Oh, here's a legit one. In Sword Unclean, you mentioned pure aura, is that a typo or is that a retcon?
It's not a retcon, so it was probably a typo. Without looking it up, I suspect I meant "pure __ aura," with the blank filled in by whatever type of aura he was talking about.
Mercy's path seems to be a mixture of madras. Is the book in her soulspace a requirement to her path?
Yes, the book is, in a sense, her Path.
Do we consider dross a monarch level construct?
He's more like the seed of a Monarch-level construct. Or a baby Monarch construct.
Who is the most powerful being on a cannibal path in cradle?
Hmmmm...I don't know, rain check.
I have not posted on here before, but with book three coming out Monday I though I would list some of the questions I have about the Cradle series. Learning about the world and magic systems of fantasy books is one of my favorite past-times. Not all of my questions are meet to be taken seriously they are just fun little things my mind comes up with.
1. Who does all of the farming in Cradle? In a society so focused on martial martial abilities. Who would waste time on farming? We know the population of Cradle is many times greater then Earth. So tens of billion of people need to eat. The only real solution I could think of is if there are Paths that happen to both greatly help agriculture and has combat potential. Or as we saw in book two slavery.
2. How will Lindon act the first time he meets someone weaker then him? While Lindon has gotten to what I would call half-iron (his cores are half the size they should be so he levels them up faster then he normal would, and only one avenged to iron) and that makes him stronger then most people his age in the Sacred Valley. Knowing that and meeting them while stronger then them are different. I bring this up because out side of a few people everyone we have met seems to have no trouble "bullying" those weaker then themselves. I know this is a might makes right society but still part of the honor of that system is to ingore/protect those weaker then you. If you only follow those "laws" when other are watching you then that's not honor its saving face. When will we meet people who follow these codes of conduct not for themselves or for "face" but because they believe in them?
3. Would a fire path be one of the fastest way to level up? All you would have to do is stand next to a barn-fire and absorb the ambient fire manna it would give off, then refine it. On that note how different would the manna type be, between different types of fire. A hearth-fire warming a family home in the winter, with all the "happy" connotation that come with it, compared to like an arson attack destroying someone's home and possession and just everything that they have worked for. Both are fire but you get what I mean.
There are a lot of responses to these questions, and I'm not confident in my ability to parse every one of them, so I'm just going to answer your questions as best I can. And I apologize if someone else has already done so.
1.) There are Paths that are used for agriculture and irrigation, they're just usually low-key. There's a (very) brief reference in Blackflame to the Redflower family, who are in charge of feeding the Empire. By law, they are neutral in every conflict, and anybody who starts a fight with them or tries to pressure them will soon regret it.
2.) This is 100% a spoiler.
3.) A fire Path would not be the fastest way to advance, because the aura would be slightly rarer and harder to collect compared to, say, earth or air. But it's still very fast, as are all the Paths that draw from aura easily found in nature.
There WOULD be significant differences between those two Paths! Fire from different Paths could take on different qualities depending on how it's used an where it comes from; you could have a gentle flame that spreads slowly and provides lots of even warmth, versus a violent flames that consumes rapidly and burns out quickly.
Let us not forget that Eithan the OP Underlord is a janitor/sewer keeper.
So clearly people either follow mundane Paths, or perform mundane services in addition to their path. E.g. little girl cutting stone blocks with her fingers when Lindon/Yerin get to the Five Factions camp.
Different places in the world handle the basic necessities of life differently. Some places have sects that focus entirely on farming or whatever, but other places prize independence and self-sufficiency. Those sacred artists value the ability to provide food, resources, and basic societal infrastructure for the people that depend on them.
How advanced is their scientific understanding on cradle? Cause I mean I know they have lots of knowledge of their magic and their alchemy equivalent but do they understand stuff like, there is a top of the atmosphere, cradle revolves around the sun, space is empty, other planets exist... stuff like that
It's not great in Sacred Valley, but there are places in Cradle where their scientific understanding is pretty advanced.
But their technology never advanced to the level you'd THINK it could, what with scripts and constructs.
Why? A few reasons, but here's the main one: thanks to the sacred arts, if you have the resources, you can learn to DO pretty much anything yourself. You don't have to develop the technology to fly in a world where you can learn to fly.
It's more complicated than that, but we'll explore it as we get into the more advanced areas of the world.
Okay, I'm a bit confused on how Cradle has that many people living on it. I know Will said that the planet is bigger and that vital aura helps to keep people alive, but I'm still not sure how it has such a huge population if there are so many dangerous conditions(monsters, remnants, kill-happy people, poisonous plants, etc.) and how there doesn't seem to be much large-scale agriculture(at least from what we've read). Is there agriculture that we haven't seen? Are they completely immune to disease? Is the planet just ridiculously huge(many times bigger than earth) to the point where that stuff could happen and still support a population of billions?
It has many times more surface area than Earth.
Also, as B pointed out, we haven't seen any REALLY civilized places yet. We'll see a city in Blackflame, but even that will be a relatively small, isolated city.
Thanks to vital aura and the power of madra, there are lots of inhabited places in Cradle that would be uninhabitable on Earth. For instance, there are cities on the bottom of the ocean. And on the surface of the ocean. And on the clouds.
The inside of a volcano? The top of a rainbow? The back of a turtle? In a glacier? On a glacier? Under a desert? Suspended on a moon beam? Floating on sunlight? Deep under ground?
No moonbeams. And I would describe the city floating on sunlight as walking on sunshine, woah-oh-oh.
I am curious. How far out do you outline? I am curious, because if the post about Lindon's wife being Jai's sister has any truth, that would imply you either outline a fair amount of the upcoming book, or that you were just able to conveniently make that work because you leave certain aspects vague enough to accommodate it.I am also curious how much world building you do before you start. You are able to answer questions that are fairly random with a high degree of specificity usually, so my assumption is a lot, but not sure if you just make it up on the fly and add that to your world aspect as you think through the answers.
That's a great question, John.
I do both of those things. I always have a plan, but often I leave details vague just in case I have a better idea or change my mind later. Gives me some elbow room.
I do a TON of world-building before I start, but a lot of it is fluid. When I'm writing the book, if what I planned doesn't serve the story as well as I imagined it would, I'll change the planned backstory as needed. Nothing is set in stone until it shows up in a book.
As for parts that are more narrow than world-building elements--like characters, scenes, twists, etc.--most of those I design as needed when I'm working on the book. I don't determine their fate several books ahead of time.
However, that's for MOST characters and scenes. There are a few incredibly specific elements that I've already determined way ahead of time, including several that are still four or five books away.
TL;DR - Me setting up a specific character twist two books ahead is uncommon, but not terribly rare.
I have a few questions for you, Will.1) Would someone from the Abidan Court leave a remnant, can someone who uses the power of the Way even leave a remnant?2) If Lindon, Yerin and Eithan advance to the world beyond Cradle would they be babies in the new world or adults?3) Does any world beyond Cradle use Madras?
I can't believe you typed out that entire name. Now I want to hear you sing it.
1.) Most of the seven Court members are not from Cradle, so no, they would not leave a Remnant. Any normal Abidan from Cradle would leave one, but it might not be capable of tapping into the Way. If it can't, then it's much less powerful than the Abidan was in life, and would be easily exterminated by anything capable of killing an Abidan.
2.) Depends on where they go and when/how they advance. Lots of factors in play.3.) Not exactly. This is difficult to answer without getting into spoiler-y specifics.
On the second answer. Are the factors their age, power "level" during ascension, the world they are advancing to? Or is it something completely else? Do they keep their memories, even if they become babies? This is so weird...
As it turns out, I completely misunderstood your question.
Suriel used the "infants/adults" terms metaphorically, so I didn't realize you were asking the question literally.
They will be adults. They're going to physically transport themselves to another world, not reincarnate there.
So if there is sword mandra that gathers on edged weapons does that mean there is club mandra that gathers around blunt objects?
From what I can tell of the world and the usage of Madra in particular, I think the most analogous form of "blunt" madra would likely be named "force madra" or somesuch. Sword madra seems to have less to do with swords specifically and more to do with cutting or sharp edged implements. I'm reasonably certain (fact checking would be appreciated) that Jai Long has "sword madra" in his sacred path, yet he uses a bladed spear rather than a sword. As a side point, the name sword madra just sounds so much better then sharp madra or cutting madra that it makes sense to use it.
You've nailed it.
Sword aura is really force aura gathered to a sharp edge, but what they call force aura is generally weaker and diffuse, so sword aura is brighter and easier to see.
And I absolutely do call it "sword aura" because "cutting aura" or "sharp aura" sounds ridiculous.
I doubt I can go 2 for 2...and this one required a Googling beforehand. I thought I recognized a name...
"Naru" + dragons seems like there might be a reference here to Warcraft and the Naaru in Outland (and subsequent lore). Awfully wise and powerful beings, them...
Although I do sometimes take names from Warcraft and just change a letter, this isn't one of them.
The dragon advances.The dragon destroys.The dragon consumes.
Okay...
So empire is run by bunch of cooks? No wonder Eithan is so happy about being a janitor.
Dragons don't make great cooks. Everything is pretty much either seared or blackened.
We talking fu manchu dragons or those pesky ones with wings and legs? It's important... for science
Chinese dragons, not Western dragons.
All the excess energy that would go to their wings instead goes to their awesome beards.
P.S. I definitely took Will's work for granted
This is a long con just to make people appreciate my work more by contrast.
...to be serious, though, I love A Will Eternal. I think it’s a great example of the genre, and it incorporates parody organically without becoming an out-and-out comedy.
Having said that, a few years ago I had a very hard time getting into Chinese web novels. A very hard time.
I really enjoyed Japanese light novels, because they’re basically just anime on paper, and I was familiar enough with the basic tropes and with the source language that I could mentally fill in some of the gaps that were lost in translation and catch some of the cultural references and jokes.
From there, I moved into Korean novels, which were similar but had a different cultural basis and some tropes that caught me off guard (why is the defining characteristic of so many Korean MCs their greed?), but by and large it wasn’t too much of a jump from Japanese light novels.
When I tried to go from there into Chinese cultivation novels, I hit a brick wall.
Why do these stories all have the EXACT same plot, with only the names changed? Why do they assume the reader already knows how the magic system works? Why do they use the same cliches over and over, and why do so many DIFFERENT authors use the same phrases? Why is the main character always the most handsome, smartest, AND most morally upright guy in every room, all the time, and his only mistakes are the ones that make the situation better? Why, when he butchers an entire enemy clan as revenge for the equivalent of taking his lunch money, do the survivors wail and blame their own hubris, rather than blaming the guy who just killed their family? Why do people swear eternal revenge on him for doing something perfectly understandable, like competing honorably in a competition? Why are women treated so poorly in so many of these series, even though the magic system has no distinction between female and male practitioners, so there should be no cultural hierarchy between genders in this world
And that’s barely touching on the sentence-level writing, which was often straight-up difficult to read.
I pushed through because I read some manga adaptations and liked them, and especially liked the concept of a whole world designed around a progression-based magic system.
And in doing so, you know what? I learned to read completely past all that stuff I listed above and to enjoy the stories for the other things they brought to the table.
It was a good lesson for me. I’m normally pretty picky, so it took some sheer discipline to push through at first. I thought I would just be tolerating these stories for the few elements I liked. But along the way, I realized I wasn’t just tolerating them, I was genuinely enjoying them. There’s a lot of value that wasn’t apparent to me at first, until I acclimated myself to the differences caused by language, culture, and medium (i.e. being published a chapter a day).
Now, I have a much easier time reading translated web novels than most English self-published novels.
Having gone through that whole journey, I wanted a story in the same genre that could skip over the hurdles, so that other people could enjoy stories similar to the ones I enjoy. A series written in English, for an audience with primarily Western sensibilities, and told with a more structured and organized plot rather than released as a daily serial.
Thus, Cradle was born.
Looking back, I’d have tweaked some things about Cradle’s basic formula in order to suit that purpose better, but long story short: the experience you describe is exactly why I wanted to write Cradle in the first place!
Will, Has sales volume from r the audio book been as expected, better than expected r lower than expected? Just curious.
From the first book, about as expected. It pays for itself very quickly. Audiobook sales in general are much better than I initially expected.
I fully predict that as the series comes out, the audiobooks will only perform better and better.
any chance that future books will be available as audiobook on launch?
Maybe. Depends on a lot of factors, but that would require me to delay the book for at least a month after it was ready for release, so...
I recently re-read the Cradle series up until this point. It's one of my favorite ongoing fantasy series right now.
One thing that bothered me slightly on my first read-through and immensely on my second read-through is how the Heaven's Glory school in Sacred Valley were able to poison and kill a Sage. Will said himself that the Sword Sage was two levels above Underlord, and I can't imagine even an Underlord getting poisoned by them.
I wonder if it was just an issue of planning and Will not thinking that he would make the power levels so extreme in the future, but that point just always stuck me as bizarre.
Hey OP! I know it looks like power creep getting out of hand, but this actually isn't a mistake! Weirdly enough. Usually if I do something that looks like a mistake, it is in fact a mistake.
In this case, I know exactly what happened to the Sword Sage and how he was killed, but (back when I was writing Unsouled) I didn't realize how obviously out-of-place this would become to the reader in a couple of books. If I had, I would have made it clear in Book 1 that it should have been impossible for mere Jades to do this.
The reason why I didn't comment on it initially is because none of the POV characters know how weird it was. They just know that a Sage is a big, powerful guy from other lands, they don't know exactly how strong he is or what that means. Even Yerin isn't really sure how much stronger he is than they are, because she doesn't know enough about the sacred arts yet.
I wanted the reader to notice that they shouldn't have been able to kill the Sword Sage, but in a "Hmm, I wonder how they did that?" sort of way, not in a "Wait a second, this is physically impossible" sort of way. Even though under normal circumstances, it is literally impossible. I just didn't realize how quickly and how clearly people would pick up on that in the next couple of books.
So anyway, TL;DR - the mystery has an answer, it is an answer I have planned out from the very beginning, and that answer will be revealed in the series. Also, I regret not making it clear in the first book that this was an intentional mystery and not a mistake.
P.S. I'm probably going to include the Sword Sage's death scene in a Presence Report, just not in Underlord.
"Even Yerin isn't really sure how much stronger he is than they are, because she doesn't know enough about the sacred arts yet."
Seems she's quickly come round though, since she referred to Eithan as a 'mere underlord' compared to her Master in the very next book.
She can know the names of the ranks and which ones are higher without knowing what that means in practical terms.
She isn’t sure HOW MUCH stronger he is than they are, “they” in this case including Eithan. But she knows he’s stronger.
In soulsmith we saw Eithan giving Lindon madraso why not give the ability to Lindon ... like what if Eithan saw Dross and thought Lindon could handle the family ability and poor madra into him and to push his pure core to true god as well. Man that'd make Dross into BIG BROTHER
Will may have give that answer before skysworn ... because both Jai Chen and the underload gained the ability after absorbing Eithan's madra.
Just noticed this, so I'm popping in: Jai Chen and Jai Daishou got the ability temporarily by draining power from Eithan. They didn't gain it permanently. It's not their bloodline power now.
How temporary are we talking? Would it wear off in hours? Days? Years? I got the impression that it had become a permanent part of her but that she had to actively expend Madra to make it work.
Her madra has permanently changed, but her bloodline hasn’t. And at the point where Jai Chen leaves, she still hasn’t stabilized her madra yet, so it hasn’t settled into its final composition.
This isn’t even its final form, if you will.
How does an author deal with the pressure to produce for an enthusiastic fanbase?
I do feel a lot of pressure, both to release regularly and to live up to expectations. I want readers to enjoy the books, and I want to feel proud of my work as well. And I know that people want the next book the day after the last one, because that’s what I always feel when I finish a book I enjoy.
When I go through a period of high stress, usually while I’m in the final stages of writing a book, I often go through some anxiety issues. Sometimes I don’t want to open my email, because I’m sure there will be bad news in there, I don’t want to leave my room because something will be going wrong outside, and I don’t want to respond to fans because I’m sure they’ll only be talking about how much they hate the books, etc. It’s a totally illogical feeling, but it’s one of the ways stress manifests itself in me.
Basically, my team helps me manage. Left to my own devices, I work in long periods of procrastination followed by a few weeks of high-stress panic, working 16 hours a day to meet a date that I suddenly felt I had to meet.
My team (and my family and friends) are helping me change my work habits to spread that out. Less procrastination, shorter murder-mode crunch time. We all know that if I keep writing books like THAT, I’ll burn myself out and won’t be happy while I’m doing it.
And that doesn’t have to mean a longer wait between books, either, because it involves cutting out the counterproductive time. Long-term, we expect it to lead to an increase in productivity.
TL;DR - I get through my weird personal issues with the help of other people.
...having said that, let me stress that this is just my own experience. I certainly can’t speak for anybody else (I don’t know if I’m even qualified to speak for myself). But that’s my two cents, for what it’s worth!
By the way, I felt terrible for Douglas Hulick when I first saw that tweet. Both because I empathized with him and because I wanted the next book, dangit. As a fellow writer, I felt great sympathy for him, and as a fan I was disappointed that we weren’t going to get to see the rest of a story I enjoyed.
Also, I very much admire how he handled himself. He blamed no one else, and took full responsibility while still communicating the great pressure he was under. Kudos to him. I hope to learn from that kind of mature response under scrutiny.
All my fellow fans who rave about how engaged you are, how good you are to the community, behold:Will is the worst.
Will will always lead you wrong.
So the guy who writes the messages in my fortune cookies also writes the books I read?
Curb your expectations, and you will curb your disappointment.Your lucky numbers are: 1-20-118
