Midnight Sun, Edward’s Version of ‘Twilight,’ to be Published August 2020

May 4, 2020 by 3 Comments

There has been a countdown page at Stephenie Meyer’s Fickle Fish Films Facebook page the last thirty days and today we at last got the payoff. It was announced that the long awaited Midnight Sun, the Edward Cullen perspective of the events in Twilight, the first book in the Forks Saga, will be published on 4 August 2020.

This manuscript has an interesting history. Meyer was writing it in 2008 when beta chapters, the first twelve, were released by her trusted readers to the internet. She then gave up on writing the book and put up a pdf of the draft chapters on her website. That draft is not available this morning at StephenieMeyer.com (check here to see if it is now). She talked about it again in 2015 but balked at publication.

Read the news about the new Twilight at The Guardian, Entertainment Weekly, and USA Today. The TwiHards on Twitter, of course, are losing their minds with excitement. Me? I’m looking forward to it, frankly, for two reasons.

First, I’ve read the Midnight Sun draft chapters and more than once. It was an important part of my writing Spotlight: A Close Up Look at the Artistry and Meaning of Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight Saga. I’d love to read, to experience Jacob’s perspective on the finale in the room of mirrors. I’m a fan and a serious reader of the series; of course I want to read the complete Midnight Sun. I have a three ring binder on my Twilight shelf with a print out of the drafts.

Last, Meyer is a student, nay, a disciple of Orson Scott Card, the other best-selling Latter-day Saint writer of our times. Her favorite book is Speaker for the Dead, part of Card’s Ender’s Game series, and she claims to have read at least twice everything Card has written. Check out his bibliography to understand what that means. One of Card’s signature moves? Re-telling stories from his various series from the perspective of other characters in that story.

My only question is, “Why now?” Besides it being International Star Wars Day (‘May the Fourth Be With You’). Is it the fifteenth anniversary of Twilight’s release? Or the failure of Meyer’s other books to take off?  I doubt sales of her The Host or The Chemist will ever approach those of Twilight or even pay back her advance from hopeful publishers. Or is that just a cheap shot at a target that is more abused than given her due?

Let me know your thoughts on Midnight Sun in the comment boxes below. Hat-tip to James, my contact in Twilight fandom, for letting me know about the count-down page and this morning’s announcement.

 

Filed Under: Twilight

New Book Covers for Hogwarts Saga: The Japanese and Thai 2020 Editions

May 3, 2020 by Leave a Comment

I am not a Harry Potter collector. I did buy a Harry Potter plastic plate at Nimbus 2003 in Orlando for my then two year old son, but, besides that, all I have bought from Rowling, Inc., has been her books and books by Potter Pundits and profiteers about her books. I have the Latin and Greek (ancient, not modern) translations, I confess, and can say in my defense I have twice used the Lapis Philosophi in teaching upper level Latin.

Anyway, lots of books and none of the myriad translations and anniversary or special editions in English or other languages.

2020 is the 20th anniversary of the publication of Harry Potter in both Japan and Thailand. The publishers in those countries have put out an entire new run of the seven book series (eleven in Japan because they made each of the last four books into two volume editions) with exciting, vibrant covers.

HarryPotterFanZone.com has posted all the cover illustrations for the Japanese series here and for the Thai set here with information about the illustrators, etc. I do not know what the old set looked like but these are quite good. I posted here in this post the two book covers that left me scratching my head and having to look twice to figure out the scene illustrated (many of the wonderfully stylized Thai covers fall into this category).

Let me know what you think! Better than Grand Pre or the Bloomsbury covers?

Filed Under: Hog Pro Notes

Rowling Donates £1 Million to Charities on Battle of Hogwarts Anniversary

May 2, 2020 by Leave a Comment

In terms of Rowling’s net worth, of course, £1 million is peanuts. She once owned a yacht, just as a ‘for example,’ worth $28 million dollars (which she supposedly sold at a $10 million loss).

I begin with that note to anticipate nay-sayers wanting to downplay this characteristically generous and thoughtful gift on Rowling’s part. This is £1 million on top of the many millions she gives annually to Volant Charities and to Lumos — and the incredible income tax burden she bears without complaint or dodges (she pays 50% of her earnings which made last year’s bill £48.6 million — that’s $60 million, folks).

This gift will make a tremendous difference in the lives of the homeless and those suffering from domestic violence during this quarantine. And that is something we all should acknowledge, a gift to those in need for which we can be openly appreciative sans snark.

So, hats off and three cheers on this Battle of Hogwarts Anniversary for the thoughtfulness of The Presence. Thank you, Mrs Murray, for the good example.

Filed Under: Twitter

Forced Confessions (Benson & De Vere)

May 1, 2020 by Leave a Comment

I wrote last August that perhaps the best alternative to thinking about a Cormoran Strike novel we do not have would be reading and discussing the Benson and De Vere courtroom drama and detection thrillers by John Fairfax, the nom de plume of William Brodrick. There are, as I wrote then, some fascinating parallels between the Strike and Benson books and Galbraith/Fairfax:

The points of correspondence?

  • Brodrick had written six novels with a character, Father Anselm, and in a genre-melange largely of his invention. These novels had won him an international audience and all the awards the industry bestows. He adopts a transparent pseudonym, ‘John Fairfax,’ to take up a new character, William Benson, in a different if related genre.
  • Each of the Benson novels are satisfying stand-alone court room dramas told against the back-drop of the lead character’s mysterious personal history, to which story the attentive reader is given clues in each book.
  • While Benson is the star of the show and his mystery is the over-arching mystery, he has an assistant, Tess de Vere, who is a more than capable barrister herself, has her own personal enigmas the reader has to work out, and their relationship is strictly professional with hints that it will become ‘more than that.’
  • Benson is damaged goods, though. He is a lawyer licensed to plea in the Old Bailey, yes, but he is also a convicted murderer who pleaded guilty, did hard time, and is still very much in recovery from that experience. De Vere and Benson, according to the author, are on parallel and separate journeys of redemption that may intersect at times.
  • The man’s name is ‘Benson,’ right? Can you hear Shanker’s nickname for Strike there? ‘Bunsen’?

I’ll allow that the last point is a little weak.

The good news is that, unlike Rowling/Galbraith and Strike5, Brodrick/Fairfax has already announced the third Benson and De Vere novel title and publication date: Forced Confessions will be available on 5 March 2020.

Between thesis writing and Covid-19, alas, my best laid plans for prolonged discussion of the first two books before the publication of the third have all gang aglay. (Except for this one post.) I have ordered Forced Confessions, however, and look forward to reading it and to discussion here after I do.

Please join me in that and, if you haven’t already, read or re-read (or listen to) the brilliant first two Benson novels, Summary Justice and Blind Defence!

Filed Under: Benson and De Vere

Rowling Says She Had Corona Virus?

April 30, 2020 by Leave a Comment

Read the whole thread here.

This is perhaps the single most important tweet The Presence has made since returning to Twitter because it seems to have disarmed the Horrible Herd of Social Media Puritans, who, up to this time and since Rowling’s transgender rights tweet last December, had been standing by to shout “TERF!” and “Transphobe!” in response to anything she posted. The news that she had had something like Covid-19 symptoms (good disciple of UK taboos, she chose to stay home rather than receive a confirmed diagnosis — thereby “saving the NHS”) simultaneously empowered the faithful to express their love and concern with best wishes posted from around the world on the thread.

And she came back and is posting on Twitter almost daily — a mixed blessing, I think, but a notable event. Your thoughts?

Filed Under: Twitter