----- Original Message ----- From: "Steven Brust" <skzb at dreamcafe.com> To: <pddb at demesne.com>; "Rosemary Ighel" <righel at msn.com> Cc: <dragaera at dragaera.info>; "Mia McDavid" <mia_mcdavid at attbi.com> Sent: Friday, January 24, 2003 3:24 PM Subject: Re: other authors? (was Re: POTD question...) > At 02:24 PM 1/24/2003 -0600, pddb at demesne.com wrote: > >SPOILERS FOR EMMA BULL'S FINDER, possibly spoilers if you are finicky > >for WAR FOR THE OAKS: > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > >On Fri, Jan 24, 2003 at 11:54:42AM -0600, Rosemary Ighel wrote: > > > IMO, Emma killed Tick to no purpose. It didn't move the story along, it > > > just made you feel bad. At least in War for the Oaks, when she kills > > one of > > > the characters (sorry, don't know if you've read it or not) there's a > > > reason. Makes me mad that she took the easy way out, mostly because > > she's a > > > way better writer than that. > > > >Oh, I don't think that was the easy way out at all. Killing Linn > >-- Rico's partner -- would have been the easy way out. That would > >have kept a lot of the thematic structure in place, but it would > >have lacked any teeth. > > Yes. Exactly. There are good deaths, and bad ones. The bad ones always > remind me of the westerns where the girl has to choose between the good guy > and the bad guy, and the bad guy gets killed at the end so no one actually > has to deal with the emotional tangle. Those are bad deaths. Emma does > good deaths. In my extremely arrogant opinion. > Keeping Tick alive and maintaining the structure may indeed have been difficult. I just felt very much like the victim of a called third strike. As deaths go, it was a perfectly lovely one, it's just that I'd been there and done that already, and I was hoping not to go there again, especially with a character I had a whole Bordertown history with. I just felt horrible after I finished Finder. R.