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No, yes, sort of.
Oak Orks of the Antilles, which will be launching sometime plus or minus book 4 will involve Trig Bioblast, and while a “standalone series”, he will be interacting with people from Doom, since he is one of Tom’s shamans. I would expect Tom to show up in that series, but more like a guest starring role. There will be some Doomites that join that series.
In book II, when Vaselle shows up, I was very seriously tempted to have a second character, a Sister of Tiernon or maybe a priestess get totally by Tom and decide to convert and become a groupie and then try to start a religion, which of course would really have complicated things for Tom, who wouldn’t have wanted one, and for Orcus who never wanted one.
My thought was literally “religious groupie”
However, I decided that it was too much overlap with Vaselle at the time. As it is, he is not getting as much page time as I want.
Yes, those are all possibilities, my actual thought is where they’ll sleep until they get back to their home in the material planes (they were living in Jotungard in Astlan.
However, they are going to be staying at the Citadel for a while to help clean up the mess they made of the northern wall. Clearing rubble, moving stone, the bergrisi, who did most of the damage, is also a very powerful stonesmith as one might imagine.
Well, that was the original plan when I first started the book.
Unfortunately, the chemistry just wasn’t there. Surprisingly, even before I started moving this way in book II, rereading book 1 for the audio book stuff, I can see the chemistry between her and Gastrope’ is just much better.
I then introduced Zelda, who is only 27, (Steward of Doom) seeing if that would click. Well, their kids became fast friends, but just not seeing it between the two of them. So, were are still looking for that special someone.
Dating his hard enough for people in Tom’s human social class, it’s worse as a demon, and if he is Orcus, worse yet. Don’t know if you’ve noticed, but relationships between gods is about as reliable and lasting as that between movie stars.
But the good news is, he’s got all of eternity to settle down….
Yes, and on the size changing note. I was surprised to find that one reviewer was taken aback by the size changing. He said it kind of came out of the blue and shocked him.
Now, it did surprise Tom, very much when the D’Orcs did it, he didn’t realize they could do that. But if you think of it as “shape changing” and the fact that Tom had been doing it when he entered Nysegard, and also, in the battle in the Abyss, Lesteroth or one of his friends mentioned it. The sphinxes did it. It shouldn’t be that surprising.
Where it IS surprising is Hilda. Hilda as a saint is sort of hybrid between an incarnated archon and mana body. However, the explanation for that is that it’s a standard avatar ritual, rather than an intrinsic ability.
I’ve also gotta figure out if the risar can do it. They are using incarnated physical bodies, not mana bodies. So I’m a bit concerned about how they are going to fit through portals to get to Doom. Maybe Tom will have to open a big gateway.
[quote=Dirk Flamberge;6349]So, is it coincidence that every book so far has ended just after a major battle, or is that purposely done?[/quote]
Well, the first time it was extremely fitting.
The second one didn’t initially end in a big battle and everyone in beta thought the book was rather boring, so I changed things around/rearranged things and it ended up with the big bang.
This one was building to this for most of the book so….
It’s not a requirement, but I like to end on a high/big note that leaves people wanting to come back for the next “season” so it’s really the same way serialized TV shows like to end with a cliffhanger.
But really it’s about breaking up the long story at appropriate points, since it’s all one book. So I look for a good break point around 250,000 words plus or minus and then move stuff around to make the ending more satisfying.
A marriage or birth would probably also work, as would a (permanent) death.
Not yet.
Might have a sign up for the beta of “Who in the Abyss is that?” the free e-book i promised with updated cast of characters and other information (mainly from this site that many still haven’t found).
it’s turning to be a bigger challenge than expected….just being sure of who is in which book when….
There are like 470 characters….
Most of which are just named people and not major players but….
One other thing that is tricky is describing alliances because who someone is with, changes, and in fact, characters lie about who they are with, e.g. Bess, Exador, Ramses…are some of the worst.
And going back to Mikey. Of course! I moved the spreadsheet into a database and built a first front end to edit/organize the data better and that will generate the word document etc. It’s a first version of the Character DB tool for my Writer Blocks program that I’ve been puttering with since Book II came out.
Yes, it will be a free e-book.
I know, the spoiler thing is something I need to figure out what to do with. Same for the site. I’ve thought about having buttons that people “click” that will add them to a group (like Beta Demons) that will give them access to later information.
E.g. “Read ITA”,”Read HH”, “Read AoD” and then sections of the site will be visible if you have added yourself to the group.
Not sure what to do about the e-book. Should I do multiple books, one for each book. A big part of the problem is that descriptions “should” change to be accurate once things are revealed.
That’s a big part of why there are no D’Orcs mentioned on the site library etc.
Yeah, that’s my hope.
I am not taking time off. I”m supposed to be writing right now, in fact, however this freaking amazon thing is distracting me.
It’s not like I can do anything about it, it’s basically up to amazon to fix this stuff, or tell me how to fix it in the case of the KCR.
But it’s driving me nuts that I can’t adequately communicate the problem and fixes to people. So it’s just hard to “relax and write”
I’ve posted stuff about it everywhere I can manage, and even replied to reviews that complain about the problems with fixes etc. But almost no one reads comments on reviews, nor goes to the authors pages/forums.
Of course, the other thing is how many people do not even know about this site, even though it’s got a link in the front matter.
If it looks like book 4 is slipping due to complexity, I might let it slip and insert OOA in there as well before 4. The other two are supposedly half the length and “newish” so have lest continuity/backstory to worry about getting right, so should thus be faster to write/beta/etc.
Thanks!
I gotta wonder about unverified purchases. The only way to have read the book is to have bought it through amazon (or I suppose Create Space, but there are very few sold directly there, probably none if people want the paperback they’d probably go for free shipping and prime) So if you read it, amazon would know. And clearly a few of the unverified have read it to know what they know.
So I wonder if the unverified reviews are from people outside the US who review on the .com site. They probably don’t share purchase history across borders. The EU in particular would frown on that, they are good on personal privacy.
I get the reviews that are on the book formatting, hopefully those will change. It’s the ones like the 1 star by G. Gardner (real name–according to a tag under it) that one makes no sense, and he even protests that he’s not lying and posting a false review on a random book, which makes me wonder more.
I mean, if this fellow really is “Guy Gardner” it would be in character for him. Still not clear how he got himself ring and lantern in the first place. I thought they had tests for that. I liked him best, I think when he had the yellow ring.
Anyway, when they just say it’s crap without saying why they don’t like it. That bugs me. I need to know what people don’t like.
Saw it! Thanks a lot!
I looked at Gardner’s other reviews, he uses that form of speech for several of his reviews. i did find one that was serious, but like one star.
But I think asshole is new “hip” thing. Everywhere I turn on the Internet or News, these days, it’s like people are going out of their way to be as rude and objectionable as possible. It’s almost like there was some new role model people were following.
It’s so nefarious I would almost suspect an archdemon of instigating it.
Took me a minute to digest the context. Did not realize it was in the OOA forum. So didn’t know what you were yaying at first. I use the most recent links to read topics…
Yeah, I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately, which is distracting, because I need to be focusing on book IV and Into the Wilds but it’s really been creeping up on me lately.
On flight to Xmas, I watch “The Last Kingdom” and am now finally getting around to Vikings. Both are excellent stories set 200 years apart about vikings raiding England.
But really the vikings and their society are so very much like the modern orc concept (post Tolkien) that it’s freaky. And so got me wanting to focus on Orc stories even more!
Hmm, vOrcings? I love the sound of that, but can you have barbarian orcs? That would imply there are civilized ones.
Of course, Orcopolis is a pretty civilized sort of place, so, there is an example of Urban Orcs, and such.
Yes, true. As you allude, the word barbarian in latin comes from the fact that these guys didn’t speak Latin, and their language sounded like the bah bah of sheep in the field, the fact that they dressed like sheep in giant furry coats/mantles didn’t help.
I think for me, the “Raider” mentality is more what symbolized the barbarian sort of mentality. I.e. a lack of respect for the overall rule of law.
The vikings had laws within their own society, but cared nothing for laws outside their society. For everyone that was not them, it was all might makes right. If you can’t defende it, I am entitled to take it.
Now, that being said, that is not the view of all orcs, nor, I suspect even most. There are probably as many human raiders as there are orc raiders on most worlds. However, that is what the elves have been saying across the multiverse, smearing the orcs.
And in fact, that is where we come back to the language. Orcs have trouble speaking human/elven languages because of their teeth, thus when speaking Trade, they sound like dull witted brutes. Like Bah bahrians…
