Randall W. Porter@6550 wrote:

> At first I thought, "oh yeah, that's nice. Rich Baker finally got a novel
> published after being jerked around on The Falcon and the Wolf." But the more
> I thought about it (from a selfisher perspective) the more torqued I got.
>
> Here's a novel that was written for BR by one its principle creators. TSR
> stiffed him on his first novel by pulling the BR line. Now he has to rework
> the story to fit into the Forgotten (rightfully so!) Realms and publish it
> under that product line. Wouldn't it have been less work just to publish it
> as a BR novel? I mean, c'mon, TSR novels really don't get any advertising
> support, the work was already written, and BR fans could have been thrown
> a bone. Instead of getting a unique story about Cerilia, we have another
> title to add to the endless parade of Forgotten Realms books. While I'm sure
> Rich's storyline is good no matter what setting it's in, switching the original
> backdrop of the story robs it of its flavor and nuances.

Welcome to the wonderful world of publishing, my friend. As a wannabe writer
myself, I can tell you this is not unusual. In fact, as Rich probably learned by
having his first book shelved, rewriting like this is not at all uncommon and from
a writer's point of view, rewriting is far superior to not writing at all....

It's amazing how sweet the words "may be publishable after drastic rewriting" are
after having heard "does not fit our current format" so many times.... If I were
Mr. Baker I would have rewritten it, added some sex and violence, put in a catchy
theme song by the Spice Girls and set the whole thing on a cruiseship if a
publisher said that was what they wanted.

Gary