the Author
November
18
6 Comments

Reddit is having an Essalieyan read-a-long

Posted in Essalieyan, Reddit.

I am cowardly enough that I haven’t joined in — a friend told me it had already started (but r/fantasy had announced that it would be running some­time in November). I am a dinosaur, from the time when authors were told never to react to or interact with reviewers of their books — some­thing I saw the wisdom of when I encoun­tered the first goodreads author melt­down many years later. Or the next one. Or the one after that >.<.

And also: reader space and author space really only over­laps in the spaces I oversee. Readers should have a place where they can, oh, hate author choices and discuss them without being afraid of a) hurting author feel­ings or b) angry/upset authors.

But I thought I would mention it here for people who either want to read or join in.

Essalieyan Series Reada­long: The Hidden City Midway Discus­sion from Fantasy

6 Responses to Reddit is having an Essalieyan read-a-long

  1. Lisa says:
    November 18, 2021 at 12:17 pm

    I’m doing it. It’s my first read-a-long. I wanted to reread every­thing with Michelle starting the final arc and this seemed like a fun way of doing it. I’m enjoying redis­cov­ering all the little details that make me love the char­ac­ters. It’s been awhile since I reread the Sun Sword books and I am excited to delve back into those books.

  2. Lauren says:
    November 18, 2021 at 1:09 pm

    I’m so glad you know about this! While I do think your deci­sion to keep a certain distance from reader spaces is a very good one, I also hope you know there’s a ton of love for your books on that subreddit. Every other day it seems like Essalieyan gets recom­mended, so little by little new readers are coming onboard :)

  3. michelle says:
    November 18, 2021 at 1:52 pm

    @Lisa & Lauren: Thank you both :). 

    I know it’s talking about books that already exist, some for many many years, and I love that it’s been done — but I’m also writing a book set in the same universe and I’ve had to cut thou­sands of words many times, so I’m not sure it won’t cause me to second-guess myself into oblivion because of my frame of mind.

  4. Pewpewkachu says:
    November 18, 2021 at 3:16 pm

    I was reading through that thread last night. I already did a full re-read recently, so I’ll just be following along to see other people’s thoughts on the books, espe­cially first timers.

  5. Tarun Ramakrishna Elankath says:
    January 6, 2022 at 9:12 am

    I have read every single book in Sun Sword/House War. I just wish the inter­me­diate years from when Jewel joined Terafin and the events after the Sun Sword had some detailing. She went from 16 to 30 years in Terafin and appar­ently there were no adven­tures for her during those years. Was she just chillaxing for 15 years ?

  6. michelle says:
    January 18, 2022 at 6:53 pm

    @Tarun: She was learning all of the ropes about dealing with frac­tious, polit­ical merchants in the areas she oversaw. Finch and Teller were growing into their duties as well. Or at least that’s what I know now, having not attempted to write stories that occur in the interim…

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