Jᴀᴄᴜʀᴜᴛᴜ - Tʜᴇ Cᴀsᴛ Oᴜᴛ

Ampoliros wrote:KJA took the idea and had IG-88 download his mind into the Death Star II and take over its computer core. I've only heard the horror stories about it, I've not read the actual story.

Ampoliros wrote:

Tleszer wrote:

Ampoliros wrote:True dat. I believe it was in the Tales of the Bounty Hunters that KJA wrote his famous "IG-88 is the Death Star II" story. So it obviously wasn't passed through Quality Assurance.

Wait, what? I thought IG-88 was one of the bounty hunters commissioned by Vader during The Empire Strikes Back.

Yes, But according to SW lore, IG-88 had downloaded his consciousness into multiple bodies out of self preservation and an attempt to increase his firepower. KJA took the idea and had IG-88 download his mind into the Death Star II and take over its computer core. I've only heard the horror stories about it, I've not read the actual story.

Nebiros wrote:Let’s discuss the Great Kevin today. Let’s be somewhat serious about this.

Why or how is he the way he is? Is he happy? And what he gives to us.

We all know he “writes” terrible science fiction novels by dictating them in a recorder while going up mountains. Often his lack of creativity makes him write his own stories within the universes created by OTHER people.

Let’s discuss his motives and his mental state of health. We can all conclude that making up stories and hiking is his passion despite his lack of creativity. Is he aware or oblivious to his lack of creativitiy? This is very legitimate question to ask.

Let us look at the scenario where he is in fact aware that his writing is poor to say the least. He counters complaints from his critics by pointing out that millions of people do in fact buy his books. His ego is easily hurt, and wants to feel superior over people he sees as his enemies. Perhaps the attacks against him actually motivates him to keep writing because he does not want a few “talifan” to bring him down.

Now let us look at the more realistic scenario that he is completely oblivious. We know that he loves to do what he does and, going back to his ego, he strives to be one of “The Greats”. Unfortunately he is constantly encouraged by being nominated for writing awards and the millions of fanboys who consume every poorly thought out sentence he makes. I do not know how much love he is given by his family growing up or by his wife. But he seems to also do what he does because he wants to be loved by millions of fanboys. He does not notice any of the critics because his mind filters out the undesireables so he sees only what he wants to see.

He impresses his fanboys by writing three to six books every year hoping this will win them over. A speed that few authors go because they want their writing to be carefully thought out and creative so they will be remembered long after they are gone. Which brings me to my next point: when he passes away, while millions of people will have read his books, future generations will not remember his writings let alone himself. So he is only famous for a few million people of the present. But the number of future readers would be ten times more if he wrote something worthwhile as Frank Herbert and many other greats have proven. (Here is where I will need a little help. Could somebody tell me why he completely oblivious to this fact?)

His buddy Brian on the other hand is a different story. He should know better than to work with Kevin and should have learned long ago what good writing is gowing up with Frank Herbert as a father. My brief analysis of Brian is that he is a weak willed and passive person who let’s somebody like Kevin become his supperior for no particular reason. Perhaps he has not learned to face confrontations in life like school bullies. But another theory is he simply hated his father and angry that he did not inherit his father's genius and is only writing for the money and to urinate on his father’s grave.

Whatever it is that Kevin thinks or what fans of Frank Herbert think of him, nobody can deny that he makes money though what he does. He can definitely do more than put food on the table. If a SHRINK did an analysis of Kevin’s mental state of health, he/she would point out his arrogance, greed and an obession to being loved by many people. But the shrink would then advise Kevin to continue his lifestyle. Despite the negativity of the mental analysis, it has in fact brought him health and happiness and it is not living dangerously.

Or if we choose to ignore everything that I discussesd on this post, Kevin is just doing it for the money. And he does it with overwhelming success thanks to the ignorant masses. This is also possible since they have already back stabbed devoted fans twice with their short stories. And to be honest, not all of Kevin’s writings are terrible. Hiking worked for a while to impress people such as myself. But eventually he ran out of whatever little creativity he had (Hunters of Dune was where it ran out). This is proven by the declining sales of his books. But of couse this will not discourage him from milking every penny from persistent fanboys. But I must come to Kevin's defense here as I still sand by the fact that he is legally allowed to do what he does and fans are in no position to question him.

Now despite all our rabid hatred for Kevin, I can say that he is a source of amusement. There would be a LOT less comedy in all things Dune. I think most of us here are happy to have him as a punching bag and a source of great jokes and laughs. However, I’ll also say that without Kevin, we might have more meaningful convesations on the content of Frank Herbert’s Dune.

Nebiros wrote:So far two posts worth reading.

Nebiros wrote:So far two posts worth reading.

I disagree that short blunt remarks are all there is to be said about Kevin. After all, we spend much of our time attacking him for his involvement in the Dune franchise and talk about his blahgs on the Internet. If I am wrong, just say that he is in it for the money and that would be the end of it. Otherwhise we must understand that what he does really is his passion despite doing it badly.

Since he is the subject of so much of our anger and also of our amusement (not the quality of his works but the lack of quality), I believe it is very valid to discuss this interesting creature known as Kevin.

Nebiros wrote:Since he is the subject of so much of our anger and also of our amusement (not the quality of his works but the lack of quality), I believe it is very valid to discuss this interesting creature known as Kevin.

Nebiros wrote:Trang: You just said it. He is out for profit. That's all I needed to hear.

Baraka Bryan wrote:

TheDukester wrote:

Nebiros wrote:Trang: You just said it. He is out for profit. That's all I needed to hear.

This isn't unanimous, BTW. It was just discussed within the last week (are you reading other threads here? ).

I think money is a secondary concern for TheKJA, a belief supported by his own words and actions. His primary concern, by far, is own lasting immortality as one of the all-time legends of SF. Not that it's ever going to happen, of course.

i'm beginning to wonder if he even cares if it's a positive-legend-status. i think he'd be content with a being known as a prolific hack as long as it means he's remembered. his greatest fear is being seen as completely insignificant, IMHO

SandChigger wrote:

Nebiros wrote:So far two posts worth reading.

Oh, fuck you, you bitchy little cunt.

Nebiros wrote:Trang: You just said it. He is out for profit. That's all I needed to hear.

MY point basically is that if there is more than just money he is after: Love and recognition, a passion to write stories and if he really believes he is great, then let's elaborate on it as well as his view of success and how he got to where he is.

Serkanner wrote:

SandChigger wrote:

Nebiros wrote:So far two posts worth reading.

Oh, fuck you, you bitchy little cunt.

That makes it three

Rakis wrote:

Serkanner wrote:

SandChigger wrote:

Nebiros wrote:So far two posts worth reading.

Oh, fuck you, you bitchy little cunt.

That makes it three

QFT

Hunchback Jack wrote:I think the latest interview with "Dead Robots Society" was quite illuminating, particularly with regards to Keith's attitude about writing. I think it goes a long way toward explaining why KJA is the way he is.

KJA seems to have done a lot of movie novelizations, tie-in novels and spin-offs, and I suspect his skills and attitude have been shaped by that. He's probably good at fleshing out a script into a passable novelization, and delivering it on time - important when a novelization has to be published at the same time as the movie release. He's succeeded pretty well at that - he says he's one of the go-to guys when one of these media-related books is needed - and I can believe that's true. He can manage his time to work on more than one of these novels at a time, and still meet the contracted delivery deadlines for them.

That's what his view of a professional author is - someone who can get a contract signed, do the work, and deliver on time in short order. He emphasises punctuality, numbers of copies sold, numbers of books and numbers of pages because his past experience has taught him - correctly, for that part of the industry - that those are how you measure success. He sees himself as good at that because, well, he is, and he probably gets enough requests to reinforce that perception. Consequently, he sees authors who agonise over a book for years and deliver "when it's ready" or who "wait for inspiration" are unprofessional or precious.

Now, obviously he *wants* to be a writer who is highly regarded, wins industry awards and has the respect of his peers. His perception of himself is that he's a good writer, so he thinks he deserves all that. What I think he doesn't fully understand is that it takes a significantly different set of skills and a different attitude to deliver a Hugo award winning novel, rather than a movie tie-in. He doesn't have the writing chops to write a truly original, well plotted, complex SF novel.

He's trying, though. He's tried writing in a Hugo-award-winning universe (Dune). He's tried writing the Big SF Series (Seven Suns). He's collaborated with people who have won awards. But he just can't translate his media tie-in writing skills into mainstream original-work success, because the way he's writing hasn't changed. And he's not about to change that, because that's the key to his success.

But I think he does fear that he's not good enough to be an Asimov, Heinlein or Niven. Hence the deeply wounded ego.

HBJ

Hunchback Jack wrote:I think the latest interview with "Dead Robots Society" was quite illuminating, particularly with regards to Keith's attitude about writing. I think it goes a long way toward explaining why KJA is the way he is.

KJA seems to have done a lot of movie novelizations, tie-in novels and spin-offs, and I suspect his skills and attitude have been shaped by that. He's probably good at fleshing out a script into a passable novelization, and delivering it on time - important when a novelization has to be published at the same time as the movie release. He's succeeded pretty well at that - he says he's one of the go-to guys when one of these media-related books is needed - and I can believe that's true. He can manage his time to work on more than one of these novels at a time, and still meet the contracted delivery deadlines for them.

That's what his view of a professional author is - someone who can get a contract signed, do the work, and deliver on time in short order. He emphasises punctuality, numbers of copies sold, numbers of books and numbers of pages because his past experience has taught him - correctly, for that part of the industry - that those are how you measure success. He sees himself as good at that because, well, he is, and he probably gets enough requests to reinforce that perception. Consequently, he sees authors who agonise over a book for years and deliver "when it's ready" or who "wait for inspiration" are unprofessional or precious.

Now, obviously he *wants* to be a writer who is highly regarded, wins industry awards and has the respect of his peers. His perception of himself is that he's a good writer, so he thinks he deserves all that. What I think he doesn't fully understand is that it takes a significantly different set of skills and a different attitude to deliver a Hugo award winning novel, rather than a movie tie-in. He doesn't have the writing chops to write a truly original, well plotted, complex SF novel.

He's trying, though. He's tried writing in a Hugo-award-winning universe (Dune). He's tried writing the Big SF Series (Seven Suns). He's collaborated with people who have won awards. But he just can't translate his media tie-in writing skills into mainstream original-work success, because the way he's writing hasn't changed. And he's not about to change that, because that's the key to his success.

But I think he does fear that he's not good enough to be an Asimov, Heinlein or Niven. Hence the deeply wounded ego.

HBJ

Ampoliros wrote:in Throne of Dune we'd be subjected to Paul's trips around the galaxy as a Child Broadway Star, fighting off the horde of New Face Dancer Critics and Honored Matre Divas.

SandChigger wrote:

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