On Tue, Feb 24, 2004 at 12:33:27PM -0600, Joshua Kronengold <mneme at io.com> wrote: > The last (though it can probably be subdivided on its own) is > "participant". On this level, the creator feels part of, rather than > "above" the community; participating in discussion on a genuine level, > and often actually giving straight dope or refusing to answer > questions rather than making every answer a "performance". To my > mind, Brust clearly falls into this category (as, of course, do Jo > Walton, PDDB, Joel Rosenberg[jerk that he sometimes is], Daniel Keys > Moran, and numerous others). > > Thoughts? You missed one: "antagonist". This is perhaps best characterized by the late middle of Jordan's Wheel of Time series, by which times fans had build up huge logical edificates around the most minor details in the novels that answering even an innocent-seeming question could inadvertantly spoil the resolution or two or three mysteries several books ahead of schedule. The author responded to this by refusing to answer anything that even remotely touched on something he preferred to conceal; by changing his plans in midstream (often for the worse) just so the derived answer would be incorrect; or giving "hints" that only further muddied the issue. Clearly, the author had backed himself into perceiving the (more interested, anyway) fans as his enemy, from whom he had to conceal his intent, and perhaps even "defeat". -- Matthew Hunter (matthew at infodancer.org) Public Key: http://matthew.infodancer.org/public_key.txt Homepage: http://matthew.infodancer.org/index.jsp Politics: http://www.triggerfinger.org/index.jsp