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Having stared closely at the OP (not that she'll be back to read this most like), and considered it in a general sense - I think it is wise to try to avoid absolutes in this. And to remember that most useful writing advice isn't about "Do X", it's about "if facing X, consider Y but maybe not...

Too many sellers, not enough buyers, and a business model that encourages the backers to put everything on red 23 and rig the game in that direction. Although I do wonder just how different it was in the glory days of the midlist, and what percentage of the population makes a living off of...

By way of introductory remarks, let me repeat the statement I have made most often to friends while talking about having finished Patricia McKillip’s The Forgotten Beasts of Eld. “McKillip makes me feel like I’ve taken something usually reserved for shamans with very strong livers” That is...

Since I'm in chaos mode, I started a reread of the Silmarillion too. I also DNFed a book called Seven Masked Saints by MK Lobb. I liked the first two chapters, then it switched PoV to a character who had no personality other than political statements and I decided I didn't have the patience for...

Uncannily like what another friend said about the book when I mentioned I was reading it.

I tried Richard Swann's The Justice of Kings but have consigned it to the great DNF pile in the sky after not caring about the characters. So I'm now trying KJ Bishop's The Etched City. But I sense a massive rereading spree coming...

It's interesting to see the parallels but like HB, I think it goes a bit far to say this is definitely where they come from. Take Jaime's laming. It could be Josua. It could be Luke Skywalker, or Beren, or Nuada or Tyr or Scaevola. Or nobody in particular, just a "hey this will work" when the...

Did a very serious interview with a friend https://wittyandsarcasticbookclub.home.blog/2024/04/12/witty-and-sarcastic-bookclub-presents-tough-questions-featuring-peat-long/

Jordan's The Wheel of Time is effectively this too. Also M John Harrison's Viriconium is very much this.

I have to admit I can't think of many characters who are both the bumbling comic relief *and* the character who asks the questions that reveals how the world works. There's plenty of characters who do silly things, and plenty of characters who ask lots of questions, but maybe not so many that...

My current process is to try and write one part of the story to a very high, very fixed level, so I know I can do justice to the idea... ... and then and just get the bloody mess out so I can actually work out what the story plan is. So I fix everything in the first part, and then try to...

To answer the original question... I don't think there was any one base for The Wheel of Time. Playing spot the inspiration is like playing whack-a-mole. I'd agree with the idea that there is more Dune DNA than LotR DNA. The book consciously apes LotR at the beginning, but quickly runs away...

Read Sara Paretsky's Indemnity Only, and that wasn't a smooth series start for me. Lot of unfunny angriness and mouthing off, rather cliched, not a lot of charm. I did want to know what happened so can't judge it too harshly but not what I was hoping for after my first Paretsky. Also a win for...

Maybe Bunnyhead doesn't know the pain of this but I feel this one immensely. Honestly I just want to find a way to be paid to come up with story ideas and not have to do any of the hard work after that.

Apparently today they used a genetically modified pig's kidney in a transplant on a human patient. That's a welcome to the future moment, right?

I think there's elements of this in Leigh Brackett's The Secret of Sinharat.

https://peatlong.wordpress.com/2024/03/17/the-hawk-eternal-by-david-gemmell/ https://peatlong.wordpress.com/2024/03/19/imaro-by-charles-r-saunders/

Gaunt's Ghosts is a good rec Read an interesting sci-fi espionage that wasn't quite working for me but is worth recommending to others in Jonathan Nevair's To Spy A Star

Finished Saunders' Imaro. Great charm at times but what a slog.

Hmm. You sure that trad publishers sneer at self-pub as a way of identifying talent? Because I know that Orbit picked up Aparna Verma who'd been self-pubbed first. Ditto Devin Madson and whoever picked her up. Orbit picked up Michael J Sullivan from self-pub and he's the author I was talking...