MERCEDES-LACKEY Digest 1188 Topics covered in this issue include: 1) Weird stuff/OP by Deniz 2) Re: books, foreign language translations and stuff by Petri Peltonen 3) Places of Paradise and Tales of Valdemar by Issica Baron 4) Braid: Empire, country, etc. by "Alex Y. Kwan" 5) Re: books, foreign language translations and stuff by "=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Familia_Rinc=F3n_Parra?=" 6) Re: US/questions-Storm Series/ by "R. Barron" 7) Re: empire/ Storm breaking Spoiler by Thomas & Kristine Jackson 8) Re: Weird stuff/OP by Greg Wooledge 9) Re: Stories/ From where? Fluff by davidt-+AT+-cet.com (D H Tiffany/Shawn Marie Walker) 10) ADMIN: mail out of order by Melanie Dymond Harper 11) Re: empire/ Storm breaking Spoiler by davidt-+AT+-cet.com (D H Tiffany/Shawn Marie Walker) 12) Re: US/questions-Storm Series/ by davidt-+AT+-cet.com (D H Tiffany/Shawn Marie Walker) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 30 Apr 97 14:25:42 -0500 From: Deniz To: mercedes-lackey-+AT+-herald.co.uk Subject: Weird stuff/OP Message-ID: <199704301832.OAA20936-+AT+-sirocco.CC.McGill.CA> Yes, I am alive. Don't look so shocked to see a post from me. I'm writing this during my regularly scheduled breaks from studying for my last three finals which are *LOOMING* with vile threats to my GPA. *sigh* Enough about that, more about the list, right? First off, a quick plea. If you seem to be having people telling you your posts look funny, talk to Auntie Mel first, and see if it's something that has to do with Vanyel, like some incompatability between your client and Van. If not, then it's whoever's reading it that's giving the problem. And could the people who are complaining about getting the stuff out of order just talk to Auntie Mel about it? This list has over 400 subscribers, and obviously, there aren't 400 people posting saying, "Yeah, I'm getting them out of order, too," and none of us can do anything to fix it, even if we *are* in the same boat. So, please, just talk to Auntie Mel about it. I would suggest, however, that you first check the sizes of the posts. I know shorter posts filter through my ISP much faster than long ones, yours might be the same. Okay, here's Mel's address in case you trashed the info you got when you subscribed. Melanie Dymond Harper . Good luck! And please read that paragraph with a civil tone. I was not trying to flame, and purposely used generalities and mentioned no names so as to avoid hurting anyone's feelings or sounding accusatory. Kawryathen and LordWurm both wrote about how they want to see more non-Herald types. (too much for me to trim my quotes) I must say I definitely agree with these sentiments. The one reason I don't see a novel coming out about an Ordinary Person (OP), however, is that it would only appeal to the hard-core fans (like ourselves, natch) and, sadly, 400 people will not represent a profit for Misty. If you have read her essay "The Last Straw" (which explains why there will be *no* more Di Tregarde Novels) you will see that she *is* writing for a profit, and not just for the romantic ideals behind it. However, there are a few short stories which deal with OP in SoI. My personal favorites would have to be, "Demon's Den" and "Choice". A little more from LordWurm: >I think some good ideas for stories would be Sun and Shadow, what ever >haped to them? There are hints to that but what happend once they were >hearalds? Or how about Skif? He has quite a story to tell! Even after >he left the streets. How about a story about the Kyree? Just them in >there society? Or more about the Tavardy (sp? I mean the people with >feathers) she never really talked much about that. . . Official word from Misty is that we already know all she's gonna tell about Sun and Shadow... namely the ballad. Maybe she prefers leaving some legends to stay just that-- legends. Now, the other ones, she hasn't said anything about... maybe if she did another anthology, making it exclusively *not* Valdemar? I don't know. Confused about anything on this list? Mail me and ask for the NewbieFest! love, Deniz Sarikaya, High Priestess of | When it is May, Procrastination, Holy Custodian of the | If May return -- B-Day List, Dame of the OoAM, Demon of | Has nobody a pang Deceitful Aliases, Bower Champion, | Lest on a face so beautiful Lady of the Seas, Prince Cunning, and | He might not look again? Mother Hen, II | - Emily Dickinson >dsarik-+AT+-PO-Box.McGill.CA< >freakola-+AT+-geocities.com< >http://www.geocities.com/CollegePark/9359/< ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 30 Apr 1997 21:32:43 +0300 (EET DST) From: Petri Peltonen To: mercedes-lackey-+AT+-herald.co.uk Subject: Re: books, foreign language translations and stuff Message-ID: <199704301832.VAA14107-+AT+-hkkk.fi> Nightdancer asked: > > How many people here are from out of the US. And how much later > > does the books come out there than out here. and Maik wrote: > > Swede in this corner. Let's see... fantasy isn't very popular here, > especially in the south, so you have to plead and beg to get anything at > all, but I'd say about a year, sometimes more. It takes at least seven > months for a translation. Misty books can not be found anywhere south > of Stockholm - translated or otherwise. But in Stockholm there's the > *best* bookstore I've ever seen (US, England, or Sweden). It has all > her books. It has all fantast/SF books period. But it's about as far > to get to Stockholm from here (Helsingborg) as it is from L.A. to San > Fransisco, so I don't get to go that often. A Finn here, heippa y'all... :) The situation up here is basically the same as in Sweden, except that with bigger population there are more potential readers they do translate more books into Swedish than we translate into Finnish. Anyways, there's been a fantasy boom around here lately and the publishers are putting out everything they think will sell... obviously they think that 'Wheel of Time' or those endless Eddings seria will make them good money, so that's what they're publishing right now. *yuck* Luckily, they're translating Tad Williams' Memory, Thorn and Sorrow (or was it the other way around) but they're splitting it into so many small portions (Dragonbone Chair was published in two parts) that it gives me creeps. Obviously they're only trying to get all the money available, not bothering to think what such mutilation does to the story. And I don't see there's any chance to get Misty's books in Finnish anytime soon... I was surprised enough when they published MZB's 'Mists of Avalon' right after it came out years ago. Of course, after that they never did publish anything by MZB. :( Anyways, if you stay alert and follow the American newsletters and stuff, you'll be able to get a fairly good picture when something is scheduled in US or UK and then you can just go to your local book store and ask them to make sure they're getting it too... that way you will get all that's published beyound the seas with a weeks delay at worst... sometimes my bookstore even gets some books before some American stores (or so I have been able to figure from the messages on several mailing lists I'm on. :) Of course you will go into bankruptcy if you're planning to buy them then, because books here are awfully expensive, but if you're willing to wait and again make sure the bookstore will get the paperbacks when they come out you can save many a penny. :) Speaking of bookstores... what is the name of that bookstore you mentioned, Maik? I might want to check it when I next time visit Stockholm. The bookstores I remember from my last visit weren't much good... My own local store, Akateeminen Kirjakauppa/Akademiska Bokhandeln (Academic Bookstore in English) in Helsinki is, IMHO, the best bookstore I've visited. They order readily anything you want and make inquiries for you but the bad part is that it can take up to two months for the books you've ordered to arrive. And that's not the fault of the bookstore, either. Kestrel asked: > **************************************************************** > Is Vows and Honors same as Oathbound and Oathbreakers coz if it ain't, I > haven't seen any? Thought only two books (beside Kerowyn's story) that > involve Kethry. Yes, it is. 'Oathbound' and 'Oathbreakers' together form the 'Vows and Honor' duology (although I've always seen 'Kerowyn's Tale: By the Sword' as a continuation of VaO and that way making it a trilogy of sorts). OK... gotta go now, so laters, all Petrie -- ****************************************************************** * Petri O Peltonen * Animals, * * Helsinki School of Economics * who are not penguins, * * Administration Office * can only wish they were. * * ppeltone-+AT+-hkkk.fi * - Chicago Reader 10/15/82 - * ****************************************************************** ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 30 Apr 97 23:37:20 +0100 From: Issica Baron To: Subject: Places of Paradise and Tales of Valdemar Message-ID: <199704302235.AAA21835-+AT+-linux.fisk.helsingborg.se> >Speaking of bookstores... what is the name of that bookstore you >mentioned, Maik? I might want to check it when I next time visit >Stockholm. The bookstores I remember from my last visit weren't much >good... My own local store, Akateeminen Kirjakauppa/Akademiska >Bokhandeln (Academic Bookstore in English) in Helsinki is, IMHO, the >best bookstore I've visited. They order readily anything you want and >make inquiries for you but the bad part is that it can take up to two >months for the books you've ordered to arrive. And that's not the >fault of the bookstore, either. Greetings on Valborgsm=E4ssoafton (May Day; *huge* fires on the = beaches, fireworks, and alcohol), the bookstore is called SF - = Bokhandeln and is in Gamla Stan. They're on the Internet too, but = nothing beats browsing. They just moved to a bigger place, so = they've increased their shelves by quite a lot. Akademiska = Bokhandeln is pretty okay too (the one in Stockholm that is), bit = like I said, I never get there. SF - Bokhandeln still beats all. = Even Third Planet in Torrance, CA. Sword of Ice... bought it at SF - bokhandeln a few weeks ago... In = The Forest of Sorrows is definitly my favorite. (Vanyel seems to = have stopped whining :) >Has anyone else been getting messages from this list that have attached = files >that are nothing but gibberish? Is someone including them accidentaly? Yep. >What mail program are you using? On what operating system? Even if that question wasn't specifically for me, I'll answer = anyways, as I find it interesting to know. I am using the latest = version of Claris Emailer on Mac/OS, alt Netscape on KOS (my = brother's operating system). Wind to thy = wings, Issica ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 30 Apr 1997 16:58:45 -0700 From: "Alex Y. Kwan" To: mercedes-lackey-+AT+-herald.co.uk Subject: Braid: Empire, country, etc. Message-ID: <3367DCB5.720E-+AT+-earthlink.net> Hi, everyone. Haven't post for a really long time. Sigh. Hi to all the newbies. (Hey being here a few months at least does qualify me as a non-newbie) I myself am from Hong Kong originally. But seven years ago I moved to suburb near San Francisco and stayed there. And just fyi, I am going to UC Davis next year. Well, any Hong Kongers here? Or just Chinese would be okay. So any Chinese? (ABC counts)(ABC is America Born Chinese) It's weird how the bookstores are. Ppl from England? Do you get the paperbacks and even the hardbacks from publishers other than those in USA? 'Cause I think Hong Kongers get a lot of the English-languaged books from English publishers... And when I see, let's say John Grisham's books, it's different publishers for USA version and the England version... Okay, enough rambling. The empire. It really sounds like the old Chinese system. Large region of land, a lot of bureaucrats (sp?), an emperor--non-democratic--as ruler... Oh, well. It does kinda sounds like the Chinese empire. I would like books about the 'ordinary people' of Velgarth. But I would still love the idea of Heralds. Better system really than, I would say, the one in USA. Now, people, I love US of A and I do like Clinton, but I think voting, by the times these politicians get to their positions, is just choosing the lesser evil. Not very assuring. Magic after the Storms. I think there's a lot mentions in the book. No, I don't think it's only the major spells that won't work. I think it's all the spells being very unstable, and very unreliable. Even a little spell might just do weird things onto the thing you're spelling on. Like turn a fire-starting *spell* into a huge blazing fire or something. All right. Enough talking. You really need a life if you actually read my post to here. ;-) (no offense) Bye, take care, everyone. Wind to thy Wings, list sibs from little Alex Knight of OAM Fan of Misty Lackey and Anne Rice Trekkie, X-Phile, and Slash Lover ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 30 Apr 1997 18:27:03 -0600 From: "=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Familia_Rinc=F3n_Parra?=" To: Subject: Re: books, foreign language translations and stuff Message-ID: <199705010020.SAA09160-+AT+-sol.racsa.co.cr> ---------- > Nightdancer asked: > > > How many people here are from out of the US. And how much later > > > does the books come out there than out here. I am from Costa Rica, and the only books by Mercedes Lackey I have seen were AotQ, two years ago. Fantasy isn't very popular around here, luckily my brothers live in the states, and can get the books for me. In case I ordered them, they would probably get here any time from two weeks to two months. The best bookstore I have seen here is the Libreria Internacional, which has the mentality that Fantasy is only Star Trek and Star Wars. It has thousands of those... too bad I heavily dislike them both Well, chocolate truffle sheep to all, Ravenwing and Mica > > > ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 30 Apr 1997 18:28:41 -0700 From: "R. Barron" To: mercedes-lackey-+AT+-herald.co.uk Subject: Re: US/questions-Storm Series/ Message-ID: <3.0.32.19970430182838.0068d99c-+AT+-pop.sonic.net> I know that the really enemy and >antagonist of the series is the Mage storms themselves but what about >the Empire. I really don't like their ways of not trusting anyone >but sometimes I can see where they are coming from and I understand >them and I don't think there is anything wrong with them. But other >times I don't like them at all. I am interested in hearing anyone's >thoughts on this. What do you guys think of the Empire? > >Christy and Safa > > I have not finished the last Storm book, but what I got about the empire was they had a long history of being the way they are. So Tremane is not bad, and the Emperor is not necessarily bad. The people of the Empire are just doing what their superiors tell them, and their superiors are just doing things the same way the Empire has done for years. Vanessa Rachelle Barron rbarron-+AT+-sonic.net http://www.sonic.net/~rbarron ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 30 Apr 1997 19:01:41 -0700 From: Thomas & Kristine Jackson To: mercedes-lackey-+AT+-herald.co.uk Subject: Re: empire/ Storm breaking Spoiler Message-ID: <3367F985.5B01-+AT+-pacbell.net> CHRISTY GOLDBACH wrote: > Okay but something else to think about is that Tremmane would, in all > likely hood, have been the Empiror if he had not had to go to > Hardorn. Or if the mage storms had not come about. He and this is the > spoiler but not one that can't be predicted, becomes King of Hardorn. > He rules there too right?? Yet I think that he will make a fine King. > Does that make sense?? I think that the absolute power deal comes > also from the type of person. And from whether or not they abuse the > power. Does that bring up more conversation?? > Well, that it my thoughts. > Wind to thy wings, > Christy and Safa > Unfortunately I don't think that Tremaine would make a good king any more. After all once Solaris got done with him he was no longer able to diplomatically "stretch the truth" any more. That may be fine for now, but later when things settle down and the people need a statesman not a general to lead them it could cause problems. Personally, I like Selany and would love to hear more about her. Unfortunately Misty seems to be going forward with new characters not back to the old ones. Although two of my other favorite characters Skif and Nayla are due for a book of their own. As for writing about an everyman, that may make a good short story, but it would make a very boring novel. And finally, did I miss something or did Talia one day just become a sun priest out of the blue? I understand that she went to Karse on a mission and came back ordained. Is what really happened in print and am I missing it? Rule Six..... THERE IS NO RULE SIX. MP Bruces. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 30 Apr 1997 19:12:46 -0400 (EDT) From: Greg Wooledge To: mercedes-lackey-+AT+-herald.co.uk Subject: Re: Weird stuff/OP Message-ID: On Wed, 30 Apr 1997, Deniz wrote: > This list has over 400 > subscribers, and obviously, there aren't 400 people posting saying, "Yeah, > I'm getting them out of order, too," and none of us can do anything to fix > it, even if we *are* in the same boat. So, please, just talk to Auntie Mel > about it. I would suggest, however, that you first check the sizes of the > posts. I know shorter posts filter through my ISP much faster than long > ones, yours might be the same. Mail transfer agents are funny beasts. Especially sendmail. Which vanyel is running. Depending on vanyel's configuration, it's fully possible that given two messages which arrive in close proximity, the shorter is processed first. Then, the receiving system may do more weird things to the messages after it receives them from vanyel, especially if there are a few "hops" involved. Also, any glitch in the mail delivery could be magnified dramatically. The following situation is one I've seen *many* times. If message A arrives at vanyel at 12:00, and aol.com is temporarily down, then message A goes into vanyel's queue for retry at a later time. If aol.com comes back up at 12:05, vanyel doesn't know about it. Now suppose message B arrives at vanyel at 12:06 -- vanyel passes it to aol.com almost immediately. Later, perhaps at 13:00, vanyel finally retries message A, which is delivered to aol.com. Voila! Instant out-of-order messages. It gets much worse if vanyel has a large mail queue -- anything that gets stuck in it could be there for a while.... You can trace the delivery of any particular message by reading all the headers. Each mail server puts at least one timestamp on the messages as it passes it down the line. You may have to do some time zone conversions to make sense of everything, and remember that the server clocks may not be exactly in sync. For the record, I've gotten a few out-of-sequence messages, but not enough to make a fuss about, especially since I've been reading out-of-sequence Usenet threads for several years. ;-) ObMisty: I just finished reading the first three Bardic Voices novels. It's nice to see some books where the Bards are the main characters, rather than secondary characters. I recommend them to anyone on this list who hasn't read them yet. ------------ Greg Wooledge ------------- ------- wooledge-+AT+-kellnet.com ------- --- http://kellnet.com/wooledge/main.html --- ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 30 Apr 1997 21:26:54 -0700 From: davidt-+AT+-cet.com (D H Tiffany/Shawn Marie Walker) To: mercedes-lackey-+AT+-herald.co.uk Subject: Re: Stories/ From where? Fluff Message-ID: FireWurm-+AT+-aol.com wrote: >I think some good ideas for stories would be Sun and Shadow, what ever haped >to them? There are hints to that but what happend once they were hearalds? Well this is becoming a semi-regular thing! 8-{)# Somebody on list (Jake?) has a copy of an interview with Misty in which she states that she will not ever write a book about Sun and Shadow or one about Baron Valdemar and the founding. Sorry. 8-{(# But you're not alone in wanting more depth to the society in Valdemar. Hey, maybe if Misty would write in some more depth we could lure back Heater(what she said)! David Tiffany, Giddiest of typosts ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 1 May 1997 09:57:25 +0100 (BST) From: Melanie Dymond Harper To: mercedes-lackey Subject: ADMIN: mail out of order Message-ID: <199705010857.JAA00499-+AT+-vanyel.herald.co.uk> One of our lurkers has pointed out to me a possible reason for people seeing mail out of order. Assuming you're just logging on in the morning (afternoon, whenever) to a batch of mail which is not in the 'right' order, you may find that your mail reading tool of choice is sorting it that way for you. I'm told that Internet Explorer, for instance, allows you to sort your mail by From:, by Subject: or by Received: -- that is, by the sender, by the subject line, or by the date and time it got to your mailbox. Sorting it other than by the date/time field could produce the effects mentioned. It seems likely that Netscape might have a similar sorting option. For those that care, the way in which Listproc processes mail is by article and _then_ by recipient; it takes one article, sends it out to everyone not on the digest, then looks at the next article, etc. etc. etc. The only way in which the articles will get out of order is if the machine which accepts mail for you is not reachable from this site at the time when Vanyel is attempting to send the mail. This doesn't happen especially often (unless you're on AOL, MSN ... :)) unless there are pretty major network problems. If you want to know more technical stuff (why? why?) feel free to ask me off-list, but note that I will not attempt to help people configure their mail programs -- that is a question you should ask your local technical support people. Cheers Mel ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 1 May 1997 07:02:28 -0700 From: davidt-+AT+-cet.com (D H Tiffany/Shawn Marie Walker) To: mercedes-lackey-+AT+-herald.co.uk Subject: Re: empire/ Storm breaking Spoiler Message-ID: Thomas & Kristine Jackson wrote: s p o i l e r s p a c e i s very bor i ng > Unfortunately I don't think that Tremaine would make a good king any >more. After all once Solaris got done with him he was no longer able to >diplomatically "stretch the truth" any more. That may be fine for now, >but later when things settle down and the people need a statesman not a >general to lead them it could cause problems. But the best way to lie is to tell the whole truth in such a way as to seem unbelivable! And the 2nd best is to tell only part of the truth. I'm sure Tremaine is intelligent and practiced enough in the fine art of flim-flam that he'll manage to get by. DAvid tiffany, God of tyyypos ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 1 May 1997 07:02:31 -0700 From: davidt-+AT+-cet.com (D H Tiffany/Shawn Marie Walker) To: mercedes-lackey-+AT+-herald.co.uk Subject: Re: US/questions-Storm Series/ Message-ID: "R. Barron" wrote: > So Tremane is not >bad, and the Emperor is not necessarily bad. The people of the Empire are >just doing what their superiors tell them, and their superiors are just >doing things the same way the Empire has done for years. "I was only following orders" hmm. didn't work at Nuremberg. Not an adequate defence I'm afraid. David Tiffany, Dog of tyoptys ------------------------------ End of MERCEDES-LACKEY Digest 1188 **********************************