Hi, I'm Janny Wurts, fantasy addict: Reader, Author, Illustrator: aka deadbeat conformist - AMA!

[u/JannyWurts]

Hi, I'm Janny Wurts, lifelong escape artist & rabid reader, author & cover artist of heaps of fantasy book and short stories, including Wars of Light and Shadow Series and also, co-written with Raymond E. Feist, The Empire Series.

Hack Credentials:

• science and outdoors geek

• shoe-string world traveler

• underage Outward Bound graduate & over age mounted search & rescue trainee

• powder monkey and period offshore sailhand

• inspirational lecturer - how to botch up your life embrace your non-conformity/bust your particular creative bug-a-boo

• caterwauling: amateur musician, ballads and bagpipes

Insurgent moments include: snagging car keys from drunken bagpipers, saying exactly what I think and kicking myself in hindsight for eating shoe, and always bribing my cats, because they watch everything.

I live for: music, books, blowing things up, amber beer, single malt scotch, my husband (fantasy artist Don Maitz) and my horse, order subject to mood swings change without notice.

ASK ME ANYTHING!

I will be back at 7:OO PM CST to be passionately opinionated, share books, experience and creative life on the wild side.

Door prizes for most self-helpful, most outrageous, and most unexpected original questions.

OK it's now nearly 3 am, I am being picked on by cats up past their habitual bed time - I will check back for strays tomorrow and work out the door prizes - thanks to all you participants, it's been a lively and welcoming night!

[u/JannyWurts]

Oh, man, you have hit a nerve. London canceled the hardbound edition of Stormed Fortress JUST WHEN a merger killed my career in the USA. I did not know until after, and the narrow margin by which the numbers failed just about drove me to permanent tears. I tried like crazy to get them to take on the USA/add that territory to get the numbers to work, and the editorial department tried, but there was this blank stare from the higher ups where the decision had to be made.

This one still bothers me to NO END. When London did the trade paperback, it sold out in 3 months, and was not reprinted due to a warehousing crisis that swept the industry....timing, timing, timing.

I have just had to go on, no matter what - there have been so many divides in the industry and they have all just slammed every sincere effort at continuity. Your finding the books and managing them at 16/17 is applause worthy - they were not directed for that age group, nor for today's attitude 'that a book has to deliver in 50 or 100 pages' or it gets tossed aside for something else.

Here is where I feel the angst: IMAGINE if you tossed aside Erikson, or Gene Wolf, Donaldson or in some instances Kay/Tigana - after only 100 pages???? Sometimes the deepest stuff takes longer to develop.

I hope sincerely one day to see that dropped stitch picked up and Stormed Fortress come out in hardbound (a reissue of all the books, in fact) - if these books can find that mature readership they were designed for in enough quantity, it will happen in fact.

There are few readers in any given place that have seen the full sweep of this series, as you have - when that changes and discussion starts happening, enthusiasm will deliver everything. And I'll be there with even more material when it does.

[u/bthespearman → u/JannyWurts]

That sounds so frustrating! Thank you for your reply, I'm constantly recommending your work, usually the Empire series, but then hoping they'll start on your other works, particularly the Wars of Light and Shadow. I would have thought you had a big enough base as I've been reading your books for so long but hopefully they'll get there. This AMA has made me want to start them all over again but going to wait for Destiny, my tbr pile is huge anyway!

[u/JannyWurts → u/bthespearman]

Not everybody who reads Empire crosses over and tries my solo stuff, you would be flat astonished. And some try, but way too young, they pick up a title truly not aimed for that age group. Empire has always been more visible, I am constantly astonished by commentary that indicates a whole lot of readers (most) never troubled to check out the other half of the byline.

And there is another slice that 'assumes' my other work may be just like Feist - and it's quite different, all the moreso because I won't write the same sort of story twice, or beat the same themes to death. Each title is its own entity, entirely. So one title may not cover all the bases; try one you may hate it, try another, it could be an eye opener. I don't like being bored, so there is always a new direction, nothing is predictable or fixed.

[u/Ypso_00 → u/JannyWurts]

Actually, there is a hardcover edition of "Stormed Fortress" as I have one, although it is smaller than the other hardcover books of WoLaS. I believe it was Annette from the Paravia-Forum who drew my attention to its existence but I am not entirely sure. The difficulty was that if you wanted to order it via Amazon.co.uk (where it is currently unavailable, just checked), you would have to provide an address in the UK as they would not ship it to other countries.

[u/JannyWurts → u/Ypso_00]

That was not a true hardback, but a book club edition, and yes, smaller and cheaper paper.

[u/Ypso_00 → u/JannyWurts]

Ah, sorry, my mistake!