The Wish

[DesDownunder]

I'M PUSHING!

Okay, where are the rest of those guys when we need them?

Colin

Some of them are pulling.

[Lugnutz]

push the cart forward.

Ready, set, PUSH! :lol:

I got a cart with a wobbly wheel.............

[Mountain Dude]

Thanks for all of your kind comments everybody. You're gonna give me an inflated head.

I'm glad that you liked it. It was a fun story to write, a bit out there, a bit over the top (doomed!), and a bit of a challenge to try and make all the quantum physics stuff work out right with my layman's knowledge of it.

As for a sequel, well, I'm not too sure about that yet. I've had quite a few emails suggesting as much already, but I have one or two other things I'd like to finish up, so we'll see.

If I were to write a sequel though, Craig tells me it would start something like this:

I got to chapter 15 last night and had to get some sleep - grudgingly went to bed.

I got to this point reading the forum posts and had to stop -- didn't want to get into a spoiler situation.

Gee W. ~~ This has been a flatout awesome read to this point!!!!!!! I want a sequel too. I have read some awesome stories on the web, but this one so far is in the top 5 out of a 1000 or more.

Awesome, just awesome dude!

[Guest Dabeagle]

If you think that was a left turn, try King's Dark Tower series. Talk about multiple universe... that thing will make your head explode!

Oh, I am so late to this party...I finally got to reading the last few chapters. There was always something in the way (World of Warcraft addict) but get back to it I did. I can't think of a single accolade that I could express any better, and decided not to send a personal message but to blab it here instead.

However. It did make me think that, when his father showed up, he'd landed in a similar but not identical universe.

And G, I think a more viable sequel starter would be that it happens to someone else, who finds Craig, and that's how he figures out what's going on. And then you can deal with that Dastardly Doctor.

But the reason I quoted Pecman here was to respond to 'The Dark Tower'. That series was the end of King for me. Previously I had loved his books, in all their gory details and fun 'King-isms', and the imagination to get there was phenomenal. However, as a reader, I have a failing which is to sometimes become too attached to the characters or a character. I never cared for Suzannah that much, Roland was very flawed and extremely compelling. Eddie was solid, but in this sort of ensemble I sort of look for that 'Moses' character to be sacrificed. For me the killing of Jake shredded the last book, and the ending (which admittedly could be construed as clever) felt more like a cop out.

Truthfully after Jake died, my interest waned, and probably no ending would have sat very well. The storyline between he and Roland was something so well crafted that I could block out everything while sitting up to read these books. As a matter of fact, Jake dies twice, once in the first book and once in the last. It took me quite a long time to pick up that second book, after Jake had died. The ending made me feel as though the whole journey was for naught, just another spin of the wheel and here we go again. Jake did live on, in a away.

Jake Tull, main character in Long Day, got his name from both the book and the band, Jethro Tull. Jake meets Roland for the first time just outside of the town of Tull, so named for...the band.

Still, I've never read King since.

[The Pecman]

But the reason I quoted Pecman here was to respond to 'The Dark Tower'. That series was the end of King for me. Previously I had loved his books, in all their gory details and fun 'King-isms', and the imagination to get there was phenomenal. However, as a reader, I have a failing which is to sometimes become too attached to the characters or a character. I never cared for Suzannah that much, Roland was very flawed and extremely compelling. Eddie was solid, but in this sort of ensemble I sort of look for that 'Moses' character to be sacrificed. For me the killing of Jake shredded the last book, and the ending (which admittedly could be construed as clever) felt more like a cop out.

I gotta say, Jake was a fantastic character, and The Wolves of the Calla just blew me away. The kid goes from a little boy to a world-weary, cold-blooded killer in less than 500 pages -- just an astonishing character.

But the fact that King could create a character we cared about so much is a testament to his skill as a writer. I'm not sure what else he could've done with the ending; I figured out the potential direction by the time I got to the end, and it made sense (though it still left a few loose ends hanging). And don't forget that Jake died more than once -- at least three times, depending on how you interpret the various intersecting realities.

I'm bracing myself for the upcoming film & TV series by director Ron Howard. I don't have a lot of faith in his writer, Akiva Goldsman -- the man who brought us Batman & Robin, Lost in Space, and I Robot...

[Guest Dabeagle]

I do agree completely that he made me feel, made many feel for his characters. For me, my own reading experience, the ending was a let down in large part because he killed him again. unfortunately I just don't enjoy, 9 times out of 10, a 'sad' story. This is similar to the folks who stopped watching Torchwood because their major interest was the Captain Jack/Ianto pairing. Once Ianto died (and the subsequent arrogance of the writer I might add) I know I won't watch it anymore.

As a reader or viewer, it's how i feel. Right, wrong or indifferent The Dark Tower burned me out on King, for riding it out 7 books (enjoying most of it) and then having that happen just knocked it out of me. I've come to feel, again personal perspective, that the creator has a responsibility to the audience. Each member of that audience has a different idea of what that responsibility is, thus the debate such an idea presents from both sides of the aisle. I don't like my favorite characters to die, then I can't enjoy them anymore.

So I'm clear, in case I haven't been to this point, this is my own personal point of view. This is partially based on the emotion a character, a well drawn character, can evoke. I don't like getting my feelings yanked all over. I like the exhilaration of the chase, the fight, the uncertainty but in the end...I want the good guys to win. If they die, as in many stories people must, they should be faceless or serve the purpose to set you firmly against a villain, for example, that may have been somewhat sympathetic before.

Killing Jake, to me, didn't advance the story, it simply cut a player out to whittle things back down to Roland. In that sense, it was the easy way out.