Jonathan Moeller's Blog, page 15

GHOST IN THE ASSEMBLY: inspirations and sources

!!!SPOILERS!!! follow for GHOST IN THE ASSEMBLY. So if you haven’t finished GHOST IN THE ASSEMBLY yet, STOP READING!

I thought it would be interesting to write about some of the ideas and influences that went into GHOST IN THE ASSEMBLY.

I have to admit it took me a few years of thinking between GHOST NIGHT and GHOST ARMOR to figure out how to write more Caina books because Caina had become a political figure, and political figures typically do bad things for personal advancement and then lie about it. That is, in some ways, the essential definition of a political figure.

This is hard to write as a sympathetic protagonist.

Of course, I eventually realized the way around this. The success of a political figure cannot be judged by their personal morality or even their political morality, but by the results of their decisions. Therefore, I just needed to write a political figure who did somewhat sketchy things (like subverting the Kyracian Houses via buying up their debt) in the name of the greater good of the people (defending them from the impending Caphtori attack).

I’ve frequently said that if you want to write a good fantasy novel, you should try to stick to about like fifteen to twenty-five percent of the actual harshness of the past. Like, you don’t want to go Full Grimdark, but you don’t want your fantasy world to be indistinguishable from a typical twenty-first century parliamentary democracy.

So for GHOST IN THE ASSEMBLY, I went for about fifteen to twenty percent of the experience of ancient Greek democracy.

For the entire time that New Kyre and the Kyracians have been in the series (GHOST IN THE STORM was way the heck back in 2012, and the Kyracians were mentioned before that), they’ve always been very loosely based on the democracy of ancient Athens. In fact, the very name “Assembly of New Kyre” comes from ancient Athens, where the gathering of voting citizens was called the “ecclesia”, which translates into English as “Assembly.” Interestingly, this is also the origins of the word “ecclesiastical” in terms of a church, since one of the first words for a church was “eccelesia” in the sense of the “assembly of the believers in Christ.”

Athens wasn’t the first ancient Greek democracy, but it was one of the most successful. It was also one of the democracies that self-destructed in the most spectacularly dramatic fashion possible – the Athenians decided to convert the Delian League from an alliance of city-states into their own private empire, a demagogue convinced them to waste enormous resources on attacking Syracuse in Sicily, which ended disastrously, and the Athenians were eventually defeated by the more militaristic Spartans.

People have debated for centuries whether or not this means democracy is inferior to the Spartans’ harsher system, but that overlooks the key fact that a few decades later, Athens, Sparta, and all the rest of the Greek city-states were conquered by the Macedonians anyway. I suppose the actual lesson is that a city-state, regardless of government, is no match for a larger centralized state with better leaders and better military organization. In fact, historically city-states tend to eventually get subsumed into larger political entities. If they last for a long time, it tends to be because of geography (like in ancient Greece) or because of weak and/or remote central authority, like the medieval Italian city-states, which were ostensibly under the authority of the Holy Roman Emperor but in practice tended to do whatever they wanted. (Places like modern Vatican City tend to be special exceptions.)

Caina’s criticism of the Assembly of New Kyre is that it’s not as egalitarian as it pretends and is easily swayed by both demagogues and bribes. The Athenian assembly of citizens had both those problems, but far worse. You needed to have a substantial level of property to be allowed to vote, and there were numerous examples of the votes swinging on bribes or last-minute orations. The Athenian assembly was easily swayed into making bad decisions, such as supporting the disastrous attack on Syracuse during the Peloponnesian War that was the start of Athens’ downfall.

In GHOST IN THE ASSEMBLY, Lady Eirenea Tritos is one of the nine chief magistrates of the city, but in Athenian democracy, women were not allowed to vote and they most definitely were not allowed to hold political office. The ancient Greeks in general did not have a very high opinion of women – one Greek orator said that men had wives to produce legitimate heirs, concubines to attend to the body’s “daily needs”, and prostitutes for pleasure.

Because of things like that, I thought a setting with a hundred percent of the harshness of ancient Greece would be off-putting to the reader, so I shot for between fifteen and twenty-five percent. New Kyre is definitely richer, better governed, and less elitist and chauvinistic than the ancient Greeks. That said, New Kyre isn’t an egalitarian place – nobles have vastly more rights and money than commoners, and both nobles and commoners own slaves, and only the poorest commoners own no slaves. Indeed, slavery is so common in New Kyre that the other nobles see Kylon’s decision that House Kardamnos will have no slaves as the sign of malevolent foreign influence.

Kalliope’s fear that she could be dispossessed and Kylon simply take her children is very real – if Kylon wanted, he could probably keep Kalliope from seeing Nikarion and Zoe ever again, though that would inevitably put him in conflict with Lysikas Agramemnos and Kalliope is charismatic enough to win powerful allies to her side. If Kylon did in fact refuse to allow Kalliope to see their children, he might well set off a civil war. But Kylon, who lost both his parents when he was young, doesn’t want to deprive his children of a loving mother.

Of course, the ancient Greeks never had to fight the Red Krakens and orcs. The Red Krakens, the Caphtori, are kind of written like snake-worshipping Vikings. In fact the Caphtori are inspired by the “Sea Peoples”, pirates that seemed to have contributed to the collapse of Bronze Age civilization. Historians argue endlessly about the impact of the Sea Peoples or whether they existed at all, but if they did exist, they might well have been proto-Ancient Greeks. Since having one ancient Greek-esque group fighting another would be confusing, I made the Caphtori/Red Krakens more like Vikings. Which I suppose is a bit of historical anachronism, but GHOST ARMOR is a constructed world with elves, orcs, and sorcerers, so it’s not like I’m writing period-accurate historical fiction here.

So these are some of the influences that went into GHOST IN THE ASSEMBLY. I don’t have any grand point here. Though I should mention that for a while I was a graduate student in medieval history, and I hated the experience so much I went into IT instead. That said, decades later, it has proven a useful source of plot ideas for fantasy novels, so it worked out in the end.

One final note – a reader suggested that Kalliope Agramemnos and Mardun Scorneus might hook up in later books, and I admit I laughed at that suggestion. Kalliope would react with dismay at the thought of marrying anyone other than an extremely high ranking Kyraican noble, and at the prospect of marrying Kalliope, Mardun would think about it, fake his death, and flee back to the Empire, preferring to take his chances with the Magisterium rather than Kalliope.

Anyway, thanks for reading GHOST IN THE ASSEMBLY! I am grateful so many people have enjoyed the book.

-JM

SHIELD OF BATTLE underway!

Now that GHOST IN THE ASSEMBLY is done, my next main project is SHIELD OF BATTLE, the fifth book in THE SHIELD WAR series.

Currently I am 37,000 words into the book, which puts me on Chapter 8 of 24. I don’t think it will be quite as long as SHIELD OF DECEPTION, but it should end up around 100,000 words or so.

I am hoping to have it out in April, but we’ll see how things go.

-JM

Question of the Week – Fantasy Settings

It’s time for Question of the Week, which is designed to inspire enjoyable discussions of interesting topics.

This week’s question – what is your favorite style of fantasy setting? Like a more high fantasy one like Middle-Earth or the Forgotten Realms, urban fantasy like the Dresden Files or Kate Daniels, more steampunk like Eberron, and so on?

No wrong answers, obviously.

For myself, I think my favorite would be a pre-industrial setting with a lot of city-states and various dangerous magic. Like you can have a barbarian hero wandering from city-state to city-state, with monster-infested ruins and wilderness between them. When he gets to the city-states, he can fight corrupt sorcerers, arrogant nobles, and thieves’ guilds, and then move on to a new adventure in the next book. So basically a sword-and-sorcery style setting.

-JM

The Pulp Writer Show, Episode 243: Creating Series Bibles

In this week’s episode, we take a look at the pros and cons of creating a series bible, and how it can potentially help when writing a book.

You can listen to the show with transcript at the official Pulp Writer Show site, and you can also listen to it at Spotify, Apple Podcasts , Amazon Music, and Libsyn.

-JM

Coupon of the Week, 3/17/2025

Once again it is time for Coupon of the Week!

This coupon code will get you 25% off the ebooks of the GHOST NIGHT series at my Payhip store:

GHOSTNIGHT25

The coupon code is valid through March 29th, 2025. So if you need a new book to read for spring, we’ve got you covered!

-JM

GHOST IN THE ASSEMBLY now available

I am very pleased to report that GHOST IN THE ASSEMBLY is now available at all ebook platforms!

You can get the book at Amazon US, Amazon UK, Amazon DE, Amazon CA, Amazon AU, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, Google Play, Apple Books, Payhip, and Smashwords.

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A city of corrupt lords. The plots of the serpent priests. If Caina cannot find her way through the maze, she will pay in blood.

Caina has come to the ancient city of New Kyre, seeking the masters of the deadly Cult of Rhadamathar.

But the lords of New Kyre are treacherous and too corrupt to act in the face of the serpent priests.

Unless Caina risks everything, the serpent priests will win a terrible and final victory…

###

“I wanted to fill my time in New Kyre with mindless hedonism,” said Mardun, “but boredom seems impossible with you and Calvia around.”

“If we live through this, I’m sure that Calvia will let you drink as much of her wine as you want,” said Caina. “This way.”

-JM

The Pulp Writer Show, Episode 242: Five Writing Lessons From Barnes & Nobles’ Turnaround

In this week’s episode, we take a look at five lessons for writers from Barnes & Nobles’ turnaround. I also discuss indie author advertising results from February 202

You can listen to the show with transcript at the official Pulp Writer Show site, and you can also listen to it at Spotify, Apple Podcasts , Amazon Music, and Libsyn.

-JM

Coupon of the Week, 3/10/25

Once again it is time for Coupon of the Week!

This coupon code will get you 50% off the audiobook of Dragonskull: Blade of the Elves, Book #3 in the Dragonskull series (as excellently narrated by Brad Wills), at my Payhip store:

BLADE50

The coupon code is valid through March 28, 2025. So if you need a new audiobook for spring, we’ve got you covered!

Video games & imagination

A speculative question today.

Surahbi writes to ask:

“Some video games are more complex and thoughtful, and they can even prompt new writing ideas. It’s something that’s been on my mind for a while, as an aspiring author, and I think I’d give some games a try just in case they give me plot or vibe ideas. Wondering what you think about that.”

I think the more space that a video game leaves for the imagination, the more plot or vibe ideas it will generate.

What do I mean by that?

Some games wouldn’t work well for that kind of thing. Something like THE LAST OF US or another very heavily narrative-driven game probably would not generate much in the way of plot ideas.

However, something like CIVILIZATION or MASTER OF ORION or a similar strategy game would generate more plot ideas, because your mind will construct a story out of the actions you take in the game. Like, THE LAST OF US or BALDUR’S GATE 3 has a story, though it’s more interactive than a movie. By contrast, a random or procedurally generated game might generate more plot ideas because your mind is constructing a story out of the random events of the game.

For example, in the fantasy tactical sim BATTLE BROTHERS, you play as the commander of a mercenary company making your way through a fantasy world, and the game world is randomly generated with each playthrough, with a plethora of random events. With your imagination, you could construct an entire epic around the random events of the game.

There are non-game products that have something of the same idea – like a deck of cards with different plot ideas, and you draw out the cards at random to build a plot.

But, as ever, it depends on how your particular imagination works.

That said, I still think execution of the idea is often more important than the idea itself. Like, the most popular plot in books is “good woman meets good man, complications prevent them from having a relationship, but they work through said complications in the end”, and that same core story has been retold millions of times. It’s the execution of the plot that matters more than the actual idea itself.

We’ve all read books that had interesting concepts and failed to deliver on them. All you really need to tell a story is a character, a situation, and a conflict for that character. The ideas are easy – writing them down in an interesting way is the hard part!

-JM

Ad Results February 2025

Let’s see how my various advertising campaigns did in February 2025.

February is generally a good month for advertising. Valentine’s Day and the Super Bowl drive some consumer spending, though not nearly as much as Christmas and Thanksgiving, so you can often have good results with ads.

First up, Facebook ads. In February I advertised both CLOAK GAMES/MAGE and THE GHOSTS on Facebook.

CLOAK GAMES/MAGE: $2.98 back for every dollar spent, with 6.8% of the profit coming from the audiobooks.

THE GHOSTS: $3.24 back for every dollar spent, with 15.4% of the profit coming from the audiobooks.

I also ran a few different Amazon ad campaigns. Remember that for an Amazon ad campaign to work, it needs to generate a sale (or a complete KU page readthrough) for every 6-8 clicks.

HALF-ELVEN THIEF: $2.30 back for every dollar spent, with a sale for every 0.68 clicks. (In other words, we had more total sales than we had clicks!)

STEALTH & SPELLS ONLINE: CREATION: $2.52 lost for every dollar spent, with a sale for every 8.1 clicks.

THE LINUX COMMAND LINE BEGINNER’S GUIDE: $1.86 back for every dollar spent, with a sale for every 1 click and 32% of the profit from the audiobook.

Here’s how badly I misjudged the LitRPG market with STEALTH & SPELLS ONLINE – the ads for HALF-ELVEN THIEF actually get more search terms for LitRPG related-searches than STEALTH & SPELLS actually does.

I ran Bookbub ads for SEVENFOLD SWORD and THE GHOSTS on Apple, and here’s how they did:

THE GHOSTS: $5.26 back for every $1 spent.

SEVENFOLD SWORD: $4.35 back for every $1 spent.

Finally, for the DEMONSOULED series, which is currently in KU, I did a combined Facebook/Amazon campaign.

DEMONSOULED: $2.58 for every $1 spent.

So good results all in all. And I didn’t actually lose that much money on STEALTH & SPELLS!

Thanks for reading, everyone!

-JM