On the rare occasions I write fiction, rather than lyrics, I prefer the passive-aggressive voice.

I only write non-fiction (although opposing counsel might argue otherwise).

Has your editing impacted the page count significantly?

I'm sure it's shorter by a few pages. Certainly not many.

Well, it is redundant, but at least readers learned what an avulsion is -- without having to resort to Steadman's.

No argument, but when you're writing from a character's POV, you have to draw from that character's experiences.* An avulsion is a medical description. Even if Jack knew the word, it wouldn't be in his active vocabulary. I was letting you hear the author's voice instead of Jack's.

*(Imagine a truck driver who dropped out of high school and limits his reading to the sports pages. Now imagine him driving down the road, thinking about a woman, and making allusions to the kiss in Chaucer’s "Miller’s Tale." That's not the truck driver, that's the English-major author going, "Yoo-hoo! Look at me! Aren’t I clever? Aren't I literary?")

Maybe he added it to his vocabulary cause it's a neat sounding word? Say it with me..avulsion...avulsion...avuuuuuulsion...avullllllsion. See? It's neat.

I only write non-fiction (although opposing counsel might argue otherwise).

Hey, at-sa good one, boss! This might give you a laff, Biggles. When I lived in Brockport, I studied fiction writing with sf author Nancy Kress. We got tight because I was the only sf hombre in the class. Somehow, she'd never learned how to type, and hired souls to put her stories in shape to submit to ASIMOV'S. I typed one for her, "Against a Crooked Stile." The
day it =had= to be mailed, she came over to my degenerate digs at 8AM. "Michael--is it ready? I =have= to mail it today!" "No fear, Nancy, it's ready to go...but I, uh, had to make a change..." Her eyes narrowed. "Oh?" "Yeah, see, you used the English system and the metric system in the same sentence. So I put the guy's height into centimeters instead of feet and inches, to make it consistant." "I don't know how I did that, but thank you, Michael!" "No problemo, Nancy, but since I contributed to the story in such a big way, how about we put it out as "by Nancy Kress and Mike Lindner?" Nancy has such a merry laugh. "It doesn't work that way, Michael!" Ah, well...I've got my memories of helping the Hugo and Nebula winner get her act together... (Later on, I took a writing class with Nancy and Gene Wolfe. That is another, grimmer, story.)

This limited edition mural version of the Adversary Cycle, re-edited and so on --
does this mean that paperback versions of the re-edited books will be appearing? Or is this edition it? I know I won't be able to resist getting the hardcovers (cost be damned! I can't HELP MYSELF!); but it'd be nice to know I can recommend some of these books in paperback eventually, and people will be able to find them on shelves.

I mean, once the RJ movie comes out, I'm sure there'll be people wondering about all of this--it'll be nice to direct them towards more than just the other RJ books.

No argument, but when you're writing from a character's POV, you have to draw from that character's experiences.* An avulsion is a medical description. Even if Jack knew the word, it wouldn't be in his active vocabulary. I was letting you hear the author's voice instead of Jack's.

I understand what you are saying . . . now. But avulsion isn't solely a medical term.

I'll never write fiction, but it's interesting to know anyway.

As an aside, one word you have misused a number of times is ADVERSE. As in, "Jack was not adverse to the judicial use of force."

Ken V.

does this mean that paperback versions of the re-edited books will be appearing? Or is this edition it?

Any new mass market editions of Reborn, Reprisal, and Nightworld -- which I've held back for obvious reasons -- will use the revised texts. As far as The Tomb goes, I'd dearly love to convince the publisher to use the revised text for the movie tie-in edition but, since it won't increase sales, getting them to re-set the whole book might not be easy.

As an aside, one word you have misused a number of times is ADVERSE. As in, "Jack was not adverse to the judicial use of force."

You're right, of course. And I had no idea it was wrong until I read Woe Is I. All those years and not one editor had caught it. However I still have a blind spot where adverse/averse are concerned, and you may see it again.

You're right, of course. And I had no idea it was wrong until I read Woe Is I. All those years and not one editor had caught it. However I still have a blind spot where adverse/averse are concerned, and you may see it again.

I guess I haven't read that far in Woe Is I.

I can see how your being an MD can affect your use of adverse. Your being used to reading and learning about adverse reactions to medication for example.

"John was not averse to getting flu shots, because he never had an adverse reaction to one."

(What does this tell us about editors? Nobody's prefect! )

Ken V.