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From: srt@ucla-cs.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers
Subject: Re: To Reign in Hell [SPOILER]
Message-ID: <5264@ucla-cs.ARPA>
Date: Tue, 7-May-85 17:26:56 EDT
Article-I.D.: ucla-cs.5264
Posted: Tue May  7 17:26:56 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 10-May-85 02:20:41 EDT
References: <1823@topaz.ARPA> <1369@shark.UUCP> <184@hyper.UUCP>
Reply-To: srt@ucla-cs.UUCP (Scott Turner)
Organization: UCLA Computer Science Department
Lines: 42
Summary: 

In article <184@hyper.UUCP> brust@hyper.UUCP (Steven Brust) writes:

>It is Bad Form for an author to respond to negative reviews.

Now, why is that?  It seems to me like you would want to respond to bad
reviews.  After all, what kind of response can you make to good reviews.
"Thank you, thank you."  Mutual back-patting isn't that interesting.

Obviously you don't want to get caught up in arguing about your books too
much -- you'd end up looking juvenile -- but I think a fair amount of
response to negative reviews is warranted.  The author of a book has a very
different understanding of the book than a reader does, because much of what
the author understands about the book comes from internalized thoughts,
false starts, musings, etc., that never show up in print.  Negative reviews
often point out where the author failed to completely communicate his
understanding.  Writing to clear up these kinds of mis-communications can
be helpful for both the author and the reader.

> ...The real
>flaw in the book (I say its a flaw because very few
>people have picked it up, so I obviously didn't bring
>it off) was this: Abdial's actions didn't matter.  If
>there had been no Abdial, things would have proceeded
>in almost exactly the same way...
>

Prime example, I think.  I never considered this point until you brought it
up.  Thinking back upon the book, I guess I can see your argument for this.
I don't agree with it.  For this to hold, the forces involved should have
been so overwhelming that the course of events would be unchangable.  This
simply isn't so in To Reign in Hell.  There are several points in the book
where a conversation between Yaweh and Satan would have cleared the air.
Regardless of whether or not you brought the point across in the book, it
is interesting to hear that this was the point you were trying to make.

Now, the question is:  Did you start out with this as your "point" or did
it develop during the course of writing the story?

    Scott R. Turner
    ARPA:  srt@UCLA-LOCUS.ARPA
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