The Channel War, Volume V of the Norothian Cycle. SOON!

“For every moment of triumph, for every instance of beauty, many souls must be trampled.”

- Hunter S. Thompson

I thought about that quote a lot as I was finishing a draft suitable for editing of the fifth book in the Norothian Cycle. As you might guess, The Channel War is about exactly what it sounds like: War. I am something of a military history buff, which some might mistake as being a fan of war. That really couldn’t be further from the truth, as even fascination does not always imply affection. There really isn’t anything about war that I like, neither as an idea nor as a reality. But I will admit that it holds my interest.

As readers of the Norothian Cycle undoubtedly know, the first four books have brought the continent of Noroth and the characters who “live” there up to the yawning precipice of what a red dragon named Bith-Kal describes to John Deskata as a war that “will not only set dragon against dragon, but nation against nation, and man against man.” (Book III, The Wind from Miilark). By Book V that war has erupted, and there are no characters in the series who remained untouched by the strife. There were parts of the book I found really hard to write, for I have come to care more than I even realized for Tilda Lanai, Phin Phoarty, Kendall Heggenauer, and the rest of the cast o’ thousands. Delivering troubles to their doors wasn’t fun, but I felt like it had to be done to tell the story as I wanted it told. Thus the Thompson quote above, which I take to mean that even in fiction, nothing good comes without price. That price is paid in this book, and I humbly hope a bit of triumph and beauty may come with it.

The last section of The Channel War is now being edited, and I hope to have it available by the first of next month, which turns out to be April Fool’s Day, 2013. There is something so right about that. Oh, and the cover by Tamra Westberry looks a little something like this: