On Sun, 14 Apr 1996, Joyce 'Azusa' Meadows, Sailor Slacker wrote:

On Sat, 13 Apr 1996, Ross McKenzie wrote:

	Changing a law of nature for a reason is one thing.  Changing a 
law of nature because you did not bother to look up the real-world 
results is something else.  Terry Goodkind is guilty of this in his book 
_Wizard's First Rule_; apples and all things red are poisonous in the 
middle realm of his world because he needed a conflict between his two 
romantic leads.  It doesn't work.  His choice of natural laws seems ad hoc.

Eep!  Nope nope nope.  Sorry, but you have that red fruit bit wrong.
In _Wizard's First Rule_, all red fruit is poisonous, NOT because of 
nature, but because of a spell cast years ago.  The rationale behind the 
spell was that children like bright colors and liked the red fruits, so 
making all red fruits poisonous would kill off some children.  (Of 
course, people eventually caught on that the red fruits were poisonous, 
but in the meantime, many people died from them.)

	What I was trying to get at was that when Goodkind defined his 
fictional world, he made some choices _just because_ he, Goodkind, needed a 
conflict.  In my opinion, the decision to have the bad guys curse all red 
stuff was a bad one, particularly since there was no hint of this curse 
until after the conflict.  If I remember the chronology right, it was: 1) 
hero offers heroine an apple, 2) she freaks and gets mad, _then_ 3) she 
explains the curse, which then gets dropped, never to be mentioned again 
in the book.
	Goodkind could have done a lot more with the story and the 
development of their relationship, but instead he pulled this red fruit 
curse out of thin air, then dropped it.  To me, that's lazy.  He could 
have used a real-world reason for one person to get mad at another, _or_ 
he could have developed the curse more.  He did neither.
	The point I've been trying to make is that readers expect the 
world of a work of fiction to be, for the most part, identical to the 
real world.  The _author_ is the one who has to justify any changes that 
they make.  Changes made to set up a world are fine, as long as any 
consequences are logically thought out and followed through.  Changes 
made because you've written yourself into a corner are not.

I love _Wizard's First Rule_...~sigh~ I bought it in hardback, and it 
sits on my bookshelf beside my bed.  I see it every night before I fall 
asleep.... ^_^

      	I, on the other hand, was very disappointed in the book.  The only 
good thing I have to say about _Wizard's First Rule_ is that it offered 
me hope: if _this_ was published, then I have hope that someday _I_ may be 
published.
 ______
{B-{=__
rmckenzi@euclid.ucsd.edu : The White-Robed Mathematician