I don’t typically write reviews (not exactly the purpose of this blog, y’know?), but I want to make an exception. Sort of. Okay, not really a review. More of a rant, actually.
The other day I just finished reading Raymond Feist’s Magician’s End, the final volume of his Riftwar Cycle. This series has spanned twenty-nine books and taken over thirty years to write. I remember reading the first novel, Magician, while in college and introducing the series to my best friend, Greg (or was it the other way ’round?). Now, reading the end of the series, I find myself in a bit of a reflective mood.
To start off with, let me just assert that I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the Cycle, though I confess I haven’t read all the books, and the final volume is no exception. Feist delivers. The end is satisfying but sad, because it is, after all, an end.
I guess what’s niggling at me is the fact that it took almost three decades for this story to unfold. This is essentially Feist’s entire writing career. He’s neither done nor dead, of course, even though he’s pushing seventy (who says retirement is a good thing, anyway?).
But to spend thirty years crafting thirty novels (there’s one stand alone amidst the Riftwar Cycle, and ironically, it’s my favorite Feist: Faerie Tale) just seems a bit… I don’t know…
weak?
No disparagement meant to Mr. Feist. He’s a fine writer. A bestselling author, in fact, and one of my favorites. But what it draws my mind to is the fact that he’s still following the traditional path of publishing, which is cranking out one book a year. And why not? It’s worked well for him.
Why not? I’ll tell you why not: because one book a year doesn’t cut it anymore. Not in today’s rapid fire culture. Not when there are too many voices clamoring for the attention of highly distracted readers. And not for Indie publishers like me, who’ve largely eschewed the traditional route and chosen to “go it alone.” It certainly cannot cut it in my case: not when I’ve got so many stories to tell. I don’t know how any author could be content to simply crank out one book a year. Is it really a quality thing? Is it that some people can only hold so many stories in their heads at a given time? I don’t really trust conclusions that paint me in some kind of exceptional light, because I’ve never seen sufficient evidence that I’m all that exceptional.
I’m grateful to Feist for the Cycle, and for what I’ve learned from his stories and technique, but I think it would have been wonderful to have more of him to read over the last thirty years than a shelf-full of novels.
Then again, I’ve only really been at this for nine years now, and it’s only recently that I’ve dramatically increased my output. I have eleven novels published (or will, as soon as The Elixir of Life gets released), so I’m doing better than a book a year, but just barely. Ask me in another twenty years – I hope to have a hundred done by then.
And no, I won’t be retiring, either.