Paksworld

As many of you undoubtedly found out over the past near-week,  Verizon screwed up royally last Wednesday and SFF.net, my website host, could not keep everything up and running.   Verizon’s inept an incomplete attempts made things steadily worse.   Websites (with any embedded blogs) went down.   The SFFnet newsgroup tree functioned intermittently.   Today, Verizon finally did enough analysis at their end to a) assign a person who had the authority to actually investigate what was really wrong and make changes to their stuff and b) then discover that the firmware they’d installed as an upgrade days before was in fact faulty (which brought  a router manufacturer in on the problem-solving circuit.)

I don’t know, as of now, if the current “it’s working” will be stable, since Verizon had told SFFnet before that they couldn’t do the real fix until tomorrow maybe (!) but  since it is working now, I’m posting this to explain the blank spot since last week and warn of a possible additional interruption.

The heroes here are the intrepid SFFnet crew, Steve and Jeffrey, who patiently worked their way up the corporate ladder of Verizon  (OK, maybe not *patiently*) until they got to a level where someone could make decisions, not just excuses.

There’s a new image up on the Character Gallery:  Aliam Halveric in late middle age.    Hescox has captured the tough, seasoned commander and the man who can (when appropriate) laugh at himself.    I’m very happy with it.

So here’s the new page on the website: the Character Gallery.    Here’s where art depicting the characters will be displayed.   First up is Arvid in his earlier days, much as he was when Paks first saw him.    I hope you enjoy this page, as it grows with more artwork related to Paksworld, mostly characters but maybe (depends)  some decorative stuff.

If you prefer to visualize characters yourself, in your own mind, no need to go see what someone else thought a character looked like–but if you enjoy others’  visual imagination, go right ahead.   I’ve commissioned several sketches from Richard Hescox; this is the first up.   Aliam Halveric will probably be next.  As he’s fitting them in between other work, it’ll likely be months between new appearances.

The history page on the Paksworld website has now been updated and expanded.   Ever wonder what they use for money in the different realms?   Want to know more about trade?   You folks were showing enough interest that when I went into the file to fix typos (and let’s hope I didn’t just create more typos)  I decided to add more information.

There’s a new page up at the Paksworld site,  history stuff mostly, to place the current books in the deep-history context.     Yes, I know there are still typos.  My webguru caught several, but missed a few, as did I.  We’ll fix as our mutual schedules allow.   If you go there from the front page instead of the new page link, you may need to refresh your browser.  The history page is under Info/Background, and Background was previously empty.

A “work” version of the map for Kings of the North is now up on the Paksworld website maps page, here.    I don’t have time to do a prettified antiqued version right now, so this is for those who bought the book in a format that did not include the map.

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“Those Who Walk in Darkness,” written at the same time as Oath of Gold, and published in the now out-of-print Baen collections Lunar Activity (1990)and Phases, is now posted on the Paksworld website.

It did not fit in Oath of Gold, but it was a story I had to write, and it is, in a way, a connection to the new books…a sure sign that I was destined to write “paladin fallout” stories later on.

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The Paksworld website has some new material on it–some of it you’ve seen here, but it’s moved there for easier reference.  And some has been expanded.   I had to hit my Refresh button several times (OK, once for each changed page) to see it, but there are now maps (under the Places/Maps) link, more on holidays (under the People/Religion link) and cover pictures for both the US Oath of Fealty and the UK Deed of Paksenarrion (under the Fiction link.)

Enjoy!

Over on the website,  part one of the People section is now up and live.  It covers the basic groups, some of which–elves, dwarves, and gnomes– have been discussed on this blog.   I took out some bits of the blog info as not really necessary, and added some.

Additional groups discussed include the kuaknom/iynisin/dark cousins–those “fallen” elves the others don’t like to mention–and four basic, distinct human lineages: the Old Humans of the north, the magelords who came over the sea from Old Aare to Aarenis (and later, the north), the horse nomads,  and the Seafolk.    The people in the far west, beyond Kolobia, are peripheral enough (so far!) that they’re not being included.

Eventually (but not immediately–need to spend more time on the books proper) there’ll be more background information on specific people–both “current” (in book terms) and historical (ditto), myths and legends, religions, etc.

The new front page at the Paksworld website is now up.  If you’ve been there before you may need to hit Refresh or Reload or however your browser does it to see the new design.

Eventually the other pages will have a top design but not as big as this–maybe a green banner with the page title in gold or something–simple, anyway, and not taking up too much room.

Jennifer Davis did the digital form of the artwork from my sketches; I played with the colors; Ruta Duhon of Willowbrook Designs put it all together and kept me from going astray.

Hope you enjoy it.   (Now to quit playing with custom colors and “how many weird things can I do with this interlacement” and get back to work on the book proper.)