If Lindon and Company wanted to take a relaxing, week long vacation to somewhere tropical, where on Cradle would they go?
There's actually a beach not too far to the west of Sacred Valley. Lindon had no idea it existed, but if they got there, it's a decent beach during the summer months. They just have to watch out for wraiths.
Will Yerin end up following the desires of the Bleeding Phoenix if it wakes up again
Maybe!
Will you revisit the sacred valley soon?
That's going to be a RAFO (read and find out)
Could a powerful sacred artist “corrupt” a Blood Shadow, turning it to an aspect of madra other than blood?
Yes, eventually, though it being blood madra is vital to its function. So it would have to be some kind of hybridized madra, which is certainly possible.
Who would Northstrider go on a date with?
Northstrider is not a fun guy. He no longer relaxes.
Who was, and will we ever meet, Mercy’s father?
We probably won't, but I'm not going to go into him right now. Just in case.
Will we ever get a Chapter 16.5 a la SAO?
Not exactly, though I have contemplated doing some interlude chapters set between each Cradle book. Exploring what Lindon and Yerin did in their downtime offscreen. Sometimes it could be during the time-skips in each book, while they're training.
Since your books always get into the explosive anime action without much of an investment, do you feel like they lose some of the emotional weight I'm talking about? You're writing the kind of books you like to write, obviously, and I'm a fan so I don't want that to change. I just like the hard questions.
(If your answer is too personal, I'm totally okay with you skipping this question)
Yes and no. On the one hand, obviously if you invest the reader in the characters and the stakes before you begin the action, the action has a lot more weight and means more. That's certainly true. But on the other hand, if the reader never reaches the action scene because they're bored out of their skull with the emotional setup, then your action scenes do not mean more. The reader never sees them at all, and is not entertained.In what I'm writing, I believe the reader should not be working harder than the writer to extract entertainment from the text. You shouldn't have to push yourself to keep going. I think that is the approach most readers prefer.However, there are certainly stories that are aiming to be slower, and there's nothing wrong with that at all. I think there's probably a happy medium. The better of a storyteller I become, the more I'm hoping to invest weight into the action without sacrificing pace. I still have room to improve, although I'm probably never going to be writing Malazan, for instance.
Nope. Not that personal, and I don't mind being asked personal questions. I'm pretty open, and if it's something I feel leery about answering publicly or in print (or if I just can't be bothered to answer), I won't. No pressure felt!
Do you have a list of all the current paths / methods shown?
I do not have a master list of Paths, sorry. My notes tend to be unreadable to anyone but me, thanks to the ancient Wight Cipher.
If microscopes exist in Cradle will we find micro-bindings in iron bodies that causes the automation of various effects, super strength/ super healing etc?
That's very astute. Not that, but something similar.
How did the Sword Sage plan to get Yerin to Lowgold in Sacred Valley without dying and giving her his remnant?
Spoilers, RAFO (read and find out)
What happened to Dross's shell the eye of the deep casing? did it just dissapear? is the script still there to yank Dross out of Lindon's soul?
Good question! Dross is beyond such things now.
Also, how as an author do you deal with claims that your characters are too OP? Is that intended or a consequence?
I'm never concerned about it at all. First off, it's normally baseless. People are concerned that a character will be too overpowered because they just got a power-up, and that's not a reasonable concern. A character is only too overpowered if they can easily solve the challenges they face using that power, and usually I don't have my characters in situations where they can easily win with their current abilities. Sometimes, I haven't created a situation with enough tension, but it's not because the character is too powerful. It's because I failed to outline some part of the conflict well enough in telling the story: either the obstacle isn't clear enough, the stakes aren't high enough, the character isn't motivated enough, or something like that. The character is never too powerful, because you can always give them a goal they really want to obtain, but can't using their strength.
So, a bunch of discussions about Lindon fighting other people are ending with people saying "But Dross" as if that answers all questions. Can you confirm that Dross isn't going to be an auto win from every fight going forward? (The same usually happens with anything about Eithan.)
Yes, actually. From here on out, Lindon will now easily coast through every challenge.
Will the Mighty, would enforcing a weapon with Blackflame erode it like self enforcement does?
Depends on the weapon.
Could the Abidan destroy the DreadGods if they chose?
Yes.
Will, is Mercy lowkey more of a badass than Yerin?
Maybe, maybe not.
Is Dross a Drudge? Like an advanced one? Or is a Drudge something else entirely?
A drudge is something else. He’ll build one.
Early in Blackflame, Cassius mentions that his father sent him. Later on we learn that only Cassius and Eithan have the Arelius bloodline sensing ability, I assume that means that Cassius' mother was the Arelius blood member and that she is dead? In which case I would love to hear more about Cassius' story and how the Arelius family survived before they had an underlord.
No no, Cassias and Eithan (and technically Cassias' son, but he's very young) are the only bloodline Arelius in the city at that time.
During the fight between Lindon and Jai Long ..it just seemed like normal fire path at times. This was supposed to the Blackflame! A a path whose copper practitioners were feared...and Lindon was a low gold who just a few months ago destroyed Sandviper Gorkens entire arm with just one attack and yet against Jai long it barely singed him?Also Yerin seemed weaker in this book...and I am not talking about the blood shadow thing.. To me it didn't seem real that Yerin would lose against Cassius in 5-7 moves every time they dueled. She stood toe to toe with Jai Long (A True Gold) at the end of Blackflame and almost beat him. Sure Cassius might be strong but he definitely wasn't on par with a true gold..or am I missing something here?
The Blackflame thing is real, and I do wish I'd expounded on it a little more. It needed a whole scene showing how it stacked up against more than a single opponent (Jai Long), and the one scene where it's shown to be powerful is a brief instance of Lindon punching some guy.As for Cassias not being on par with a Truegold, that's actually what Yerin losing to him so quickly is meant to illustrate. Him being the second-ranked Highgold means that he has ways to go against people more powerful than he is, so he'd stack up favorably against the lower--let's say--fifty percent of Truegolds. It becomes a skill thing rather than a power thing.But I clearly didn't explain that well in the books, so it needs further illustration.
