snarp: small cute androgynous android crossing arms and looking very serious (Default)
Snarp ([personal profile] snarp) wrote2012-12-06 11:38 pm

Andre Norton and Mercedes Lackey ALLEGEDLY wrote a book together.

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.

[personal profile] scribbled_lore 2012-12-07 04:19 pm (UTC)(link)
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: Vivid pink Alaskan wild rose. (Default)

[personal profile] azurelunatic 2012-12-07 08:36 pm (UTC)(link)
It was a glorious day when I realized that I could ragequit books.
armiphlage: Ukraine (Default)

[personal profile] armiphlage 2012-12-07 08:48 pm (UTC)(link)
...

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.