Griffin Mage #1: The Lord of the Changing Wind

So, here we go! Available at my Patreon right this minute and up for preorder on Amazon, with a release date of November 4. That should give me ample time to finish tweaking the formatting and make the individual files.

The artist took a look at the previous covers, considered the paragraph of description I sent him, and went with a sort of retro fantasy vibe that I think suits this trilogy. After all, it was first published fourteen years ago. (This still amazes me.)

I think a vibe that says Classic Fantasy Here is not a bad idea, since this is pretty much classic fantasy. Yes, this trilogy does have some unusual features — minimal romance (extremely minimal in the first book), different protagonists in each book, things like that. But it is still classic fantasy.

This cover has been finished for a few weeks; I’ve been wading through the last formatting pass and finished the first book last night. Yes, there were still a few formatting issues, almost entirely having to do with inappropriate paragraph breaks in the middle of dialogue. I think I’ve cleared out all those problems. I also found ONE MORE typo, which I think may have been there since the first printing lo these many years ago. It was “as” instead of “was,” the sort of thing that is astoundingly invisible until you see it, then suddenly becomes screamingly obvious.

I’ll be curious to see what happens with the preorder. Who knows what will happen with that. Looking at the product page that’s there right now, it’s really interesting to see what’s happened since Hachette let go of this trilogy. Of course there’s no ebook available right this minute. Also, there is NO description on the paperback version, though the star rating and number of ratings are still shown. The description still shows on the Audible version. This raises a question:

Should I use the same description now, as I re-list the ebook with a new edition and new cover? Here it is:

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Griffins lounged all around them, inscrutable as cats, brazen as summer. They turned their heads to look at Kes out of fierce, inhuman eyes. Their feathers, ruffled by the wind that came down the mountain, looked like they had been poured out of light; their lion haunches like they had been fashioned out of gold. A white griffin, close at hand, looked like it had been made of alabaster and white marble and then lit from within by white fire. Its eyes were the pitiless blue-white of the desert sky.

Little ever happens in the quiet villages of peaceful Feierabiand. The course of Kes’ life seems set: she’ll grow up to be an herb-woman and healer for the village of Minas Ford, never quite fitting in but always more or less accepted. And she’s content with that path – or she thinks she is. Until the day the griffins come down from the mountains, bringing with them the fiery wind of their desert and a desperate need for a healer. But what the griffins need is a healer who is not quite human… or a healer who can be made into something not quite human.

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That’s not bad. But I could revise it. Here is a possible new version of the description for this book:

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The griffins come to Feierabiand with the early summer warmth, riding the wind out of the heights down to the tender green pastures above the village of Minas Ford. The wind they bring with them is a hard, hot wind, tasting of red dust and hot brass, with nothing of the gentle Feierabiand summer about it. Fire falls from their wings, and below the path of their flight, red sands turn the hills to blazing desert …

Kes, collecting healing herbs in the hills above the village, watches the griffins arrive. Stunned by their beauty, unable to find words to describe them, she says nothing about them at all. Then a tall man with a griffin’s fiery shadow steps into Minas Ford, seeking a girl who possesses a gift for healing, setting into her hands magic, fire, and an impossible choice.

Bertaud, close friend of the king of Feierbieand, knows nothing of griffins, of the desert, of the magic that drove them from their own land into his. When word comes of red sand and hot winds above Minas Ford, his king sends Bertaud to investigate. On his road waits a powerful griffen, a burning wind, and an impossible choice.

The griffins did not ride their desert wind into Feierabiand by their own choice. But here they will make their stand against their enemies. Kes and Bertaud, with nothing in common but an affinity for fire, will have to choose whether to set themselves alongside the griffins or against them, with their own lives and land in terrible peril no matter which choice they make.

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What do you all think? The original version, the new version? Any tweaks you’d suggest to either?

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