Alex Verus Series

[Mauve Shirt]

Ach, it's been a while since I read that part of the book. Yeah, it's the mundanity that made me think it was a birth name. But it would be like him to use his name as a statement.

[Saph]

New Encyclopaedia Arcana is up, this one the first of a two-parter on fire mages!

Also updated the front page with some links and info.

Oh, and on a random bit of news, my site now has more US traffic than UK traffic. So I'm getting visitors from somewhere!

[Cieyrin]

Hmm, I'm wondering if Fire Mages, given they can draw heat away from things, could perform cold magic just by utilizing thermodynamics to that extreme...

[Saph]

Hmm, I'm wondering if Fire Mages, given they can draw heat away from things, could perform cold magic just by utilizing thermodynamics to that extreme...

It's something I've been wondering about. It makes sense for them to be able to use it to some degree, but then ice magic is supposed to be a different type.

[MammonAzrael]

Easy solution: Your style of magic is extremely fluid, with no two mages commanding the exact same skill set. If you can have fire/lightning mages, you can have fire/ice mages. A fire mages ability to draw heat from objects or areas is not unlimited, but rather governed by their command of ice magic. For a fire mage that has little connection to ice magic, perhaps they can only draw out a little heat, reducing things to body temp if you're generous. To reduce or draw out the heat to anything lower, a fire mage would need at least some command or connection to ice magic.

Additionally, fire mages could possibly redirect heat rather than dissipate it.

Oh, very good article, btw.

[Saph]

Easy solution: Your style of magic is extremely fluid, with no two mages commanding the exact same skill set. If you can have fire/lightning mages, you can have fire/ice mages. A fire mages ability to draw heat from objects or areas is not unlimited, but rather governed by their command of ice magic. For a fire mage that has little connection to ice magic, perhaps they can only draw out a little heat, reducing things to body temp if you're generous. To reduce or draw out the heat to anything lower, a fire mage would need at least some command or connection to ice magic.

Makes sense. I think I'll go with that. Oh, and glad you liked it. :)

[Saph]

The second and last part of the Fire Magic article.

Less than two weeks until Cursed is released in the US! I've just finished writing a piece on curse magic at the request of my US editor - the plan is to use it for a feature on Cursed for Penguin's SF/F page at the beginning of June.

[MammonAzrael]

Another great entry. I like how vague you kept everything. You really give the sense of how fire mages are all similar, and yet leave the door open to make room for future ideas. And leave it open for all those unique abilities that will vary from person to person thanks to the fluid nature of the system.

I really like the personality description of fire mages. It is very general, but feels extremely right.

[Saph]

New Encyclopaedia Arcana is the first of a five-part series on the Concord, the main legal system/treaty in the magical world.

And Cursed comes out next week! I've been booked for a whole bunch of guest posts/interviews and I've been working frantically on those - it's been keeping me busy, but in a good way. They should start going up in June.

[Mauve Shirt]

Just preordered Cursed! Take that, book budget!

[MammonAzrael]

Loving part 1 of the Concord entry. It covers ground well and explains a lot. I do wonder when the Great Rune War occured, but that's food for another entry/book!

Oh, in the second to last paragraph you say, "The Light Council might not enforce the Concord consistently..." which, based on the tone of the preceding sentences, implies that the Light Council of Britain has international authority. It might be better to change that to the Light Alliance.

[Saph]

Just preordered Cursed! Take that, book budget!

Cool! Tell me what you think of it when you get the chance!

@Mammon: good catch, I'll go edit that.

[Saph]

Cursed is out in the US! I love the cover.

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I'm going to be very busy over the next few weeks with a series of interviews and guest posts (not to mention the next book). The good news is that there's been definite interest from both my publishers in some more Alex Verus novels. No contract yet, but fingers crossed!

[Mauve Shirt]

Ah, the unmistakable ding of a book being downloaded to my ereader. Will read this evening, hopefully.

[Cieyrin]

I'll definitely look into getting my hands on a copy soon. Looking forward to how Luna works as Alex's apprentice in the new book.

[Sallera]

Shiny. Got my copy in the mail this morning, and remembered to take a note or two per chapter while reading, too. Not that I really ended up having much constructive to say, but I can at least mention the bits that stood out.

Spoilered for obvious reasons:

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1) The opening flowed much more smoothly this time. I don't know whether it was just because this is a second book and the setting's already established, but it felt a lot more like... its own story, I guess?
2) The bit with Alex frantically searching through all his drawers for the stiletto was amusing. Nice to see the expected consequences of actually keeping something on hand for every situation.
3) I liked the training scene; Alex and Luna's dialogue always seems natural, to the point where it actually stands out.
4) The initial confrontation between Luna and Meredith felt a bit... forced? I know it's a classic of the genre, but it sort of felt like it was only there because it's a classic of the genre. On the other hand, it does keep the reader guessing as to Meredith's actual personality (My note says "OOC Meredith? Don't know enough yet, but it kind of felt like it;" in the end, it didn't turn out to be, but if that's the feeling you were going for, it worked.) I did like the notes on mage politics sprinkled everywhere, though.
5) Luna's character development is quite impressive through here; her actions are often a bit surprising, but they never feel unrealistic.
6) I love how much use Alex's talent for throwing things gets. It's such a quirky little skill, but it comes up all the time. Sonder's really likeable here; he's grown up a bit since last time, aye? The end of the first confrontation makes a good midpoint; it's just about convincing, even though we know it can't be over.
7) Belthas plays the game well. A credit to his field.
8) My notes for this chapter pretty much amounted to "Dragon!" With the equivalent mental squeeing, and all. I love force-of-nature style dragons, and yours seem to fit the picture. I kind of hope none of them meddle in the third book, though; that might be one appearance too many.
9) Elsewhere is done well; it's a good blend of the real and surreal.
10) Apparently I forgot to take notes for this chapter, but that's probably not a bad sign. Good action scenes, though, and Alex and Cinder have an amusing working relationship.
11) Heh. The climax did play out well, but the one thing that really stood out was Luna casually cursing Meredith, and the subsequent reactions. That was just brilliant.
12) I admit, I wasn't quite sure of what exactly happened with Martin's last wish, but I did get the feeling that all the information was given to us, and if I just went back over it, I'd understand. Haven't tried yet, and I might not; the last scene was a nice comfortable closing regardless.

Overall? Yeah, the series is just getting better as it goes on. The introspection and handling of emotion stood out in more than a few places, and even though I was trying to remember to take notes, I never felt drawn out of the story. Also, I don't remember whether I mentioned this last time, but I really like imbued items. The idea of it being literally impossible to create a permanent magic item without making it sentient... yeah, it's just lovely.

[Saph]

@Sallera: Cool! Answers in spoiler.

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Glad you liked the overall flow and character development. I wrote Cursed a good year/year and a half after Fated, and it felt quite different while I was writing it. I never know for sure whether something that feels better actually is, though, so it's really good to hear it from other people.

Meredith was the trickiest character to write, and I was never 100% happy with her. She was intended as a character who was good enough at false faces that you never knew very much about her . . . but the problem that I found was that it made her quite difficult to write in an interesting way, because she hardly ever revealed anything.

Luna's turning into one of my favourite characters to write. She probably gets the most character developments out of all the cast, and I've found it fun to watch the progress from book to book, especially in her relationship with Alex.

I was happy with the dragon, too, and no, I'm not planning to overuse them. Would spoil it. Besides, the way I've designed them they really ARE in the force-of-nature power bracket, so any conflict involving one is going to be really one-sided.

[MammonAzrael]

Encyclopaedia Arcana #21: The Concord (Part Two)

Starting off, calling most of the Concord filler seems a bit disingenuous and disrespectful. Technical jargon or detailed particulars or something seems more accurate.

The information in the entry looks fine, but one thing jarred me a bit. You open with talking about 5 important clauses, but you only tell us about one. Then you move on to other matters, and I'm left thinking "what about the other 4?"

[Saph]

Encyclopaedia Arcana #21: The Concord (Part Two)

Starting off, calling most of the Concord filler seems a bit disingenuous and disrespectful. Technical jargon or detailed particulars or something seems more accurate.

Heh. Fair enough, I'll give it an edit.

Re: the other clauses, it's a 5-part series. They'll be covered!

[The Glyphstone]

I plan on picking up a copy of Fated on my way to ComicCon today. After that, I should be able to read through this thread.

[Saph]

And Cursed is out in the UK as of today!

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First reviews have gone up, collected on my site here.

Early sales in the US have been pretty good, according to my editor, and I just got told that there's something in SciFiNow magazine. I'll have to see if I can take a look.

[Mauve Shirt]

I'm not done yet, but

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DAMN. Never trust anyone named Martin.

[Reverent-One]

Finally got my copy of Cursed.

[Saph]

Yay!

And the next Encyclopaedia Arcana is up, this one making up the third part of the series on the Concord.

[Saph]

Part 4 of the Concord series is up!

I'm also going to be doing a live podcast interview this coming Tuesday. It's the first one I've done, so I'm curious to see how it's going to go.

[Saph]

Final part of the Concord series is up! Bunch of interviews and guest posts in the past week too.

I'm thinking of introducing a new feature that I'll run on Fridays as a replacement of the Encyclopaedia Arcana: a sort of Q&A column where the readers can write in and ask questions of one of the characters. Still working on the details though!

[Serack]

I'm a big fan of Jim Butcher's works and started reading your series based off his and his fans recommendations.

I was slogging through another book when I realized that Cursed had been released. It took me a couple more weeks to finish that book, which was only about 50% longer page wise (I don't have word counts for either though), then it only took me about 2 days to finish yours. It was just that much more enjoyable.

I got brought to this topic while looking for something else, but having just finished your book yesterday, I just had to leave a few comments.

You did an awesome job on so many fronts, however the thing that really stuck out to me afterwords was actually the adept initiation at the end. Jim's Dresden Files have an awesome overall story arc, but one of the only shortcomings in his story telling is how frequently in the later books, after the main climax, he has a chapter or 2 of info dump/hints with respect to the overall arc. After reading that initiation scene, I got the impression that you were doing a great, subtle job of squeezing in some hints at the end of your book, but in the setting of a scene that had been alluded to fluidly earlier in the book, and with plenty of other interesting character interactions other than just the information/hints being conveyed.

[Serack]

I've been scratching my head trying to come up with a worthy question for Luna

[Saph]

You did an awesome job on so many fronts, however the thing that really stuck out to me afterwords was actually the adept initiation at the end. Jim's Dresden Files have an awesome overall story arc, but one of the only shortcomings in his story telling is how frequently in the later books, after the main climax, he has a chapter or 2 of info dump/hints with respect to the overall arc. After reading that initiation scene, I got the impression that you were doing a great, subtle job of squeezing in some hints at the end of your book, but in the setting of a scene that had been alluded to fluidly earlier in the book, and with plenty of other interesting character interactions other than just the information/hints being conveyed.

Glad you liked it! It actually took me quite a while to write the initiation scene – it turns out writing ritual dialogue is harder than you'd think.

Oh, and I'm still waiting on questions for Luna too. No hurry though!

[Robert Blackletter]

Well I've just read both books, and their awesome, please hurry up and write more! I put them in my "you must read this now" recommendation pile for my friends. Even read the online parts which I don't brother with normally! Looking forwards to the next Encyclopaedia Arcana.

One thing that seem out of place is why is a Divination Mage seen as a wizard rather then a powerful adapt? They only have one trick, a powerful trick, but still only one one.

Anyway awesome book, if you do any book tour in the south-west, i get you a pint if you sign my books

Robert