Forum:Turtledove Speech on Youtube

Harry Turtledove: Index > Turtledove Speech on Youtube

Interesting speech. [1] TR (talk) 02:23, February 22, 2014 (UTC)

Indeed. Zhukov15 (talk) 21:45, February 22, 2014 (UTC)

For the purposes of our little project here, the two most important nuggets: (1) Turtledove has a February 28 book deadline. That book cannot be Last Orders, which was turned in some time ago, and; (2) there's never going to be a sequel to GOTS. HT has said this in the past, but that statement felt pretty final. (Oh, and HT doesn't have much interest in medieval Europe. No alternate Battle of Hastings.) TR (talk) 15:23, February 23, 2014 (UTC)

Good. GOTS was a stand alone book, that told its story well. It doesn't need a squeal. Speaking of which, thinking back to the Southern Victory series, a lot of people wanted to see the European side of the story, and have asked Harry to focus on that for a squeal. I've often wondered if TWTPE is actually Harry's way of giving into that request without actually giving into it; If that makes any sense.

It does. I think we kicked the possibility around when HW dropped. TR (talk) 22:48, February 23, 2014 (UTC)

It's also good to see this side of Harry as well. It shows us he's not an idiot like people claim he is. He's actually a very smart and funny man. I'm sure he's a wonderful dad and now, grandfather.

As for that Feb 28 release...  I'm stumped.  It could very well be a short story, one that slipped under the radar.  Other than that, I've got nothing.Mr Nelg (talk) 22:33, February 23, 2014 (UTC)

To clarify, that's a publishers deadline, not a release date. The book in question is probably months away from release. Could be at the end of the year. TR (talk) 22:48, February 23, 2014 (UTC)

I'll give this lecture a listen later on tonight. I'm also very glad GotS will have no sequel. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that there will be an as-yet unknown book coming out at the end of the year; between Atlantis and Supervolcano, he's done a winter release every year since 2007. I don't remember anything in 2006, but didn't DoI/EotB, and ItPoME before it, and RB before that, all drop in November or December as well? Turtle Fan (talk) 01:40, February 24, 2014 (UTC)

I agree that there is probably a December release, based on the conversation at Forum:Supervolcano continuation? (although for reasons I outlined there, I don't believe there will be a Supervolcano 4). A February deadline could be enough time for that.

The winning short stories for the Europa Universalis IV anthology I linked to here are going to be announced on February 28. That could also have been Harry's deadline.

Maybe I'll bother Steven Silver. TR (talk) 17:59, February 24, 2014 (UTC)

Listening to that lecture was very enjoyable. I was impressed with how comfortable HT was in front of a crowd. He's very funny, though his laugh is rather annoying. The Q&A was meh; it is of course rather hard, for audiences in these guest lecture type venues, to come up with a question that is neither too narrow to be of general interest nor too broad to be answered meaningfully. In my experience most people don't particularly try to find that balance. I could hear the strained patience as HT fielded the guy who said right off the bat "I have several questions," and not one of them was worthwhile.

I was very surprised to hear him say he'd had no idea how Worldwar would end until the final chapters were upon him. Thinking back on the series, stalemate seemed fairly inevitable from quite early on; so the options were negotiated peace or continuing to the point of MAD, and the latter was certainly not in anyone's interests. (It never is, though I'd suggest that at some point in history we became somewhat numb to the idea and thus could not be counted on to head it off in time; but that was not the mindset of any of the Worldwar belligerents, at least not in StB.)

His point-by-point summation of how he developed TL-191 was a bit . . . jarring to me. Of course I followed all those author choices along from one year to the next over the course of a decade, but having them lined up one after another brought me up short with the realization of just how many weak links are in that chain.

I was pleased to hear how fond he is of EIaK. It sounds like that's his favorite of his books. It's probably not my favorite, but it's close; it was so much fun, and thinking of it is a sure path to nostalgia on my part. (I read it over the week that included my college graduation, so there are certainly some other happy memories tied up in there as well.)

On the other hand, his explanation for BtG was very confusing and inadequate. He seemed to be implying it's a future version of our world, not a fantasy world? So where did so many fantasy elements come into it? At any rate, I'd say the explanation is owed as to how he arrived at its end point, not its starting point. Of course, he may be somewhat ashamed of that; he seemed to want to stop talking about that series ASAP, compared with some of the other works that were brought up. Turtle Fan (talk) 20:35, February 24, 2014 (UTC)

Martin

So last night I watched footage of George RR Martin fielding a few questions on the Game of Thrones panel at Comic Con. His style and diction seemed very familiar. I'm pretty sure I've seen him give interviews once or twice before, but that's not what I was reminded me of. At some point today I realized just how similar those clips were to this lecture, both in terms of presentation style (even their voices are pretty close) and how the two authors fielded questions. Particularly questions they didn't want to answer.

By the way, while I've never had any strong desire to go to Comic Con or a similar event, even if the price of admission were much lower than it is, the experience of watching the GoT panel officially left me completely hostile to the idea of wasting my time and money in such a setting. Turtle Fan (talk) 03:17, July 29, 2014 (UTC)

In my youth, when Comic-Con was still only a few years removed from a bunch of guys getting together in the basement of a modest hotel, and certainly long before Comic-Con became Everything-plus-Comics-Con, I had vague dreams of attending. If I were given free passes and airfare and room and board, I'd probably go, but if I'm going to spend that much money, there are other places I want to see before I die. TR (talk) 17:41, July 29, 2014 (UTC)

The Q&A panels would drive me nuts--they often do when I'm watching them on YouTube or something, but that's not the same. Several thousand people, of whom maybe a dozen get to ask questions: Never mind the odds against your being one who gets to ask, what are the odds that one of the people who does ask a question is asking something you give a shit about? The actors on the panels never seem all that comfortable (the Big Bang Theory cast always look like they want to melt through the floor) and it appears that writers and producers tend to be colossal dicks. And I for one am always very disappointed when I learn that the meaning I've taken away from a favorite scene has absolutely jack shit to do with the way the people responsible for creating it understood it.

And if you don't like the panels, what point to going? The chance to buy some Comic-Con Exclusive half-assed cheap trinket? Turtle Fan (talk) 01:45, July 30, 2014 (UTC)

Now that I think of it, there's another similarity between HT and GRRM, albeit a very personal one for me. When OA came out I was having so much fun exploring New Hastings through its world-building settlers' eyes. Then one night as I was about to put it down, along came the Black Earl and his flunky. I thought Eww, what an asshole and somehow assumed they'd get rid of him right away. I kept reading for a few scenes to get to that point and was horrified to realize how entrenched he was becoming. Then he killed Edward Radcliffe and I was crushed. I kept reading till he finally got his, but then the novella was over and its uniquely pleasant atmosphere was gone for good. It was a very specific feeling of disappointment I'd never had before and have only had one other time since.

When I read Fevre Dream and the evil vampire turned up on the river boat, I had essentially the same reaction and determined to plow through, even though it was just about my bedtime. For those who aren't familiar with Fevre Dream, it's got an A plot and a B plot; the A plot is a battle for dominance within a vampire community (this was written long before vampires became a pathetic pop culture cliche) and the B plot is the adventures of a riverboat captain in the late Antebellum. The book starts off leading you to believe they're equally important and looking forward to the protagonists' triumphs in both, but then the story takes a dark turn and the A plot pretty much swallows the B plot whole and spits out its bones (almost literally). I had to read the whole rest of the book to see the bad guy get his (which I did not attempt to do in one night) and by the time he finally did, all my hopes and dreams for the B plot were dead and gone.

That was my first exposure to GRRM; I read the book about a year before Game of Thrones debuted on HBO. After what happened to Ned and Renly and Robb and Catelyn and Oberyn, and the way Joffrey kept weaseling out of what should have been sorely-deserved torments, I've come to realize that's kind of his thing. Turtle Fan (talk) 17:10, July 29, 2014 (UTC)

My first exposure to Martin came in like 1990 or so when I started reading the Wild Cards series. It's a shared universe that Martin edits and contributes to. It's essentially a prose super-hero series: an alien virus is released in 1946. Most who contract it die, but about 9% are mutated or deformed by it (the are dubbed "jokers") and 1% develop super-powers (they are the "aces").

Sounds like it could be fun. Turtle Fan (talk) 01:45, July 30, 2014 (UTC)

There was much of grim death and injustice in that series. Even when the good guys won (which usually happened--it's still a super-hero series), victories could be utterly pyrrhic for the protagonists, and villains could still go a long time without punishment. Obviously, as there were many other authors involved, you can't lay that entirely at Martin's feet. But...there was a part of me that read Ned Stark's death and wasn't that surprised at all.

Still haven't read the GoT books, not sure if I ever will. They're intimidatingly long, and I have so many other things on my reading list. It's hard enough to keep track of the dozens of minor characters on the show, doing it without having faces to put to the names sounds impossible. Just about every excerpt I've read is in a rather flowery writing style that seems like it would get very, very old if sustained for hundreds and hundreds of pages. On top of that, from what I know of the ways in which the two media depart from one another story-wise, I like the TV versions much better. Turtle Fan (talk) 01:45, July 30, 2014 (UTC)

(I read Fevre Dream after I'd read ASOFI; I was expecting the captain to meet a far more terrible fate.) TR (talk) 17:41, July 29, 2014 (UTC)

In retrospect, yeah, he got off really easy for a GRRM character. I still would have liked to see them get the evil vampire out of the way while they still had their boat, then focus on beating the Eclipse in a match race. The carving on the gravestone in the epilogue is a nice touch, but it would have been much nicer if it had actually happened. If I were a Cubs fan I doubt I'd want someone to cook up a hypothetical World Series ring to bury me under. Turtle Fan (talk) 01:45, July 30, 2014 (UTC)