The Final Calling: Progress Report Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Five is now online.

I’m $112.13 short of having Chapter Twenty-Six paid for, but there’s a week to go.

Update, 3:00 a.m. EST: Okay, Chapter Twenty-Six is paid for.

I’m writing Chapter Twenty-Nine, but only just started it. There will be at least thirty-two chapters, but no more than thirty-six unless the story surprises me — I think I have it all plotted out, and thirty-six chapters should do it. I’m guessing it’ll run around 100,000 words in first draft, and I’m hoping to have it written by Christmas.

The whole Realms of Light project is over and done, books mailed to donors, regular edition available from all the usual outlets. The Kindle edition is now available, as well. I did send at least one copy, and possibly as many as four, to an out-of-date address, so I may need to deal with some returns, but other than that, it’s finished.

Hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving, and happy Chanukah to those who celebrate it.

23 thoughts on “The Final Calling: Progress Report Twenty-Five

  1. I’m pleased to see some more of the personal relationship developing. All the telegraphed points are falling in line. I’m wondering what happens to Spriggans dumped through gates though, just considering the Spriggan Mirror. Seems like Wizards would just have a gate for disposing of Spriggans …

  2. Hmm. Hanner really is coming across as a bit oblivious to the subtext of what Rudhira’s saying, isn’t he? On the other hand, he’s extremely preoccupied, and still coming to terms with the loss of his wife, so I suppose that’s understandable.

  3. Yes, well, we guys are ever clueless to the feelings of women in our life. (Another good recent example being Hermione’s precis of Margaret Cho’s many feelings when she cried when Harry kissed her in “Deathly”.)

    So much potential. It’s hard to wait week to week. But it does make my Wednesdays.

  4. Hanner has always seemed a little oblivious when it comes to the things closest to him- women being attracted to him and his own abilities as a leader being the two largest of these.

    Spriggans seem to interact with transporting tapestries the same as any other creature- at least that’s what seemed to be implied by Karinissa and Tobas in the Spriggan Mirror and Spell of the Black Dagger; that they chased Spriggans out or they wondered out of the otherworldly castle. I could be misinterpreting that though.

  5. I think that Spriggans and their relationship and susceptibility to magic has been well documented in the Spriggan Mirror, thank you.

  6. hrm… does taking a spriggan into a null-magic zone have any effect on it? It would be reasonable to assume that it has a similar effect on the single spriggan to the mirror being in the null magic zone… but that’s never actually been addressed and it is wizardry (ie; chaos).

  7. Wizardry doesn’t work in null wizardry zones. Thus, one would expect that spriggan characteristics that derive from wizardry would not work as well.

    That would include their invulnerability.

    It occurs to me that spriggans are a little bit like warlocks: They have a source they can be cut off from.

    Bill

  8. Right, but does the same happen when they enter a null magic zone while the mirror is elsewhere?

    I assume the same effects set in for such individuals… But I don’t know as it’s ever been addressed.

    The comparison between Spriggans and warlocks is interesting.

  9. Something about this chapter was bugging me so I went back and reread it again. Hanner is said to be hanging the transporting tapestry in an unused bedroom which is described in a few details …
    “Together, the three marched back up the two flights to the fourth floor, and into the front bedroom where two dormer windows overlooked High Street, and Hanner’s Transporting Tapestry hung on the south wall.
    Hanner stepped aside as soon as he was through the door, and watched as Rudhira took in the hanging tapestry, its sunny colors so bright they seemed to glow, and the discarded old tapestry lying heaped on the floor. She glanced at the canopied bed and the twin night-stands badly in need of dusting, at the gold-edged ewer, the unlit oil lamps, and the other furnishings, and Hanner could see her dismissing them as irrelevant and focusing her attention on the magical hanging. ”

    However earlier in the book when more displaced Warlocks arrived Hanner was doubling them up because they were out of bedrooms to put them in. These two statements are clearly in conflict, here we are shown a dusty unused bedroom that someone or a couple of people could be using as their sleeping quarters. Also presumably the people Hanner let in to stay should be grateful for the accommodation and working to clean up the house of their host just on general principals unless he told them not to, which I might have just missed him doing. I know he has been busy and all but Hanner was Chairman for quite a while and it seems like he would have assigned people to do what needs to be done, at least in terms of cleaning and such.

  10. Yeah, that’s a good point, and I’ll fix it in the second draft. There’s also the thing about having dormer windows when the house has an attic that might want some clarification.

    Anyway, Hanner hasn’t been putting anyone on the fourth floor yet because he’s worried about stray bits of magical junk that might still be lying around. I’ll spell that out in the revised version.

  11. I purchased Realms of Light at the kindle store, and greatly enjoyed the story.

    As a commentary on the donation policy, I would donate money if you had a lower priced donation threshold for ebooks. I’ve stopped purchasing hardcopy books, and when I found my self purchasing duplicate copies of The Spriggan Mirror and the Vondish Ambassador in ebook form, I decided that I would just wait for the ebook version of future serials. As a point of interest, I would instantly donate for any serial if you had a $5 ebook threshold, probably donate at $10, above that I probably would wait for the official ebook version to be published at an ebook retailer.

    I of course understand that you are under _NO_ obligation to offer any different terms for your serial, I’m just offering a data point of how I view the serials as a reader.

  12. I appreciate the input, and given the recent shifts in the market and the sudden popularity of kindles, nooks, and the rest, I think you have a very good point.

    If I do any more serials — and I honestly don’t know right now whether I will; it depends on how various things develop — then I will indeed offer an e-book option, but it’ll probably be at $10, not $5.

    This time around, I hadn’t yet decided that when I started the serial, and it doesn’t seem fair to change the rules partway through.

    Incidentally, as long as the subject’s come up, is anyone else as annoyed by the poor quality of some e-books from supposedly professional publishers as I am? I’ve been reading Jim Butcher’s Side Jobs on the Kindle, and the introductions are all run into the stories, instead of having different typefaces or even just a couple of blank lines setting them off. It’s tacky and sloppy.

  13. I’ve been pretty happy with the e-books I’ve gotten. Though I generally prefer the dead-tree version of books so I haven’t gotten many; which is funny considering that for most other things I’m usually the one mocking those around me as luddites.

    Wiki-driven question; any plans to give the world beyond the tapestry a name? Obviously it can’t be “the World,” as there’s already one of those, and the Warlock’s Refuge collides with the name of the short story (though properly, I suppose, the world would be the Warlocks’ Refuge- *technically* relieving the collision…) I expect it’ll be something basic like that, given that it’s Ethshar, unless it’s a spoileriffic question somehow- but I figured I’d check and see if there was an easy way around the situation.

  14. Cool, I started trying to catologue known tapestries, which is an interesting exercise in names. I assume I can just wait and see on that one though.

    It is dissapointing to hear that it got mangled in any version. Dresden is *fun*, and Side Jobs was well put together in ink and paper.

  15. At $10, I would definitely have contributed for any of the serials that you’ve run so far, it might be possible you would come up with a serial idea that I wouldn’t, but to be honest I doubt you would.

    Some of the ebooks have been very sloppy, especially for an A-list NYT bestselling author. I remember running into that same problem with Side-Jobs, it was confusing at times.

    One of the reasons I haven’t purchased Brandon Sanderson’s The Way of kings was because of a review of ebook problem from a review at teleread.

    http://www.teleread.com/ebooks/the-problem-is-publishers-don’t-read-ebooks/

  16. Ryan,

    On the subject of the known transporting tapestries, these are the ones i can think of offhand;

    one that was used in Misenchanted Sword (to take Valder to one of the Ethshars from the battlefield);

    The pair that was mentioned in Single Spell for access to and from Derithon the Mage’s hidden home;

    The one that was destroyed by the Seething Death in Spell of the Black Dagger;

    I think there was also a pair in ‘Night of Madness’ when Hanner was taken to a ‘Hidden place’ that was a meeting place for the wizards trying to decide what to do with the warlock situation, although it’s not directly mentioned, but it’s inferred.

    And of course.. the pair that are used for Hanner’s Refuge in the current serial.

    I can’t think of any other Tapestries in the entire Ethshar series

    Lawrence,

    I really enjoy these novels, I have most of the original ones that were published, and I still read them from time to time.

    I really hope there’ll be more adventures from that interesting land.:)

    Thanks
    Darryl
    Montreal, Canada

  17. By the way, just a reminder: When you post for the first time, your comment is moderated — I have to approve it before it appears.

    Once you’ve been approved once, though, future posts should go right through.

    It’s an anti-spam thing; sorry for the inconvenience.

    Also, certain words and phrases are blacklisted. If you inadvertently use one of those, the comment isn’t moderated, it’s deleted entirely before I even see it. Normally this shouldn’t be a problem, but every so often I get careless and blacklist something without realizing it has a perfectly harmless and reasonable use. If this happens to you, let me know.

  18. Darryl;
    Got those.
    POSSIBLE SPOILERS TO OTHER ETHSHAR STORIES
    Valder was taken to the battlements of Ethshar of the Rocks.
    The one that was destroyed in Spell of the Black Dagger was the one that previously lead to Derithon’s flying castle AKA the dead-wizardry zone.
    The new tapestry seen in SotBD lead to a room in one of the guard towers in Ethshar of the Sands.
    The one returning from the Inner Circle’s councel chamber came out in Ithinia of the Isle’s house in Ethshar of the Spices.

    There’s also one in the short story Weaving Spells.

    Those I got. If anyone else thinks of anything feel free to change it on the Transporting Tapestry page of the wiki.

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