involved. We’re aboard because we’re storytellers, and we work best when left to tell stories. Which does NOT mean first drafts don’t get edited, commented on, and revised in light of that. We are all professionals here.
THO: So I’m talking with the neighborhood professional. Ahem. Onward! What’s next for Elminster? NDAs, I know, but what can you spill?
Ed: Another novel, of course, and most of this one takes place in a creepy mansion in the countryside of Cormyr. With another ah, INTERESTING cast of characters. Of whom Elminster isn’t the only one known for hurling magic. But this isn’t a book about hurling magic at all. And I think I’ll stop there; that should be mysterious enough.
THO: You are such a tease, Eddie dear!
Ed: I learn from the best.
THO: Ah, base flatterer! That’ll get you everywhere with me, I’ll have you know!
Ed: You leave me with NO safe comment, Lovely Lady. As usual.
THO: And that’s MY fun. Driving Ed of the Greenwood into a corner. Because you always write your way out of it, and the results are great fun for us all.
Ed: Thank you.
THO: And thank you, dear. Pass the tea?
{And with that, it ends. Ed is willing to answer detailed questions about the book, but so as not to spoiler it more for scribes here. post them at his site, theedverse.com}
love to all,
THO |
| 5 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| Blueblade |
Posted - 14 May 2014 : 19:33:12
I live for the day when our lovely Lady Hooded will interview ME...
BB |
| Jeremy Grenemyer |
Posted - 09 May 2014 : 07:02:16
quote:
Originally posted by The Hooded One
Ed: Another novel, of course, and most of this one takes place in a creepy mansion in the countryside of Cormyr. With another ah, INTERESTING cast of characters. Of whom Elminster isn’t the only one known for hurling magic. But this isn’t a book about hurling magic at all. And I think I’ll stop there; that should be mysterious enough.
As a fan of Cormyr, I have been well taken care of.
Looks like that trend will continue. :happy:  |
| Lameth |
Posted - 08 May 2014 : 14:52:52
Thank you.
I`m looking forward to read the book :-)
Greets from germany |
| Zireael |
Posted - 08 May 2014 : 11:47:55
quote:
More sex, next time?
Ed: Yes, please! Oh, you mean in my next book?
THO: Sir! My reputation! You uphold it scandalously well! Of course I mean in the next book!
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| xaeyruudh |
Posted - 08 May 2014 : 00:25:37
Wow. Thank you, both!
...I need moar!  |
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