ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Weston Ochse is a former intelligence officer and special operations soldier who has engaged enemy combatants, terrorists, narco smugglers, and human traffickers. His personal war stories include performing humanitarian operations over Bangladesh, being deployed to Afghanistan, and a near miss being cannibalized in Papua New Guinea. His fiction and non-fiction has been praised by USA Today, The Atlantic, The New York Post, The Financial Times of London, and Publishers Weekly. The American Library Association labeled him one of the Major Horror Authors of the 21st Century. His work has also won the Bram Stoker Award, been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, and won multiple New Mexico-Arizona Book Awards. A writer of more than 26 books in multiple genres, his military supernatural series SEAL Team 666 has been optioned to be a movie starring Dwayne Johnson. His military sci fi series, which starts with Grunt Life, has been praised for its PTSD-positive depiction of soldiers at peace and at war. Weston likes to be called a chaotic good paladin and challenges anyone to disagree. After all, no one can really stand a goody two-shoes lawful good character. They can be so annoying. It's so much more fun to be chaotic, even when you're striving to save the world. You can argue with him about this and other things online at Living Dangerously or on Facebook at Badasswriter. All content of this blog is copywrited by Weston Ochse.

Monday, March 5, 2012

Open Letter to Brent Weeks

Dear Brent,

How's it going?

I'm doing pretty well. You know, working hard, but looking forward to coming home to read some good books. At the end of the day, no matter how bad it was, if there's a good book waiting for you how bad can it be? Oh yeah, and wine. Can't forget that.  Good book and good wine.

So I read your Night Angel Trilogy in 2009. Tremendous stuff. It made me a big fan. And that's no small thing. I'm very picky about my fantasy. As far as I'm concerned, my friend Steve Donaldson's work is the standard and anything not measuring up to that gets tossed across the room. And in my house, a lot of fantasy novels are tossed across the room. As a fellow author, I feel readers should be able to demonstrate their disappointment to the universe in this way. If any of my books don't meet their standards, I'd expect nothing less, although some of my limited editions could kill someone if tossed carelessly.

Christmas this year I was given two fantasy novels from my wishlist. One was yours, the other belonged to an author who shall remain nameless. Yes, his was tossed.  But the Black Prism wasn't. I held off reading it, because I wanted to be able to dedicate time to it. I was also involved in edits for two of my novels that are coming out, so I wasn't necessarily in the mood for your thoughtful prose.

But last week I read Black Prism. Let me say that you've improved with characterization to such a degree, I found myself liking each and every one. Your characterization was already good, mind you, but it's even better now. And what you did with the Prism (no spoilers here) took a lot of talent.  Good on you. And of course your magic system based on color is brilliant. I really enjoyed Black Prism.

But then I went to order the next book.

WTF, man!!??
Brent Weeks' Website

Night Angel Trilogy was published in 2008. All three books in one year. Black Prism was published in 2010. And book 2 isn't due out until September 2012? Which will probably make book 3 available in 2014? Seriously!  SERIOUSLY!

What a slacker!

Do you realize that I deploy to Afghanistan in July. If I want to read The Blinding Knife, I'm going to have to try and find a copy in the local Taliban Friends of the Library. I think I'll be a good 7,000 miles from the nearest Barnes & Nobles.

WTF, man!!??

Do me a favor. Do not put so much time between releases of you intend to write good books. It's just not cool.

One more piece of advice -- write quicker.

That's all.

Thank you.

And keep up the good prose (but write quicker).

Sincerely,
Weston


2 comments :

  1. LOL. Yeah, I read that last year. Still waiting...and waiting... *sigh*

    ReplyDelete