Date: Wed, 06 Mar 2002 09:09:07 -0500
From: "Michael Walsh" <MJW at mail.press.jhu.edu>
To: <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: What color Dragon are you?
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>

>Michael Walsh wrote:
>
>>  . . . and those folks who pick up the US edition of Swanwick's "The =
Iron =
>> Dragon's Daughter" expecting a nice comfort book based upon the =
cover
>are =
>> in for quite a rude shock.
>
>Heh. I can just imagine. I read that a couple of years ago- I think I
>missed some of the subtext, because the end of the book took me
>completely by surprise. ("Wait a minute! How'd we get from *there* to
>*here*?") I had a similar reaction at the end of *Stations of the Tide*,
>too. "What?! But there's no *reason* for <spoiler> to occur! There was
>no hint this was going on earlier in the book! If this were any normal
>author, there would have been a plot thread about freedom and slavery,
>and *then* they would've done that!" Come to think of it, the
>protagonist of the book was, in some ways, remarkably opaque.
>
>It's been too long since I read anything by Swanwick. Well, spring break
>is next week, I'll have to add him to the "to read" list. (Which already
>includes far too much stuff. I'm not sure if I should be happy I that
>won't run out, or in despair because I'll never finish it all by the
>time classes start again.)

At the Glasgow Worldcon one of two panels I went to was Swanwick and John =
Clute discussing the book.  Just a remarkable conversation.

>
>> & speaking of Lucius & dragons, he has written my favorite closing =
line:
>>
>> " . . . from that day forward she lived happily ever after. Except for =
the =
>> dying at the end.  And the heartbreak in between."
>
>I like it. Book and author, please?

A short novel, The Scalehunter's Beautiful Daughter by Lucius Shepard, =
past Disclave GoH.  Available as a small hardcover from Zeising Books/Press=
 (?) and in Lucius's second collection, The Ends of the Earth.  Lucius is =
not one to read a lot of in one sitting if feeling depressed.

When he was Disclave GoH WSFA Press was created to publish the third book =
in his "Dragon Griaule:" sequence, a story entitled The Father of Stones.  =
The Dragon stories were written as a callenge to himself: he hates cute =
dragon stories, and since most dragon stories are cute . . .

mjw
Who would read just about anything by Lucius

>
>Ase(Up far too late, considering there's a 9 AM Chem lecture tomorrow
>morning.)
><*>
>