Tag Archives: Classics
Newsletter #70
NEWSLETTER 70: September 18, 2012 Dear People, I finished the novel! The title is now MONSTERS OF THE EARTH. I changed the title at the last moment from Demons from the Earth because I realized that though there were demons, … Continue reading
Another Method of Plotting
Written for the Tor/Forge July 2011 Newsletter Last year when Tor asked me for an essay to accompany the publication of The Legions of Fire, the first of my Books of the Elements fantasy series, I explained that riding a … Continue reading
Cross the Stars
AFTERWORD: WHERE I GET MY IDEAS If you decide to write about far-famed Achilles, make him active, hot-tempered, inexorable, and fierce; let him deny that laws were made for him, let him think his sword rules all. –Horace, The Art … Continue reading
Who were your influences?
Who were your influences? One strand is pulp fiction–literally, stories from the ’30s and ’40s collected into anthologies in the ’50s when I started reading SF and fantasy. Robert E. Howard in particular, then when I got to college the … Continue reading
The Legions of Fire
The Legions of Fire is the first of a quartet of fantasies in The Books of the Elements series from Tor. First and foremost, The Legions of Fire is a novel about a fictional city named Carce (pronounced CAR-see) and … Continue reading
The Gods Return
The religion of the Isles is based on the Sumerian triad of Inanna, Dumuzi, and Ereshkigal. The fact is of more significance here than it has been in the previous books of the series. The magic (which in the Isles … Continue reading
The Mirror of Worlds
I’ve based the religion of the Isles generally on that of Sumer: the sacred triad of Inanna, Dumuzi, and Ereshkigal. The words of power, however, are the voces mysticae of the documentary magic common in the Mediterranean Basin during classical … Continue reading
Master of the Cauldron
Those of you who’ve read previous books in the Isles series will note some repetition in these notes, but I go to a good deal of effort to make each book accessible to people who’ve never read anything of mine … Continue reading
Goddess of the Ice Realm
As is the case with most of my books, a good deal of the background to Goddess of the Ice Realm is real. The general religion of the Isles is Sumerian, though in some cases I’ve interpolated cult practice from … Continue reading
Birds of Prey
BIRDS OF PREY was the first novel I tried to write. It was a very long time before I succeeded, but I think in this case the wait was worth it. While I was still in law school I got … Continue reading
Mistress of the Catacombs
The common religion of the Isles is based on Sumerian cult and ritual. That is, the Lady equates with Inanna; her consort the Shepherd equates with Dumuzi; and the Sister fills the place of Ereshkigal, Queen of the Underworld. Religion … Continue reading
Servant of the Dragon
The (common) religion of the Isles is based on Sumerian cult and ritual, but the magic itself comes from the Mediterranean and is mostly Egyptian in its original source. The voces mysticae which I’ve referred to as “words of power” … Continue reading
The Classics
The photograph is a ruined caravansary from southern Turkey, some days’ journey east of Adana. The building was constructed during the Seljuk period–old, probably from the 1st millennium AD, but post-classical. It’s a stopping place for caravans, where merchants could … Continue reading