M. Edward McNally's Blog

2014 Update

Good news! I’m out of the well!

Okay, technically I haven’t been trapped in a well. But astute observers may notice it has officially been one calendar year since my last post here. At that time, I was hoping to have the 6th book of the Norothian Cycle ready for release in 2014.

That’s when I fell in the well.

Metaphorically, I mean. The course of human events, life-the-universe-and-everything, so-forth-and-so-on, and here it is one year later and I definitely did not get a book out last year. Really, I hardly did any writing at all, which seems hard for me to imagine now, but there you go. How does an author accomplish nothing in a year? One day at a time, man. One day at a time.

BUT!

I am happy to say that I am back at work on B the 6 now, and as I did have quite a bit done before my sojourn in the literary Sahara, the ultimate release should not be all that far off, relatively speaking. I’m not ready to commit to any date, for fear of hamstringing myself if I try to hit a deadline. But Book Six of the Norothian Cycle, still (I think) titled John the Red, is forthcoming. I promise.

Now, back to wor-…. Oops, more Christmas shopping first…

Top Ten Reasons Book 6 of the Norothian Cycle will be available in 2014:

(as opposed to being out before the end of this year)

10.) Stocking supplies in case of blizzard in Phoenix

9.) Iffy wifi connection to space/time

8.) Chicago Bears still alive for playoffs

7.) Wait… I have to shop for Christmas? Isn’t it a religious holiday?

6.) My Muse ran off and joined a circus

5.) Congressional gridlock

4.) My thousand monkeys chained to a thousand typewriters unionized

3.) Spellcheck is down, I’m hoppless withowt it

2.) Excessively long line to see Santa at mall

And the #1 reason Book 6 of the Norothian Cycle will be out next year, not this year:

1.) My Spirit Totem is a Cheetah. This Cheetah.

Happy Holidays to you and yours, see you next year.

So You Survived Thanksgiving…Black Friday Ebook Sale!

SALE! SALE! SALE! Whether you are home sprawled on the couch, basking in the digestive process, or standing in line at a box store like cattle in a chute – do feel free to check out a wide variety of books, across multiple genres, all discounted for the holiday weekend to the low, low price of 99 cents, or even FREE!

And now, back to work on Book Six of the Norothian Cycle…

Book Six, Oct. excerpt

I really can’t express my thanks to friends and fans for the positive response to the announcement that there will be two more books in the Norothian Cycle, instead of just one. You, yes you – you know who I am talking to. You humble me.

It was however pointed out that I did not include an excerpt of the ongoing book 6 with said announcement. So… an excerpt…

——

Kazandra was asleep in Lena’s lap, and Kepu was engaged in his game. Neither child demanded nor required Tilda’s attention at the moment, and she stood in the doorway not quite sure what to do with herself; hands flashing open before both closed into fists. Her mother gave her a look, excused herself from the others, and stepped out into the hall saying only that more coffee should be brewed.

Tilda thought for a moment that her mother was referring to business and the warehouse, but the woman walked for the rear of the house. Tilda followed her out to the narrow backyard. Her mother stirred the coals in a shallow fire pit into smoldering life, and Tilda filled an empty carafe with water from a waiting bucket. Her mother set the carafe on the coals, and turned to give her eldest daughter a long look. Her eyes were unreadable. They always had been so to Tilda, except when her mother was happy, or angry. Klara Lanai was adroit at keeping any lesser emotions within herself.

“What?” Tilda snapped, unable to conceal her own annoyance.

“I know what you want to do, Matilda.”

“Do you?”

“Of course. You are a Guilder of Miilark, and you are my daughter. Something has been taken from you, and you want to go get it.”

Tilda’s jaw clenched so tightly she had to pry her teeth apart to speak.

“Yes.”

“But you know you cannot.”

“I can,” Tilda growled. “It is what I was trained to do. I have been in the Vod Wilds before, and through worse places than those.”

Klara spoke very quietly. “You do not know that he was taken into the Wilds, daughter. You do not know if he is even alive.”

Tilda’s eyes did not “flare” as some people’s did when they were angry. Instead they only became darker. She was certain they were doing so now.

“The father of my children is not dead,” she said with perfect confidence. “I would know if he was.”

Her mother maintained a steady gaze. “The surviving fishermen who returned to Souterm said many were killed. No one knows how many were bound as prisoners.”

“Mother. Zeb is alive. I know he is alive. I know it as surely as I know that I am alive myself.”

The Norothian Cycle Book 6… and 7. October update.

I’ve got some short news and some long news, not sure if either rises to the level of good or bad.

The short news is, while I initially thought I could conclude the sixth and last book of the Norothian Cycle by the end of this year, that is not going to happen now. Nothing is wrong, per se, other than while actually writing this book, I’ve come to realize exactly how much remains to be resolved. I honestly don’t think I can wrap up the story to anybody’s satisfaction (least of all my own) in only one more book. Not without making it some quarter-million-plus-word monstrosity that won’t be available for half a year or more later than I hoped.

Ergo, my loose (and I stress “loose”) intention now is still to have Book 6 ready to go around the time I hoped (late this year, or more likely early next). But it is not going to be the last book of the series. There will be a Book 7. I throw myself on the mercy of the court, and hope to thank you for your patience.

The long news is the same news, just expressed in a far more detailed and wordy fashion. 

Here’s the thing about writing an epic fantasy series with a lot of sprawl to it and a cast o’ thousands: stuff gets complicated. Really, really complicated. All the way along, the scope increases as the characters assume larger roles within the world of the story. So by several volumes in, what character X does makes a difference not just for them and the people immediately around them – it makes a difference for *everything.*

Add to that the point that from the very beginning, the Norothian Cycle has to an extent been about tweaking (not twerking) a number of traditional fantasy tropes – particularly the one about there being some Great Evil One behind all that is wrong in the world. That is a handy-dandy device, and it works really slick as there is a lot of built-in catharsis when the Big Baddy is inevitably defeated, as they always are. I am not knocking that at all; it’s foundational to the genre in a lot of ways, and it has been done extremely effectively in a lot of great books. But it’s not the way I went.

The first book in the series, The Sable City, was always meant to be a “traditional” adventure as an entry point to the larger story. Tilda, Zeb, John, Nesha-tari, Claudja, Phin, Heggenauer, Uriako and Amatesu – the nine characters I refer to in my own shorthand as “the fun bunch” – come together with different and sometimes conflicting purposes. But they are all thrown together in a version of a “dungeon crawl,” and have to cooperate to get out alive, achieve their goals, so forth and so on. The fun bunch is a version of the typical “adventuring party,” with a number of the classic fantasy roles / archetypes represented, albeit it with some more tweaks. The Stalwart Knight is a heartbroken samurai, the Kindly Healer is a former assassin, the Fair Princess is an ambitious noblewoman side-lining in revenge, etc. By the end of the book however, that particular adventure is over, and so is the party. The characters start going their own way even before the epilogue.

The reason that happens is that I didn’t want the larger struggle that ensues in the subsequent books to be as simple as Good vs. Evil. Instead, the characters who began as situational allies begin to move onto opposing sides of what will be a larger conflict; either by necessity, by choice, or by accident. And while I assume some readers will have more allegiance to some characters than others, and thus be on “their side,” I didn’t want to make any one side too much lighter or darker than any of the others. People on all sides of a war are always convinced that they are doing the right thing, for themselves and for their community or society. I didn’t want to lose that reality, even for a war in a “fantasy world” with dragons and hobgoblins, empires and theocracies. 

Books 2-5 have continued to follow members of the fun bunch as they have dispersed to different places, or clung together in others. Often the only way to do that was to divide the narrative within books into self-contained “parts,” or even to make whole books “free-standing” from what, plot-wise, is the main narrative line. (NOTE: What follows may included some weak spoilers, though if you haven’t read the books by now I’m guessing you stopped reading this post already due to lack of interest) -

Book 2 – Death of a Kingdom. Part One sticks with the “main party” group in the city of Souterm, headed by Tilda and Zeb. Part Two follows Nesha-tari back Ayzantine territory, and has nothing to do directly with parts one or three. Part Three returns to Tilda & Co. accompanying Claudja back to her home duchy.

Book 3 – The Wind from Miilark follows John back home to the Islands, then back to Norothian and Kandalan waters. Everything that happens in book 2 basically happens while he is in transit, and only a brief encounter with old friends catches him (and the reader) up on what people have been up to since the end of book 2. Well, except for Phin, who jumps from the “main party” plotline to become a part of John’s.

Book 4 – Devil Town. Part One deals mostly with Claudja, Uriako, and Amatesu from the fun bunch, though they have been joined by other characters by now. Part Two picks up both Nesha-tari’s narrative from book 2 and John’s narrative from book 3, uniting them together, at least briefly. Part Three re-involves Tilda in the plotline from part one of this book, resolving an ongoing issue from books 1 & 2.

Book 5 – The Channel War. Also in three parts, but they are chronological instead of divided by main characters or plotlines, dealing with multiple people and events separated by geography, but not time. The parts cover three separate years in turn, and as the “War” in the title is meant to indicate, larger events are now driving the plot beyond any character’s ability to stop or control them. In some cases, the lives or deaths of the people who initially mattered most in the story are only mile markers along an inevitable road. In other cases, one person’s actions still do make a difference, but not always for the good of all.

Which brings me to where I am now, Book 6 – John the Red, in which I had intended to conclude the Norothian Cycle. I can’t say that was always my intention, as when I started I had loosely envisioned the series as nine books (it is not an accident the number nine crops up so often, neither in the number of main characters constituting the fun bunch, nr in the number of gods making up the Norothian Ennead). I dialed that back to six books more than a year ago while writing #4, for reasons I have likely yammered about here already, and mentioned in the author postscript on book 5.

But now, I am pretty much weaseling out of that six-book intention, as while writing this “last” one I’ve realized just how much remains to be done, how many plotlines need to be resolved, and how many stories deserve to be serviced if the series is going to conclude in anything approaching a satisfactory fashion. I am, at this point, around 100K words into this part of the story, and I am not halfway done. Several of the important characters haven’t reappeared yet, and of those that have, not many are “back together” yet, which was pretty much the point all along. Having characters who began together divide as opposing forces is probably only interesting if they actually meet up again, whether in conflict, or as tenuous allies. And for most of them, I am not there yet.

There is another practical reason I think the remainder of the story’s production is going to take a bit longer than the other books as well, in the editorial phase. For the previous books with divided narratives, I was able to get each “part” out for beta reading and editing, while writing the next part in line. That worked when the parts were more self-contained, but from here on out the parts build directly on each other, expanding the scope of the narrative. They don’t switch from group A to group B to group C. They bring A together with B, and A & B together with C, etc.

A number of my regular beta readers (as always, love you guys), after reading the first completed “part” of the present book pointed out that a couple characters and events don’t actually seem to “go anywhere,” and felt sort of extraneous. And they are right, because of the way the parts have to build on each other now, until the end of the story. Part One didn’t resolve itself the same way the parts of earlier books did, because the characters and plotlines therein flow directly into the next part, or even the part after that. For that reason, having these parts Beta’d in turn doesn’t really work – they really deserve to read the story as a whole before trying to decide if some early element turns out to be necessary. Or if I did actually just chuff it as a writer, which is totally possible.

So, even though book 6 looks to not be the finale of the series now, there will likely still be a delay in getting it out before the end of the year, for the reason that a number of my betas would prefer to only read it all at once, rather than in dribbles. And of course, I actually have to write it so the parts that are in it do add up to a “book” in their own right – an episode of the larger story that doesn’t just end arbitrarily, or on a total cliff-hanger. That’s not my style either; I believe that each book of a series like this needs to be a story unto itself, with a beginning, middle, and end. So that is what I am endeavoring to do now, which of course necessitates some changes even in as much of book 6 as I have already written.

That is what the next installment of the Northothian Cycle will be: the penultimate book of the series. When I have any feel for when it is actually going to be ready, I will of course let you know so right here. Thanks very much, and happy reading.

The Norothian Cycle Book 6 – August update

Hi all, this will be my once-a-month progress report for Book VI of the Norothian Cycle – John the Red.

It’s progressing.

Part One is “done” to the extent that it is out with beta readers (who, as always, I can’t thank enough), and Part Two is being written as we speak. Well, not literally, as 1.) We’re are not actually “speaking,” and 2.) I am typing this right now. But I will be back on the book shortly.

Wrapping up the myriad plotlines and character arcs of the previous five books of course takes some time and space, so I remain not wholly sure if this last book will consist of three or four parts. Either way, I do feel like I am still on pace to have it ready before the end of the calendar year, and I will of course keep you informed here. Thanks as always for your ongoing interest, and I hope the story concludes in a way you find enjoyable. I’m having fun writing it, so I hope you will all have some fun reading it, too.

Now for a brief excerpt – as readers will know, there have been a lot of Great Dragons influencing events over the course of the last five books. Offering advice, issuing orders, trying to kill people, killing people, so forth and so on. But what there hasn’t been is more than one Great Dragon in the same place at the same time, interacting directly with each other. That is about to change, and it starts like this:

———-

Northwest beyond Broadsword Ridge and the Crater district, the towers and perimeter wall of Souterm were far from the river and the east bank. Even from there, the dull booms of an enormous cannon were audible, at the rate of one shot an hour. The crushing impacts from the area of Denando’s Palace that followed each shot could be heard plainly. The palace itself could not be seen from behind the northern spur of Broadsword Ridge, but after four hours and four shots, the night sky above the ridge was stained red by spreading flames across the river.

The officers and Legionnaires on the northwestern fortification were of course eager to know what exactly was going on across the breadth of the city, but they were also professionals. More men than normally stood a night watch appeared atop the towers, but they did so in full armor. A few kept watch over the dark countryside beyond the walls, though more faced east above the sunken neighborhood of the Crater, where Souterm’s goblins filled the dirty lanes among their slapdash hovels this night, also looking at the sky above the looming ridge and talking nervously among themselves. As whatever was going on across town was certainly the work of the Vod Wild Magdetchoi – chiefly hobgoblins – many a sour look and muttered insult was cast down on the little creatures by the Imperial soldiers.

Shortly after the fourth boom and the crashing impact that followed, the muttering of the guards atop one particular tower was interrupted by a surprised cry through the open trap door leading down. A scraping as of long nails was heard from the ladder to the roof. A few Legionnaires drew swords and all were facing the open door when a large vixen bounded into view.

It was the strangest fox any of the men had ever seen, for even in moonlight its rich fur seemed to gleam like burnished bronze, and its eyes glowed with matching light. The soldiers stared, and the beautiful creature stared back. She gave her head a little toss, then bolted between two men’s legs like a bronze blur.

The animal ran directly for the battlements, and one Legionnaire stepped in front to turn her aside with his tower shield. The vixen’s claws scrabbled on stone as she moved around the soldier, only brushing against his shield. But just that much contact was enough to spin the armored soldier off his feet and send him sprawling to the floor.

The vixen sprang atop a battlement, and launched herself off the city wall into the dark night.

The Legionnaires dropped their jaws, and rushed to the battlements to stare north. For a few moments, they neither saw nor heard a thing. But only for a few moments.

A sound came like unfurled sails catching the wind, and a titanic shape arose from below the dark horizon and was silhouetted against the starry sky to the north. None of the Legionnaires had ever seen a dragon before, but all knew they were all looking upon a Great one now. For the first time in centuries, the Bronze Lady took wing, and gave a roar. 

Summer Splash Blog Hop WINNER!

Congrats to MARY ENDERSBE for winning this stop of the 2013 Summer Splash Blog Hop!

Mary’s answer to the question: “The rough draft of Part One of the Sixth Volume of the Norothian Cycle numbered 51,211 words. What is the word count of the edited version?” was 49,324 was only 348 words off the actual answer of 48,976. That might seem like I cut a bit over 2000 words off the first draft, though actually I think I probably cut about twelve-thousand, then added another ten. Writing!

Thanks much to all who entered, and to all who downloaded The Sable City while it is free, I hope it is enjoyed. I will go ahead and redact e-mail addresses from the entries so they are not floating around the interwebs forever. Thanks for hopping by everybody, and congratulations, Mary. I’ll be in contact soon, and get your books to you.

Ed McNally

Guesses in the contest –

Tina Connor Myers 632

acflory 30,000

BooLady 36,709

Dominique 37,258

lynnhubbard 37,896

olga c. 38,633

tribalcat 38,927

kidisitor 39,013

Katie Amanda 40,000

Liz Woods 41,000

Christine 41,623

Karen 42,000

Barbara Stull 42,316

Karla Darcy 44,000

Nicole Huffman 44,500

bookaholicholly 44,691

Valerie Rhodes 45,500

Aimee Marie 46,000

Lynsey Peterson 46,478

Kim Pinch 46,517

Gina Meier 46,565

Janice Hougland 47,200

Sadie 47,373

anthonyjrapino 47,672

patricefitzgerald 47,777

jmesparza821 48,000

Ginger 48,222 (-754)

ACTUAL TOTAL 48,976

Mary Endersbe 49,324 (+348) FOR THE WIN!

Mother-Earth 49,531

Terry Trahan 49,849

shadowluvs2read 49,887

B. L. Blair 49,890

Bames Kaur Pabla 50,000

Lori Passaro 50,976

Denise Z. 51,000

Savannah miller 51,888

Sami Coghill 52,000

benmuse663 52,250

bbrandythornton 52,267

Sarah M. 52,800

Kimberly Mayberry 53,025

Tara Woods 53,411

Ellen Thompson 53,627

It’s me: VVerity 53,832

joe hankshaw 54,123

Susan 54,712

Jolea M. Harrison 55,000

Judy Peterson 59,916

Crystal C. 64,000

Summer Splash Blog Hop, July 26-29

Hello, and welcome to the Sable City tour stop on the 2013 Summer Splash Blog Hop. I’m Eddie McNally, and I will be your… um, Bellhop, I guess?

The Sable City is the first book of an epic, muskets & magic fantasy series called The Norothian Cycle, starring a feisty Island Guilder named Tilda Lanai. For the duration of the Hop, the first book is available for (wait for it) FREE on the major e-reading devices, including Kindle (US and UK), Nook, the iStore, Kobo, and via Smashwords. Do feel FREE to help yourself, and get started on Tilda’s tale.

Now for the contest. As I remain a simple, simple man, I am offering e-copies of volumes II through V of the Norothian Cycle to one lucky hopper who will be selcted via the simple expedient of asking the equivalent of “How many jellybeans are in the jar?” Not literally of course, but rather like this:

“The rough draft of Part One of the Sixth Volume of the Norothian Cycle numbered 51,211 words. What is the word count of the edited version?”

For your chance to win the next four volumes of the Norothian Cycle, which retail regularly for $4.99 each, just leave a guess as to the word count as a comment. Please also mention a way you can be contacted, if you don’t happen to be commenting with a profile I can send a reply. At the conclusion of the Hop, the closest guess to the correct number wins the prize – it’s as simple as that!

Thanks for hopping by and playing, remember to register for the GRAND PRIZES on the main Hop page, and do feel FREE (saying that one more time) to check out The Sable City. On the house this weekend.

Good luck and good reading,

- M. Edward McNally

- return to Hop -

The Norothian Cycle Book 6 – July Update

Hi, I’m Eddie McNally, and it has been two months since my last blog post.

Nothing much has happened in the intervening weeks mind you. Writing Book 6 continues to take up most of my time, and while I think I am on pace for a release this year, I have to admit it is really slow going. Readers of The Norothian Cycle may have noticed a preponderance of plotlines unspooling throughout the first five books, and as John the Red is the last installment, all those loose ends have to come together. Also, I feel it would be nice if they came together in a readable fashion – so that takes a bit of doing.

Just as a for instance, here are five ongoing issues from the first five books I’ve already found myself wrestling with, while still on the first part of Book 6. And yes, they all involve characters who might be termed as either “secondary” or even “tertiary.”

Ongoing issues from:

The Sable City – Will Amatesu ever really be able to forgive herself for what she did to Uriako Shikashe’s family?

Death of a Kingdom – Is Karza ever going to get some comeuppance, or is that evil jerk going to keep skating?

The Wind from Miilark – Will Rhianne ever find someone else to love?

Devil Town – Pagette can’t keep popping up working for different governments without somebody finally putting him in front of a firing squad, can he?

The Channel War – Is there really any cap on Claudja Perforce’s ambition?

Not mentioned above of course, is anything directly relating to John (formerly) Deskata, Tilda Lanai, Zeb Baj Nif, Nesha-tari, or to the fate of the world, for that matter. So yes, there are a lot of balls in the air, so to speak, plus some chainsaws and sparrows’ eggs. Getting them all neatly settled by the end of what is going to be a long, long book – without busting a yolk or sawing my foot off, is slow going. But like I say, I’m still on pace. Slow and steady wins the race, or something like that, but only if the turtle doesn’t stop to post a blog too often.

Back to it, and I’ll leave you with a snippet from the WIP that likely relates to more than one of the issues mentioned above.

—

A door opened and he felt cold air. He sensed that the world beyond the sack over his head was lighter, though the sun shone without much warmth. He yelled demands to be taken before someone with authority, for this was all some terrible mistake. He began naming every official he could think of with any power or wealth in the city, but his captors only carried him bodily across an open stone yard, then spun him around and put his back to a post.

“I have more money than you people have even seen in your lives!” he shouted. “Release me and it is yours!”

His arms were wrenched above his head, and the ropes binding his wrists were looped over a hook on a chain. The presence of the two men beside him withdrew, and he could hear them chuckling.

“I have done nothing against the interests of Ayzantu City!”

Someone across the yard barked some sort of command in a military cadence that made words intelligible only to soldiers who had been drilled for months or years.

“I have information of value!”

“Ready arms!” the voice boomed. The prisoner understood that.

“I can be a boon to this city!”

“Aim!”

He did not yell again, could not speak. He was about to die. Him. It was inconceivable. It could not be happening. The story of his life could not possibly end like this, or what had it all been for?

Norothian Cycle Map: Daul 1395-1398 NC, Book VI update

So here’s the thing I’ve found over the course of the 5+ books of The Norothian Cycle – when you’re writing an epic fantasy where the unfolding plot and the actions of the characters have an ongoing effect on the fictional “world,” mapmaking becomes almost a second job (or fifth or sixth job, if you count writing, editing, reading, social media butterfly, blogging, etc.)

As readers are aware, a lot of the action of the novels has unfolded in and around territory that up until 1395-1396 (by the Norothian Calendar) constituted The Kingdom of Daul, various parts of which have come “under new management” more than one time. Thus most of the books have included updated maps which, while geographically the same, cover a number of shifting political and military realities “on the ground.” Now that I am working on Book VI, which is meant to be the capstone of this part of the Norothian Cycle, I bolted this map together to keep things straight in my head for myself, but then thought “Hey, why not blog it?”

So here we go: some words relating to these maps, which may contain a few spoilers for those who haven’t read through Book V (The Channel War), though I will endeavor to keep those plot related without dipping into too many character references. From there, I will tell you where I am now, as Book VI (John the Red) begins to unfold.

1395 NC

This was the political situation during Book I (The Sable City) after decades of war between Daul and Ayzantium (located to the southeast just off the map). Daul still controlled most of its historic territory, with the exception of the Chirabis peninsula and the port of Roseille, languishing under Zantsh occupation.

1396 NC

During Book II (Death of a Kingdom), Daul largely collapsed under the weight of internal revolt centered around the Duchy of Chengdea in the west and invasion in the east from a joint force of Tarthagars and Kantans cooperating with renegade elements within Ayzantium. The map shows the situation by book’s end, with Chengdea and much of the west pledging loyalty to the Empire of the Code, while the forcibly occupied east is reordered by the Kantans and Tarthagars as “The Protectorate.” The grey area is an ill-defined “neutral zone” between those two powers.

1397 NC

In Book IV (Devil Town), the Kantan/Tarthagar alliance fractures when the latter enter into a mutual-defense treaty with the diabolic powers of Vod’Adia (The Sable City), led by Lord Balan – Prince of Hell, and devil-about-town. Literally. The northern half of the Protectorate is absorbed directly into the Il-Tsardom of Kantantanalace, while the south remains occupied exclusively by Tarthagar forces, in alliance with devils and other nasty critters.

The west meanwhile begins to be reordered and incorporated “Under the Code” into Duchies and Counties, some with traditional Daulic rulers, some with newly appointed Codians in command.

1398 NC

In Book V (The Channel War), the long-awaited invasion from the Martan powers located to the south across the Channel on Kandala crashes into this contested region of Noroth. Existing divisions are exploited, with the Martans rallying indigenous resistance among the Dauls of the Protectorate against their Tarthagar occupiers. That does not quite work out, as a “bolt from the Blue” puts an end to certain intentions to crown a new King of Daul, and by late in the book the powers behind the Martan invasion do seem to be reevaluating the invasion as a whole, which has come to occupy the area in red on the last map (the Chirabis, Sitl, and East Borea).

As Book VI begins, this is what this part of the world looks like. The Tarthagars and the Protectorate are gone, and the far more powerful Codians and Kantans are looming over the relatively small and largely exhausted swath of territory under the military command of John the Red, who finds he is receving little in the way of direction from above, and is largely left to his own devices in the face of what is not a tenable military situation.

For those of you who know John by now, you will probably not be surprised to hear he is not content to sit still in the face of danger. For those of you know Claudja, Tilda & Zeb, Duke Uriako Shikashe, and the other folks who came together way back when in the Sable City, and have now found their own place within the Codian Empire, you can likely guess that there is going to be trouble when John starts to move. As I continue writing the opening chapters of this last book of the Cycle, that movement is underway. (cue the Mortal Kombat music).

That’s where I am, and where I’m going. Thanks for stopping by, and wandering ’round Noroth with me. It’s a nice place to live, if you can mange to stay alive.

- Ed