Aye,Toddie me lad,
’tis a damn fine piece of work that you and Mum have created here in “Dragon Harper”.
Not only that, but I bawled like a holder rug rat through a good bit of it! I got me first tome from the Sci-Fi Book Club for free (back in the mid 80’s they gave the “Dragonriders” trilogy away for free!!! but then the first shot the arm is always free isn’t it!!!!!!! ) just for signing up!
Of course it goes without saying that Mum’s books have always been that good!!! Now when you came along just a few years ago with “Dragonsblood”, I, of course, was just like one of the “Old Timers” that “F’Lar and Lessa” had to contend with, don’t ya know!
Aye, but then laddie, only a few pages in and I knew that me second home planet “PERN” seemed to be in the very capable hands (Master Robinton would be quite proud!) of a fine new master harper!!
Aye, me whole point of view changed on the spot and I could no longer be so hide-bound about how I would be able to finish the book in such a negative state! So, after a skin of some fine “Benden” wine, I was able to do your first book the justice it so rightly deserved!
Now, today is January 14th and I just bought the new one yesterday and am already done with it (today is the 15th!)!
Which brings me to me most troubling problem! I really need you two to become a monthly because the books are just too damn good and are not out often enough as I’m sure you’ve been told many a time before me!!!
Actually, I’ve got to dig out the older books and do meself a good reread and freshen up me history of “Pern” because I’ve only been through them about 3 or 4 times and am due again(speaking only for meself, at 57, since me memory is not what it was, it will be a great romp!)
Now, Toddie me lad, the other problem is that they should be longer because there are just to many stories yet to be told, as your publisher says on the jacket cover! Now, let me be a bit more real sir, me wife Kathleen (of Irish decsent and proud of it!) is a fine lady holder in her own right and meself are both stage hands here in Las Vegas and look forward to finding anything new from the both of you and yesterday both picked up the book at the same time in different parts of the book store and came looking for the other (aye mate, it’s a real addiction but one we are happy to live with I might add!)
The only real disappointment is in the fact that we, like everyone else, will never get to ride a dragon (such is the life of a lowly holder) but we can always dream, mate! Again thanks for the use of your ears here, yours always Steve-n-Kath.
Ah, sure now, Steve-n-Kath, you’ve a touch of the brogue about you! And that’s a good thing, too, though I’ll warn ye not to kiss the Blarney Stone anytime soon! Me ol’ English teacher back when I was in school in the green Isle itself (a good Irishman) proclaimed years back that I had “the gift of the gab” and, sure now, wouldn’t he be proud to see how right he was!
It might please you to know that the next installment in the Third Pass has already been turned in and I’m going great guns on its sequel and that, while I was back in Ireland visiting me Mum on the occasion of her eighty-second birthday, we discussed the possibility of writing collaborations set after the Ninth Pass.
So, we’ll keep writing but we won’t scrimp on quality or style for speed.
Cheers,
Todd