[LMB] (chat) Krentz/Quick/Castle

[paal at gis.net]

----- Original Message Follows -----
> So...
> 
>>     My vacation reads lately, in the afternoons and evenings when my 
> brain burns out, include the triple-headed author Jayne Ann Krentz 
> (contemporary romance) Amanda Quick (historical romantic suspense) and
> Jayne Castle (futuristics).  The three names are required partly
> because  her output is huge, but mostly, I suspect, because the the
> different  genres sell at three different sales levels, and one
> wouldn't want the  accounts to inadvertently order Krentz books in
> Castle numbers.
> 
>     She has nearly a twenty-year output out there now, which makes it

It's longer than that, she's been writing futuristics since 1985, and
I've seen allegations that the genure started with her novel  Sweet
Starfire  (see below).
 
> possible to compare the evolution of her writing at different stages
> of  her career.  She only has one emotional plot, got up in different
> garb  for the different stories.  It's rather like buying a box of 
> chocolate-covered cherries with the assurance that each will be
> exactly  what you expect: no Crunchy Frog or Spring Surprise here.  I

And none of the even nastier tasting things in the "all flavors"
categories...

> started  with the Quicks, and have only lately dipped into the other
> two names.
> 
>     The Castles are proving quite interesting, because she's coming at
> the genre-blending problem from the other side of the fence as I do 
> Her  first futuristic, _Amaryllis_, from 1996, had some wince-worthy

Sweet Starfire, 1985, apparently was her first futuristic,  see e.g.
http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/k/jayne-ann-krentz/sweet-starfire.htm 

> moments  in the world-building that could easily have been corrected
> by an editor  with an ear for the SF genre, which she obviously didn't

The early futuristics by other writers, were enough to completely send
out away from the area... take ucky mucky yucky romance and throw some
really poorly mixed cheap sci-fi [perjorative intended] adulterated
colorant in, including Bizarro worldbuilding and character behavior and
idiocies even a drunken Mary Sue wouldn't do, and hunkyhunk alpha male
leads who have to find redemption through the heroine... 

> have, and some  nice stuff with the paranormal-telepathy bits and
> their social  implications that worked rather better.  I then jumped
> to another much  later fling, 2002's _After Dark_ -- the
> world-building here was much  better, which suggests the writer is
> learning from someone, visibly and  rapidly.  This is encouraging.
> 
>     I suspect because of the speed at which she writes, the sort of 
> self-teaching I do in a single volume gets spread over several; one
> can  see her trying out her ideas in several evolving variations over
> several  books, as if each were a first draft for the next.