Idea about the Shianti

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Yeah, the recently discovered Grant-Barnett Universe of Mary Sues and Other Unlikeable Characters. Of course, an Avatar of the great God Grant-Barnett is far superior in power to the creator gods of Aon. I mean, who in their right minds would think differently? It all makes perfect sense after all.

[Hal]

...
I feel sick.

If she's from another universe, what the heck does she do in Aon ? There's no darklord-like bad guy to fight at home and she was getting bored alone ? She's got no friend to play with ? Another universe ! It's even more ridiculous that I thought. I begin to prefer She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. The only consolation is that Wonder-Woman is not a shianti.

Anyway, thanks to Reginald for the info.

You're right Outspaced, I am more and more convinced that John Grant has simply used the popularity of Lone Wolf's name amongst the fans and the background created by Joe Dever to satisfy his own ego by putting all his silly Mary Sues in it. Definetely pitiful.

[The Wytch-King]

Okay, maybe I'm making a fool of myself now, because the following might have been crystal-clear to everyone else (bear in mind, though, that I know preciously little about the Legends and their author), but here are the thoughts I found lurking in my head about that matter:


To be fair - though that won't help him much! - I think he wasn't doing that for ego reasons (at least not only ;D), but probably to get a foothold as a writer. Don't know if he had any books published before the Legends, but I easily could imagine him happily taking the chance to write a series of novels which promise to establish him as an author (with readers and publishing houses) - even though he doesn't care much for the world he got to play in. So he did use the popularity and the background - to make his name known far and wide.

And even if he has written other novels before, this could have been a stepping stone to (more or at least some) success for him.

Don't know his background as an author, so I can only guess, but that's what comes to my mind ...


The Wytch-King, who just had to get that off his mind


P.S.: If there should be more interest in discussing this, then maybe we should open another thread for that? Sunwolf's already looking somewhat edgy ...

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The said:

To be fair - though that won't help him much! - I think he wasn't doing that for ego reasons (at least not only ;D), but probably to get a foothold as a writer.

Oh, he already had a foothold as a writer--just mainly non-fiction. Check out this link:

www.infinityplus.co.uk/misc/jg.htm

He was a well-established author of non-fiction and had written some well-received fiction as well. And he's 7 years older than Joe Dever.

Don't know if he had any books published before the Legends, but I easily could imagine him happily taking the chance to write a series of novels which promise to establish him as an author (with readers and publishing houses) - even though he doesn't care much for the world he got to play in. So he did use the popularity and the background - to make his name known far and wide.

And that's what he did. And that's what's so . . . distasteful about the whole affair. According to the website above, both Alyss and Q****** NEITHER OF WHOM HAD ANY PLACE BEING ON MAGNAMUND appear and star in his other two novels, Albion and The World published AFTER the Legends series had taken off. It would have been better if he's have written those novels first and kept the annoying characters therein rather than polluting the world of Lone Wolf with them.

(Heh! With near-religious ferver like this I could be an Ayatollah or something! )

The praise he garnered for the Legends series is also odd, that the reviewers semed to like Alyss and Q******. Bizarre.

[Hal]

The said:

I think he wasn't doing that for ego reasons (at least not only ;D), but probably to get a foothold as a writer. Don't know if he had any books published before the Legends, but I easily could imagine him happily taking the chance to write a series of novels which promise to establish him as an author (with readers and publishing houses) - even though he doesn't care much for the world he got to play in. So he did use the popularity and the background - to make his name known far and wide.

A foothold, you've said the word. Exactly what I think. Grant had written many other short stories before the Legends and keep on writing (some of his stories are published and freely readable on the internet.) To my knowledge, he's not a very successful author and the Legends are by far his most known work.

Maybe he's not written the Legends for a matter of ego, yes. It could but just for the pleasure of putting his own characters in a familliar med-fan world. I can understand that (after all, that's exactly what we do in a RPG !) That would be perfectly fine but...

BUT IN THIS CASE, I WONDER WHY THE F****** H*** THOSE BOOKS ARE TITLED "LEGENDS OF LONE WOLF" AND NOT "LEGENDS OF MARY-SUE" !

[Relenoir]

The praise he garnered for the Legends series is also odd, that the reviewers semed to like Alyss and Q******. Bizarre.

WELL OF COURSE THEY DID! Anyone with little or no experience with the books would think that they were the heros of the story, even if it DID say "Legends of Lone Wolf" on the cover, but hey, sometimes titles are misleading.
Anyone who read the books with no knowledge would be disappointed to find the gamebooks had nothing to do with the people in most of the Legends books.

Edit: Hal expressed my feelings quite well here before I got the post in. It is very important, and worth repeating:

BUT IN THIS CASE, I WONDER WHY THE F****** H*** THOSE BOOKS ARE TITLED "LEGENDS OF LONE WOLF" AND NOT "LEGENDS OF MARY-SUE" !

[The Wytch-King]

*Brooding storm clouds gather over Shadaki*

[Hal]

outspaced said:

And that's what he did. And that's what's so . . . distasteful about the whole affair. According to the website above, both Alyss and Q****** NEITHER OF WHOM HAD ANY PLACE BEING ON MAGNAMUND

<take a look at the website>

in fact it is an exploration of the relationship between physical and created realities, both of which JG depicts as parts of the 'polycosmos', a multiverse whose almost infinite coexistent universes can be travelled between by Alyss (who is both integral and extraneous to the polycosmos), consciously by rare mortals like Qinefer (who through her encounter with transcendence in The Birthplace discovers the tao that leads to the overarching reality of the polycosmos)

Enough to make me sick. "Polycosmos", ah ah ! It's not even original. A poor plagiarism of Moorc0ck's concepts of multiverse and eternal champions with Alyss in the role of Elric. Bleuargl ! Thanks for having included the Magnamund in this pitiful mess Mr. Grant. Now we known we can hate you more than your characters.

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Hal said:

Now we known we can hate you more than your characters.

Ouch! That's a bit harsh. I might detest his ANCs but I wouldn't make claims about the man himself (he wasn't the webmaster of that page, BTW; I just happened to find that when I was Yahooing, Google not liking my installation of Mozilla Firefox very much). I'm sure that taken as stand-alone novels, both Albion and The World are very good. Unfortunately, since I already detest the main characters, I will never read them and I would never enjoy them.

I own a copy of the Encyclopedia of Fantasy and it's an incredible reference tome, very useful for finding out who has written what, and who is responsible for what. Since Grant/Barnett helped compile that, I'm sure he would make no claims as to creating the idea of a polycosmos any more than Joe Dever would claim to have created magic swords or warrior monks. And to be fair, fantasy literature is highly canibalistic, eating and regurgitating what has gone before and given birth to it. All of that is forgivable. (As a sidenote to other gamebook fans, a similar idea called the Multiverse appeared in Fighting Fantasy #45: Spectral Stalkers.)

But in linking Aon into his own 'universe' he has done a tremendous[/b] disservice both to Dever and to fans of the gamebooks. As Relenoir intelligently pointed out above, people seem to like the new characters because they were never exposed to the gamebooks, or had little time for them. The characters so beloved by the critics are truly stomach-turningly awful and utterly out-of-place when juxtaposed against the rest of the medieval/fantasy world of Magnamund. Alyss has no place there; she is extra-Universal (and therefore, in the author's eyes, can do anything she pleases--this makes her a truly annoying character). Q******, too, has no place on Magnamund. She achieved tao? No, she got on my tits. Believe me, that's a big difference.

Again, Relenoir points out that said critics seem to ignore the fact that these are Legends of Lone Wolf[/b], and therefore his sidelining is of little importance to them; but to us--the fans--it is of paramount importance. We understand that the whole Universe is at stake. But wait--it doesn't matter because there's lots of universes, this makes Alyss and Q****** more interesting characters. No, it doesn't. If anything, it makes them far less interesting since they are no longer constrained by the laws of causality and yet they do little or nothing to help Lone Wolf achieve his goal of saving the entire Universe of Aon. They are too important, they are too clever. Or, to translate into fan-speak: They are too ****ing annoying.

Furthermore, the author's approach to this is one of immense hypocrisy. He seems to be hinting that writing uber-powerful characters is boring, that's why he makes Lone Wolf so weak and vulnerable. Well, OK. I can go for that. So why introduce an extra-Universal creature who can do whatever she wants?? Isn't that MORE powerful than Lone Wolf being good with a sword?? And WHY elevate the most annoying character in the series to such a powerful status?? AND WHY then go on to write books about them?? Clearly, writing stories about powerful characters does not necessarily make for boring writing/reading. But writing about a powerful character whom you did not create apparently does.

This is my 'serious face'. I feel the need to write something frivolous, stupid and immature. Apologies in advance to anyone who reads my next few posts.

[Hal]

outspaced said:

Ouch! That's a bit harsh.

Yes, I admit i may be too harsh when I speak so but...

Again, Relenoir points out that said critics seem to ignore the fact that these are Legends of Lone Wolf, and therefore his sidelining is of little importance to them; but to us--the fans--it is of paramount importance.

Et voila. My point of vue is the point of vue of a Dever's fan who does know Grant only through the Legends. So yes, I'm harsh but I'm fair : He may have written other books that are wonderful but, as the writer of the "Legends of Lone Wolf", I think that Grant can (or should) accept to be judged by the Lone Wolf's fans on the basis of the "Legends of Lone Wolf". So far, I have read the Legends more because I'm a fan of LW than because I find they are good books (and anyway, I already know the story, eh !) They sometimes are so much tiring that I was wondering if they are worth going to the end. Now I know that I won't. It may be stupid if the latter books are better, as you said elsewhere. But with what I have learnt in this thread, each time I will find the names of Qinefer of Alyss in the text, I will be dying to throw the book through the window.

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Hal said:

They sometimes are so much tiring that I was wondering if they are worth going to the end.

Can't remember if I said it on this forum or to someone on IRC, but I actually stopped buying the novels after The Sacrifice of Ruanon. I simply couldn't bear to read any more of them. It was about three years later that I saw a copy of The Lorestone of Varetta for sale and bought it just on the off-chance. And yea, it was very good. No Alyss. Mere fragmentary mentions of Qinefer. The plot sticks very closely to the gamebook. The whole novel has a 'pared-down' feel to it. Whereas some of the preceding novels feel bloated and unwieldy, I don't think there's a wasted page in Lorestone. I went back and bought #s 7-9 after reading that . . . and was underwhelmed.

My advice to you is skip any remaining books and go straight to Book 10, if you have access to it. As you say, you know the story anyway. What you (and I, and most Lone Wolf fans) want(ed) was a series of rollicking good yarns, tales of the legendary Lone Wolf's exploits in saving the world. And Lorestone gives the reader just that.

This thread has gone so far of-topic that I feel I must apologise humbly to the chap who started it. *prostrates self* Sorrysorrysorrysorry

And so forth.

[Archdruid]

outspaced said:

Can't remember if I said it on this forum or to someone on IRC, but I actually stopped buying the novels after The Sacrifice of Ruanon. I simply couldn't bear to read any more of them. It was about three years later that I saw a copy of The Lorestone of Varetta for sale and bought it just on the off-chance. And yea, it was very good. No Alyss. Mere fragmentary mentions of Qinefer. The plot sticks very closely to the gamebook. The whole novel has a 'pared-down' feel to it. Whereas some of the preceding novels feel bloated and unwieldy, I don't think there's a wasted page in Lorestone. I went back and bought #s 7-9 after reading that . . . and was underwhelmed.

My advice to you is skip any remaining books and go straight to Book 10, if you have access to it. As you say, you know the story anyway. What you (and I, and most Lone Wolf fans) want(ed) was a series of rollicking good yarns, tales of the legendary Lone Wolf's exploits in saving the world. And Lorestone gives the reader just that.

This thread has gone so far of-topic that I feel I must apologise humbly to the chap who started it. *prostrates self* Sorrysorrysorrysorry

And so forth.

*goes back to look at long-forgotten thread beginning* Meh, I think it's under control. I have to say that I wanted a series of rollicking good yarns, but none of them after Hunting Wolf were released in the US to my knowledge. And the great thing was, I was 10 years old or so, so I didn't know Alyss sucked (In retrospect, yes, I can see my obvious lack of taste). I guess I could divert my "college drink" fund into getting the PDFs, but that's not looking likely.

[Relenoir]

Can't remember if I said it on this forum or to someone on IRC, but I actually stopped buying the novels after The Sacrifice of Ruanon. I simply couldn't bear to read any more of them. It was about three years later that I saw a copy of The Lorestone of Varetta for sale and bought it just on the off-chance. And yea, it was very good. No Alyss. Mere fragmentary mentions of Qinefer. The plot sticks very closely to the gamebook. The whole novel has a 'pared-down' feel to it. Whereas some of the preceding novels feel bloated and unwieldy, I don't think there's a wasted page in Lorestone. I went back and bought #s 7-9 after reading that . . . and was underwhelmed.

That was us on IRC, just to clarify. You were not being redundant redundant redundant redundant.
BTW, did anyone who read the weblink about John/Paul above notice that it said the novels were based loosely on the LW gamebooks. That's an understatement! I'd say "vaguely", "faintly", or "slightly" might be more appropriate!

[The Wytch-King]

Let's continue this (very interesting!) discussion over here, shall we? Opened a new thread for it as poor Sunwolf probably is close to despairing ...

Oh, and Sunwolf? I'll try and post a few on-topic thoughts here as soon as I find the time! Promised!


The Wytch-King