Next Book Time Frame?
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I hope you are not laughing at our various serious discussions on matters of life, death and eternal torment.
Eternity is a very serious matter, as is the lack of eternity caused by True Death.
o:)
OK,
Back, finally have a bit of time.
@Tizzy, I’m ignoring you.
@Everyone else:
On the book. Actually, you sort of have me on the gold lettering on the book. My vision of what the book looked like has sort of changed over time. For the majority of the time I wrote it I was thinking of it as a soft leather cover, and maybe with some goldish writing on the outside (similar to gold paint/ink) but looking at the actual description you quote…that’s not what I implied. Or I don’t think it was.
That part was written during the first wave of writing (circa 1985-86) which took me up through the caravan attack basically. The second wave of writing was in 94-95 and by that time my thinking on it had changed/gotten more realistic and by the third/final wave 2013-2014 I wasn’t even seeing the error…there were too many other things I wanted to fix/improve.
So inconsistency there is really time. I don’t advise writing books over such a long period of time, although historically I have done exactly that with everything I’ve written. Now that I know I can actually get them read by people, I have an incentive to finish things more timely (like book 2). When I was writing most of the book, I was mainly writing it for myself with a dream of publishing it, but this was pre-ebooks and self-publishing and I knew the chance of actually getting published were slim to nil…so I took my time. (Actually, I just stopped writing on this book for 20 years)
That being said…I will say this, and it’s important to understand: I didn’t start with medieval Europe as a basis for Astlan, I started with a montage of fantasy worlds, largely all based on Tolkein, but expanded by people like Terry Brooks, Fritz Leiber, Michael Moorcock, Gary Gygax (D&D) and later Robert Jordan.
So my starting point for “reality” was generic fantasy world. And thus…in Astlan, while gold is valuable, it’s not anywhere near as valuable as it really was. This is because it isn’t that valuable in fantasy worlds. The final hobbit movie is coming out this fall/winter. Check out Smaug’s bedroom in the mines. That is a completely ridiculous amount of gold by any economic standard.
All I can think while staring at it is that if all that gold got out into the world…entire economies would collapse under hyper-inflation…
Now, not to use that as an excuse…but that’s the sort of world that’s my starting point, not Europe.
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So…back to the glass.
If we were talking animagic, the stuff that animages do, I would and do agree with you 100% plus in terms of glass and the production of many other things. Animages can’t do this stuff, never could.
That’s the difference with Wizardry and why it was so huge a development. It brought about, is bringing about, a magic-industrial revolution. Wizardry is to animagic “sort of” what engineering is to science. It’s engineering and the production of a technology of magic that makes it safe, predictable and repeatable.
To that end, they start with small pieces with specific magical functions and build larger constructs. That’s what spells are. They are channeling animus and mana in verbal, semantic and material “keys”, “tools”, “catalysts”, “batteries”,”frameworks” etc rather than trying to do this by force of will.
As I’ve discussed wizardry makes magic far more widely available to people who otherwise wouldn’t have gotten that far with animastery etc.
Everyone talks about “magic items” thinking swords, flying carpets, but my guess is that the largest number of magic items are really magic tools used to make other magic items. They tend to be single purpose, or limited purpose items designed to help the wizard do other things.
So for example, when we talk about using pyromancy with glass making? We are talking about magic furnaces that are temperature regulated and stable.
I am not literally talking about a pyromancer standing there acting as a blow torch. If a blow torch is needed (as it often may be) then it’s a Rod of Fire or some such doodad.Similarly, there will be magic devices that help the flow of the liquid glass into a flat form.
The point is, with wizardry, the wizard isn’t doing most of the work, it’s preconfigured spells, magic tools etc.
Lots of little spell parts add up to something far more complex and stable than any single wizard could control on their own.
In fact, that’s what ultimately makes Wizardry more powerful than Animagic.
Note that a group of human wizards, fewer than a hundred were able to work together and evict a thousand demons, including several archdemons against their will. The archdemon’s didn’t stand a chance. Clearly the arch demons were more powerful than any of the wizards, but the wizards acting together using wizardry (the pentacles and lots of material components) were able to overwhelm and expel all those demons.
Here is a thing I thought a lot about. How do wizards make a living? This was critical for me in writing the book.
Gastrope’ wants to eat, he takes a job as combat wizard working for Exador. Not a really smart idea, but he’s gotta eat.
It’s pretty clear though how one or two wizards in a good sized city could make a living as Magic Consultants, spell casters for hire, in particular Thaumaturges can do quite well.
For my influence on this, see [url=http://www.amazon.com/Master-Five-Magics-Lyndon-Hardy/dp/0345334256/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1407196227&sr=1-1&keywords=master+of+five+magics]Master of Five Magics by Lyndon Hardy[/url]
But what about in a city with thousands of wizards? Who needs that many wizards? What’s the economic model for such a city?
It’s basically going to be very similar to the Italian City States…it’s going to be craftsmanship. You will have wizards making stuff to sell.
And you will need other wizards to make the “magic tools” higher up wizards need to make the flashy items.So you are going to have lots of wizard craftsmen in this city building the tools for other wizards to make glass, for other wizard to make magic mirrors etc.
Zilquar makes carpets, yeah, but the real work is making the magic looms that do most of the work. You need to weave the magic spells into the fabric of the rug, thus you need magic looms and other wool (or whatever the rug is made out of) implements.
OK, gotta take a break…
I would like to see you speak in a simple cipher with small print and lots of color…
of course, verbally, does lots of color mean you’d be using “colorful language” i.e. swearing a lot?
Well, the quotes rather give the impression that using magic needs intense concentration but there is almost none about magic not needing one. Its the impression that is important. Might have been made clear from the onset.
Jenn and the man situation is also curious. Why would Jenn need to make the spell last longer? I thought the spell was to move the roots and make them bind the enemy. But after that there should be no need for further magic. Roots are quite strong materials by themselves. A man bound in roots is very unlikely to escape. I was also a bit surprised when Jehanna admonished Jenn about leaving the prisoner because what Jenn did is more than enough.
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As for craft, I don’t see how magic reduces the mental effort. Craft requires great focus by themselves, magic also requires mental effort, combine the two and you might as well double the required mental energy. I’m not saying that it makes it impossible, I just say that in general not just the glass table (which is quite a feat) magic in production isn’t really that much of an improvement. Yes they can make better products but that doesn’t mean that the products made by magic is cheaper (incredibly cheap!) than ones made by hand. For all business sense, objects made by magic should have been more expensive, the law of supply and demand and all, not to mention the effort to make them.
“A driver of a car does not have to worry about making sure the pistons are turning, or that gas is flowing into them, or any of the other details of what makes the car go. Same for flying carpets.”
You are really set on the car analogy. A car standing still is very different from a carpet hovering in place. Turn the car off and it would stay in place, not so with carpets.
It may seem easy but hovering in place is quite difficult. Birds can’t even do that where flying is their specialty. Don’t expect that from modern air vehicles (hovering airplanes?). Hellicopters would wobble around when it hovers. The most perfect hovering that I could see with modern crafts are the tiny helicopter robots in many science channels. But then they require lot of processing power and quite sterile surroundings to do so.
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Thaumaturgy. There is some information in the special pages and with the small info there, Thaumaturgy is quite an impressive magic.
You might also confuse payment from profits. For example, matches are quite cheap but millions of it is consumed every day, so even with small profits per match, the huge number consumed would result to very big profits. On the other end, airplanes gives quite large margin of profits, but then the demand for them isn’t really as big, just thousands a year. So, in business sense, even if Thaumaturgy is somewhat lowkey compared to others that shouldn’t be a barrier against big profits.
As for the nobles, they aren’t the only ones who have the money. Even if other people have less wealth than the nobles, their sheer number is more than enough to compensate. That is why in products, like books, how many is sold matters a lot. Authors and publishers would love to make and sell a best selling book. More sold, more profits.
Also even if Thaumaturgy is rather dull compared to other field of magic and is relatively less valued compared to others, that doesn’t mean it has little value. Relative, absolute there is a difference. This coupled with the fact that magic wielders are rare and most it seems doesn’t choose Thaumaturgy. High demand and little supply, and by the law of supply and demand that makes for quite a profitable venture.
I think you should also clear up about the business side of magic wielders if this is going to be important in your book.
Very interesting and I think closing in on truth…
So spurred by that I bring up Order and Chaos, in particular the concept of Entropy.
There is an analogy here to be found.
Consider also the later beings of creation, they are much more efficient in their use of mana to bind animus to matter.
See discussion of the Sidhe and first races. Worlds with low mana, generally don’t have Sidhe because the sidhe can’t function well there.
In order to live on such a world, you need to be very mana efficient. “Lower Energy Beings” which are also more ordered.
Order corresponds to lower energy states, think alchemy and molecular and atomic states.
Anyway, it had got me thinking about this plane I visited once, where they framed everything in terms of Order and Chaos, they had two different groups of wizards, Order Masters and Chaos Masters….
I am sure there is some tying out that can be done.
Just pondering.
Since wizards cast structured spells would it be possible for an animage to
A. warp the spell structure to alter or render it inert
B. absorb the mana to render it inert
C. act as a virus to try and take control of or destroy the spell
D. loosen/ disrupt/ rupture the spell structure to render it inertWizards don’t have complete control of a spell, they set things up and let work from their in some instances so could it be possible to then mess with it. A wizards spell also needs concentration and is delicate so somebody deliberately trying to alter a forming spell should have little effort doing so, but with no idea of the aftereffects.
I ask as wizardry is a form of mana-engineering and from what I know it is much simpler to destroy or disrupt something that has been engineered than it is to either build or maintain it. I state this as a possible reason as to why Animages might not have expressed more interest into in the past. Wizards are best suited to fight opponents whom they have studied in detail so they can prepare appropriate counter measures and for fortifying positions with wards for security. Wizards by trade are not spontaneous and are more vulnerable in a situation for which they are unprepared. Not powerless, but less in control of a situation. Animages however display a relatively level spectrum of strength in most environs dependent on their specialties.
Heh heh!
Go Rosver! Go Rosver!
You’re kicking That Author Guy’s butt!!!!!!
I’m loving it. I told you all he was a shitty transcriber! I got sick and tired of defending his mistakes! You can see why it would be exhausting!
See all the errors he has introduced to my story….
And he still hasn’t delivered the full quota of souls he owes me…the cheapskate!
=d>
The inconsistencies are not actually inconsistencies.
As you point out, things are consistently inconsistent.
The Abyss in particular is supposed to be full of anachronisms. In particular, demons don’t really “build” anything.
They STEAL things, they have been pillaging the rest of the multi-verse for millenia. The demon princes and archdemons can open Demonic Gateways to other planes and have their minions drive truckloads of stuff through.
Very little is actually “made” in the Abyss. Although quite a bit is “created” via various more magical mechanisms. For example the cars run on Sorcehol. A synthetic ethyl-alcohol created by demon sorcerors (hydromancers, aquamancers–various Water Elementalist demons)
Also, remember how Antfalken notes that the appearance of the Courts changes frequently? Don’t assume that everything Tom or others report seeing there is exactly what it seems. There are real things, facade things and illusions. Remember, Demons are about showmanship, perceptions, smoke, mirrors, LIES…appearance is everything, reality is second best. It’s not what is real that matters, it’s what people believe that matters.
Because for demons, belief can shape reality.
As far as Astlan:
1) No pictures/images are canonical only the writing is; so if pictures seem inconsistent that is the Author Guy’s poor artistic skills.
2) However, Astlan is supposed to be very technologically advanced, the same as Earth; they just have different technology.
Do NOT make the mistake of assuming Astlan is medieval Europe etc. It’s very definitely not. Remember, these guys (Lenamare) have nukes, or something similar. Medicine and healing is far far more advanced in Astlan than on Earth today. While not widely used by non mana-wielders, they do have instant long distance communication in the forms of mirrors, crystal balls, dreamspeaking and all sorts of other methods.
They have sailing ships, flying ships, magic carpets, teleportation, runic gateways and dragons (and other creatures) for long distance travel.
Also, remember wizards have access to other planes of existence as well. They can’t go as far as Earth, but they can steal ideas from other planes. Also, there are demons from far out planes visiting Astlan and introducing ideas and concepts, and masquerading as humans. They will often import ideas from their home realm to make themselves comfortable and Astlanian’s will steal it.
Book binding is extremely advanced. It has to be because that’s how they have distributed spells for centuries.
I’ve mentioned this before, where does Lenamare get the money for his expensive research? His school?
He gets it by inventing spells, patenting them and selling them. Check out the various committees of the Council, you’ll note there is a patent committee.
They have really good patent laws in Astlan. Most nations or groups have pretty good trade laws and intellectual property laws, all of which foster innovation, trade and growth.
So in short…you are supposed to see lots of inconsistencies, because that’s just how Astlan really is.
🙁 I was laughing first you immortal bastard, even if you were technically born before I was! Also, if you guys don’t mind selling your soul a second or(97th time or so) I’ve got free chocolate!=p~ And yes, the free is a misnomer because all you have to do to get it is give me your eternal soul which I will then sell to your original contractors for more chocolate.:-k I’m sensing a never-ending cycle here…oh well, it’s chocolate. Your eternal souls are definitely worth me getting more of it. Now fork them over or SUFFER!!!! :d/
Oh no. I’m feeling that things are just rationalized away.
And you know alcohol easily evaporates right? Such a thing in Abyss wouldn’t be staying liquid for long. Not to mention, its flamable nature doesn’t lend it to easy storage in such a hellish world.
As for constant archetectural changes, that is quite natural. Buildings build now has different style from buildings build say twenty years ago, and they look certainly very different from buildings made a century ago. Also, building are constantly brought down and new building build up. The constant changes of architectureisn’t really unusual even even only mundane humans live there.
As for Astlan:
-It is not only the picture, the technology in the writing is also inconsistent.
-That is not how it appears in the book. The ‘magical technology’ might be advanced in a way, but eveything not magical is often very primitive… well, not really, the technology is, as I say, very incoherrent.
The mistake is because the book doesn’t make any consistent structure of the technogy Astlan have. We have some very old tech like castles, wagons, sail powered ships, candles, plated armor, swords, arrows, brazier and what not. There are lot of elements that give the impression of the very very low tech, the plated armors especially scream medieval Europe.
The magic technologies might be what we way advanced, but then it is magic. Very short communication magic for example wouldn’t be very magical, it is just stupid. Other magical communication is also typical fare in magic. A magical carpet still uses a rather old tech carpet, and magic carpets are very ancient technology if arabian nights is to be referenced. And dragons isn’t technology.
You know, magic. You can’t just compare say plastic surgery with shapeshifting, or surgical stitches to magic healing. You just can’t!
As for stealing ideas, why don’t they steal the more useful ones? Why don’t they steal concrete? Guns? Artificial lighting? Canning? Perfect binding (book)? Ballpoint pen? Paint? Plastic? Coca-cola?….. And there is almost no indications of any advanced non magical technology used massively. Only Lenamare, it seems, know about nuclear bombs impressing other wizzards, for example.
As for demons, the problem is demons isn’t very cooperative. Any big idea require a large amount of cooperation for it to bear fruit or materialize. How people and years does it take for us to develop internet technology? How many years does it take for us to develop technology for high rise buildings? If you study the history of such things you wil know.
Now demons are much more like uncontrolled teenagers or entitled oligarchs steeped in hedonism rather than very deciplined people and organizations who devote themselves to study and creation. I don’t really expect a Plato from any of them. Or an Einstien. Or an Edison. I’ll probably never see any Bell’s laboratories there. Or NASA. So even if one of the demons have the idea or knowledge, it probably won’t be developed and shared. It would actually just stagnate.
Bookbinding has been the same for centuries. You might have mean Bookmaking. Very early books, the pages are handwritten. You will probably imagine how long it would take if you write a thousand page book with pen and paper alone? Bookbinding is also done by hand. And so is tanning leather, cutting pages, making paper, cutting paper, mixing ink, preparing the pen,….. a monk would spend his entire lifetime just to make a copy of the Bible. Now we have machines to do many of these. There is a machine that binds the book, makes ink, makes paper, cuts paper, print the pages, creates the cover, … . That is the technology I meant. All of those contributed so that an affordable book is possible. Without them, only the extremely rich could afford a book.
And well, I’m not asking about how Lenamare get his riches. Being a powerful enough wizzard is reason enough.
Demons have no maximum memory capacity and a lot of time. The human mind can only hold so much, which is why some go senile.The stronger ones can also shape shift and visit realities beyond Astlan. Sleeping, breathing, and eating are more a hobby or habit. This gives demons a lot of time to study and practice their various ideas and interests.
Ah ok. Thanks for answering, that’s been bugging me lol
Maybe it could be smoothed over a bit by making it so the additional compulsion has some kind of semi-prohibitive cost of some sort that makes using it impractical, which also steeply rises as the complexity of the commands increases?
That way even a high end set of wizards like L&J wouldn’t use it in normal circumstances and it would explain why the compulsion command was relatively simple compared to the rest of it.
As author guy may have mentioned somewhere…
The first book took enough time to make George RR Martin impatient (if he’d been reading it)….I don’t know when Martin started GOT, but I know when I started dictating the story to the lazy author and when GoT was released….and let’s just say that Bran had not yet been born and probably the same for Joffrey….
However, the author claims he’s going to have the second book done this year…he’s shooting for the end of the year…
I’m hoping he keeps his word, because I can only start collecting payment once the book is published and it draws new users to this site, where I can collect their souls via their email addresses…
Your explanation isn’t really very satisfying but that have to do.
You haven’t really directly resolved the reason why people seem to know about quarks, which in essence is the building blocks of elementary particles like electrons and protons. Essentially the knowledge of quarks and QFT is far more advance than nuclear physics but it is quite strange that people know a lot about the more advance stuff but almost none about the less advance one.
As for the knowledge of atomic model. How come that happens? The atomic model is far more easy and sane than quarks and QFT, yet very little know about the formers and lots about the laters? It just doesn’t make sense no matter what universe you came from.
As for the glass. Not just flat glass, it is quite common, even in the past. Its the large, flat and smooth glass. A dining table has to be several feet in length. It would be quite amazing a feat of control and concentration for wizzards to keep the glass liquid and maintain it liquid while shaping the unweildy liquid to mold flat. Not to mention there is also those “conflicting elemental affiliations” that Jehenna said that should have added another layer if difficulty for such a feat where various magic dicipline are combined. In a world where magic users could kill themselves for minor mistakes (an accepted fact), it is astounding that they don’t end up burning themselves or encased in glass instead.
Now you add mirrors to be also common. They are even more difficult to make that just plain glass. How could that fact clear up anything?
Also medieval mirrors aren’t actually made of silvered glass but polished metal. Its the foolish Hollywood that make a mistake of those large wall mounted mirror to be the ‘usual’ silvered glass. Such mirrors are an impossibility in medieval times.
There are silvered glass at those times but:
[img=http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9f/Quentin_Massys_001.jpg]silvered glass on the table[/img]
Look at the table, there is a silvered glass mirror there. This is what these glass mirrors looks like in those times. They are tiny and very not flat.
As for paper, the basic process of making paper remained the same, modern paper making just utilize machines to create paper in large scale.
Hmm, Jenn isn’t really that improvished. Still:
“the two text books she called her own, paper and pens, nothing of real value, but it was all she owned in the entire world.”
Gosh! Textbooks, paper, pen… and they are nothing of real value! In medieval times, any of the three would be greatly treasured and are a clear indication of wealth. But here they are of no value to a person who doesn’t have much of anything.
Well:
“Except for the little brown leather book, with the gold embossing, her diary.”
Wow, gold! Such a decor just for just a diary. Either Jenn is very very rich to waste such thing for a diary, or the book is not that expensive. At first I thought it was a hard bound book because of the gold embossing, I’m quite bemused that it turns out to be the kind you illustrated. Longstitch binding isn’t really very durable. The gold embossing would be wasted in such books that isn’t really designed for durability and long lastingness.
Note, there is quite a clear personalization of the book in the form of gold embossing. Yet:
“Carefully she examined the book; true, it looked like her diary at a glance, but on closer inspection she could see that this book, although of the same size and style was considerably older than her diary. Now that she looked at it: it was obvious. This book was much more worn than hers, and considerably more scuffed up.”
And you said:
“The main differentiation between them is that one is nearly impossible to open.”
That means the books are so similar even up to the gold embossing. How could that happen? How could the books hundred of years and hundred of miles appart have similar design and decorations? It is just improbable.
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