Kevin's Watch

I realize that people grow and develop, and sometimes, tastes change.

(when I say I "realize" that, I mean in an academic way, since I myself rarely change my tastes about things. I'm trying to come up with a song, genre of music, movie, or book that I "used to like" but now do not...and I'm drawing a blank)

But I hate when an author or other creator (musician, film-maker, composer, whatever) shits on his or her previous work. Authors seem to do it more than anyone. One of the worst examples is McKillip tearing down her series Riddle-Master in her own foreword to the new edition. Even SRD is guilty of this when asking rhetorically what he was thinking including griffins in the First Chronicles.

Musicians who refuse to play their back catalogue in concert, or only perform radically-revised versions of their old hits.

Poets who excise older works from newer collections.

Film-makers who release edited, "updated" versions of their movies.

I know it's their right and prerogative to do this, I just hate it.

I was really annoyed by King ret-conning The Gunslinger. It just felt so wrong...like cheating.

--A

Well, let's be constructive a minute. As an artist, you've worked several decades, and you look back at your earlier work and think it wasn't very good compared to what you could do now. You may even realize, because your command of objective assessment has grown, that it wasn't very good, period.

Maybe you can just not say anything. But what do you do when someone asks you how you feel about those earlier works?

mmm .. good point Wayfriend .. growth and experience are positive motivators for change.

Avatar wrote:I was really annoyed by King ret-conning The Gunslinger. It just felt so wrong...like cheating.

--A

Another great example!

wayfriend wrote:Well, let's be constructive a minute. As an artist, you've worked several decades, and you look back at your earlier work and think it wasn't very good compared to what you could do now. You may even realize, because your command of objective assessment has grown, that it wasn't very good, period.

Maybe you can just not say anything. But what do you do when someone asks you how you feel about those earlier works?

I see what you are saying...but when someone like McKillip tells you that her book (that you are about to begin) isn't very good, or if SRD wrote a new introduction to the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant that basically said "don't bother reading this, go check out my newer stuff", that's disappointing and despiriting.

Wow .. definitely .. like what kind of incentive is that to buy let alone read the book. Geez .. that does suck

Well, certainly "The book you are about to read sucks" doesn't really warm you to what is following, I would agree. But I feel like I have read McKillip's forward at some point, and I don't recall it being quite so dire.

Still, the story remains, and it's one of my all times.

wayfriend wrote:Well, certainly "The book you are about to read sucks" doesn't really warm you to what is following, I would agree. But I feel like I have read McKillip's forward at some point, and I don't recall it being quite so dire.

Still, the story remains, and it's one of my all times.

-She spends more than half the intro talking about "the Lord of the Rings" and how it inpired her. "I thought, I want to write that!" Basicallly implying that Riddle-Master is derivative.

-"I can't say that Riddle-Master is the work I've cherished...or that it's closest to my heart..."

-"...whoever that young woman was, who wrote those novels..."

-"She chose this story, which I could not write now"

The whole tone is...off somehow. Even writing these examples down doesn't express it right. Her contempt for her own work oozes off the page. It's barely a page long and reads as if someone (her publisher? her agent?) forced her to write it.

I can't tell you you're wrong, HC. But, "bitterness is a sign of concern: I trust that," as Prothall would say. I surmise this thing bothers you because you like the Riddlemaster series so much. For that, I commend you.

wayfriend wrote:I can't tell you you're wrong, HC. But, "bitterness is a sign of concern: I trust that," as Prothall would say. I surmise this thing bothers you because you like the Riddlemaster series so much. For that, I commend you.

I read the books because of SRD's recommendation (heck one of the books is dedicated to him!) and yes, really liked them. To see that she has since then come to view them as some quaint writing by a younger, more foolish self is very disappointing.

Saying your earlier works are stupid is not the same as making your earlier works stupid!

True that

High Lord Tolkien wrote:

Ugh...

Horrim Carabal wrote:

High Lord Tolkien wrote:

Ugh...

And that new age, pan-flutey song replacing the Ewok anthem... and replacing Anakin with Anakin Beefcake Barbie...

It all about money...
Why start a new project when you can remilk and old one.


Nickleback was good at that.

Stagnation at it's finest.

deer of the dawn wrote:...Anakin Beefcake Barbie...

dw