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Which series was your favorite to write?
Have you read the Coiling Dragon series?
How's the cabin?
All of the series are fun in different ways, but I enjoyed Elder Empire, because I got to try some unusual behind-the-scenes stuff.
Coiling Dragon is the best.
It was great until I had to evacuate out of the way of the hurricane.
1) Bliss vs Gavin Guile ( in black prism before he starts going blind)
2) Alin vs Kip
1.) Bliss vs. Prism Gavin
It's a little hard to say, because Gavin is so powerful and versatile. I lean toward Bliss, simply because she can counter Gavin's powers while Gavin can't counter hers, so it could easily come down to a physical fight. Which she would win, Gavin being no stronger than any athletic man in his forties and her wielding an ancient weapon crafted from the bone of a Great Elder.
However, it wouldn't be EASY for her to counter Gavin's powers, because it would require her to use her powers precisely. Which her powers specifically resist. So there's certainly a scenario in which Gavin wins.
Maybe Bliss 60-40?
2.) Alin vs. Kip
Barring any Lightbringer shenanigans, I don't see a scenario in which Kip wins.
Kip is drafting colors as physical materials, but for Alin, each color in his arsenal is a new superpower. Mostly powers that Kip doesn't have.
Plus he can fly.
Any chance you'll continue writing in the Elder Empire series after finishing OKAK?
The chances are low.
If I think of the right story in that universe, then possibly. I really do like the world.
But I always prefer going somewhere new.
to Gilad [House of Blades]: "What did you confess to the Obsidian Tree in Naraka?"
Gilad won't meet your eyes. His answer is little more than a whisper. "I don't have to talk about that. I don't have to think about it. It's tradition. I have been punished...I am being punished."
Without another word, he opens a Helgard Gate and Travels away.
Your latest book was Underlord: Cradle 6, and I believe there’s a Book 7 in the works. I’ve also heard rumblings of more in the Traveler’s Gate world. Tell us, what is next!
Book 7 of Cradle is certainly in the works, but I’m also trying to finish Elder Empire this year! I would also love to start a new series. Any new series. I just like starting new things.
You mentioned earlier that all your books are connected in the same universe. In Skysworn, the Sage of a Thousand Eyes was mentioned. Is that Sage anyway connected to the Elder Empire Overseer, who also has the nickname Lord of a Thousand Eyes.
That's actually a really good question, but she is not related to him at all, Ach Magut i think it the one.
Is the path related?
No its more of a colloquial nickname, in both cases. So the sage of thousand eyes is not on the path of a thousand eyes, i don't think, i'll have to look that up, maybe they are. Most of the sage of "whatever whatever", so sages have two names, so there's the "sword sage" and "the sage of the endless sword". so there's two names for sages, the "whatever" sage, and the sage of "whatever", so usually the sage of "whatever whatever" is their path, but in the case of the Sage of a Thousand Eyes, unless i changed this, so take all this with a grain of salt, shes not actually on the path of a thousand eyes, shes a member of the Arelius family. Therefore her ability is to see everything, like she can see all over the place, so therefore her most defining feature is her command over her bloodline ability. Whereas Ach Magut, the Lord of a thousand eyes, just kind of has eyes everywhere, and he has like a thousand eyes. I know there's a lot of overlap there and i'm sorry about that, i probably should have called him like lord of a million eyes or something cos he has a million eyes, i dunno. I just though a thousand eyes sounded better, really is kinda the crux there. But I apologise, and I hate telling people that the connections don't exist, but I am sorry, that's just an overlap in the naming conventions.
Would killing an Elder allow them to escape from Asylum?
No, it wouldn’t.
Why don’t people and things leave remnants in EE and travelers gate? It all seems like a connection to the way, and I’m trying to figure out where the elders play into it all vs the Abidan, but I have been wondering why there’re no remnants
Remnants are a consequence of the Cradle energy system, not a function of the Way, so they're tied to Cradle and are not universal.
The Emperor is way more powerful than a lot of people on the blog give him credit for!
How about him vs. Northstrider or any of those guys Suriel showed Lindon at the beginning of Unsouled. Actually I believe The Emperor would kick any of their butts one on one. How about The Emperor vs. the three strongest people on the planet Cradle? Besides Suriel because she is not a resident of Cradle.
Basically is anyone on Cradle on par with The Elders, or could The Emperor handily destroy anyone on Cradle?
Their powers work differently, but no, the Emperor would not be one of the strongest people on Cradle. The reason the Abidan value Cradle is because it nurtures and produces extremely powerful individuals.
A fight against Yerin's master would be pretty even. Depends on the circumstances at that point, like how well-armed the Emperor is and how seriously the Sword Sage takes the fight from the very beginning.
What character do you most closely identify with?
I used to have an ready answer for this but I don't remember what it was, something from Travellers Gate I think.
Maybe Petal? the reclusive alchemist from Elder Empire. To be real, the character that has the most of me in them is probably Simon. What i tend to do in these action series, is the main characters are half normal action protagonists, so i'm gonna to the right thing cos its right, and I will fight if i have to and defend the weak and all that stuff. And then half the fleshed out person they would be in a more literary story, so they were more their own people. The half of Simon that was more unique and more distinct was mostly the way i feel all the time, he's sorta insecure, no matter how good he is at something he never feels like he is. Therefore there's a lot of times he feels like he should say something, but he's actually going to say nothing. Lindon has kinda a similar sorta thing, but it comes from a very different place and I think it ends up demonstrating differently, so they're sorta similar people but I don't think of them the same way as i'm writing them. I think they would make very different choices in a lot of ways.
What is your favorite book someone else has written?
I don’t know about individual books, but I’m a huge fan of the Wheel of Time series and the Dresden Files series. There’s also that black leather book that keeps appearing under my pillow at dawn no matter how many times I burn it. I’ve tried to resist opening it, but it whispers into my ear all night…
Is necromancy via performing active reading on a corpse with a sufficienctly powerful reader theoretically possible? Is it possible that one of the Dead Mother's hearts could act as a catalyst to assist in this?
Necromancy in Elder Empire: yes, it is possible. It's not possible to invest or Awaken living things, but it is possible once they are dead, and one of the most difficult feats is Awakening them to a semblance of life.
What is the deepest point in the Aion Sea (that's the Elder Empire sea, right? Forgive this one's idiodicy if he's wrong.), how deep is it, and what is the most horrible creature that lives there?
The Vebross Pit is a legendary location at the bottom of the Aion Sea, passed down through Navigator tradition.
No one has ever explored it--there are many shallow locations in the Aion Sea that have never been explored, to say nothing of the true depths--but many Navigators employ Soulbound with water-scanning and scouting powers. All of them report impenetrable depths around a general location near the center of the Sea, and that area has been referred to as the Vebross Pit.
The ocean seems almost dead around the Pit, with no sightings reported of anomalous events, Kameira, Elderspawn, or anything but natural fish. Therefore, the Navigators once preferred routes over the Pit.
But that only lasted a short time.
Navigator ships began to go missing. This is not in itself too unusual, but when it continued for three or four years and started to cost the Guild money, the Guild Head sent out an expeditionary force to investigate the Pit.
The Witnesses accompanying the expedition returned reporting a phenomenon that happened at night. As the moon rose, a vast humanoid face seemed to rise from the depths. It grew closer and closer, until the captain of their vessel realized that the face was big enough to cover the ocean for miles.
Their force escaped with no losses, and from then on, the Vebross Pit was classified by the Navigator's Guild as an Unknown Danger Zone. A captain plotting a course through such a zone must leave all Guild assets behind, as they are likely to be lost.
Writing question: how do you write main characters like Lindon and Simon?
Sip I find writing protagonists to be very hard and here's why. Protagonists have do things functionally in the plot that other characters don't have to do so they have to be the ones that get your reader invested in them. You have to be interested enough in the character to keep reading. Like you have to like the character and they have to be the kind of person that going to keeps pushing the story forward. So that's why you tend to see the same types of protagonists and the same sort of archetypes. ... The protagonists has to sort of be a similar kind of person and the way I see it now, I didn't start off thinking this way, but the way I see it now there is sort of a generic protagonist template. Someone who is the standard hero for this type of story. What you really want is someone who does all those things, fulfills all those roles, but is also very grounded in the world they are in. They are a product of that world. So I did that with both Simon and Lindon I had them be someone who is definitely born in the world. They are a product of what has happened to them in this world. They could only exist in this world and yet they are still sort of, they fulfill their role as a hero of the story. They're resourceful and they got a strong goals and they are out to solve those goals themselves and that kind of thing. So they can carry the story on their backs but I feel like.. if I had to rate, this is very much a feeling thing. This is not something that I learned, this is not a super writer secret or anything. This isn't even a technical term but if I had to put them on a spectrum I would say Shera and Calder from Elder Empire are more on the side of being their own characters than being protagonists and Simon is kind of more of a, he's more the standard protagonist you'd expect. And Lindon's sort of between them. That's kind of the scale I'd put them on.So how do you write a protagonist like Lindon and Simon? I would really say you need someone who is going, the kind of person who is gonna do what you need them to do in the story. He's the kind of person, or she, is the kind of person is gonna go out basically looking for trouble, looking to solve their own problems, looking to uh to do what it takes in a story. So they're looking to go have an adventure for some reason and they're strongly motivated to do it. So they are the kind of person that's really gonna go out and solve problems and look for problems to solve. So that is one of the requirements but there is a lot of different personality types that can do that. And then I think the second thing is you want them to be a product of the world they you're in. Sip
Are the characters voices always Travis Baldree in your head?
You have asked a wise question. I go back and forth, of course I had character voices in my head before Travis read them. When I did my reread of Cradle, I listened to the audiobooks primarily so that I could kind of adjust my mental voices to not exactly match Travis's but be informed by them. Now what it sounds like in my head is like the old characters have taken on some of the mannerisms of the Travis Baldree versions so that now they're a little more compatible. The characters have grown and adapted in my brain.
Eithan can only whisper in your ear because your hair lacks volume and definition.
You are absolutely correct. That is why I do not hear the voice of Eithan more clearly, it is because my hair game is weak, and that's why I wear these hats, so it's all connected. This is all a hair conspiracy.
Why and how did you decide to try doing such an ambitious work of two parallel trilogies? Hats off to you, structurally it must have been difficult, how did you figure it out?
Brute force, I figured it out by brute force. Doing two parallel trilogies, I always really liked that idea. Oh actually wait I'm going to back up. (...) Structurally it's difficult for Elder Empire, yes it was very difficult. I figured it out kind of one step at a time. It was hard to, hard to do. Something that was just, I had to do it, I had a great time doing it, I don't recommend it. (...dialogue lost to lag...) The flashback storylines were major storylines. (...more lost...) I then had to get the flashback storylines to work complimentary with the main storylines.
Which of your characters could survive the best in almost every kind of story setting?
He's well-educated enough to adapt to a more modern world, skilled in enough basic skills to adapt to a more primitive world, and he has his Reader skills. Assuming they work in his setting, they'd be useful under pretty much any circumstances.
Plus, he's resourceful enough to make a living in legitimate business or in a life of crime, as circumstances require.
