J. K. Rowling

Harry Potter author J. K. Rowling has joined Twitter, signing up for a verified account with the social networking and micro-blogging platform.

The British author joins other science fiction and fantasy writers such as Kevin J. Anderson, Brandon Sanderson and William Gibson, who all use Twitter to various degrees. William Gibson has become a prolific Twitterer over the past six months.

Rowling has only made three posts on the service so far, writing:

“I am told that people have been twittering on my behalf, so I thought a brief visit was in order just to prevent any more confusion!

However, I should flag up now that although I could twitter endlessly, I’m afraid you won’t be hearing from me very often … as pen and paper is my priority at the moment.”

The author is not following anyone on Twitter, although more than 60,000 Twitterers are already watching her every move.

Rowling is known to currently be working on several books after her completion of the seven book Harry Potter series, including a ‘political fairy tale’ for children and another book for adults.

The new Dune book The Winds of Dune will debut at number 15 on the New York Times bestseller list after only one week on sale, the book’s co-author Kevin J. Anderson announced this week. But how good are the new books in the series, compared with Frank Herbert’s originals?

In a lengthy and detailed post over at The Wertzone, Adam Whitehead eviscerates the books published since Herbert’s death in 1986 by Anderson and Herbert’s son, Brian Herbert.

Whitehead writes that he had initially been excited to hear about the publication of the new books, due to what he saw as the potential to enter the Dune universe again with canon material coming from Frank Herbert’s own notes. The first new book, he writes, House Atreides, was merely uninspiring, with some weird plot points.

But it was during the Legends of Dune trilogy that Whitehead seems to have become actively angry about the books, describing the quality of the writing as “astonishingly bad” and noting there were many differences between the depiction of the machine/human war known as the Butlerian Jihad in the Dune universe and Frank Herbert’s original vision.

Whitehead was further annoyed when, he claims, Sandworms of Dune and Hunters of Dune were released, with successive interviews putting paid to the idea that Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson were working from unreleased Frank Herbert material:

“The new Dune books were revealed to be what, in fairness, a lot of less-invested SF commentators had been saying for years: a cynical cash-grab designed to exploit a respected intellectual property and turn it into a franchise … The worst part of all of this is that when I went to reread the original Dune itself a couple of years back, I found myself completely unable to get into it. The sound of Frank Herbert spinning in his grave made it impossible to concentrate on the text.”

Of course, not everyone agrees with Whitehead. As Anderson notes on his blog, The Winds of Dune is the fourteenth Dune novel to hit the New York Times bestseller list. Someone’s buying this stuff. It’s “a winning streak unmatched by any other original science fiction series,” the author writes. “Our publicist wrote us to say that not even Robert Jordan or Terry Goodkind have matched that.  Tor sent us a bottle of champagne to celebrate.”

“Great Winds of Dune signing and talk at Washington DC Borders,” the author added on Twitter this week, referring to his current tour with Brian Herbert. “Six members of 501st in full costume, about 70 people in audience.”

There’s also plenty of positive reviews for the new Dune books to be found.

“Unquestionably, Herbert & Anderson can spin a great yarn; while technically producing a vivid, mystifying universe, filled with characters that are both endearing, and loathsome.” writes Ken on BookSpotCentral. “I recommend this one highly, but be warned, if this is the first Dune book you are reading, get ready to hit the bookstore, because I promise you, it will not be the last!”

And from Library Journal, a brief plaudit:

“Fill[s] in the gaps between the late Frank Herbert’s classic Dune and its sequels Dune Messiah and Children of Dune . . .  This sequel to Paul of Dune is an important addition to the Dune chronology and will be in demand by Herbert fans.”

Even some more traditional sci-fi/fantasy review sites have enthusiastic reviews. On SFCrowsnest.com, Rod MacDonald writes about the audio version of The Butlerian Jihad: “This is interesting and essential listening for all those immersed in the ‘Dune’ universe!”

Commentary
As I’ve noted in a previous article, I don’t think the new Dune books live up to Frank Herbert’s original vision. However I am puzzled by their success. Is it just due to the Dune “brand”? Or is there something here that hardcore Dune fans like myself are missing, that the wider science fiction fan base is appreciating?

Several people critical of Kevin J. Anderson and Brian Herbert’s new Dune books have started to lampoon Anderson using the Twitter social networking tool.

Not everyone is happy about the way the author and Brian Herbert, son of the original author of Dune, Frank Herbert, have re-worked the series which many believe to be the greatest science fiction masterpiece ever written. Anderson maintains a Twitter account — @thekja — through which he posts updates about his life and his work.

“Would FH have accepted his McDune crap as canon? Probably not.”, wrote one of Anderson’s followers on Twitter recently. The follower, whose real name appears to be Ronald Craig but who tweets as @thekjanonfan (apparently meaning not a fan), also runs a website, the Hairy Ticks of Dune Blog.

The blog contains a variety of posts accusing Anderson of poor quality writing, and critics of his work on Amazon of being unfairly biased towards the new Dune books. Craig writes about the latest Dune book, Winds of Dune:

“The Winds of Dune … showing even more than its predecessor why Frank Herbert chose not to write about those interim “gaps” between his books … and, again, just how little Kevin J. Anderson and Brian Herbert understand the fictional universe they are playing in.”

Another Twitter critic, @realdune, who brands himself the “Ghost of Frank”, has also recently started targerting Anderson on Twitter. “He left it unexplored for a reason, hack,” he said to Anderson this week on Twitter. “In 10 books, you have added NOTHING to the Dune saga.”

Anderson seems aware of the taunts. In a response to one Twitter post from another poster, he contended that many fans and reviewers didn’t think he was flogging a dead horse. “Frank Herbert left 15,000 years of history to explore,” he wrote.

And in another, he posts what he says is a correction for “a couple of fringe Dune fans”, saying The Dune Encyclopedia, a 1984 collection of essays written as a companion to the original series, was never accepted as canon by Frank Herbert.

There is also a protest group on Facebook. Dubbed the ‘Orthodox Herbertarians’, the group describes itself like this:

“This is a group for all of those that enjoy classic Dune, and do not accept the novels of Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson as Dune. Orthodox Herbertarians Unite!!!”

However, the Kevin J. Anderson fan groups on Facebook have far more members.

Some other people on Twitter, aren’t so critical of Anderson. A number of fans are using the platform to interact with the author in a positive way. “Congrats to @TheKJA for publishing his 100th novel. Absolutely amazing. The hardest working man in SF,” writes one.

Commentary
There is no doubt that Brian Herbert and Anderson’s decision to continue the Dune series after Frank Herbert’s death has angered many fans of the great series, and will continue to do so.

Personally, I don’t think the new books live up the original series — and how could they? Frank Herbert’s masterpiece is universally hailed as being a contender for the best piece of science fiction literature of all time. As a Dune fan myself, I also feel Brian Herbert and Anderson should have left the series alone.

However, this doesn’t mean fans of the original series should lower themselves or insult Anderson — who after all has devoted his life to writing science fiction — in a petty way. If we lose respect towards the authors who make up such an important part of our lives through their work, we’ll lose respect for ourselves as readers. And the authors don’t deserve such behaviour.

By all means, satirise Anderson if you feel you must, heavily critique his work and hold his quality to account. But do it in a way that shows you respect his courage for making the attempt to keep Herbert’s great vision alive. Give the guy some cred.

The ultimate course of critical action is also completely open to everyone. Simply write a better book yourself!

No need to panic, but prolific American fantasy author Brandon Sanderson is taking a small break from his duties finishing Robert Jordan’s epic Wheel of Time series.

As Wikipedia notes, Sanderson, who currently has several of his own fantasy series on his plate, was selected by Jordan’s widow Harriet McDougal after the author tragically passed away in September 2007 to finish Jordan’s masterpiece. The first book, The Gathering Storm, has already been finished and is presumably in editing or production now.

As Sanderson noted in a recent post on his blog Mistborn:

“I’ve been working on The Wheel of Time straight since January 2008. Eighteen months is the longest I’ve ever spent on the same project, and I’m feeling that I need to step back from it for a short time and let my mind recharge.”

For Sanderson, this means he won’t be writing any new Wheel of Time material for the next month or so, although he will be working on outlines and plans for the next pieces of WoT writing he’ll be doing.

The author’s scheduling is not unexpected; in fact he flagged it back in early May. At the time, Sanderson wrote that he had turned in The Gathering Storm. The working title for the next book is Shifting Winds. “My self-imposed goal for finishing Winds is November 3rd,” he wrote.

Sanderson also noted that he’s been lobbying McDougal to title the final Wheel of Time book A Memory of Light. The initial plan was to title the final three books with the Memory of Light moniker and then use sub-titles, but now things have changed.

So what else is Sanderson working on? Quite a lot … the fourth book in the Alcatraz series (which he’s working on right now), a “nifty gearpunk young adult book” he has dubbed Scribbler, another young adult book named Dark One, an epic fantasy which Sanderson isn’t currently happy with named The Liar of Partinel/Dragonsteel, and sequels to some of his stand-alone books and the Mistborn series.

But his real passion appears to be in the first of another epic series entitled The Stormlight Archive. That book is entitled The Way of Kings.

Commentary
You gotta feel sorry for Brandon Sanderson.

No matter what he does, no matter how great his Wheel of Time books are when they are eventually published, he is going to get panned by hardcore WoT fans. I’m one of them. I’ve spent untold hours reading and re-reading the Wheel of Time FAQ (if you’re a Wheel of Time fan, go there, now), and I’ve read Jordan’s whole epic several times over.

The Jordanites will claim, inevitably, that Sanderson’s conclusion to Jordan’s lifework won’t be up to scratch compared to the original vision. And perhaps there will be a grain of truth in that: I don’t think anybody could truly do Jordan justice. I haven’t read any of Sanderson’s stuff yet, although I plan to. However, he himself has admitted that working on the Wheel of Time has forced him to grow immensely as a writer.

However.

That’s not the point. We should applaud Sanderson for having the courage to even attempt such an immense task. And his writing on his blog reveals he is immensely sensitive to the needs and dreams of WoT fans.

I admire him. He’s not giving up his principles as a writer. He’s honouring those who have come before him (namely, Jordan), but he’s not leaving his own work and his own visions completely by the wayside. For these attributes, if he does a competent job of the WoT conclusion we’re all waiting for, almost anything can be forgiven.

I do have one cautionary message for Brandon Sanderson, if he ever chooses to read this post on Keeping the Door. You, sir, do need to be mindful of some of the gross mistakes and incompetencies that have come before you. When working with someone else’s vision you need to be immensely careful.

I speak, of course, of travesties like the Dune sequels being published by Kevin J. Anderson and Brian Herbert, all of which should be destroyed wholesale because they are uniformly awful and represent a terrible trampling on Frank Herbert’s memory.