Raetian Tales: A Wind From the South

[Kathy Li]

Meteorite, let me know how a hardcopy order goes. I've tried to order softcopies of things from them (Donna Barr Stinz comics, by a very strange coincidence) and the downloads went wonky, and I got damaged PDFs. (This might be more Donna Barr's fault than theirs, though--one file was 300MB+) If they do better with hardcopy than softcopy, I might order from them again.

I am now up to Part II.

[Peter Murray]

I ordered a book of the webcomic Gunnerkrigg Court from them, and it's physically good, and arrived promptly enough.

[the_peridexis]

OMG! i just read the opening chapters of "a wind from the south" and am dying for more. but i can't buy it...oh well. *sigh* i'll just have to wait until i get back to the states. *superbigsigh* grrr, i hate being stuck here when so many of my books will be cimong out so soon!

-peri

[Kathy Li]

peridexis, doesn't get any better after you've bought and read the whole thing. Sadly, this book was supposed to be the first in a trilogy, but DD only sold the first one, and they never wanted the second and third. Oh, well, maybe after she finishes The Big Meow...

Of course, I loved this book. Very interesting to see DD doing things a bit more hemmed in by actual history and people and places than the norm.

PM, thanks for the info!

[meteorite]

Hmmm... does anyone know how long it takes to get a hardcopy from lulu? I put in my order for AWFTS about 2 1/2 weeks ago; they acknowledged receiving it, but so far, nothing.If it just takes them a while, o.k., but I'd like to know if it will be more than a month.

[Peter Murray]

*looks through old emails*
6 April date on order receipt from Lulu
20 April I emailed the webcartoonist commenting on the book (which included the next few weeks' as-yet-unseen updates)

So that's two weeks for shipping from NC or wherever to England. (LazyLeopard tells me UK orders are now printed in Spain for faster delivery.)

Added:
On the other hand, maybe it's better when they don't rush: see DD's reaction to kerithwyn's comment about her copy of WftS.

[Kathy Li]

DD's just posted softcopy of the novel up for free, if you want to download it. Woot!!!

http://dduane.livejournal.com/94370.html

[Peter Murray]

And Kathy didn't even comment that DD's asking if people want to see book 2 in the Raetian Tales series. See the URL in Kathy's post for details of that. No hint as to whether book 2 would be published in the same subscription-based way as Big Meow is.

[Kathy Li]

Bump. I can't believe this. DD announces that she's put up an entire fantasy novel for as a free download for her fans, and nobody here has downloaded and read it other than me and PM? That just seems... unbelievable. Especially since everybody's been whining about how long it'll be before A Wizard of Mars is out. [grin].

I have to say that I really really loved it, especially since it's set inside history I know absolutely nothing about (the only things I knew about William Tell before reading this book is the apple/archery bit and the Lone Ranger theme song).

I also loved the way that Magic happens, and how the Romansch language works in the books. Her use of a goddess is similar and yet distinctive to the way the Powers appear in the YW books, or the Goddess behaves and appears in the Middle Kingdoms books. If anything, I'm most reminded of the Thieves' World short story, "Down by the Riverside" when a very different young woman becomes the avatar of a goddess.

This is Wicked Fun stuff. I hope that after DD completes The Big Meow that she considers working on the second and third book of the Raetian Tales. Assuming she'll have the time. Remember how the original plan was that The Big Meow would be finished in time for Worldcon of last year?

[Hogosha]

I read the first few chapters back when they first became available. Now I'm almost done with the entire thing. It's such a change from YW, but some things feel familiar, maybe just because it's from DD. I think it might be a little harder for people to get through the beginning, being bombarded with all these unfamiliar names and terms and such. I love the name Mariarta, though . . . it's very musical. Mariarta . . .
I would gladly welcome a sequel!
Now to finish the book . . .
Edit: Huh, Mariarta refers to Diun as "herself," (which makes sense), the same way Rhiow speaks of The Whisperer in the FW books.

[meteorite]

Originally posted by kli6:
Bump. I can't believe this. DD announces that she's put up an entire fantasy novel for as a free download for her fans, and nobody here has downloaded and read it other than me and PM?

*with great dignity* I got a dead tree version. Despite the fact that I do 90% of my work on a computer screen, having to read extensive amounts of text from one make my eyes unhappy. Same reason I will probably never get one of the e-book readers until they make them a lot more my-eyeball-happy.

[Kathy Li]

Actually, come to think of it, I got the dead tree version too for much the same reason. Not sure I need a hardcover of it, though. Interesting to see if e-paper will make a difference, though, for display technology. I can and have slogged through e-text things on my palm, when there were no other viable alternatives (i.e., the only place I could find a copy was Project Gutenberg).

I really hope that DD will have time to finish projects like this (she's making terrific progress on TBM), only I do sort of dolefully wonder if Door Into Starlight is ever going to get written...

[Tuttle]

To resurrect an old thread...

Finally finished this book just now, and definitely enjoyed it. I bought the ebook back in 2005/2006, got about half of the way through, but got distracted by dead tree books, rather than reading a pdf.

I downloaded the free copy wedensday, converted it, and put it on my kindle and have been going back to it since then. I really enjoyed the book, and recommend it to the other people here who may not have heard about it. I agree with Kathy's surprise that so few people have been reading it when DD posted a book for free (and Kathy, I am yet another person who'd downloaded it, I just never finished it because of school and getting distracted).

I hope the later ones are written. I'm interested in the interactions that started in the end.


And to comment on the ebook readers - the E-ink screens are actually really impressive. It's really weird to look at, and doesn't look like a screen. I really like my kindle.

[Trialia]

I'm another one who read it and enjoyed it. Have to say that Parting Gifts inspired me more though (is there anyone else around here who's written fanfic for that incarnation of the 'verse, or is it just me?).

[Kathy Li]

I'm not a fanfic writer, but I'm definitely a fan of Duane's Middle Kingdoms stories. If you liked the world of "Parting Gifts", you'll want to find the prequel, "The Span" (afaik, it's only been published in Dragon magazine), the non-Sirronde, but still a story about a rodmistress, "Lior and the Sea" (in Moonsinger's Friends). And, of course, the Door books. I put most of the details into this FAQ.

The Middle Kingdoms books are why I picked up SYWTBAW? in the first place. I always saw the YW books as an extension of the Middle Kingdoms, as perverse as that may sound to you. But then, I recognized the author's name for the Manual when I first read SYWTBAW. (DD actually said I was the first fan to tell her they'd gotten that particular in-joke.)

God, I'm ancient.