I'm the person Laudre was referring to. It's been a long, long, time since I posted around here, and I didn't think I ever would again. A little reintroduction:

I was, at one time, Gryph's staunchest, most supportive fan. I was bugnuts for NXE, and am the aforementioned owner of the custom NXE ballcap. I had it made to wear to Eva panels at cons, hoping to stir some Shinji fanboys up. Unfortunately the lovingly reproduced Jet Alone Project pilot cap was a bit too obscure, apparently, even with the DJC initals on the back. I was also, once, a huge fan of UF, having read the entire thing through via the chronological listing more than once, and I was enraptured by Symphony.

I openly admit that I'm not as analytical or articulate as Laudre, and I can't explain what changed that made me stop reading Eyrie altogether until The Iron Age brought some of the old magic back. But... like that last sentence would imply, the magic was gone.

This wasn't solely the fault of Interlude on Titan, though that was pretty much where I said, "This is it until Apotheosis Now" and then after Apotheosis Now I said, "I'm done." Which was built up to by things in Symphony that it's been too long to recall exact details of, but mostly a slide in tone and literary quality that coincided, suspiciously, with Gryph's return to Maine. (The "meta-reason" Laudre alluded to.) We might be completely wrong about that, but people theorize, and it's what we had to work with.

All I can say about Interlude is that, throughout Symphony, I had identified strongly with Corwin, and I'd been losing that until this series of events cut the cord completely. I'm skimming it now to try to help myself make my point, but... the best I can come up with is that the first part where they're asking and agreeing has a forced awkwardness to it that bothers me, and then, during the doing, there's an idyllic lack of awkwardness that is equally disturbing. A far cry from the very natural tone that had been the Symphony's greatest attribute. Even in 2nd Symphony when things started blowing up, there was a natural smoothness to the characters that made it feel so believable, and that waned. I didn't even know Gryph'd ever gotten around to having Utena and Corwin get together. Something I wanted to see from the time I read the first words of Symphony 1, and I'm afraid of it now.

A quick word on villains: It's not that Gryph's villains are all that bad, it's just that they can seem that way when there's such an overwhelming array of ultra-powerful heroes.

Day of Infamy, WotOR, the disappointments piled up until I stopped. Something had changed, and if Gryph is happy with the change, then that's fine. It's his writing and I've long held that one should write only to please oneself, at least outside of doing it for a living. Two things that are noteworthy before I STFU, though: 1: I was -the- guy who stood up for Eyrie whenever the work was criticized in my presence, and I got alienated. I'm admittedly a singular sample, but that's indicative a major change. 2: Stuff that Gryph wrote outside the Eyrie unmbrella, such as his non-fiction anecdotes and stories he published in his blog, I still enjoyed greatly. This indicated to me that whatever the change was, it was limited to EPU storytelling, and not his writing in general. Like he was looking for something.