Reader Question: THE TOWER OF ENDLESS WORLDS & crossover series

Stephen asks:

“Do you ever think of writing another book in The Tower of Endless Worlds series? Your novels tend to have “links” to other dimensions/worlds in them and I wonder if the tower can access them all.”

I have to admit it would be really hard to write more in THE TOWER OF ENDLESS WORLDS. I started working on what would become that series fifteen years ago, so it would be a challenge to get back into the proper headspace for writing more. What I mean by that is I look back at THE TOWER OF ENDLESS WORLDS with fifteen years additional experience I think that I would have done this or that differently now. I only had a six-year gap between writing SOUL OF TYRANTS in 2005 and SOUL OF SERPENTS, and it was still hard to get back into the headspace for that series. (Since I wrote like eight more DEMONSOULED books after that, it worked out.)

Stephen then wondered:

“The “linked worlds” aspect of many of your series just makes me wonder if Ridmark, Mazael, Nadia, and Jack could get together for a workout on the Tiger.”

I get asked this question every so often – would I do a crossover series where Caina met Mazael or Ridmark met Nadia or whatever? People really seem to like crossovers in general. Disney made billions of dollars doing the Avengers movies.

I dunno. I’ve thought about it. But only if I liked the story idea. It couldn’t be gimmicky. By “gimmicky”, I mean the sort of things that comic books do to boost failing sales, where they have a Giant Green Space Hand or whatever kidnap Captain America and Batman* so they can fight alongside each other against the villain of the week. Like, the story would have to make sense, and not be an obvious and transparent gimmick.

Also, the settings have to be compatible. Each one of my settings tends to have underlying rules, and those would have to work with each other. Like, in Caina’s setting, there are no nonhumans like elves and orcs and dwarves or whatever. So it would be jarring to have Caina suddenly run into a band of orcs. For that matter, no one in Caina’s world uses magic. It’s “arcane science”. The Magisterium would insist that they are rationalists, and they’re systematically investigating and documenting what are natural forces. (It’s just that some of those forces can make you crazy and blow things up, which really isn’t all that different from hallucinogens, come to think of it.) They would think “magic” is superstitious nonsense, a bunch of claptrap obscuring predictable scientific laws.

Or in the FROSTBORN: THE DARK WARDEN, it’s established that while it’s the year 1478 AD on Andomhaim, it’s the year 2013 AD on Earth. Since CLOAK GAMES starts on Earth in 2312 AD (or Conquest Year 299), it would be really odd for Nadia Moran to turn up in the FROSTBORN setting, or for the FROSTBORN characters to visit Nadia’s version of Earth.

I think of all my settings, the ones that would work best for a crossover would be DEMONSOULED and CLOAK GAMES. But if I do anything like that, it’s a ways off yet, I think. I would want to finish CLOAK GAMES and GHOST NIGHT first.

-JM

*Yes, I know Captain America is Marvel and Batman is DC.