Paksworld

While we wait another couple of weeks for the US release of Kings, here’s some more background to consider.   Back when I first discovered the complexity of Paksworld (as much as was needed for that first set of books)  I knew that having so much magic, of one kind and another, would almost certainly displace technological innovation, wherever magic worked well enough and was economically viable.

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One of the topics UK Editor suggested for a blog post for the Orbit Books site was “favorite fantasy dragons” with a lead-in to Kings of the North.    Those of you around in the great burgeoning of SF/F in the late 1960s and 1970s will remember that “dragons” were fairly common.    Some belonged to older mythologies  and some had been softened and tamed and made almost bland.

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You were supposed to get another blog post yesterday, but I was flat in bed for the second day with a high fever.   Today I’m well  enough to spend a little time at the computer (how much will depend on whether the fever comes back.)    I’ll try to answer comments today in all my online locales but not sure I’ll get to them all, and you’re probably going to be short a blog post or two.

However, my UK editor confirmed that today is release day for Kings of the North in the UK.    Would love to hear where it’s spotted first!

For  those who would like a look at Chapter One,  Editor has now given me a link to share, but it was 117 characters long, so I ran it through TinyURL for you.  For reasons known only to the Secret Masters of Software NonAgreement, anything after it comes out in bold, too, so I’m saying what I need to say above it.   I still don’t know when my blog entries will appear at Suvudu (the Del Rey SF/fantasy blogsite) but will let you know when I do:

http://tinyurl.com/49dzcbh

Author’s copies of the UK edition of Kings of the North arrived yesterday and look really good…the cover is stunning.   Including the double-page-spread map.   I think you in the UK will see the actual books in the stores earlier than we in the US, if I understood  UK Editor’s email.    Thus it’s time for a reminder that any spoilerish comments  need to be clearly marked with “Spoilers” in the subject line so that those who haven’t gotten the book yet aren’t given tidbits they don’t want…and ideally no spoilerish comments will appear until mid-April. Read the rest of this entry »

Or, what about clothes?   Since I’ve been asked some detailed questions about the clothes in Paksworld.   This post can’t possibly answer them all, but will suggest some of the sources I used in considering what clothes the characters wear.

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One of the problems facing anyone trying to run a large establishment new to them is staff.   Old staff–competent?  Trustworthy?   Or dishonest, lazy, troublemakers?    New brooms who have done this before may sweep clean, but someone coming into a completely strange situation may not know where to start, how to evaluate any existing staff, and where the organization needs shoring up.

So it is with Dorrin Verrakai, who would be quite comfortable running the North Marches stronghold–a familiar military establishment–but not the Verrakai holdings.    By escaping from her ancestral home, and absenting herself from the Tsaian court, she’s ensured not only her survival but her ignorance.    A military camp and a ducal household (especially with all those now-orphaned children)  have little in common.  Hence this snippet.

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The morning began with the discovery (not unexpected by me!) that the dozen or so ants on the counter yesterday had become a superhighway of ants along the edge of the counter, up the wall, and into one of the cabinets.  They had also constructed a network of smaller routes on the counter itself.  Some of them had crossed the Great Chasm between counter and stove top, with the result that the sugar bowl (these are sugar ants, much to be preferred if you must have ants) had ants in it.

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31 days (or 30 by the time most of you see this) and thus time for a snippet.   In fact, a snippet from the very beginning of Kings of the North.   I don’ t think, this close to release, that it’s going to be spoilerific for anyone.

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What?! I hear you cry.  What do new chairs have to do with writing the book?

It’s one of the mysteries of the creative mind.   Suffice to say that throughout our entire marriage (over 41 years now) we have never had “real” kitchen chairs.    And now we do, replacing mismatched, aging, and uncomfortable folding chairs with real wood chairs that are up to our weights and sizes.   Library chairs, in fact.

New chairs with new tablecloth & trial chair pad

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