So! The Obsidian Palace is up to about 21,000 words, and if all goes well, I should have the edited version of Queen of Ice back about this time next week. I’m not certain about a release date on The Obsidian Palace yet, but I’ll likely set it up next week while getting Queen of Ice‘s formatting done. Thing is, self-publishers like myself can only do pre-orders 90 days out via Amazon, which makes it a bit more difficult to time them right.

I’ve also received word from Tantor Media that the audiobook version of The Avatar’s Flames is getting closer to completion. I’ve approved their version of the cover, and I’m hoping that means it’ll be out in early November rather than later in the month, but I need to emphasize that they told me they couldn’t guarantee anything until it was actually out. As many hoops as I have had to jump through to put up audiobooks myself, I can totally understand that.

Now, I suppose it’s about time that I talked a little about something I haven’t in a while. In Ancient Dreams, the magic system I built wasn’t terribly complex. This was quite deliberate at the time, because I wanted something I didn’t have to go into lots of detail on. So, to make it simpler, I decided to borrow something from Through the Fire. More than just something, in fact. I decided that building an entire new pantheon and creation mythology didn’t make sense, so what I did was I took the Primal Gods I’d built for Through the Fire and decided to have them have created both settings.

To simplify things, I decided to pare down the near-limitless Spheres of Through the Fire to just seven in Ancient Dreams. Air, Darkness, Earth, Fire, Light, Nature, and Water. In fact, not long ago I’d have said that I only created six, but that would’ve been contradicting myself, as several characters use nature magic in Ancient Dreams. A lesson to me, eh? I’m not perfect, and I forget things at times. Anyway, artificing was how I chose to differentiate the settings in truth, them and genius loci, or dungeons. Artificing is my approach to technology, and I’ve often wondered how far I’d want to take it. Paraphrasing Clarke, ‘any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.’

Other differences have emerged as I’ve written the books as well, which isn’t surprising. No matter how much work an author might have done before they wrote a book, there’s almost always new ideas that occur to them while they’re writing. Sometimes this leads to logical inconsistencies, and I try to avoid that, but I don’t always succeed.

Anyway, that’s it for today! I hope everyone has a great week! Now I just have to get over my own frustration about how long it takes to put out a book. I want Queen of Ice to be out, already!