I'm feeling much better...

[stillsostrange]

DANGER, WILL ROBINSON! The comment thread now contains spoilers for the Necromancer Chronicles!

The Bone Palace CEM is finished and back in the loving arms of Orbit's production team. I can now ignore it again until the page proofs get here. Of course, as soon as I had 24 hours to finish the copy edits, I thought of an epilogue. Oh well--it'll be a website extra.

Now I need to finish my half of a Shadow Unit episode, and then get seriously back to work on Kingdoms of Dust. This may mean beating some faeries to death with a stick, because they will not leave me alone.

Since I suck so much at providing blog content, is there anything anyone wants me to talk about? Questions about TDC, or anything else? Cat photos? Until then, I'll be on an archaeological dig in the back of my fridge.

Comments

[saladinahmed.livejournal.com]

"is there anything anyone wants me to talk about? Questions about TDC"

Hey, sure, I'll bite! Here's a bunch of semi-random questions. Anything here that sounds nitpicky, BTW, should be taken in the larger context of my having just loved this book -- Necromancer Chronicles is totally on my very short must-read series list now.

****SPOILERS BELOW!!!******

-In TDC, there's a VERY brief allusion (when Isylt says something like 'I've never met one of you') to the fact that Adam is a half-breed and might in fact be something more than human. The thing is, we were n Isylt's POV when she asked him about this, so I'd have liked to have shared her knowledge about the race [?] that Adam's human half is mixed with. Are you willing to say any more about this here? Is this something we'll see more of in later books?

-Are the jinn in this world a subspecies (as it were) of spirit, or are they something distinct from both humans and spirits? What about the nakh? Does this world have other sentient corporeal races (as opposed to spirits)? Do they have civilizatins/territories if so?

- I didn't actually read the sample chapter of the next book (I never do that when they're offered, for various reasons). But I assume Isylt will still be our main character? Will the next books also be multiple-POV, and have we already been introduced to any of the other characters from whose POV we'll be reading from?

- Is the conflict with the Assari Empire still a major focus of subsequent books? BTW,I like very much thus far what I've seen of the Assari in that you haven't (yet?) engaged in a lot of the stereotypes that fantasy writers use when depicting their quasi-Islamic cultures. Sure the Assari are 'the bad guys' to some degree, but they have a Senate (instead of just being fanatical Eastern despots), and they are capable of having an Empress (instead of being oh-so-more sexist than the Euro-analogue culture). Good show!

Really looking forward to future volumes....

[stillsostrange.livejournal.com]

My dream is to someday get enough of these for a FAQ. Okay:

1) That is pretty much a failing of the author not knowing enough at the time to be more insightful. When I started TDC, Adam had POV and I assumed that his background would get expanded on. As it became clear that his personal arc wasn't strong enough to warrant it, I cut his scenes, but not that random reference. But! Adam gets POV in Book 3 (Kingdoms of Dust), and I will sort out his backstory therein.

2) The jinn are a culture of spirits, as I have it envisioned, one of many. So are the nakh, and the fox-women, and the river spirits, and so on. "Spirit" is a catch-all as used by many of the humans in these books (even ones who should know better) ignoring a lot of differences. Many spirits have the ability to become corporeal (the better to eat you), or move between what humans see as two separate worlds at will. The jinn also figure heavily in Book 3, and maybe ghouls too if I'm lucky.

3) Isyllt is the MC in all three, with new supporting POVs in each. One of the new POVs in The Bone Palace (Isyllt's boss Kiril) has been mentioned, but the other is new. Book 3 has Adam, and other characters from TDC.

4) Thank you. I'm glad I didn't fuck that up too badly. I was trying for "political antagonists" instead of "eeeevil villains". Assar doesn't get any spotlight in Bone Palace, but is the main setting for Kingdoms. I will try not to do anything too jack-assed. (I get sick of stories where women face the same struggles over and over, no matter how relevant those issues are now--it's spec fic, for cod's sake! So I just said no to institutionalized sexism in most of this world.)

I hope that's helpful, and not too parenthetical.

[mr-earbrass.livejournal.com]

At one point you mention ginger beer in TDC--is this ginger beer ala Gosling (non-alcoholic) or a beer brewed with ginger ala Left Hand's Juju Ginger? I ask because I am thirsty and love ginger, and if there is some sort of IRL analog I would love to know about it. MOre questions when I'm not exhausted and dehydrated.

[stillsostrange.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty sure I meant non-alcoholic at the time, but now I want beer brewed with ginger very badly. All I have are lemon ginger cookies.

[ammitnox.livejournal.com]

You could make do with a Moscow Mule (NA ginger beer + vodka).