Jonathan Moeller's Blog, page 286
July 11, 2014
CHILD OF THE GHOSTS on BookBub
CHILD OF THE GHOSTS, the first book in THE GHOSTS series, is getting featured on BookBub today. Because of that, we’re having a limited-time sale for the weekend. Get CHILD OF THE GHOSTS for free, and get the second book, GHOST IN THE FLAMES for $0.99, and the third book, GHOST IN THE BLOOD, also for $0.99. Links below!
-JM
July 7, 2014
175,000th book
I did some math yesterday, and it turns out that in June I sold my 175,000th ebook.
That’s…rather more than I expected. Thanks everyone!
-JM
July 5, 2014
FROSTBORN: THE IRON TOWER table of contents
Just about one week out from FROSTBORN: THE IRON TOWER if all goes well. Until then, here’s the Table of Contents.
The brief prologue is told from the perspective of the Warden of Urd Morlemoch.
A brief prologue
Chapter 1 – The Soulstone
Chapter 2- Fire and Stealth
Chapter 3 – The Assassin
Chapter 4 – Unyielding
Chapter 5 – Half-Blooded
Chapter 6 – A Dark Seed
Chapter 7 – A Jade Bracelet
Chapter 8 – The Artificer
Chapter 9 – Purpose
Chapter 10 – It Would Be A Mercy
Chapter 11 – Ascension
Chapter 12 – Persuasion
Chapter 13 – Haggling
Chapter 14 – A Branched Path
Chapter 15 – Shadows
Chapter 16 – Water Gate
Chapter 17 – Assault
Chapter 18 – Shadows’ Fury
Chapter 19 – Reborn
Chapter 20 – Metamorphosis
Chapter 21 – I Am You
Chapter 22 – Fire and Iron
Chapter 23 – The Assassin and the Thief
Chapter 24 – The Choice
Epilogue
-JM
July 3, 2014
FROSTBORN and the halflings
A reader asked a good question about how “halfling servants” work in the FROSTBORN books, so I thought I’d post the answer here as well:
The “halflings” of FROSTBORN are basically hobbits – smaller and quicker and more agile than humans or orcs, but physically weaker. Because of that, they were originally the slaves of the dark elves and the orcs, and then when the urdmordar conquered the dark elves they basically used the halflings as food and herd animals. So when the humans arrived and defeated the urdmordar, the halflings swore eternal loyalty to the High King and his nobles. By the time the FROSTBORN books start, many noble houses have families of halfling servants that go back for generations, and newer nobles and richer commoners will try to hire halfling servants as a “prestige” thing, like an 19th century English industrialist hiring a butler, a housekeeper, and footmen in imitation of the old aristocracy.
There are human servants (one can’t always hire a halfling) and halflings that don’t work as servants. But in the culture the halfings have developed within Andomhaim, devoted service to their liberators (or the descendants of their liberators, at any rate) is seen as the highest and most honorable calling.
Of course, not all halflings agree with that.
The halflings don’t turn up much in the first few books, but they’re a major plot point in THE MASTER THIEF and THE IRON TOWER, and a halfling is one of the main viewpoint characters in THE MASTER THIEF.
-JM
July 1, 2014
So what is GHOST IN THE HUNT about?
Now that GHOST IN THE MAZE has been out for a month, a few people have asked what GHOST IN THE HUNT will be about. A brief teaser follows, but note that it HAS SPOILERS for all THE GHOSTS books so far!
Caina is the Ghost circlemaster of Istarinmul, but by the time GHOST IN THE HUNT starts, she’s been on her own for nearly a year with no contact from the Empire or the other Ghosts, which means she’s been able to do essentially whatever she wants. That changes in GHOST IN THE HUNT when the Empire’s new Lord Ambassador arrives in Istarinmul.
And the reason the Emperor finally sent a new Lord Ambassador to Istarinmul is because of the civil war within the Empire.
All the rumors Caina heard about a civil war within the Empire are true. In the aftermath of the Moroaica’s great work, a rebel group of magi calling themselves the Umbarian Order split away from the Magisterium and seized the eastern third of the Empire, and want to wipe out both the Magisterium and the Imperial nobility and rule the Empire themselves. The Umbarians practice every form of forbidden sorcery – necromancy, pyromancy, oneiromancy, and others – and have also reinstitued slavery in the provinces they control. The Umbarians have the most powerful sorcerers, but the Emperor and the Magisterium have more magi, and far more regular soldiers as well. So the civil war is a stalemate right now.
However, the Umbarians have sent an ambassador to Istarinmul, hoping to convince the Padishah to side with the Umbarian Order against the Empire. So the new Lord Ambassador’s mission is to keep Istarinmul from siding with the Umbarian Order, no matter how drastic the measures – and he needs Caina’s help to do it.
But Caina, for her part, knows that Grand Master Callatas is the true power in Istarinmul, and Grand Master Callatas doesn’t want a war so he can focus on preparing his mysterious Apotheosis (whatever that is). However, Caina has inadvertently handed the Umbarians a huge negotiating advantage. Callatas needs slaves to create wraithblood, but Caina has so terrorized the Slavers’ Brotherhood that the price of slaves in Istarinmul has skyrocketed. And if Istarinmul goes to war against the Empire, the Umbarians will give Callatas all the slaves he could possibly need.
So Caina needs to keep Istarinmul from joining the war against the Empire, because otherwise the Umbarians will destroy the Empire, and Callatas will be able to finish the Apotheosis.
And then things get really complicated…
If all goes well, I should be able to start on GHOST IN THE HUNT in July.
-JM
June 30, 2014
FROSTBORN, computer games, and ICEWIND DALE
Now closing out the day with some classic ICEWIND DALE.
I really like dungeon crawl RPGs. If you’ve ever read any of the FROSTBORN books, this fact is evident given the amount of time the protagonists spend in dwarven and dark elven ruins. 
Actually, in the first version of the FROSTBORN outline, the entire book series was supposed to be one massive dungeon crawl. In the original conception, Ridmark was a knight unjustly accused of murder, and sentenced to die by banishment to a massive Moria-like dungeon. In every book he would descend to a deeper level of the dungeon. I eventually decided that the idea could not stand on its own and so modified it quite a bit, but I still like the idea of a series of books covering one massive dungeon crawl.
-JM
June 29, 2014
June 25, 2014
cover art and book description for FROSTBORN: THE IRON TOWER
If all goes well, we should see FROSTBORN: THE IRON TOWER available in July!
RIDMARK ARBAN is the Gray Knight, questing to stop the return of the terrible Frostborn to the High King’s realm. Yet the soulstone, the instrument of the return of the Frostborn, has been stolen by a ruthless cult and secured within the grim fortress of the Iron Tower.
And Ridmark must risk everything to retrieve it.
MARA wishes only to live peacefully. Yet her father was a dark elven wizard of power, and his shadow-tainted blood flows through her veins, threatening to transform her into a monster.
Yet that is not the greatest danger she faces.
For the Iron Tower was once home to an ancient evil, an evil that desires to claim the power in her blood…
June 23, 2014
a comment on the FROSTBORN books
Today I would like to highlight a nice comment someone left about the FROSTBORN series on my website this weekend:
“We need more fantasy books with great adventures. The recent trend of angels, vampires and hopeless teenage girls has been flogged to death already and creates the wrong impression of the genre. I mean fantasy is an accommodating genre and all books have their place, but it shouldn’t be associated only with Twilight imitations.”
I agree, which is one of the reasons I wrote FROSTBORN. I had always wanted to do a big epic fantasy with elves and orcs and wizards and such, but since publishers mostly do not buy such books any longer, I never had the chance before the age of ebooks began. What I wanted to do was to write a book series that recreated the feel of a really epic RPG adventure, the sort that extends over several years.
Anyway, I am glad that I have (apparently) succeeded so far, and I hope to continue to do so with the rest of the series!
-JM
June 19, 2014
FROSTBORN: THE IRON TOWER rough draft is finished!
The rough draft of FROSTBORN: THE IRON TOWER is done! 95,000 words in 22 days, for an average of 4,300 words a day.
I think this book might need a Spoiler Discussion Thread once it’s out.
-JM
