SF Signal Mind Meld
I am again excited to be ensconced among awesome people on SF Signal for their Mind Meld feature. This time the topic was “Writing in Another Author’s Universe,” and the operative question was: “What fallow universe do you think deserves additional exploration, and who would you ask to write in that world?”
I gushed in as non-spoilery a fashion as I could about the Magid series by Diana Wynne Jones. Deep Secret remains one of my favorite books of all time, despite that I haven’t been able to read it in years due to lending it to some mystery person. If you are that person, please give it back. Or if you love it as much as I do, I guess you can keep it and I will continue loving it from afar.
Of the other responses, I think my favorite was the Majipoor series. The only book I read from that was Lord Valentine’s Castle, which is apparently the first book Silverberg wrote in that world. I had no idea, and when I read it I assumed I’d missed some other novels that gave the work more context. Not that such context was necessary; it was just such a vibrant setting whose characters felt intensely mythical in a way that suggested it was rooted in already-explored history. Looking back I’m sort of surprised I didn’t pursue the series further. My library probably wasn’t up to the task, and teenage Valerie wasn’t exactly rolling in dinero.
But I digress. Check out the responses and see what you think. What “fallow worlds” do YOU want to run around in?
