author's prolificacy

I must admit I raised an eyebrow when I saw this thread, and I do wonder if the originator actually understood the implications of his comment. I'm not as prolific in the number of stories I've written when compared to flopsy, but we are neck and neck when it comes to a word count, so mine's a triple scotch as well!

And Wheatwine, you really must try Scottish water. I have drunk bourbon and liked it, but as an Englishman I have to say my neighbours north of the border produce the best in the world.

Now, while we all have a well earned libation, where is Miss Thrashbottom?

Ah, drinking a double malt I see!!!!

OK, let me make another post on this thread, which is actually a response to dicyverges. Back in the early 70s, I read a novel by Joy Chant, Red Moon and Black Mountain. (Despite the phrase, "Red Moon" in the title, it is not a spanking story. (Although, come to think of it, Minrei's father does promise to give her a beating for following the army to where a battle is to be.) Anyway, the book became one of my all time favorites. I've reread it every few years since then, and it actually gets better with each reading. I regard it as one of the 5 best fantasy novels I've ever read. I waited and waited for Joy Chant to write something else. (To this day, I think she has only written 3 novels total.) I read one of her other novels and it was good, but nowhere near as good as Red Moon and Black Mountain. Sometimes a writer just hits on something special and lightening strikes, and then never strikes again for them.
Sometimes, an author may keep on writing in the absence of "lightening." Case in point, another favorite of mine, Dune by Frank Herbert, one of the 5 best science fiction novels I've ever read. Herbert wrote many sequels to Dune. My only question is, Why?" They got progressively worse until, while I was reading God Emperor of Dune, I kept hoping that the plot to kill off the hero would succeed. (It did, but that didn't stop Frank Herbert from writing still more sequels.)
And then there's Robert Heinlein. I don't always agree with his philosophy, but there is no doubt that what he says, he says very well. Heinlein turned out novels and short stories and a fast fast pace, and the quality of what he wrote never suffered.
So using these 3 examples, some very good writers don't write very much, some write a lot, and some write a lot more than they should.

I am a brandy drinker by choice, the smoother the better and please do not talk about mixing it with anything.

There is no compulsion to drink scotch, so please canadianspankee, go ahead and drink brandy.

What I want to know is, when will Miss Thrashbottom put down her dram and get on with it .....

On single malts: The variety is delighful. They're a world in themselves. I know several people who had decided they didn't like whisky but changed their minds after being persuaded to one of the subtler single malts. There are distinctive regional styles withing Scotland, and personally, by and large, I prefer Northern Highland (such as Balblair), Islay (such as Lagavulin) and Lowland (such as Bladnoch) to Speyside and area, but then my absolute favourite is Royal Lochnagar from that area. There is also one (Northen) Irish single malt - nice, but with that rather oily taste characteristic of Irish whiskies; about three Japanese which I believe are serious contenders but I've had no chance to try; and a recently-launched Welsh contender, Penderyn, which is very pleasant indeed.

On sequels and quality versus quantity: many writers do tail off in the sequels. In SF, David Brin's later Uplift novels don't equal the first two and he seems to get wordier and more complicated as he goes on - but the once-off "Glory Season" is brilliant, though tailing off a bit towards the end. I can see in my own stuff that when I had to write with some discipline (quiet at the back there!) in a competition, on the whole I wrote better and that some stuff I wrote quite quickly could be improved. n the other hand some writers start on a theme and only really get into their stride with the second book or episode.

Well, I thought that Frank Herbert's final two DUNE novels, HERETICS OF DUNE and CHAPTERHOUSE DUNE, were considerably better than #'s 3 (CHILDREN OF DUNE) and 4 (GOD EMPEROR OF DUNE); they're set about 1,500 years after the death of the God Emperor and don't focus on the Atreides family but rather on the struggles of the Bene Gesserit Sisterhood. (Okay, I predictably like strong, dominating females so perhaps that's part of their attraction to me.)

Of course, I felt that DUNE was terrific and I also greatly enjoyed the first, fairly short sequel, DUNE MESSIAH. AFAIC one problem with GOD EMPEROR is that it was written in rather of a vacuum compared to the others--IIRC it was set about 3,500 years after the first trilogy and 1,500 years before the last two books, the only familiar characters from earlier were Leto II (the God Emperor) and of course Duncan Idaho, who kept reappearing as a ghola (a clone created from dead cells) in every book after being killed in DUNE.

To be a bit picayune here, the God Emperor was obviously the title character in GOD EMPEROR, but I'd consider his final Duncan ghola to be the hero of that book if there was one.

While I'm a big fan of Isaac Asimov's original FOUNDATION trilogy and his four robot novels, IMHO the writing quality declined when Asimov tried to connect (plotwise) the different sets of books late in his life.

IMHO Stephen King is an author who, in spite of his extreme popularity, peaked as a writer with his second ('SALEM'S LOT) and third (THE SHINING) novels... --C.K.

I think instead of me buying the ideal would be for the originator of this forum to meet Miss Thrashbottom and then have to buy all the drinks while sitting on a hard bar stool, yes that is my thinking on this matter.

I like dark rum, before anyone makes any smartarse remarks, this has nothing to do with me being a Rear Admiral!! I can drink rum neat or on the rocks but not with coca cola. Scotch is fine if you have a toothache but it hasn't really agreed with me since I drunk a bottle of it in one evening about forty years ago! I like a drop of sambuca in my espresso in the mornings providing I am not driving and on festive occasions I like a glass of good brandy!! I haven't got expensive tastebuds, a perfectly ordinary five star brandy will do so if anyone would like to send me a crate or two!! We Blimp's aren't so proud we won't accept charity!!

Where in Kentucky?

As I understand it, than may have been more the doing of Asimov's publisher than Asimov himself. I remember the Good Doctor writing that he had resisted continuing the Foundation for some 30 years, until his publisher made him an offer he was not allowed to refuse. He was given a very large advance, told he could not return it, and the result was Foundation's Edge.