Simply because I had not read these books between writing them and a few days ago, when I started writing these postings, I felt unusually free to comment on them. I didn’t remember them, even as I approached the end of the books, therefore I am like any other reviewer. And as I don’t expect to be making more money from them, I’m not biased in that respect, either.
So I hope you will believe me when I say I recommend this series to other readers strongly. In fact, if I were not free from contracts, I would offer them for free in e-publishing.
To be more exact, let me add that you will probably enjoy them if you enjoy fantasy as it was written in the years prior to 1960 or so. When it wasn’t a genre as such, but a home for books that escaped genre.
And if you read them, don’t read them fast. I don’t think I meant them to be read fast.
But again, I don’t remember. I do remember that when I turned in the last manuscript, I felt completely emptied out, and felt that way for about a year afterwards.
I also felt, and this is embarrassing to admit because it sounds egotistical and arrogant, that in writing them I had justified my having been born.
I agree with your assessment of the LENS series. They had a profound spiritual impact on me, as few books have, and I’ve read thousands. In fact, I located your web site specifically to find out if you have since written any more books like them.
Doug, I can never do another series LIKE the Lens series. That was something that emptied me out of ‘things that must be said’ for many years. It did not cause my hiatus from writing – that was a spinal injury incurred by falling off a pony in the mountains – but for a few years after completing those three books, I thought I might have nothing more to say. Then I worried about having any years more to live for a while, but as I am still alive, I am still writing. I can only suggest, if you liked my secret autobiography (in which no single fact was true!) that you try Albatross and Shimmer, one of which is out on e-books and the other to follow shortly. They are another sort of disguised self-description, but of the person who survived the accident which was supposed to kill me, and therefore, are a new person’s disguised autobiography.These books are only half mine, I am happy to say. They are shared by a younger woman whom I know deeply but have not yet met in the flesh. Collaborations go like that.
To return the the Nazhurett series, I was assured by my agent that they would become classics, such as Tolkien’s work. That was almost thirty years ago. They fell un-promoted by Morrow, although I was paid very well, but they lay unknown, and only now am I receiving gifts of words like yours. I am very grateful for them. Thank you.
Ps: I did NOT ever intend for the reader to think of Nazhurett as an ugly dwarf. I was attempting to exhibit a man who had a poor self-opinion of himself. However, the cover artists took me seriously. That was an Oops.