Jonathan Moeller's Blog, page 182

table of contents for SEVENFOLD SWORD: SERPENT!

I plan to publish two books in September, and I have a bunch of promotional stuff lined up which took a lot of planning.

But! Everything is ready to go. September’s going to be exciting.

Meanwhile, here is the Table of Contents for SEVENFOLD SWORD: SERPENT. Coming very soon!

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-JM

 

final writing updates for August 2018

My writing objectives for the final week of August:

-Completely wrap up SEVENFOLD SWORD: SERPENT.

-Completely wrap up SILENT ORDER: ARK HAND.

-Get to 50,000 words of GHOST IN THE AMULET.

Next week’s going to be fun!

GHOST IN THE AMULET and progress updates

Now 40k words into GHOST IN THE AMULET.

I’m very nearly completely finished with SEVENFOLD SWORD: SERPENT and SILENT ORDER: ARK HAND, and as soon as those are done, it’s full speed ahead on GHOST IN THE AMULET!

-JM

FROSTBORN Reader Question: What Happened To The Matriarch?

A reader has a question about The Matriarch from the FROSTBORN series. Note that the question and answer both contain !!!SPOILERS!!! for FROSTBORN and SEVENFOLD SWORD, so if you haven’t read those books you should stop reading this post right now.

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Now, the question!

“I’ve always wondered, did High King Arandar every try to get Mara & the Dragon Knight to try & kill the Matriarch of the Red Family of Cintarra?”

Nah. High King Arandar has had much bigger and more immediate concerns for the eight years of his reign to date. He had to drive back the remaining medvarth and khaldjari, and there were quite a few medvarth left over after the defeat of the Frostborn. He also had to deal with the aftereffects of the civil war – something like half of Andomhaim’s nobles had been killed in the space of two years, so Arandar needed to find and appoint loyal men to hold the various lands. Plus, both the Mhorites and the Qazaluuskan orcs launched major attacks, and the dvargir are ever eager to exploit any chaos for their own profit. He also needs to figure out marriages for his children, because when you’re the High King of Andomhaim, who your son marries is a Big Deal.

And then the Shield Knight and the Keeper disappeared! That’s a problem, too.

Reader Question: Third vs Mara vs Selene

A reader writes with a question about what happened in SEVENFOLD SWORD: SORCERESS. Naturally, if you haven’t read SEVENFOLD SWORD: SORCERESS and wish to avoid !!!SPOILERS!!!, you should stop reading this post right now.

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All right, the question: the reader wanted to know why Mara and Third developed teleportation powers after their transformation, but Selene developed powers of illusion.

That is a good question! The answer is because the process involves 1.) a measure of random chance, 2.) the powers of the dark elven lord who fathered the urdhracos, and 3.) the personality of the urdhracos in question.

Third and Mara were both fathered by the Traveler. But Selene’s father was the Confessor, who has a different set of abilities and skills. (He’s also much closer to sane than the Traveler ever got, and considerably smarter.) So any of the Confessor’s children would have different aptitudes and strengths than the Traveler’s offspring. Also, the Confessor had the Sword of Water, which is one of the reasons that Selene can still cast spells and Third can’t (Mara never could). Random chance comes into play with it as well, which is why Mara has the Sight and Third and Selene do not.

Also, the individual mind of the urdhracos in question influences the transformation. Third is naturally more taciturn and grim, while Selene’s Extrovert Dial is turned all the way up to 11. So Third’s power manifested in a way in keeping with her personality, and so did Selene’s. Selene is fairly gregarious, and it’s even easier to be gregarious when you can make yourself look like anyone.

We’ll have more with both Third & Selene in SEVENFOLD SWORD: SERPENT in September!

-JM

SEVENFOLD SWORD parts I & II

Now that SEVENFOLD SWORD PART II is out in audiobook, you can listen to the first four SEVENFOLD SWORD books (CHAMPION, SWORDBEARER, WARLORD, and NECROMANCER) from start to finish for a grand total of 42 hours of listening enjoyment.

Like, suppose you drive an hour to work and an hour back, as many people I know do.

SEVENFOLD SWORD parts I & II will get you through an entire month of commuting!

Well worth the Audible credits, in my opinion.

SEVENFOLD SWORD PART II now available!

I am pleased to report that SEVENFOLD SWORD PART II is now available in audiobook! SEVENFOLD SWORD PART II combines SEVENFOLD SWORD: WARLORD and SEVENFOLD SWORD: NECROMANCER into an unabridged audiobook bundle for over 21 hours of listening enjoyment! Narrated by Steven Brand. Available at Audible, iTunes, Amazon US, Amazon UK, and Amazon AU!

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-JM

SEVENFOLD SWORD: SERPENT description

I think I’m far enough along to share the book description for SEVENFOLD SWORD: SERPENT!

The quest of the Seven Swords threatens to summon the malevolent New God…but other dark powers might seize the New God’s throne.

Ridmark Arban is the Shield Knight, questing to rescue his friends from the cruel dvargir slavers of Najaris.

But the slavers’ sinister master is far more powerful than a mere merchant, and his knowledge might destroy both the Shield Knight and the New God…

-JM

progress updates!

This is what I’m working on this week.

-Editing SEVENFOLD SWORD: SERPENT. That will hopefully come out in the first part of September.

-On a related topic, the audiobook of SEVENFOLD SWORD PART II (WARLORD and NECROMANCER) comes out on Tuesday!

-I’m on Chapter 8 of 13 of SILENT ORDER: ARK HAND. Hopefully that will come out in the second part of September.

-I’m on Chapter 6 of 20 of GHOST IN THE AMULET. Hopefully that will come out in October. GHOST IN THE AMULET will also be accompanied by CLOAK & GHOST: LOST GATE if everything goes according to plan.

-And if all goes well, I should have some more exciting audiobook news before the end of 2018.

-JM

Frostborn audiobooks

Over the last few days I’ve been listening to audiobook narrator auditions for FROSTBORN: THE DARK WARDEN, and I’ve received over 50 auditions, all of them quite good.

The audition script included this exchange from the book:

“You are a very dangerous little woman,” said Morigna.

“I know,” said Mara.

Did you know that there are at least 50 different possible line reads of “I know?” I didn’t, but I sure do now!