Andrew asked Michael J. Sullivan:

I just finished Theft of Swords; it was 4+. Nice to find some newer fantasy that is not 1. Dark and twisted like Martin, 2. Hard to follow like Erikson, or 3 . Full of modern inuendos (dudespeak) like Weeks. Don't get me wrong, those are good authors, just not what I call high fantasy. Good work. I like the title Rhune (original) better than Age of Legends (how bland). Any chance of changing it back?

Michael J. Sullivan Hey Andrew, thank you so much for writing. Glad you enjoyed Theft of Swords...the series gets better from there and the finale (Heir of Novron) is, in my humble opinion, a very satisfying read.

I do seem to have a nice little "sweet spot" when it comes to the fantasy options these day. Just going agains the current "grim dark" tend makes the book somewhat unusual. You've mentioned me along with some amazing company - so thanks for that.

As for the titles of the new books, they won't be changing back. Several things I should mention on the subject.

First, Rhune only has meaning after someone reads the book. For those who are looking for something to read they are just five seemingly random characters without context. Also, since it is pronounced like "rune" the possibility of people spelling them wrong is quite high. If people can't easily find the book, it won't sell.

The new titles were alternatives I (and my wife Robin) came up with after Del Rey expressed several problems with the existing titles. We had a few criteria that we wanted to meet.

1. To have all the books form a "cohesive brand." Using the "Age of" as the start of each book does this: Age of Myth | Age of Swords | Age of War | Age of Legends | Age of Empire. The original titles also had something tying them together (each one was a 5 letter word with a silent H as the second character) but that is much harder to see the correlation than the new titles.

2. We wanted the book to represent what the books were about. Again, no one knows what a Rhune is - so there is no context. But since the first book involves how mankind sheds learns the difference between myth and reality...and that those they were gods are mortal after all - Age of Myths fits it well.

3. For marketing reasons it's good for a book to "do well" with search engines. If you type Age of Myth in Amazon - you'll see it is the only book with that name and as such it comes up as the top title. Rhune, on the other hand was already released by Lynn Leite in 2013 so it would be competing with that title, and some people may be confused.

4. Ultimately, authors don't have a say in what the books are called. This is a right reserved to the publisher. That being said, they raised valid points about the potential problems with Rhune, and if I had really pushed, I think they would have let me keep it. However, as I said their points were valid, so it was worth thinking of another set of titles that would meet the criteria I've explained here. Again, they were willing to take my choices over other ones that they came up with. Definitely showing how much they value my opinions on such things.

I understand you don't like what I came up with, but I do think there is good reasons behind the decision to change the name. And to answer your question in a TL:DR format: No, there is no chance of it changing back.

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