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Dear Readers and Friends:

As we wait together for the publication of Crown of Vengeance, allow me to offer up a small entertainment: The World Of Obsidian Wiki. At the moment its content is scant: I hope, in the weeks to come, to add entries and material drawn from both the published and unpublished tales of Obsidian, and I invite you all to join me, for it is truly said that the labor of many hands is light labor indeed.

Very Truly Yours,

James Mallory, Writer

When I delivered The Enduring Flame: Book Three: The Phoenix Transformed to my publisher, it was over 250,000 words long -- appreciably longer than the previous two books in the trilogy. I was aware I would need to make significant cuts in the manuscript in order to prepare it for publication. Most of them were a matter of a few sentences here, a few paragraphs there ... but there were also three chapters in the first half of the book -- roughly 30,000 words -- that were almost entirely omitted.

As you will see, certain key scenes in these chapters -- such as Ahiran's meeting with the Firecrown -- were included almost unchanged in the final draft. Others were either cut substantially -- such as the stop at Kannatha Well -- or only summarized.

I present them here, for those of you who might find them of interest.
( The first thing they did at sunset was decide that they weren't going any farther tonight... )

A reader writes:

"Dear Mr. Mallory,

Do you and Mercedes Lackey have plans for more books set in the World of Obsidian?

All the Best,

A. Reader"

I am pleased to announce that Ms. Lackey and I have just delivered to our publisher The Dragon Prophecy: Book One: Crown Of Vengeance. Tor has not scheduled it as of yet, but it is likely to be a Fall 2011 or Spring 2012 release.

The Dragon Prophecy Trilogy is set long before the events of The Obsidian Mountain Trilogy. It tells the story of the first war fought between the Children of Light and the Endarkened, of the Elves in a time millennia before they had the race of Men to aid in their fight, from a time before the Wild Magic -- and long before the High Magic had been thought of.
( Vielissiar Farcarinon, Great Queen, victor of a thousand battles... )

Greetings to my unseen lectors. Today I note, for posterity and my stylesheet, the forms of a word that will surely perplex my dear copyeditor in the not-too-distant future.

Komen = knight, [common usage]
Komenara = company [or meisne] of knights
Komentai = Knight, Sir [respectful, usually inferior to superior]
Komentai'a = [plural and singular] company of knights, any number [respectful, usually inferior to superior]
Alakomentai = Knight-commander, leader of a komentai'a
Alakomentai'ia = [plural form] Knights-Commander, leaders of komentai'a

And the root word, komen -- which was Old Elvish - didn't really mean "Commander" or anything like it. It meant -- as close as you could come to it in non-Elvish -- "Brotherhood." Try to translate the whole thing, and what you got -- besides a headache -- was "the servant of the Brotherhood."

As I mentioned in my previous entry, every writer keeps a file of notes about the project in hand, information that never makes it into the finished work or, if it does, does so in a greatly-etiolated form. When the writer in question isn't writing about the mundane here-and-now world, his file of facts grows necessarily greater, containing everything from notes on the local weather and detailed descriptions of clothing to the composition of favorite dishes. Here now another short excerpt from mine.
( Read more... )

Every writer of long series' must keep a concordance or risk falling into grievous error in later volumes. I thought you might be entertained by this page from my notebook.
( Read more... )

PROLOGUE: SHADOWS AND FIRE

A little more than a year ago Tiercel Rolfort and Harrier Gillain had been ordinary boys looking toward an ordinary future. Harrier had been ready to embark upon the Apprenticeship that would eventually lead to him succeeding his father as Harbormaster of Armethalieh Port, and Tiercel, like most of his age-mates, would be attending Armethalieh University before taking his place in the thriving bureaucracy of the Nine Cities.

But that was Before.
( Read more... )

The Phoenix Transformed, Book Three of The Enduring Flame, will be a September 2009 Tor Books hardcover

The Phoenix Transformed
September 2009
512 pages
ISBN: 978-0-7653-1595-3
Hardcover: $27.00US/$35.99CAN

S	M	T	W	T	F	S
	1	2	3	4	5	6
7	8	9	10	11	12	13
14	15	16	17	18	19	20
21	22	23	24	25	26	27
28	29	30	31

Merlinscribe: The Journal of James P. Mallory

Recent Entries

World of Obsidian Wiki

Pages From My Notebook: The Phoenix Transformed: Omitted Scenes

Forthcoming Work: The Dragon Prophecy Trilogy

Pages From My Notebook: Elven Words And Phrases

Pages From My Notebook: Timekeeping In The World of Obsidian

Pages from my Notebook: Mage Ranks of Armethalieh

Excerpt From "The Phoenix Transformed", TOR Books, September 2009

Publication date for "The Phoenix Transformed"

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