Comments on: The Sorcerer’s Widow: Progress Report Seven

By: Dave

Dave — Sun, 10 Jun 2012 16:56:23 +0000

Hi Lawrence,

Really enjoying this story so far, and very happy that you keep writing these for us Ethshar fans. Anyway, I was wondering, with these serials, do you feel that you tend to write more “cliff-hangery” endings to the chapters than you normally would in a regular novel? And does that seem weird when these eventually become published since people can just go right to the next chapter?

Probably answering my own question here and say probably not. Just a good way to get the reader to continue to the next chapter. I guess a multi plotted story could switch to another storyline for a while, and someone would have to wait a few chapters to find out.

I guess it’s kind of like watching a TV show like Lost week to week, instead of having the patience to not watch for three years and then devouring them all on DVD in a very short amount of time. Doesn’t lessen the cliff-hangers, just answers them faster.

By: Ben

Ben — Sun, 10 Jun 2012 14:04:47 +0000

Here’s an interesting thought that probably has no relevance to the story at hand: not all Ethsharite soldiers wore green and brown. If the Northern weapons ignored people dressed in black, I wonder how they’d react to someone dressed in the black “special duty” uniform Valder wore as an assassin?

Heck…maybe that’s part of the reason it was black.

By: Lawrence

Lawrence — Sat, 09 Jun 2012 23:56:34 +0000

Hey, don’t make too many assumptions about what happened. You’ll see in a week.

By: Robert

Robert — Sat, 09 Jun 2012 23:04:05 +0000

No wait. I misread that. Sorry.

By: Robert

Robert — Sat, 09 Jun 2012 22:59:32 +0000

““At least fifty feet,” he said. “But less than sixty-five.” ”

I think it should read “at most fifty feet”.

Great cliff-hanger. Could the red flash be from Dorna’s weapon? Or could it recognize sorcery in the hands of a person out of uniform and think this wrong?

By: doyle

doyle — Sat, 09 Jun 2012 21:16:09 +0000

Apparently it’s popular to kill off main characters these days.

By: Konrad

Konrad — Sat, 09 Jun 2012 20:05:27 +0000

So Dorna’s mistake was either not getting away from Ezak before standing, or the weapon remembered that she was wearing green before. And even if her plan worked, she’d still have to hurry and disable the fils before it finishes re-repairing the weapon.

By: Darryl

Darryl — Sat, 09 Jun 2012 17:27:06 +0000

For sure, the Northerners had the Shatra, which could almost be described as a cyborg. and the northern weapon in this story seems like a high-powered, auto-seeking laser.

great story

By: Lawrence

Lawrence — Sat, 09 Jun 2012 15:37:48 +0000

It’s never been a secret that the Northern Empire knew more sorcery than Ethshar did or does. And Ethshar knew more wizardry. Just different cultural focus.

By: Ben

Ben — Sat, 09 Jun 2012 15:13:05 +0000

Well, that’s a heck of a cliffhanger.

The further the novel goes, the more I wonder why the Northern Empire had such advanced knowledge of sorcery compared to Ethshar. Did they develop it, or did they have access to some sort of mother-lode…something like the Towers…that served as the wellspring of their knowledge?