Spring Has Sprung With a Vengeance on My Mountain

 

Spring has sprung with a vengeance on my mountain. The annual Pollen Apocalypse has begun, the trees are bursting into leaf, the air is filled with butterflies and birds, and the spring rains are washing out roads. It’s a busy season, and I’ve been busy in response. But the writing is rolling.

I have completed and turned in the manuscript for The Road To Vanador anthology, one day before deadline. It runs 132k words (about 14.5 hours runtime in audiobook) and includes four new short stories featuring Mavone, Jannik, Gareth, Nattia, Carmella, Rumel, a cameo by Banamor, Landrik, and Caswallon the Fox. These have mostly been secondary or tertiary characters in the main series, but all of them have their own stories to tell in regard to the founding of Vanador. Some may consider these filler stories compared to the main series and therefore may want to skip them. There isn’t much of a body count after all, and no tremendous plot points are revealed in the stories. They are largely character studies. Some of them could even be considered cozy fantasy, I suppose. But I’d like to think that you will find them entertaining. (An interesting side-note: just as I noticed that The Wizards of Sevendor anthology had a cute animal character for each story, for this anthology I noticed that each story had an intriguing menu mentioned. I plan on including the recipes for each of these in the Spellmonger’s Cookbook, or whatever I end up calling the cookbook I want to write for the series. This will mean a long and arduous process of cooking each of them in my test kitchen, but I will take that hit for y’all. It’s what wizards do.) One story in particular, “Foundation,” features Carmella—a tertiary character in the series and one whom I have a lot of fondness for. One of my readers helpfully pointed out to me that Carmella seemed to be on the spectrum, and so I took that idea and ran with it a bit. I don’t explicitly call out her neurodivergence, but after dealing with Min’s madness in The Mad Mage of Sevendor, I wanted to explore the idea of another mage who looks at the world differently. I suppose y’all will let me know if I was successful. The final story in the book is the previously published novella The Road To Vanador, featuring Minalan and his dad making the trip from Sevendor to Vanador after his exile. This is a particularly important to story to me as it was written immediately after my own father’s death. It explores some of the intricacies of the adult son/father relationship as well as the landscape of some of the settings we’ve become familiar with. For those who have already invested in the Kindle version of the novella, good news: I will be updating the novella you’ve already purchased with these new stories, so all you will have to do is go to your dashboard after release and update the story to get the additional four. The new Kindle version will be released along with the audiobook release in July. I’ll keep you posted on the exact publication date of both.

Congratulations are due to superfan Spellmongrel Craig Maefs, known as Terleman on the Discord server, for winning Best in Show at the Steel City Con cosplay contest! Craig and his beautiful daughter are both outstanding cosplayers and have attracted a lot of attention at cons over the years. Craig does an eerily accurate Stan Lee, Willy the Postman, and Gandalf. He is also amongst my most devoted fans, so a little shout-out for his achievement is definitely in order.

Spellmonger Game Adaptation Update Work is ongoing to untangle the Battlefield Press problems resulting from Jonathan Thompson’s untimely death. His memorial service was this week, and he has been on my mind a lot of late. His brother has volunteered to take over the business, and I am in regular communication with him regarding the Spellmonger FRP and other works Jonathan and I agreed upon. While we have nothing definite yet, we both want to get this out because most of the work on it was completed before Jonathan died. There is also talk of a televised game on Discord to help promote the eventual release—something I’m very much in favor of and may well participate in. More details will be forthcoming as they become available.

🧙‍♂️Upcoming Adventures🧙‍♂️ Now that the anthology is behind me, I will turn my attention to the next two novels on the docket: Shadowblade (with Emily Burch Harris) and Book 16, the title of which is Preceptor. It’s an odd title, I know, but it makes sense in the context of the novel. I’m not exactly sure just how long it will be yet, but it should be between 50 and 60 chapters, gods willing. It will be a direct follow-up to Marshal Arcane, in Minalan’s voice. While I don’t have a definite release date for it, I’m certain it will be out by the end of the year, probably around the holidays. That’s all for the moment. Time to finish cleaning up from Easter and then get back to the word mines. Hope everyone’s holiday was a happy one! - Terry

💸 Spellmonger SALE 💸

For the next few days, Spellmonger Books 1-4 are on sale on Audible! Now’s the perfect time to introduce friends to the series or add the audiobooks to your own library!

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