After Thingy...

Almost two weeks on (!) I surface from the Sea of Words - the Pontus Logia - to say what a swell time I had at Conjecture 2009; met many amazing folk - organisers, readers, writers and editors alike - though no one from here (thank you for asking Portals). Apologies to you Klesita for not letting you know earlier, would have been great to meet you - I could have answered you questions that are still rattling about my noggin, directly... How about I do so now anyway.


The one most on mind is...

One of the things that intrigues me more is how Clementine, been so far away from everywhere and more over been so far inland, became a centre of power. Most centres of power become that because their position is strategic in one way or another. What is strategic about this place?

I must admit when I look at the placement of Clementine/Benevente on the map I do scratch my head a little and wonder how it got to be so powerful. Its strategic significance is not nearly as relevant in the current (MBT) period as it was at the time of Dido and her most immediate heirs when that central portion of the Half-Continent was full of refugee peoples from the arrogance and subsequent collapse of the Phlegms. Clementine's current significance is that it guards the only passage across the great rift the Marrow and is the historied home of Dido's line, preserved now more because it is convenient for the member states to have it that way rather than its actual strategic importance. Does that help?

Alyosha has a triplet of inquiries still outstanding:

1) Near the beginning of the first book Fransitart says to Rossamund, “Say yer prayers and clean yerself afore th’ meal.” Never after, however, is there any mention of prayers, priests, religious beliefs, etc. Are there religions in the Half Continent? Do folks worship the emperor, Roman-style, or do any of the claves have a religious character?

Do you know, this is the hardest aspect for me in the whole invention... To put it simply folks worship any manner of things: Providence (not very common any more), the false-gods, monsters, ancient and potent therimoir swords, the heldins, an idea (re: many of the calendar claves). The most prevalent "religious" position of most Soutlanders is like a humanistic atheistic cross with certain superstitious fears of monsters.

2) The patrolled portions of the Wormway are dangerous, the lampsmen regard the Ichormeer with fear, and even the far-traveling Europe has never followed the road past Haltmire. In your Explicarium you tell how the family of the Warden-General of Haltmire perished due to wandering just a little way along the Wormway into the Ichormeer. Does anybody actually travel through the Ichormeer from Haltmire to Worms?

Not very often, no. In fact it requires a concerted effort to effect a full traversing of the Wormway, and the passage through the Ichormeer was a great military undertaking, lead by Imperial Engineers.

3) The origin of the lahzars is shrouded in mystery; but, an origin there must be. One of the other mysteries you weave into your story is the sad, strange tale of Biarge the Beautiful, and I wonder if the two mysteries are related – if Biarge’s mad experiments to save Freyr are in some way the source of the dark knowledge that birthed the lahzar-creating surgeries?

Hmmm... I like where you are heading, sir...

Now to dear Headtrip Honey, niggled by a couple of questions:

You stated somewhere that you imagined Europe to be about 29. In Lamplighter, we learn that she and Lady Vey were at school together (the calendar-training one). And we also know that Threnody is around 13/14. So how old is Lady Vey, and how old was she when she had Threnody? Because their being schoolmates would suggest she is close in age to Europe (although I suppose it doesn't HAVE to be so), and 29 would be awfully young to have an almost 14 year old daughter.

I have revised my sense of Europe's age just a little since penning (and now re-penning) Book 3, shall we say somewhere betwixt 29 and 33ish. Either way, her contemporaneous attendance with the Lady Vey at a calendar clave does not automatically mean they were/are the same age. Claves are not schools - people from all paths join them - and even schools in the Half-Continent do not function the same way as we find familiar. As for her age when bringing forth Threnody into the world, the Lady Vey was quite young, though certainly not 15.

Her second question is much simpler:

How does one pronounce Threnody's name?

THREN-uh-dee
(capitals indicate where to stress the word - I can perhaps hear certain more North American folks possible calling her 'thren-OH-dee'; that is not how I hear it in my noggin or say it, but then again I am Australian...)

Please, keep "overthinking", ma'am...

Excellent queries (as ever). If I failed to answer one of yours, could I ask you to please ask it again...? Now, back to editing for me...

Twilight for HP... or 75 comments! Woohoo!

My word, you folks sure got close to 80 comments. Impressive - but you are not a jedi yet... I certainly gave you enough time to have a red hot go, as "they" say. But alas, guilt has got the better of me and here I am posting after a bit too long not posting... um... I'm like, an excellent writer and stuff...

On with the show!

As much as the hype is off-putting, I am very glad the Twilight series has my niece reading; she would not look sideways at a book before. Now, who knows, she might venture out further into the realms of the written word and for that I can only be grateful.

The uber-series is an interesting creature - perhaps making reading cool again; I often marvel that without Master Potter's 7 tomes there would probably be no MBT, not through any influences (though I read a review today that suggested I was apparently employing the good ol' school-environment shtick a-la Harry P, to make Lamplighter work...) but because Ms Rowling has forged such ground that publishers are willing to give odd ideas like mine some listroom. For that I salute you, Ms Rowling!

For the funness of it all the Winter Blog Blast Tour begins! Organised by the tireless Chasing Ray, it is a veritable smorgasbord of author interviews. Mine own interview will be found on Tuesday 18th November (why else would I be telling you, right?) over at Finding Wonderland.

Oh, and shouts out to Portals whom I had the wonder of meeting in living flesh not last weekend but the one before, I hope it was not too underwhelming...

BTW the ever increasing vocabulary of the Varificon or "Word Varification Dictionary" is growing at an impressive and rather funny rate. Please, continued...

A Forum for Horses

So, I am thinking I shall keep up with this blog (indeed, that was my hope and intention) - I very much look forward to a forum happening though (hint hint - am I allowed to do that...?) - probably a powerful benefit I see is having some kind of section where questions are asked of me so I can clearly see what I have and have not answered.

I am afraid to think of the number of questions that have gone unanswered here at Monster Blog Tattoo because I lose track of them in all the comments. Sorry to anyone who feels a bit snubbed by such an oversight, please, if you dare, ask again.

In light of this contrition I shall now attempt to answer a question.

Dear portals was axing a quekstion... "So far all the Haacobin Empire's armies seem to all be made up of foot soldiers and suchlike. from what I know about history, cavalry always seems to be a great asset to any army, so why does the Empire have none.Sorry if they do have some, but with the definition for the Armies of the Empire, the Battle of the Gates, and the different city states in the Explicarium, nothing was mentioned about cavalry."

An excellent inquiry. If you look in the Explicarium of Book 1, under the entry for equiteer you shall find the very reason why cavalries are so little used. The long and the short of it is many monsters find our equine friends rather toothsome making the fielding of a substantial force of cavalry a sure way to attract a monster or three right into the fray of battle. That is why horses go out shabraqued and covered in nullodour but this makes a large force of them even more expensive and high maintenance. In Book 3 (ie, Factotum) I introduce the concept of cabaline lands - regions tamed (cicurated) for so long that they are considered generally safe for horses. If battles occur in such regions you could well expect to see a greater use of equiteers, indeed, perhaps this is why the lords of the H-c like stouching with each other in their boutique wars, a chance to crack out the cavalry and give it a good run.

Oh, and there was an excellent article/interview over at the Galaxy Express about steam-punk, where good ol' MBT gets a wee plug - nice to have a home, though I still don't think I'm strictly true steam-punk (due largely to the absence of steam in the H-c)... but now I am being picky.

And for those a French-speaking persuasion I was gratified to find not one but two positive reviews of the French edition of MBT, Terre de Monstres ("GROUND OF THE MONSTERS") - if my understanding of the tongue of France is correct, though in correction to the first review: En fait, l'auteur a dessiné les illustrations internes.

For breakfast I had honied flakey things, Irish Breakfast tea and a good pray.

I nearly forgot the most shattering news of all! Today I shaved off my beard! Dun dun dunnnnnn....

The Handsome Grackle ... or, Spring is sprung and I missed it!

(Following to be read with some strange accent in mind - I have no idea why, just cause...)
Please being 'Hello!' to my good friend, the Handsome Grackle.
(Cease with accent, please.)

He is what is called nadderer - a sea-nicker, a water-dwelling monster - with neither head nor tail, but both at once, being able to walk on either end when he/she/it ventures on land. A very very robust creature, it recovers quickly from hurts, so much so that he has been swallowed more than once by much larger sea-beasts, travelled the length of their alimentary canals before being "poo-ed" (if I may use that word...) out again, relatively unharmed to get about his/her/its business. Oh what fun...

There have been many excellent questions put to me here over the last couple of posts. Unfortunately I do not have time right now to address many of them - but I hope a couple of answers might suffice for the mo...?

Portals was wondering, "I have questions about lahzars' weapons. Is a fulgar's fuse used as a kind of spear, or more like a lightsaber from Star Wars? Do wits have any kind of weapon that they use? Thanks"

A fuse is used more as a quarterstaff than anything else, a way to extend reach (though with a the wire wrapped about a pole of cane or wood I am actually not so sure a magnetic field would occur as has been suggested elsewhere - sorry whoever posted, I thought the wire needed to be coiled about metal to achieve this - but please correct me if I am wrong, physics at high school was my weakness).

Wits would generally see it as being beneath them to resort to weapons, the control and manipulation of frission is everything to them. Saying that a pure wit would probably look down on a bane, and in turn a bane would probably see a purist wit as lacking versatility.

Another question was regarding the status of the Gottlands, which are in fact not a part of the Haacobin Empire but an empire to itself - a hegemony of kingdoms, duchies and the like allied and treatied to the Sigismundian dynasty that currently rules the Gottskylds. They are protected from the Haacobins by the great big threwdish swamp of the Ichormeer, though battles have been fought between the two giants, with little gain for either side. The Haacobins regard the Sigismunds with sullen respect.

I shall get to the problem of lamps as soon as I might, honest - time is really crimping me now...