RPG Superstar 2008 Top 32, 2011 Top 16
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Have been eagerly awaiting this series to be picked up by someone for years. News is out that rights for the first 6 books have been secured and it's being developed by a talented sounding team.
Ugh! On one hand I love the books. OTOH it would have to be one book a season to meet my expectations.
Meh. I was interested in this when I was younger, but after 6 books I could say I wanted more. Still we'll see if this does better than Wheel of Time for adapting the source material better. IE more cohesively.
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RPG Superstar 2008 Top 32, 2011 Top 16
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If they do a good job, the fact that the timeline tends to advance a generation every series is actually good for making each sub-series a spinoff show with new cast. The realities of locking actors in for more than 6 seasons won't be a big deal except for a few characters who only become more and more recurring/cameos as time goes on.
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They're actually mixing the two series together. Chronologically, the first two Empire books take place simultaneously with Magician, then Silverthorn takes place and the last Empire book takes place around the time of A Darkness at Sethanon, maybe a bit later (Prince of the Blood and The King's Buccaneer then take place after both series).
So we'll be with Pug and Tomas for a few scenes, then cut to Mara for a few bits, then back to Pug and co etc.
It's an interesting approach. There's enough going on in both series to sustain two storylines, and it's not like there's a really big team-up of both storylines (Mara and Pug chat a few times and Pug meets Kevin at one point, but that's about it). But it does mean that the Riftwar Saga gets some additional, urgently-needed major female characters who actually do important things, and you get more of a balanced Midkemian and Kelewani perspective on both sides of the Riftwar.
Shadow & Bone did the same thing recently, combining the OG trilogy with the Six of Crows spin-off series, and that worked surprisingly well.
Well if they manage to make this series more interesting, that's a plus for me. (Especially if they have more female characters do more than just sigh or whatever.)
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So we'll be with Pug and Tomas for a few scenes, then cut to Mara for a few bits, then back to Pug and co etc.
Wow, I had not heard that.
I love both first books (Daughter of Empire even more so than Magician), and the rest of the DoE trilogy, and Silverthorn is okay, but Darkness at Sethanon gets a little into the weeds of cosmic over-the-top power fantasy for me (no matter how badass Tomas riding a dragon might have seemed at the time, it's kind of old hat now that Khaleesi beat him to the 'live-action' screen).
('Live action' in quotes because I guess it technically doesn't count as 'live action' if the dragon is CGI?) :)
I am not sure at all that I like the idea of merging the two series, since they have very different flavors, to me (Mara being more a political animal, dealing with things using her brain, and Pug more just throwing power around in glorious spectacle).
But I do agree that merging the two would give some much-needed female representation, since the Magician side of things had various daughters (Carline), wives (Pug's wife, Aglaranna, Alicia) and stuff, but not much else... The only female character who was an active 'hero' combatant was the dragon that Tomas rode in the third book!
Then again, gender swapping is a thing. Looking back over the book, Carline could take on the elder child role and replace Lyam entirely, or Macros the Black could have been a woman. People who never cared a hoot for the book before that moment would howl about it violating their childhood, but let them howl. :)