Andre Norton and Mercedes Lackey ALLEGEDLY wrote a book together.

[snarp]

Yes. It's about evil elves who breed evil unicorns and then release them into the wild where they destroy the ecological balance oh noes. They have also enslaved all the humans for purposes of general elvish debauchery.

I'm pretty sure that this is the process by which this book was written:

Andre Norton: You know what, I think no one's done an Elf Opposite Day book yet! I'd might as well get going on that - I mean, I'll basically take any premise and just run with it, right? That's my whole thing.

Tor Books: We will buy this book.

Norton: Yeah, I know.

*time passes*

Norton: I don't know... I mean, I named this character Serina Daeth, and I just - I'm not feeling this anymore, I don't know how that's even pronounced. Maybe it's just that I'm fricking eighty. Mercedes Lackey, you're not doing anything important right now, right? Put on an Elf Opposite Day for me.

MERCEDES LACKEY: OH I AM SO VERY GOING TO GET SOME PEACEFUL ECOLOGICALLY-CONSCIOUS DRAGONS UP IN.

Norton: What - dude, no, you are totally fucking up Elf Opposite Day. You're just making the dragons be the elves, you are barely maintaining fidelity to our awesome cheapass trope reversal.

LACKEY: NO NO SEE SOME OF THEM ARE MEAN THOUGH. SO THEY CAN BULLY THE HEROINE. SHE IS A HALF-ELF-HALF-HUMAN WIZARD RAISED BY A DRAGON, THE DRAGON'S A SHAMAN.

Norton: Even your name is in all caps.

LACKEY: OH OH AND I'M TOTALLY GOING TO THROW SOME UNCOMFORTABLE IMPLICIT DRAGON/BIPED SEXUAL STUFF IN THERE, I MEAN THAT REALLY WORKED WELL FOR ME IN THE BLACK GRYPHON (MAGE WARS BOOK 1, WITH LARRY DIXON, 1995). OH WAIT THAT WORK ACTUALLY POSTDATES THIS ONE HUH.

Norton: I am going to go be eighty someplace else.

LACKEY: OKAY THAT'S FINE BYE! A BABY DRAGON IS LEARNING TO SEW NOW :) :) :)

Tor Books: We are giving this book a particularly goofy Boris Vallejo cover as a sort of oblique warning as to its content. There will be no visible elves.

Norton: Worst. Elf Opposite Day. Ever.

Comments

[branchandroot]

Yeah, unlike the Piers Anthony-Lackey book, which has a lot of Anthony's fingerprints on it, this one you can really only imagine Norton staring at in resignation. Possibly wondering if it's too late to get her name taken off.

[james_davis_nicoll]

Permission to link?

[snarp]

No problem!

[sara]

I must have read this at some point in my misspent youth, but I can't actually remember it.

Which just goes to show that my subconscious is doing an EXCELLENT job.

[azurelunatic]

When I was fifteen, I considered this book enjoyable literature. Though that might have been influenced by the fact that the adorable redheaded sexy wizard was named Shana, and my adorable brunette sensible sexy mixed-imaginary-race telepathic imaginary friend (who, amazingly, pre-dated my reading of this book) was named Shanna.

[jinian]

Even your name is in all caps.

Inherent allcapsness is the best and only explanation for MERCEDES LACKEY.

[vass]

In 1996 she shifted to uncomfortably explicit giant bird/human stuff in The Eagle and the Nightingales. It's always awkward when you read a scene in which the human heroine and the giant sapient eagle hero get it on and his penis is described in loving detail and you remember that the author is a raptor rehabilitator who works with eagles and also has a whole bunch of pet birds at home.

ETA: and then there was Brightly Burning in 2000. See icon for specifics.

[havocthecat]

Gosh, I'm so sad that I gave up on Mercedes Lackey somewhere about 1994 or 1995. So very sad.

[snarp]

I read Brightly Burning in high school unaware that it was going to be a romantic reimagining of A Horse and His Boy.

[holyschist]

Strangely enough, actual eagles have cloaca. No penises.

But I guess giant duckmen wouldn't be as...something.

[inkstone]

Wait. I think I read this book! All I seem to remember though was the human concubines fighting over the elf lord and sabotaging each other? I seem to recall a scene where the interior decorating changed depending on which woman was the favored one...

[snarp]

The upholstery's color scheme turned bold and fiery to indicate that he now liked the heroine's evil mother.

[inkstone]

OMG YES.

[havocthecat]

I SUFFERED THROUGH THAT BOOK. I also skipped the rest of the books in that series.

[scribbled_lore]

I think I own this book somewhere in the boxes and boxes of books that have never been unpacked. I remembered reading it and not really understanding what the hell was going on but I stuck it out for the dragons and a feeling of duty and obligation - I started the book, right? So I totally had to finish it.

...

This duty and obligation has lead me to read a lot of really awful books.

[azurelunatic]

It was a glorious day when I realized that I could ragequit books.

[armiphlage]

...

I did not realize that I could until you pointed it out.

Excuse me, I will be joyously flinging books out of my "To-Finish-Reading" pile.

[brownbetty]

I remember that one! There was that uncomfortable "I can see your id" feeling, except that my own id was like "I approve! ...no wait, I don't think this is going to work for me."

[chomiji]

*snerk!*

I have to thank Lackey for the way she made the teen years bearable for so many gay kids in my generation and shortly thereafter. But ... I can barely look at her books at this point.

[katherine]

I'd forgotten about the unicorns. But the dragon bullying remains in my mind.