Day: March 15, 2007

Letter from Novashannon

Letter from Novashannon

Merry Christmas and Happy New year, Todd! I was just re-reading some of your stuff, and i found that you went to Lehigh University for a year. My parents and siblings all live in Bethlehem, PA!
I enjoyed your stories of the cons, although I confess that I find pants much more comfortable than skirts, and rarely wear skirts. I guess it does make more biological sense for men to wear them, though.

Loved your appearance on that kid show. Guess J. K. Rowling works her magic on all of us!

Will you ever be in this part of the country? (she asked, wistfully).
Waes hael!

Dear Novashannon,

As you can see, I’m quite a bit behind in my mail — I’ll blame it on multiple computer crashes (there was a note on the front page) and working on “Dragon’s Harper” (which I’m still working on).

Anyway, thanks for the wishes and I hope you enjoy the Year of the Fire Pig. It should be prosperous for us all.

I have to say that I didn’t enjoy Lehigh. I did manage to have fun with computers and wrote some Assembly on the mainframe but, aside from that, I found that I didn’t quite fit in — being from Ireland and rather shy.

I don’t know about pants — there’s an argument that for cooling reasons, men shouldn’t wear such constrictive garments. And there’s an argument that for simple protection, women should wear pants. Perhaps we’ve got it all mixed up?

I am looking forward to J.K. Rowling’s seventh book and then I hope she’ll take a (short) break before trying her hand at something new.

Cheers,
Todd

Letter from Carol and Elizabeth

Letter from Carol and Elizabeth

We love the stories. We’re glad the series is continuing, but we’d like to see something about AFTER the last Pass. How are the dragonriders going to survive? What happens to them? I’d also like to see a story about the Dolphin Hall or even about the twins in the last story in the book “Gift of Dragons”. Thanks!

Carol and Elizabeth

Stories have to come to authors or the stories ends up sounding stilted and unreal. I know that Mum has been noodling for a long while with stories “After the Fall is over”. So there is hope!

Cheers,
Todd

Question from Gina

Question from Gina

Hi Todd, sorry to bother you but could you let me know how plans are going for a screen version of the “dragons”.

Thanks

Gina
(Cork in Ireland)

Hi Gina,

Makring anything on the big screen requires the efforts of hundreds, even thousands, of people and a large amount of money. “The Princess Bride” languished for 30 years before it was made. It’s more usual to see a project take from 3-10 years to get to greenlight. As it is, with this current option, it’s early days yet.

My advice is to be patient and think positively!

Cheers,
Todd

Letter from Katherine

Letter from Katherine

Hi Todd, I absolutly love your mum’s books and have been reading them since i was about nine, I think it’s fantastic that your keeping the series going/alive. However, i always wondered, what sort of accent do you imagine the people of Pern having? Also your mum, as she is the original author. I hear them as having a british accent, as i am british, and obviously other people hear different accents. But it’s nice to know how the original authors intended it to be. Oh and congratulations on the movie deal! I’ve been waiting for one for ages, and i hope it all pans out smoothly!
Katherine

Hi Katherine,

I suspect the accents will vary and vary over time. Accents will vary from Hold to Hold and Weyr to Weyr.

Sean obviously had an Irish accent, as did Sorka.

However, 2500 Turns is an awful long time for accents to mutate. We know, for example, that the best representation of the southern English accent of the late-17th/early-18th is to be found in the backwoods of the Catskills and Alleghenies in the US.

For myself, I’d tend to think that the High Reaches Weyr accent (and for that matter, High Reaches Hold and Tillek Hold) might be similar to the range of Scots accents, while I have always felt that Benden might have a bit of a British accent (say a south Dublin accent).

I suspect speech patterns conform to landscape and population over time — so really, I can’t say as anyone would truly know for sure!

Cheers,
Todd