The Grand Illusion
I’ve read somewhere that Tor furnishes and supports your website. Is this true?
Tor/Macmillan did design and set up the website initially and provided technical support for somewhat less than two years, but that arrangement turned out to be unsatisfactory to both parties for a number of reasons, and Tor agreed to turn over the website to me and generously paid for the transition to a new server and for the registration of the domain to me for a number of years. For the past several years I’ve been totally responsible, but the more technical aspects are handled by the Nebula-winning writer Eric James Stone — who’s also a great web designer and maintainer.
Will you ever have a brewer as a main character in the Saga of Recluce?
Alas… probably not, not because I have anything against brewers, but because I couldn’t possibly do justice to such a character. It’s not beyond the realm of possibility, however, that I might work in a strong minor character who’s a brewer, but that will have to be several years from now, at the least.
Why a brewer?
I like the brewer idea. Craft brews are a really big deal right now, as is homebrewing, so a lot of people would find it interesting. And, ppl who love beer but don’t know a lot about how its produced, might find it interesting as well. I’m sure you could interview brewers who could give you the info you need to do the charcter justice (I can probably help set it up for you). you could also probably do a little historical research on brewers.
I just started reading the Empress of Eternity in paper back and have noticed that some of the words have superscript numbers as if there were footnotes or endnotes but there are no footnotes or endnotes. Is this an omission by the publisher?
No. They’re not superscript or endnotes, but exponents applied to words to indicate intensified or magnified meaning/emphasis.
Please list the books in the Recluse Saga chronologically. I am rereading them but would like to read them in the proper order.
The chronological order is not necessarily the “proper” order, since I’ve always felt that the publication order is better for mostv people, although that’s obviously a matter of personal choice. The chronological order is: Magi’i of Cyador, Scion of Cyador, Fall of Angels, The Chaos Balance, Arms-Commander, The Towers of the Sunset, The White Order, The Magic Engineer, Colors of Chaos, Natural Ordermage, Mage-Guard of Hamor, The Order War, Wellspring of Chaos, Ordermaster, The Magic of Recluce, The Death of Chaos.
Speaking of Recluse, have you considered creating prequel stories concerning the cultures (and interstellar war) that the crew of the Winterlance comes from?
Thank you for the many, many hours of thought-provoking reading you have given me…I look forward to many more.
While a number of readers have suggested this… I doubt that I’ll do so because such prequels would be SF, and I’d rather not mix genres any more than I already have.
I see a logic problem with a brewer order character. Brewing requires the making and consumption of alcohol,( poison=chaos) not to mention the selling and haggling (deception) that comes with it. That logically would mean a lack of order, or lack of excess in order. However, as a slightly different idea, why not something like, “a Brewer, who’s son has an overflow of order he cannot yet control, needs must hide and protect him from hordes of white wizards intent on the glory or slavery of an order focus” I think either hamor or cyador would be applicable.