porphyrin asks:

These are books that aren't written, haven't been written, and I'm not sure will ever be written.... What books do you WANT with a WANT for which all other wants become pale shadows?

I find my answers there were incomplete. I'll do better justice here.

First, I'm cadging porphyrin's first two:

1. Doris Egan/Jane Emerson - City of Pearl, City of Opal
Doris Egan/Jane Emerson - the next 3 Ivory books

2. Kate Elliot - the next Jaran novel

Adding in my one's from the comments:

3. Another Sharon Shinn Truthteller-world book.

4. I *really* long for another Cynthia Voigt Kingdom book.

And the ones I'm adding here:

5. I have dreams where I come around the corner at the library and discover that there's a whole shelf of Jane Austen books I've never heard of, and nearly fall down weeping with joy.

6. Jo Walton was saying for a while that she was writing Mansfield Park in space... I want that.

7. Another Damar book from McKinley. Perhaps such a thing is too much to wish for--I don't want another Deerskin, for all that it's a great book--its Damar connection seems very pale. I want another full on mate for Blue Sword & Hero and the Crown.

8. McKinley again: sequel to Sunshine. OMFG. NEED. WANT. SIGH.

9. Something I suspect is coming soon enough: Megan Whalen Turner's next Attolia book.

10. The full story of Elestra and what I would hope would be the redemptive romance with Flauvic Merindar from Sherwood Smith. I guess that's not what happens, based on what the Sartoras-deles wiki says, but I can dream.

11. I wouldn't mind a sensical additional prose book or two about the Dark Tower from Stephen King, but I think he would just Stephen-King it up, and that would suck. (As I complained elsewhere recently, I wish King would trust that he writes compelling characters, and that I enjoy the heck out of them, and I don't need horrible dooms to fall upon them to be interested in their lives.) That said, I'd also be excited to see a sequel to Cell.

A new feature on my book list... today I will start talking about my favorite authors. Only because I was thinking of Robin McKinley.

I was just thinking about Spindle's End, and how I hadn't bothered to buy a copy (I borrowed Julie's). Strange. Every other McKinley book I've bought pretty much as soon as I saw it. But events conspired, and I didn't buy it (I'd no money at the time, for one thing). And I didn't feel a compulsion to, after I read Julie's copy. And I should buy it. Because, while some of McKinley's books are great on the first read (Beauty, The Blue Sword), and some aren't (aforementioned Spindle's End for starters), all are great on the second, third, fourth, N+1 reads thereafter. I can't think of anything I've ever read of hers that didn't stand up to a reread. I know that I liked Deerskin, The Hero and the Crown and Rose Daughter better the second time around, and even better than that on the third.

I recognize this may be a personal reaction... but anything that improves upon rereading is a really good book. Anything where you may not have caught everything on the first pass-through; anything that can surprise you again; anything that can make you love the characters even more for knowing their whole stories; anything where further exposure endears the character instead of makes you hate him; these are all the elements that make really good, solid writing in my mind. I don't know if it's great literature or not (after all, I disagree with the experts about what is 'great'-- [and that's a whole 'nother entry/rant, but let me just say, the next person who tries to pretentiously tell me Shakespeare is over-rated and Joyce is under-rated are both going to get slugged in the gut by one Me; same with the next person who tries to dismiss Austen with "nothing ever happens" and raise the twentieth century literary gods above their nineteenth century masters... wow, I digress]). I repeat: I don't know if it's great literature, or not, but it's how I want to write.

And that's my rough tribute to one of my favorite authors, Robin McKinley.