New Raffalon/Cascor story in F&SF
"Curse of the Myrmelon," the latest Raffalon story, will appear in the July/August edition of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. Actually, Raffalon the archetypical thief plays a supporting role in the story; the lead character is Cascor, the former provostman turned private security consultant who increasingly dabbles in sorcery.
Those who read editor Charlie Finlay's introductory note to the story will learn how it fits into my Archonate milieu. Those who can't wait for the magazine to appear can learn it now: I originally created Raffalon when George R.R. Martin and Gardner Dozois asked me for a Vancean story for their bestselling theme anthology, ROGUES. I conjured up Raffalon as a version of Cugel the Clever, except that Raffalon really is clever, which Cugel ain't.
But, as one perceptive reviewer has pointed out, he tends to have bad luck -- much like his author, I suppose. The exception is in the ROGUES story, "The Inn of the Seven Blessings," where we find him at the end of an unsuccessful career. What happened in the story changed the thief's luck for the better and permanently.
When I started writing it, I borrowed the geography and the cannibalistic were-men, the Vandaayo, from The Discourses and Edifications of Liw Osfeo, a-book-within-a-book that was included in my first Archonate novel, Fools Errant . So that's the connection.
If you're a Raffalon fan and you haven't read "Seven Blessings," you might want to get a copy of ROGUES. It's out in paperback and Kindle, or you can find it in a library. The Rothfuss story is said to be one of his best, and he's joined by a lot of big-name authors -- including Joe R. Lansdale, whose Texas-set noir stories I've come to enjoy.
Those who read editor Charlie Finlay's introductory note to the story will learn how it fits into my Archonate milieu. Those who can't wait for the magazine to appear can learn it now: I originally created Raffalon when George R.R. Martin and Gardner Dozois asked me for a Vancean story for their bestselling theme anthology, ROGUES. I conjured up Raffalon as a version of Cugel the Clever, except that Raffalon really is clever, which Cugel ain't.
But, as one perceptive reviewer has pointed out, he tends to have bad luck -- much like his author, I suppose. The exception is in the ROGUES story, "The Inn of the Seven Blessings," where we find him at the end of an unsuccessful career. What happened in the story changed the thief's luck for the better and permanently.
When I started writing it, I borrowed the geography and the cannibalistic were-men, the Vandaayo, from The Discourses and Edifications of Liw Osfeo, a-book-within-a-book that was included in my first Archonate novel, Fools Errant . So that's the connection.
If you're a Raffalon fan and you haven't read "Seven Blessings," you might want to get a copy of ROGUES. It's out in paperback and Kindle, or you can find it in a library. The Rothfuss story is said to be one of his best, and he's joined by a lot of big-name authors -- including Joe R. Lansdale, whose Texas-set noir stories I've come to enjoy.
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