Guest post - Raymond E Feist - Approaching the End

Approaching the End

The lovely folks at A&R asked me to reflect a bit on bringing this all together after thirty two years of work, this Midkemian opus, what I've come to call the Riftwar Cycle.  To do so, I have to go back a little to the beginning.

Midekmia is a gaming environment, a world developed by many friends at university to which I contributed a bit. I'll skip over pages of narration about how the world developed save to make one observation: it was created by a bunch of graduate student science majors who rarely were inclined to take "because I said so" as a reason for the way things happened.  As a result, Midkemia as a game and world was a "system," an oddly successful virtual world that had a lot of quirky rules and odd conventions.  As we played, stories were spun about why things were the way they were.  Many events in the game resulted from "back in the time of the Riftwar, when the greater magic came to Midkemia . . ."

When I decided to take a hand at writing fantasy, it seemed logical to me to do it in Midkemia, given it spared me a lot of world-building.  But when you jump into an objective, albeit virtual, world, you inherit the conventions and rules.   So, I don't write about the era in which we gamed, but rather the "back in the days" stuff, the virtual "past" of the place.  Hence, when asked, I tell people I'm writing historical novels about a place that doesn't exist.

When I wrote Magician I had no idea if anyone would buy it, let alone dream it would still be in print thirty years later and eventually have twenty nine sequels.  I set out to tell the story of the first Riftwar, how the greater magic came to Midkemia.  But as fate was kind and people wanted to read more, I continued on, knowing there were five Riftwars in total, the Riftwar, the Serpent War, the Dark War, the Demon War, and the Chaos War.  It wasn't until I finished the Serpent War I realized that I was going to have to keep at it to the end.

Now I'm almost there. It's been an amazing experience and one I never anticipated.  The readers have been wonderful, welcoming, and enthusiastic about the entire narrative. When the last book is closed, I hope they'll still look back as fondly as I do on the entire process.

It most likely won't be the last of Midkemia, and certainly won't be the last book I write. I'm already entertaining ideas for more fantasy in different settings, as well as some thing I might take a hand in back on familiar territory, and I'm sure some people might be interesting in seeing what Midkemia's like after I get done with it in the current series.  Whatever I choose to do, I hope the readers are as enthused about it as I am.

Raymond E. Feist

San Diego, CA March, 2011

 Raymond E. Feist (full name Raymond Elias Feist), is a Southern Californian by birth and a San Diegan by choice. He was educated at the University of California, San Diego, where he received his B.A. in Communication Arts with Honors in 1977. Hobbies include collecting movies on DVD, fine wine, books on the history of Professional Football, and the works of American Illustrators.
For more information here is Raymonds website.

March New Releases

 

Destiny awaits Bianca and Lucas . . .  

Through darkness, the heart will find a way

A mysterious artefact leads Jarrod back to Gaela′s lost south-ern continent where he discovers a sentient being like him-self. Ruthless and extremely dangerous, this other version has captured Janis Richter.Luka Paree and Janis′ daughter, Ruby, are playing a dangerous game with Earth′s dictatorship. They have laid their escape plans, but the hunters are closing in. If ASSIST discovers the portal to Gaela, all is lost ...

Midkemia's fifth and final Riftwar - the devastating Chaoswar - explodes in the opening volume of Raymond E. Feist's spectacular new epic fantasy trilogy of magic, conflict, and world-shattering peril. A Kingdom Besieged is a breathtaking adventure that brings back Pug - first introduced in Feist's classic debut novel, Magician, and now Midkemia's most powerful sorcerer - who faces a major magical cataclysm that forces him to question everything he's ever held as true and dear.including the loyalty of his beloved son Magnus. The Chaoswar promises to be the crowning achievement in the three decades-long career of a New York Times bestselling master fantasist who rules the sword and sorcery universe along with Terry Goodkind, George R. R. Martin, and Terry Brooks.

 CJ Wishart is a hardworking country girl with a heart of gold but a life that can be tough.  Her job as a wool classer is back-breaking, her family life is a disaster and, after a string of dating debacles, she's put men in the too-hard basket.

When strong, handsome Lindsay arrives on the scene as their new shearer, CJ can't help but take notice.  They have an undeniable spark, but can she handle the complications and potential heartbreak of falling in love?

With help from her friend and an endearing old farmer, CJ learns that when you stay true to yourself and open your heart, anything is possible.

Set in the colourful world of the shearing sheds, this is a lively and uniquely Australian story of love overcoming adversity.

The Clifton Chronicles is Jeffrey Archer's most ambitious work in four decades as an international bestselling author.

The epic tale of Harry Clifton's life begins in 1920, with the chilling words, 'I was told that my father was killed in the war'. But it will be another twenty years before Harry discovers how his father really died, which will only lead him to question: who was his father?

Is he the son of Arthur Clifton, a stevedore who worked in Bristol docks, or the first born son of a scion of West Country society, whose family owns a shipping line?

Only Time will Tell covers the years from 1920 to 1940, and includes a cast of memorable characters that The Times has compared to The Forsyte Saga. Volume one takes us from the ravages of the Great War to the outbreak of the Second World War, when Harry must decide whether to take up a place at Oxford, or join the navy and go to war with Hitler's Germany.

Raymond E Feist Interview

 
Well I did it! I asked Raymond E Feist for an interview...and he said yes! Mr Feist has written many books of fantasy which started with 'Magician'

"At Crydee, a frontier outpost in the tranquil Kingdom of the Isles, an orphan boy, Pug, is apprenticed to a master magician - and the destinies of two worlds are changed forever. Suddenly the peace of the Kingdom is destroyed as mysterious alien invaders swarm through the land. Pug is swept up into conflict but for him and his warrior friend, Tomas, an Odyssey into the unknown has only just begun. Pug's destiny is to lead him through a rift in the fabric of space and time to the mastery of the unimaginable powers of a strange new magic ..." (Magician synopsis)

Now here is the interview:

       CPB: Can you please explain your world and the premise of your novels!

The world is Midkemia, a somewhat feudal fantasy world that was created originally in the early 1970s as a gaming environment while I was at university.  I began dabbling with storytelling while there and it was a natural to use to the world created for the game for the stories; why build a second world when we had a perfectly good one we had put so many hours into building?  As a result, I like to think I write historical novels about a place that doesn't exist.

CPB: Are the names of your characters are important? And what do they mean?

I have no idea what this is supposed to mean.  Names?  A person yells your name out in a crowd, you turn to answer: it works.  There is nothing in my world's culture that's involved in "secret names and getting power" sorts of things if that's what you mean.  There are cultures where that particular belief is important, but not in mine.

CPB: How do you start for the day?

Usually complaining bitterly that's it's morning again.  Then coffee, lots of coffee.  I'll drink coffee from 6 am until as late as 2 in the afternoon.  I like working first thing in the morning.  I'm pretty much over it by 1 to 3 pm.  Sometimes I'll get on a roll and plow into dinner time, but mostly I use my afternoons to watch news on TV, do a little reading, run errands, etc.

CPB:How long will it take to set up a book?

If by "set up" you mean get the notion and start writing, that goes on all the time.  I'm always chew up bits of story or character here and there.  If you mean the actual writing, that's gotten pretty efficient in the last twenty years.  I can probably write a book in thirty to forty days, but those days are spread out over six or seven months, given how much time I think about things.  I'm unusual that way, compared to the other writers I know who pound out x pages per day.  I go in bursts.

CPB:Ever dispatched someone and then regretted it?

Sent them on an errand?  Oh, you mean kill them.  Nope.  Characters are easy.  I've killed off a bunch and there are always new ones to take their place.  Keeps things interesting. Now, I've upset a few readers on more than one occasion by killing of a favorite.

CPB:What was the name of your first typewriter/computer?

Never bothered to name inanimate objects.  If you mean brand, my first novel killed two typewriters so I wrote it over three.  I destroyed a Remington-Rand portable electric I had managed to get through all of college with, then a used Royal Standard I bought for about $50 in 1977, then that died about 2/3rds of the way through Magician.  I bought another Royal electric and that died about the time I got my first computer, an Apple ][c.  My first printer cost more money than my current laptop, if you can believe it.

CPB:What are the most important attributes to remaining sane as a writer? 

Don't take yourself seriously.  Take the craft seriously and don't condescend to  your audience.  Write the best you know how, but don't think that you're somehow curing cancer, saving wester civilization, or going to win a Nobel Prize.  Have fun, or find a different job.

CPB: What excites you about writing?

I like the surprises.  My characters are often taking off in unexpected directions that lead into unexpected sub-plots.  I attribute it to my subconscious working overtime, or my brain is haunted.

CPB:Has the dog ever eaten your manuscript?

No.  No dog.

CPB:Do you feel any of your heroes or villains could possibly exist in the real world?

Absolutely, except for the magic stuff.  Personality-wise, I try to craft characters that are easily recognizable by the modern reader.  In Magician, Tomas was captain of the football squad, and Pug was his best friend, the short kid who didn't get bullied because his best friend was the really cool kid.  Arutha was president of the student body, but he wasn't a nerd because he was also a really fine basketball player.  Carline was the queen of the prom.  Those personalities are what I think is my strongest attraction to the modern reader, characters they can relate to in a way they can't in the old style heroic milieu.

CPB:What makes you laugh?

I'm a sucker for the absurd (up to a point; loved Blackadder, hated Mr. Bean).  Good physical comedy, but not so much slapstick (loved Chaplin; hated Three Stooges).  Crazy one offs of real life, like Blake Edward's film B.S., or Robert Atlman's The Player.  I laugh a lot with my kids.

CPB:Which character was the hardest to write? Which one was the easiest? Are any of your characters based on people you know or purely imaginative?

Bits and pieces are borrowed from real life, a tone of voice, a mannerism, or a pattern of speech, but no one in my books is based on anyone in real life.  As for hard/easy, they're all the same.  Any character fills a story telling function and once you understand that role in the narrative, you just get on with writing it.

CPB:As a child, when colouring, did you colour within the lines or outside the lines?

Outside, mostly because I was afflicted with a small muscle control problem that made my hands shake a lot.  It was something the doctors said I'd outgrow, which I did, as it was a development issue, but didn't make early childhood a lot of tun at times.

CPB: Do you think that fiction brings something to peoples lives?

I try not to think much on that.  I tell stories, ripping yarns, and my sole purpose is to entertain.  When I meet a reader who claims they gained an important insight into their own life, or something I did caused them to make a meaningful change, I hasten to point out to them that this was their doing.  Maybe something I wrote acted as a bit of a catalyst, but it was a time in their life they were ready for that change or insight and if it hadn't been my work, it would have been someone else's.

Thank you very much for answering these questions for us!

Tarran

You're welcome.  Hopefully I'll be Downunder again one of these days.  I love to visit Oz.

Best, R.E.F.

----

www.crydee.com

Never attribute to malice what can satisfactorily be explained away by stupidity.

Raymond E. Feist (full name Raymond Elias Feist), is a Southern Californian by birth and a San Diegan by choice.A New York Times, and Times of London Best-seller, he is the author of Magician, Silverthorn, and A Darkness at Sethanon, the three novels comprising The Riftwar Saga, the first series in the Arc that has become known as the Riftwar Cycle. Other works include the Empire Trilogy (co-authored with Janny Wurts), Krondor's Sons, comprising Prince of the Blood and The Kings Buccaneer, and Faerie Tale a dark-fantasy set in contemporary America. Subsequently he wrote  the Serpentwar Saga, and The Riftwar Legacy series which is based in part on the hugely successful computer games set in his universe, Betrayal at Krondor and Return to Krondor.

 Hobbies include collecting movies on DVD, fine wine, books on the history of Professional Football, and the works of American Illustrators.

Awesome new fantasy titles

Mira Chambers has an unusual gift for solving mysteries... Blind, institutionalised and frustrated by her loss of independence, Mira has been driven to the brink of insanity by medications that make her life unbearable. When she astounds two medical scientists by 'seeing' the impossible, they begin an exploration of Mira's strange perspectives.

Together with Bennet Chiron, an enigmatic ex-con, Mira becomes entangled in a dangerous adventure of self-discovery that leads them to a killer -- and exposed to a manipulative sociopath whose own unique talent is more than a match for Mira's.

Layers of secrets are about to be peeled away... and no one will be safe from what is revealed.

ISBN: 9780732291365

PRICE: $22.99 
DUE: INSTORE NOW

An oldie but a goodie, new deluxe Hardback edition of an old favorite!

At Crydee, a frontier outpost in the tranquil Kingdom of the Isles, an orphan boy, Pug, is apprenticed to a master magician - and the destinies of two worlds are changed forever.
Suddenly the peace of the Kingdom is destroyed as mysterious alien invaders swarm the land. Pug is swept up into the conflict but for him and his warrior friend, Tomas, an odyssey into the unknown has only just begun.
Tomas will inherit a legacy of savage power from an ancient civilisation. Pug's destiny is to lead him through a rift in the fabric of space and time to the mastery of the unimaginable powers of a strange new magic.

ISBN: 9780007881604

PRICE: $39.99

DUE: INSTORE NOW

In the Universe Parallel, Taren Lenox and Lucian Gervaise land on a utopian planet of immortal psychics. It shares an orbit with their lost planet, Maladaan -- inhabited by a race that cannot abide psychism. Their saviours believe Taren and Lucian to be incarnations of their great ancestors, come to help them remove the alien planet from their star system.

Aided by her new allies, Taren moves to retrieve her lost memories from the Maladaan Secret Service′s memory bank in Esponisa. She discovers that the way to return Maladaan to its rightful universe and future, lies ten years in her past ...

DUE DATE: 01/12/2010