The Grand Illusion
Do you have any idea how long you will continue writing books in the Recluce Saga?
The short answer is, “No, I don’t.” The longer and likely more accurate answer is that I’ll continue writing so long as I have stories to tell that I feel also add something new and different to the world of Recluce and/or to readers’ perceptions of that world. “New and different” has a range of meaning to readers, since some feel that every book should have a radically different plot, while I prefer to write stories about the struggle to succeed and to achieve meaning in life, and for the protagonist to achieve that meaning and success in a way that is realistic within the structure of the world I’ve created. There are always high costs and obstacles to such success, but the degree of those costs and the difficulty of surmounting those obstacles isn’t always apparent to all readers, although I do try to give hints along those lines.
I absolutely want to live in the world of Recluce. I was a “black” fan until I began to read the section of the books about Cyador and began to shift to a “live right” standpoint. I have read the entire series many times, some sections more than a dozen. I have arranged them chronologically, as best as I can tell, and read them that way. I have pulled out the family of Lerris’s books and simply read them. I cannot explain it, but I “get it.” The feeling a character gets when they try to lie. How someone can sense when something is “out of balance.” I feel the same way about the Soarer series and the Spellsong Sorceress. You pull my feelings and ideas out of me and paint them with amazing characters and conventions. Then I’m so happy that you did because finally: someone gave them justice. Can’t wait to follow the roads you design!
Around the start of December my parents and I cleaned up the whole house, and in the process sorted through two bookshelves and three boxes of books, and that is when I found the Recluce books and Haze. My parents told me they think you’re a great writer, so I started on Haze (since it isn’t part of a series) and loved it. Since then I have read the first four books to Recluse and am on The Death of Chaos. I love these books, and cannot wait to read the rest.