Stronghold, by Melanie Rawn

Stronghold
Melanie Rawn
DAW: 1991

Welcome back to my Melanie Rawn re-read! When we last left off, in March of last year, we had concluded Rawn's Dragon Prince trilogy (Dragon Prince, The Star Scroll, Sunrunner's Fire) and I suggested that I would resume the re-read in a timely manner.  This was obviously untrue and I clearly cannot be trusted when I say when a certain article is going live, but here we are again at the start of a new trilogy. 

In my write up of Sunrunner's Fire I suggested that if you consider story arcs across the series, the six books really comprise a single trilogy that looks like this:

1. Dragon Prince (1 book)
2. Star Scroll / Sunrunner's Fire (2 books)
3. Dragon Star (3 books)

I still think that works. Where Dragon Prince was a standalone that set up future stories, The Star Scross and Sunrunner's Fire had distinct story arcs that were as much in service of setting up a larger story as they were concluding the proper story arc of dealing with the fallout from Roelstra.  Dragon Star is three books comprising one war.

As before, this is less of a proper review and more of a re-read.  There is an excellent chance of book and previous trilogy spoilers, though I will attempt to limit (but not necessarily eliminate) those that touch on the remainder of the Dragon Star trilogy.  You have been warned.  The quick answer is that I am a huge fan of these novels from Melanie Rawn and very highly recommend them. Go read, I'll still be here.

One way that I keep describing both Stronghold and the Dragon Star trilogy is: Melanie Rawn kills everyone and burns the whole thing to the ground. I mean this in the best possible way, but everything that Rawn spent so much time and emotional energy building in the Dragon Prince trilogy with Rohan and his dreams of peace is completely shattered with the invasion of the Vellant'im.  We know nothing about these people, except that they are bearded, targeting faradh'im (the Sunrunners) and are destroying and burning their way across the continent, seemingly towards the desert. 

Rawn was likely planning this from the start, given that she published Dragon Prince in 1988, published the next two in 1989 and 1990, and immediately published Stronghold in 1991.  But, more than publishing one trilogy and and then working on the next one, Rawn seeded The Star Scroll and Sunrunner's Fire with hints of the Dragon Star novels. It was the war with the sorcerer's, but also the continuing hints of Andry's vision of his world in flames and his family destroyed. Andry knew this war was coming, though he didn't know when or how.  Stronghold shows how.  Or, at least, the beginning of how.

The build to war is slow. There are several more hints at the invasion to come, the first coastal cities are hit but they are hit during cloud cover so it takes longer for word to spread to Stronghold and Dragon's Rest than it otherwise might. Scattered reports are getting through, and what to believe?  Except that the invaders are burning and gutting cities / castles and then moving farther inland. 

Stronghold is where Rawn starts killing minor (and major) characters. This invasion is for real, and nobody is safe. This is made clear as the invasion begins to hit the Desert.  But, besides the invasion, there are two other primary conflicts. The first is the inevitable conflict of Pol vs Andry. At this point Andry is well established as Lord of Goddess Keep with fully established power. Pol is the next High Prince and is starting to step into that role, but he's still a step behind Rohan because Pol doesn't fully inherit so long as Rohan is around.   But, a central conflict of the series is the battling influences and ideas of Pol vs Andry. It doesn't get any better here.

The other conflict is, sadly, Pol vs Rohan. Despite being lord of Princemarch and the next High Prince, Pol still lives in the shadow of his father. As one does, especially when one's father is such a prominent and vital man in that particular world.  Pol chafes, and he has the inexperience of youth that his ideas of how to behave and what the appropriate response should be is in conflict with what Rohan knows based on his years of experience and what he has spent his life trying to build (unified rule of law, general peace).  But as the invasion deepens, Pol begins to no longer trust his father's decisions. He wants desperately to believe in Rohan like he did as a child, but each step chafes. 

Which is the point that I start bringing in my own personal situation into the book and I think about my relationship with my father and the relationship I hope to have with my (now) three month old son, and the struggles of fatherhood and growing in different directions but still being family. I think of Andry's relationship with Chay (his father) and with Rohan and Pol (uncle and cousin), and of my extended families and my hopes.  This has nothing to do with the book itself, but it part of my introspection around it.  It's the stuff that I think about when I think about the book. Getting older changes how you think about stuff, and that's even when you don't have a near nameless murderous invasion destroying your land and you see your father just not doing anything to stop it and that's all you want is for him to act. 

So, Stronghold.  It's a brutal novel, filled with death and disappointment. Of course I like it

Unlike the Dragon Prince trilogy, which I've read many times, I've only read Dragon Star once. And of that once, I'm not sure I've ever read the second volume Dragon Token. I know I've read Stronghold once before and I know I've read Skybowl, but I vaguely remember never being able to find a copy of the middle book when I was younger.  Now I have it.  So, we'll see if my Melanie Rawn reread proceeds with a book I don't remember at all. 

This time, I make no promises as to how quickly the next article will go up.  Just know that it will.

Sunrunner's Fire, by Melanie Rawn

Sunrunner's Fire
Melanie Rawn
DAW: 1990

"Why does it happen this way?"

Rohan's whispered bitterness startled her out of her own. His face was as composed as Pol's, but his eyes were open wounds. "What do you mean, beloved?" She made her voice gentle, forbidding fear to scrape the words raw.

"This," he repeated. "Always. One man battling another."

Himself against Roelstra, Maarken against Masul, Pol against Ruval. Whole princedoms distilled down to two men. "Better one battling one than thousands battling thousands," she answered softly. It was the High Princess speaking, not the woman who had watched husband and nephew and now son go forth to their small, private wars.

This, I think, is to the heart of what the Dragon Prince trilogy is dealing with, which is the contradiction of Rohan's desire to be civilized and to make his world a better and safer one of laws while being continually forced to deal with men who refuse to accept anything but conflict and war.

Welcome to my final entry in my re-read series of the Dragon Prince trilogy.  We began four years ago with Dragon Prince and continued just last month with The Star Scroll.  Now we tackle the concluding volume with Sunrunner's Fire.  As before, this is less of a proper review and more of a re-read.  There is an excellent chance of book and trilogy spoilers, though I will attempt to limit (but not necessarily eliminate) those that touch on the Dragon Star trilogy.  You have been warned.  The quick answer is that I am a huge fan of these novels from Melanie Rawn and very highly recommend them. Go read, I'll still be here.

Something that I've been pondering since I finished Sunrunner's Fire a couple of nights ago is what if I'm looking at this whole trilogy thing wrong.  In a technical sense, this is the concluding volume of the Dragon Prince trilogy.  That's true.  But, to a point, Dragon Prince is a standalone novel that also sets up the potential for subsequent stories (as opposed to being a novel without a true conclusion). The Star Scroll and Sunrunner's Fire, however, seem more like one massive novel than two individual books.  To a point.  Each of those two novels have different focuses with character and story, but they tell more of the overarching battle against the sorcerers than they complete a fixed trilogy.

If there is a trilogy here, it looks like this:
1. Dragon Prince (1 book)
2. Star Scroll / Sunrunner's Fire (2 books)
3. Dragon Star Trilogy (3 books)

That's my side thought for the morning.

So, Sunrunner's Fire begins only days (40 days?) after the conclusion of The Star Scroll with the ceremony of Andry assuming formal command of Goddess Keep and all of the faradh'im.  Andry has had visions of the future, much as Andrade, the former Lady of Goddess Keep, has had.  Andrade used those visions to shape her actions to prevent a future that she did not want and to shape it into one that she did.  We never learned what most of those visions were, except that one involved her marriage to the High Prince Roelstra.  We do learn Andry's visions, however, and his visions are of a future at war and of the destruction of all that he loves. 

Though that is not what Sunrunner's Fire is focused on, it shapes the actions of Andry.  It is a thread running through the novel.  It sets up the Dragon Star trilogy, though when I read this book for the first time I had no idea there would be more, but this is what forces Andry to act.  We know he is a young man given a whole lot of power without having sufficient time to be trained on how to use it wisely and humbly.  There is a streak of arrogance to Andry that, to a point is present in his whole family and in Andrade, but Andrade still had some political skill in maneuvering people to her own ends.  Andry is all blunt force without the political tact to work towards his goals, and since he firmly believes that war is coming in the future and only he can prevent it, he continues to push and alienate himself from his family.

Remember the sweet boy who loved his brothers so much it hurt in The Star Scroll?  That boy is gone and at each step, he feels like he is betrayed by his family even though he pushes them away by holding so tightly to the idea that everything he does is right and he is justified in all of his actions no matter the consequence.  It is difficult to read, to see how quickly he becomes "other".

In retrospect, Andry's story is the one I have spent more time thinking about in regards to Sunrunner's Fire even though it is the smaller story.

The larger story, of course, is that of Pol growing into a man and a ruler and of the sorcerers Mireva and Ruval (Ianthe's son) making their play to destroy everything that Rohan has built and to take their place as rulers of the continent.  It is Pol figuring out who he wants to be and that while he is likely to be a man and Prince that honors his parents, he won't exactly be the same sort of man and ruler that his father was. There is conflict there, especially as he begins to fall in love with the sort of woman his parents disapprove of as a future High Princess.

There is drama in the political wrangling, which is always a highlight with Melanie Rawn, and the characters we've been following and love don't get off easy.  Characters die, and very bad things happen to very good people.  From what I recall, that is only going to get worse in the next trilogy.  Sunrunner's Fire is compelling reading, and I think it's a bit more focused than The Star Scroll was.

But, back to Andry.  I don't think I'd want a whole novel from his perspective because I think he works better as seen in response to other characters than he would as an obnoxious lead character that we don't quite sympathize with.  He does, however, have a perspective that works towards a big picture that only he knows is coming.  The trouble is, he doesn't trust enough to share it because he's afraid he won't be believe or trusted himself. It's a vicious cycle, so all he tells people is that he has seen war coming and that everyone will need him in the future and that the ways he is twisting what the faradh'im have been is so very necessary and so is his personal war against the sorcerers.

What makes that so interesting, though, is at the very end of the novel when Andry goes on his little genocide is that one of the sorcerers had a letter written and while it was unclear as to who the recipient is, the letter seems to be about how the sorcerers could return to power not through conquest, but because Pol is of their blood, and Riyan is, and that with men and women of good character in ruling positions, they could reveal themselves and be protected by those rulers and also teach those rulers their ways.

It seems reasonable, though Andry would never see it that way.  It also shows that not all the sorcerers are like Mireva, striving for vengeance and murder.  Of course, the old woman who had that letter was also murdered by Andry, so I think what we are seeing is a lost opportunity.  Which, like most things with Andry, is sad.

And with sadness over Andry, we shall close out the Dragon Prince trilogy.

Stay tuned, because over the coming months we'll pick up with Stronghold and begin the Dragon Star trilogy.  Where I have read the three Dragon Prince books many times, I have only read Dragon Star just the once.  I'll be interested to see my perspective on that and see what I latch onto on my second time through.

The Star Scroll, by Melanie Rawn

The Star Scroll
Melanie Rawn
DAW: 1989

Almost four years ago I wrote about Melanie Rawn's debut novel Dragon Prince, which has long been one of my favorite fantasy novels and one of the few which I occasionally come back to and re-read.  At the time I suggested around that time that this would be the beginning of a re-read series of posts covering the full series.  For no particular reason that I can think of, I did not immediately follow Dragon Prince with the rest of the series, and then the next few years became complicated, and I just never returned to the series and the re-read.  Until now.

As with Dragon Prince, this entry will be less of a proper review and more about my overall impressions of the novel and what it evokes in me, especially this being the fourth or fifth time that I have read it.  As such, spoilers will abound, though more for this particular volume than the rest of the series.  You have been warned.  My memory of the rest of the series is incomplete. It may be worth noting that this is the first time I have read Star Scroll in at least ten years.  If not longer. 

If you're on the fence, don't be.  Don't read what's below, just go read Dragon Prince and continue on with The Star Scroll.  This is top notch fantasy.

One thing that jumped out at me more from re-reading my writeup of Dragon Prince is that The Star Scroll does not have that prominent villain to latch on to that Dragon Prince did.  Dragon Prince had the High Prince Roelstra, one of the great villains in fantasy literature.  I will argue that point all day long if necessary.  The Star Scroll has hidden sorcerers.  Oh, there is plenty of villainy to be found here, but it isn't the same.  I would suggest that it is less necessary because now we are fully invested in the characters.  Rohan and Sioned are familiar and comfortable and their dreams as rulers are our dreams as readers.  We want them to succeed and build that peaceful society and make their world better.  The nature of the conflict is different.

There is a discovery of several scrolls on the island nation of Dorval, the ancestral home of the Sunrunners (for lack of a quicker description, this world's magic users - see my previous post).  The scrolls tell of long lost history, of a war against sorcerers who ruled the mainland, of a different sort of forbidden magical power. 

It is not this discovery which sets events in motion, Melanie Rawn is far too good of a writer to do that.  But, this discovery is a way to inform the reader as the characters are learning about a bit of history that might not be completely in the past.  The scrolls are a set up for the reader, a hint that Rawn is changing the nature of the game here. 

But, back to the villains.  There are two, really.  One is a character named Masul, who is claiming to be the son of long dead Roelstra, and thus having claim to the princedom claimed by Rohan for *his* son, Pol.  Masul is a bit of a prominent villain, but the underlying one here is Mireva - one of the sorcerers looking to reclaim some power and completely upset the current order of things in the world.  She is working multiple plots at once, attempting to subvert the Sunrunners, remove Rohan and family from power, and to set up a puppet of her own as the real power in the land in attempt to bring the long dormant sorcerers back into the light.  That is a gross simplification. 

Only one of those two storylines is resolved in The Star Scroll, the other (that of Mireva) will continue on into Sunrunners Fire.  To be honest, I really couldn't remember how that part moved forward, though I did remember it being a big thing.  It's just not what you hang the book on.  We're not reading to see how that particular storyline develops (as we were with the conflict between Rohan and Roelstra).  We're reading to see how our heroes (as a generic term) rise to the occasion, to see how they develop, how Pol grows.

One of the best storylines in The Star Scroll is actually that of Andry, the son of Chay and Tobin (sister to Rohan).  To quickly reduce all sorts of stuff, Andry is young (perhaps 20), and is tapped to be the next Lord of Goddess Keep when the current Lady, Andrade, dies.  Andry, like Andrade, has all sorts of family ties to the ruling family, but as a Sunrunner, he has other loyalties.  From the rotating tight third person perspectives in this novel, we see Andry go from fondly thinking about his "beloved older brother" to becoming almost estranged from his family when Andrade is killed and he is still given the full rule of the Sunrunners at such a young age.  We can see the drift, and perhaps because I knew it was coming I can notice more those earlier moments when Andry is trying to hold on to his family and just be a brother and a son - and I know that the estrangement is coming.  I know that the change is painful, and it is heartbreaking to watch happen even though you get the sense that Andry is kind of a dick, but he's also young and immature.  Which is awkward for the man who is now a major power in the land. 

The other great bit (in a book filled with great bits) is Sioned and how she is using her powers to initially touch, and then communicate with a dragon - something that had never been even considered.  It isn't a major point of this novel, but it's so beautifully done and frightening and thrilling that it just has to be mentioned.

I don't love The Star Scroll in the same way that I do Dragon Prince, but from the start this is a gripping fantasy that from the first word I fully immersed myself into and did not want to stop until I had turned the final page.  From these first two books, Melanie Rawn is a master and should be mentioned far more often as one of the great fantasy writers. 


As a side note, given how much I love the Dragon Prince cover and that it was one of the first pieces of fantasy art that made me actually notice fantasy art, the cover for The Star Scroll is fairly disappointing.  It shows an important scene of the book, but it doesn't really differentiate this as being any different of a book than, say, Anne McCaffrey's Pern novels (which are very good, but not at all the same sort of thing).  Of course, Michael Whelan did do a number of the covers for The Dragonriders of Pern and McCaffrey herself did blurb Dragon Prince, but still.  The cover here lacks that sensual and exciting feeling of that awesome piece of art he did for Dragon Prince.  Perhaps it is not a fair comparison, that is, after all, one of my favorite book covers of all time.

Melanie Rawn, The Diviner

And, in news I've rather happy about, Melanie Rawn has announced a publication date for The Diviner: June 2011.  Actually, she announced it a month ago, and there's another post on her message board saying August 2011, but that Rawn is actually talking publication dates is an EXCELLENT sign. 

Don't know what in the world I'm talking about?  Have you heard of The Golden Key, written by Rawn, Jennifer Roberson, and Kate Elliott, and published back in the 90's? I would point you to my blog post covering the book, but it's been fifteen years since I read it.  Maybe longer.  Here's a review from Catherine Asaro from back in 1997.

The Golden Key was fantastic, people.  After it was published there was talk about sequels and prequels that would be individually written by the three co-authors.  The first one, the one that sets the stage and gives the other authors what they need to do their work was Melanie Rawn's The Diviner.  Without it, Roberson and Elliott can't continue. 

We're getting The Diviner next year!!!!!!


It's time for a re-read of The Golden Key, I think.

Oh, and there's artwork. 

Woo!

Dragon Prince, by Melanie Rawn

Dragon Prince
Melanie Rawn
1988

I have love in my heart for a good number of fantasy novels and series I read in my youth. They were the gateway drugs into a lifetime of reading epic fantasy and into other branches of science fiction and fantasy. Among those novels so important to my teenage years, Melanie Rawn’s Dragon Prince holds a special place of distinction. It has been more than ten years since I last cracked the cover of one of Melanie Rawn’s novels and visited my old friends Rohan and Sioned, since I read Skybowl, the conclusion to the second trilogy and the last time Rawn has given readers entry into this deeply drawn world.

Would the novel hold up to the esteem time and memory have given it? Would I still be so inclined to read the other five novels set in this world?

The short answer is yes.

Oh, and the cover art? That cover is the reason I pay attention to cover art and who the artist is. Michael Whelan’s cover is striking and it made the younger me take notice of his work. I also remember Whelan’s work with Meat Loaf’s Bat Out of Hell II album. They are inextricably linked in my memory.

One thing to note: there is an excellent chance of spoilers in the below conversation. This is my re-read and not whatever I might consider to be a “proper” review. If you are looking to avoid being spoiled for certain events of the novel AND the series (though I’ll try to limit series spoilers), please just know that I think Dragon Price is a fantastic novel and that it remains one of my favorites of the genre, and that you should probably go read it now.

So. Shall we?


Melanie Rawn is not a writer afraid to do terrible things to her characters; her heroes in particular. Let’s just get this out of the way from the start: bad things happen to the characters we care about, and sometimes they do bad things themselves. Dragon Prince opens with concepts of black and white and gradually shades greyer and greyer as the novel progresses. It isn’t so much that the concepts of “Right” and “Wrong” are in question, but that the question of whether it is sometimes necessary to do what is wrong to accomplish a greater good arises. This is made stark late in the novel when, despite all of his dreams and visions for a better future, Rohan is confronted with his capacity for barbarism while still holding to a dream of a more civilized world.

Much of Dragon Prince is a political dance as, through the first half of the novel, Rohan plays the simpleton to gain concessions from the High Prince Roelstra and cleverly builds advantage for the Desert.

Roelstra, it must be said, is one of the great villains of fantasy literature. His primary concern is power, whether it is exercising it over vassals, coercing others, or acquiring more by devious means, Roelstra is about power and he is not a benevolent ruler. This puts Roelstra in stark contrast with Rohan. Rohan wishes to build peace by law and ultimately change the political power structure of the land, but every step Rohan needs to make he knows that Roelstra will oppose.

This conflict is one of the two primary conflicts of the novel. The second is Rohan’s internal conflict of his desire to be a good man and his growing realization of what he will do to make his world a better place.

One of the more impressive aspects of the novel, besides the parts in between the front and back covers, is the magic system Melanie Rawn developed here. Now, I am not normally one to talk about magic and how it works and how it plays into the novel, but this is fairly inventive. It isn’t called “magic”, but the people with special talents are called Sunrunners. They are able to weave part of their consciousness on the sunlight, communicate over long distances, and use the light of the sun in a variety of other ways. The faradhi are specially trained emissaries to each Princedom and work and serve all over the continent. They report back to Lady Andrade at the Goddess Keep, and with a network of faradhi who can communicate by sunlight, Andrade attempts to manipulate Princes and protect her people and her family.

Dragon Prince is a very strong, powerful, and thrilling debut novel from Melanie Rawn. There is battle, but the beauty of Dragon Prince is in the political scheming at the Rialla and in the goals of Prince Rohan. Power and how it is used is a central concept to Dragon Prince and Melanie Rawn explores it well. This should be considered a must read novel for all fans of fantasy.


One final thing to note is that the trade paper edition of Dragon Prince seems to have done away with the genealogies and extra information I remember fondly from the mass market edition of my youth. I mourn the loss.

Dragon Prince Re-Read

Just wanted to mention that I'm beginning my re-read of Melanie Rawn's Dragon Prince and Dragon Star trilogies tonight.

Dragon Prince is one of my favorite fantasy novels and one that has lingered with me over the years. It's probably been at least ten years since I've read it, though so many of the details still come starkly across my memory. I love this book.

I'm less familiar with the other novels. I've read The Star Scroll and Sunrunner's Fire a couple of times, but have less recall (I do remember some rather important moments, though). My high school library only had copies of the first and third Dragon Star novels, so that's all I've read of those, and only once each. Except for one very memorable and heartbreaking scene in Stronghold, I'll have an almost fresh experience for the second trilogy.

Very much looking forward to this re-read.

Also, check out Michael Whelan's cover art. Gorgeous. This cover marked the first time I ever really thought about where the covers came from and notice the artist as an artist.

Diviner!!

I poked around on Melanie Rawn's message board for news on Captal's Tower, the long-not-written volume of her Exile's trilogy. I have a copy of the first book The Ruins of Ambrai, but I've held off reading when I found out that the trilogy has no anticipated completion date (take THAT, Ice and Fire fans!)

First, I came across a post titled "CT put off again...vent here", which I assumed was going to be rife with complaints that Rawn was working on Spellbinder 3 rather than Captal's Tower. That's what I thought. But, the first post included an update from October 2009:

What a stunning surprise! Melanie just announced she finished Diviner!!! It's much smaller than the Golden Key, but it's finished and hopefully we'll have a release date soon. I honestly thought she'd abandoned the project.

As far as I know, her next project is Spellbinder 3. She hasn't made any promises on Captal's Tower, but I for one am faithfully hoping it will get it's turn after Spellbinder.

Melanie is trying to sell her house and move to Oregon. Whenever that happens will only push back publishing dates for Captal's Tower or Spellbinder 3.

Oh, really?!

Honestly, it didn't even occur to me to think that Rawn was going to write Diviner. I chocked that one up to a lost opportunity. Diviner is either a sequel or a prequel (not really sure, doesn't really matter) to The Golden Key, an outstanding fantasy novel written by Rawn, Jennifer Roberson, and Kate Elliott. The Golden Key was intended to spawn three spin-off novels, one written by each of the original co-authors. Only hitch was that Roberson and Elliott couldn't write their entries until Rawn wrote Diviner. Well, here is Melanie's announcement.

The Golden Key was published in 1996.

(again, fellow Ice and Fire fans, you've got nothing on Melanie Rawn fans...unless you're waiting for more Haviland Tuf stories from GRRM, in which case, I feel you)

So.

Color me extremely surprised but quite happy to find out about Diviner. I don't know if we can expect a 2010 publication or 2011, but Diviner is automatically one of my most anticipated volume for whichever year it is announced. Yes, The Golden Key is that good.

What inspired me to even check Rawn's website / message board was that I'm seriously considering doing a re-read series of posts for the blog on her Dragon Prince / Dragon Star trilogies and I wondered if there was anything new. All I expected was that the third Spellbinder book was on the way and not much else. Didn't get Captal's Tower, didn't expect to.

Got the unexpected. Got Diviner.

Thank you, Melanie. I can't wait to read this one.

On Authors and Finishing Series

I was reminded by a thread over at the Terry Brooks message board that Melanie Rawn still has not started work on The Captal’s Tower, the third volume. I double checked Rawn’s own board and read through the most recent thread of folks whining that Rawn has moved on to the Spellbinder series. There was a little tidbit which I was not aware of before, namely that the long gap between The Mageborn Traitor and Spellbinder was due to Melanie dealing with some serious depression and writing Spellbinder was part of her therapy. Or something along those lines.

Now, I have to remind myself sometimes that writers are people too - complete with all the personal, emotional, physical, mental, and health issues that everybody else has and that life can really kick the ass of a person, no matter the best intentions. Being a reader is so much easier when the books magically appear in the bookstore and in my library and I don’t have to consider Author as Person. Thanks a lot, Maturity.

This means, of course, that the most important thing is that Melanie Rawn the Person is healing and doing what she needs to do to continue healing.

Do you hear a but here?

How about a “however”?

However, I do find myself coming back to something that Shawn Speakman has said from time to time on that same Terry Brooks message board. The author does have a obligation to write the book they have contracted with a publisher for. So, unless Rawn was writing without a contract, she was in breach of contract with her publisher. Now, Speakman was talking more about George R. R. Martin and the continual delays in A Song of Ice and Fire, and that Martin was not showing professionalism by not delivering work on time. This led to discussions about contracting art and timelines and putting out the best product possible. My personal opinion is that the author should take as much time as is reasonable to complete a work on time and that the contract should hopefully reflect the amount of time required to produce the product on time. Sometimes (ahemTerryBrooksahem) I would prefer if the author took a little bit more time to write a better book.

That last paragraph was a bit scattered, but rather than re-write the paragraph, what I am getting at is that if an author has contracted for a book or a series of books, that author should (my opinion) strive to complete that book or series of books. I have less of an issue with delays for personal / professional reasons. That’s...well, not fine, but understandable.

What bugs me, as a reader, as a potential book buyer, is that if I know a book is intended to be part of a series and that the conclusion is in the future, and I purchase Book 1 and I purchase Book 2, I feel I am entering into a trust with the author that the author fully intends and will strive to complete the series. If said author takes a 14 year break in the middle of a planned 3 volume series because he / she has to deal with personal stuff, that’s one thing. That’s...well, not fine, but understandable. But, if in the middle of this 14 year break between the publication of Book 2 of a 3 volume series the author writes several completely unrelated volumes and has made no announcement of when Book 3 will even be worked on, I would feel somewhat betrayed as a reader.

Life gets in the way, I know. Authors may not be able to complete a series for a variety of reasons. But, in the case of Melanie Rawn, she has since published Spellbinder, has announced Spellbinder 2 is on its way early 2009, and reportedly has suggested Spellbinder 3 is in the works...I think, as a reader, that’s crap. I did purchase The Ruins of Ambrai when it was first published. I have it on my bookshelf. I almost purchased The Mageborn Traitor.

This isn’t Rawn, Jennifer Roberson, and Kate Elliott not writing the spin off novels of a single volume complete story The Golden Key (excellent novel, by the way), this is Rawn choosing to not finish a series she started, promised an ending to, and betrayed the trust of the people who spent money to purchase her books and put a little bit of coin in her pockets.

Don’t start what you can’t finish, and don’t go on to the next project if you’re not still working on the first project.

In my mind this is different than George R. R. Martin working on Wild Cards and various anthologies while still working on A Dance with Dragons, or Elizabeth Bear having a variety of novels contracted in multiple series (for which she is meeting her obligations) and is certainly different than Robert Jordan’s health issues.

In the case of Melanie Rawn and The Captal’s Tower, I do feel betrayed and disappointed by Rawn.

There have to be other authors who have similarly betrayed their fanbases by completely stepping away from finishing a series. I know Glen Cook never wrote the last Dread Empire novel, but at least he had the courtesy to be robbed by a “fan” who stole the only copy of the manuscript.

Anyone know of other examples where the author moved on to other works in the middle of a series outside of publisher-driven reasons and never finished that series by choice?

If working in a series, what responsibility does the author have towards the reader?