Legends of the First Empire discussion

You have questions, and hopefully, I have answers. Now that the series is over (and has been read by a number of Kickstarter readers) I'm going to be here to answer questions people have had. The questions can be about, well, anything: writing, reading, this series, my other books, or what is coming in the future.

Hi Michael. I'm guessing you constantly get asked about Drumindor, so... how's it going with Drumindor?

Andreas wrote: "Hi Michael. I'm guessing you constantly get asked about Drumindor, so... how's it going with Drumindor?"

No much since I worked out the outline. As you might imagine, I've been pretty busy getting out the books of the Legends of the First Empire...the last half of which grew into quite an epic tale that took me a great deal longer to write then I had anticipated. I have one more book in my new series that I need to write. But I'll probably have that done before spring of next year, and then it leaves me wide open to start writing Drumindor. I'm anticipating that book will go pretty quickly.

No planned release date for it yet. Until it's written I don't want to set a deadline on it.

Thanks, Michael!

Andreas wrote: "Thanks, Michael!"
Sure thing.

Hi Michael!

Mindful of spoilers, what are your favourite moments in the Riyria novels and LotFE series?

Hey Amy...well, one of my favorites from Riyria was Myron and the squirrel tree. As for Legends. I really enjoyed the part where Suri discussed the different personalities of trees. Hmmm....I see a pattern here.

Hi Michael, this may be more of a Robin question, but are there any updates on Revelations Hardcovers?

Hey Michael, no question but just wanted to say thanks for putting out such great material. Love Age of Empyre and seeing all the connections to Riyria. I have read everything else but DoD & DoWD because I like to ration those for hard times. I got one of my best friends into your work and we geek out about the hidden gems all the time. For instance, I just googled the definition of "Nimbus" the other day and it gave me goosebumps. Can't help but wonder how much is left that I haven't discovered.

Also, we conversed during the AoD kickstarter about a Riyria inspired necklace pendant.... It is still in the works but slow going. It has been designed and now in the early construction phase. I keep reminding myself that patience is a virtue.

Thanks again for having this great universe that we can get lost in during such a crazy time. Also, seeing your dedication at the beginning of AoE was very touching as I will be graduating from physician assistant school in two weeks.

Take care during this time and hope all is well in the valley.

Hi Michael,

This is more of a technical writing question. I was really inspired by your Making of Death of Dulgath book and it led to me using Scrivener as my main writing tool! My question was; what kind of software do you use to layout the e-books that you produce? As a graphic designer by trade, I've found Scrivener's e-book production kind of heavy-handed compared to some more traditional publishing options like InDesign.

Thanks!

Hello Michael,
I seem to remember you were planning on doing another publishing run of the Riyiera reveltions. Since I only own those as ebook and audiobooks, I wanted to check if those plans are still on before buying them as proper books.

William wrote: "Hi Michael, this may be more of a Robin question, but are there any updates on Revelations Hardcovers?"

I think reservation invitations should be going out soonish. Sarah (my daughter) went through and tallied up all the loyalty points once the Christmas orders came through. We FINALLY decided on how we are going to handle the fact that 1/2 of the Riyria Chronicles books already have hardcover editions and the other 1/2 does not. That was a big stumbling block related to cover design. The dust jacket designer has complete 6 of the 7 books. We are hoping they'll get the last one finished soon so we can debut those with the invitation. We are going with some really cool artwork for the Riyria hardcover cover (the one beyond the dust jacket) and that has been the part that has taken the longest. Again, we were hoping to have them all finished before announcing the pre-orders. But we might have to go with drafts of them because we just can't wait any longer.

The last aspect is doing the layout of the books - which is quite time consuming and 100% on Robin. Now that Age of Empyre is put to bed she can start to concentrate on that, but the computer that has some of those books on it are at our other house and with the lockdown we've not been doing any traveling. But we should be able to pick that up in the next week or so.

That's about all I know at the moment.

Deighton wrote: "Hey Michael, no question but just wanted to say thanks for putting out such great material. Love Age of Empyre and seeing all the connections to Riyria."

Always good to hear when someone has enjoyed the books. Thanks for turning on a friend to my writing. It's because of people like you who keep spreading the word that the books continue to have their long legs. I can't believe that my first Riyria Revelation was published 11 years ago! Wow, how time flies.

And yeah, the Easter egg hunting is a great aspect of the books. Speaking of which - you are going to find some Easter eggs between Legends and the last two Riyria Chronicles when you get to them. Especially in The Death of Dulgath. My favorite one in there involves a mural which I'm sure you will immediately recognize.

As to the necklace -- I'll definitely provide a way for people to get their hands on it during the next Riyria Kickstarter. I don't want to be the "middleman" on that but we'll talk more when the time is close.

Congratulations on your graduation, and be safe out there as you start working in the medical field. We need you guys/gals more than ever and try to keep your stress level down as much as possible.

Things are well in the valley - it's the places outside if here that we (Robin and I) worry about.

J.R. wrote: "My question was; what kind of software do you use to layout the e-books that you produce?"

Hey J.R. So both Scrivner and InDesign have ways to export to ebook - but we have never used either of them. The reason? It makes them a bit "fat" - and by that, I mean that the ebook size is larger than when we do it ourselves, and size matters as there is a "delivery fee" based on the size of the book that comes out of the profits.

What we do is create a "flat" .HTML file. which is made from doing some global search and replaces for things like italics, paragraphs, and special characters like em-dashes and non-breaking spaces for ellipsis. We then add some hyperlinks for the table of contents and we run the small .HTML file through Calibre which produces the .mobi and .epub versions. For the PDF version of the ebook, we output it from InDesign.

I'm sure there are better ways to do this then what we are doing, but we started making ebooks back in 2008 before there were any tools, and we just have our "system down" so we keep doing it as we have been.

I hope that helps a bit.

Christian wrote: "I seem to remember you were planning on doing another publishing run of the Riyiera reveltions. Since I only own those as ebook and audiobooks, I wanted to check if those plans are still on before buying them as proper books.."

Hey Christian, so the "original" Riyria trade paperback books (published from 2008 - 2010) went out of print once Orbit bought the series and re-published them in the three two-book omnibus editions. They (Orbit) control all printed copies of those books. They did recently release a "box set" which is the same trade paperbacks inside but a colored box that surrounds them. From a pricing standpoint buying those as a boxset is a little cheaper than buying each book individually.

That said, we did BUY the rights from Orbit to produce some hardcovers of those books (something we had to pay a lot of money to do so). And the conditions of that contract severely limits the number of copies that can be produced. There is already a really long waiting list and I suspect that only a small fraction of the existing waiting list will be able to get their hands on those limited edition copies. So...I think your best bet to get Riyria Revelations in some form of print would be to buy the boxset that Orbit has released.

Damien here, wanted to chime in on favorite Easter eggs... Death of Dulgath has had my favorites. While MJS has mentioned the Mural, I LOVE the statues... pay attention as they are described! They might even lead you to the (in my opinion) biggest Easter egg in the book.

Michael wrote: "Deighton wrote: "Hey Michael, no question but just wanted to say thanks for putting out such great material. Love Age of Empyre and seeing all the connections to Riyria."

Always good to hear when ..."

Thank you for the kind reply. Since posting that message I finished Age of Empyre and....wow. Incredible ending and I miss the gang already. I left the series feeling as if I had just walked away from a delicious three course meal,..very satisfied and yearning to get lost in the legends and lore once again. So grateful I stumbled onto these books.

Real quick, I didn't want to give the wrong impression about this amulet so please let me clarify. This is not a necklace that will be for sale,..it is special, one of a kind commissioned piece just for me. Thank you and Robin both for all your hard work. I am going to take a break before moving on to DoD as I like to ration your work as if it were water.

Take care until.

Deighton

Damien wrote: " I LOVE the statues... pay attention as they are described! They might even lead you to the (in my opinion) biggest Easter egg in the book."

Oh...good tip. that is one of my favorites as well.

Deighton wrote: "I finished Age of Empyre and....wow. Incredible ending and I miss the gang already. I left the series feeling as if I had just walked away from a delicious three-course meal,..very satisfied and yearning to get lost in the legends and lore once again. So grateful I stumbled onto these books.

I'm so glad to hear that! It's always good to come to the end of the series when everything wraps up and all the pieces are in their places. Having a satisfying conclusion is always my goal. Book series, like flying a plane, the most important (and dangerous) times are the take off and the landing.


Deighton wrote: Real quick, I didn't want to give the wrong impression about this amulet so please let me clarify. This is not a necklace that will be for sale,..it is special, one of a kind commissioned piece just for me. Thank you and Robin both for all your hard work. I am going to take a break before moving on to DoD as I like to ration your work as if it were water..."

Oh, sorry I confused you with someone else. There is a silversmith that made some necklaces that I plan to make available in a future Kickstarter. Sorry for the mistake. I love that you feel the need to ration my work - it's a great honor.

Hi Michael,

I love your books! They are one of the few books I can keep returning to!

I would like to know why Nimbus/Turin requested Royce not to kill Ambrose Moore? Could it be that killing Ambrose Moore would violate Ferrol's law?

Waiting eagerly for the next series!!

Rati

Hi, Michael! I'd like to thank you for introducing me to Scrivener. I gave it a try after reading Making of the Death of Dulgath and it's been great!

My question contains Revelations spoilers.


I noticed (or imagined I did) that you don't have extraneous characters. Anyone of consequence either dies or has his/her story wrapped up in some other way. Albert is an exception, and I've always wondered what, if anything, you envision happened to him after the invasion.

Rati wrote: "Hi Michael,
The following question is a Revelations and Legends spoilers:
(view spoiler)[I would like to know why Nimbus/Turin requested Royce not to kill Ambrose Moore? Could it be that killing Moore would violate Ferrol's law." (hide spoiler)]

Well, technically speaking, that person would prefer that Royce doesn't kill ANYONE...but he knows that Ambrose is highly unlikely to survive if Royce gets out. By making Royce stay his hand, as it were, it shows that there is a good chance that he has turned a corner and is on the path to being a better person. So the best way to think about "that test" is to show that the metal is well tempered and is ready for the anvil.

Angela wrote: "Albert is an exception, and I've always wondered what, if anything, you envision happened to him after the invasion.

Ah, Albert. I've often toyed with writing a short story with him as a POV (point of view) character post Riyria Revelations. As such, I didn't want to "hem myself in" which is why I didn't say much about him. There are at least two (and possibly three) ways I could go with him and to keep my options open, I remained silent on that front. So many stories and so little time! Maybe I'll write that as a pallet cleanser after finsihing Drumindor.

Michael wrote: "Angela wrote: "Albert is an exception, and I've always wondered what, if anything, you envision happened to him after the invasion.

Ah, Albert. I've often toyed with writing a short story with him..."

That would be fantastic! Albert and Wyatt are my favorite characters (except for Royce and Hadrian, of course).

Nice! I'm glad you liked them. Wyatt is another character whose backstory would be cool to touch on.

HI Michael, I am such a fan that I feel embarassed that I have to ask this question and surely it will end with a headslap, but I seem to be terrible at finding Easter eggs. I get so wrapped up in characters and story, I often miss such things. I read Riyria Revelations and then Chronicles back to back years ago. Then I was thrilled to discover when WInter's Daughter and Death of Dulgath were released I could have more and more of Royce and Hadrian. But with Legends, I've read along as they were released. Certainly you are to be commended with your amazing consecutive release dates, so no complaints from me. But now that I've finished Legends I feel like I must go back and reread Riyria to find all those Easter eggs I left in the past. SO my question... SPOILER ALERT...


Marietta, sitting by the pool not able to enter Rel, but I feel like there is another connection reference I am missing????
Much love to you and Robin for all your amazing hard work!
Lisa

Hi Lisa

(not sure if my spoiler tags work properly, if not sorry!)

(view spoiler)[ regarding your question
If you have read the Chronicles book 'dissapearance of winters daughter (i think that is the one) there is a ghost, which I think is magaretta, I think i remember that is also the book with the 'book of Bran) (hide spoiler)] hope it helps :)

Hi I remember I read somewhere we could be able to write on a list if MJS/RS would ever pass by our location for (maybe) meetups or host... Anyone remember where this was?

(Btw sad to see the series end, but it was a really great listen in the process!)

Thanks!

Michael wrote: "Nice! I'm glad you liked them. Wyatt is another character whose backstory would be cool to touch on."
I'd be all about a story featuring either of them!

Hi Michael! I'm putting the finishing touches on a book that will be finished this fall, and I was wondering if you ever write blurbs/quotes for other books? I'm sure your time is quite limited, so I figured not, but I didn't think it would hurt to ask. Thank you so much, and can't wait The Rise and the Fall!

@Lisa - Yes you are correct Makaretta (view spoiler)[(who is the Fhrey who can't enter Phyre) (hide spoiler)] shows up in the Chronicle books. To be specific she is in The Death of Dulgath. (view spoiler)[in fact she is the spirit inside Lady Nyssa Dulgath, who after she dies transfers into the body of Lord Christopher Fawkes. While she cannot get into the afterlife, she can "move into" dead bodies and take control of them. If you want another spoiler, there is someone else in LEgends of the First Empire who can also do this, although the clue about is very subtle and easy to miss. (hide spoiler)]

@Niles-Peter: you are close - the book you are thinking of is The Death of Dulgath, not The Disappearance of Winter's Daughter.

@Angela - glad to hear that. Any new stories (shorts or novels) will be announced in this group.

@Jeff - yes, and no. I'm an incredibly picky reader and as such, I've blurbed only a very small handful of titles over the 12 years I've been publishing. That said, I'd love nothing better than to find new up and coming authors that I can offer a hand to. Once you have an ARC that is well polished (don't send me anything that isn't), you can reach out to me via email at michael.sullivan.dc(at)gmail.com, and we can make arrangements for me to get a copy.

Niels-Peter wrote: "Hi I remember I read somewhere we could be able to write on a list if MJS/RS would ever pass by our location for (maybe) meetups or host... Anyone remember where this was?"

I do! Here is the link

Niels-Peter wrote: "(Btw sad to see the series end, but it was a really great listen in the process!)."

Thanks! We'll just have to keep other books coming your way. Work on Esrahaddon is going well, and Robin is preparing Nolyn for Beta reading. More soon!

Hi Michael,

Gifford was one of my favorite characters, he had so much depth and spirit, but I also thought his various impairments were handled very sensitively. Did you do any sort of specific research or have sensitivity readers for his character?

I'm writing a book with a character who loses an arm to amputation and (being a non-disabled person myself) I was concerned about portraying it correctly.

Thanks!
Jesse

Michael wrote: "Niels-Peter wrote: "Hi I remember I read somewhere we could be able to write on a list if MJS/RS would ever pass by our location for (maybe) meetups or host... Anyone remember where this was?"

I d..."

awww... just realized you're talking USA road trips... guess Denmark is a little off that path ;) thanks for the answer, but since we are so far away I did not write anything... though if ever in theese edges we will be more than hapoy to share bed and bread :)

Hello Michael,

Not a question, just gratitude!!

As I mention in previous post, a few years ago I read all the books for Hadrian and Royce, and then I read the books of the First Empyre as they came out, impatiently waiting between books.

Once that was done, I decided to start from the beginning again with ‘The Crown Tower’.
Last night I ended Heir of Novron, and wow so much richer to read these after the Empyre books.

Funny enough, I did not remember how our heroes ended or anything about Mercy and Nimbus*. I am not sure why I did not remember the end of the book but I was grateful as it made it super exciting.

*Love the last scene of Nimbus, ahhhhh! So much more meaningful after the Empyre!!

Now I will continue to read all the empire books one after the other!

Thank you so very much for your wonderful work!!

Eva

Glad to hear from another reader who forgets things and gets to relive them all anew! Plus it is a very different experience to go from one to the next with no delay in between! I did that with a chronological re-read of Riyria after reading them in publication order the first time. Now I will go read Empire sequentially! Thanks for the suggestion! Love Michael's writing so much. SO excited for the new series next year<3

J.R. wrote: "Gifford was one of my favorite characters, he had so much depth and spirit, but I also thought his various impairments were handled very sensitively. Did you do any sort of specific research or have sensitivity readers for his character?"

Hey J.R. No, I didn't, and I was a bit worried whether I handled it well. Years later, I met an aspiring author who has Cerebal Palsey (who was reading the books), and I was waiting on pins and needles to see what he said. He thought it was well done, and I have since heard from others with disabilities that also felt it was handled well. So I've since let out a sign of relief that I didn't unintentionally "mess it up."

Niels-Peter wrote: "just realized you're talking USA road trips... guess Denmark is a little off that path ;) thanks for the answer, but since we are so far away I did not write anything... though if ever in theese edges we will be more than hapoy to share bed and bread :)

Yes, it was intended for our travel with the Jeep and Teardrop Camper (nickname Ruby and Towtow), but we have added on people in other parts of the world. We were in Denmark a few years ago and once travel opens up, we hope to get back "across the pond" and do some traveling there - but by train when in that part of the world.

Eva wrote: "Last night I ended Heir of Novron, and wow so much richer to read these after the Empyre books.."

It's great to hear people reading (or re-reading) between the two series. They are standalone in that you don't NEED to know about Riyria to enjoy Legends, or vice-versa. But for those that do read both, there is certainly are a lot of connections to discover.

Lisa wrote: "Now I will go read Empire sequentially! Thanks for the suggestion! Love Michael's writing so much. SO excited for the new series next year<3."

Excellent! I think you'll find a lot of connections between the two. I just started writing the last book of the new series, and I hope to have it completed by year's end. That gives me plenty of time to make any changes to Book #1 (Nolyn) which is slated to come out in early August!

Hi there Michael, I have a question about Age of Empyre, or more specifically, about Fane Lothian.

(view spoiler)[
At the end of the book our friends (Gifford, Roan, Moya…) found Makareta standing outside the doors of Phyre. She said she was unable to enter because there is a barrier blocking her, and that’s because she broke Ferrol’s Law.
But Fane Lothian broke Ferrol’s Law too, on more than one occasion. So, is it also forbidden for him to enter Phyre? And if so, what will he do the rest of the eternity? Is he able to get back to Elan as Brin did? Perhaps try to interfere with the happenings somehow?
I just feel so sorry for Makareta…
(hide spoiler)]

Luiz: (view spoiler)[ Because Lothian is Fane, he is granted the power, the only one, to kill anyone he deems a threat. When Gryndal asks the Fane to give him the ability to kill Arion and Nyphron, he gives Gryndal the ability to do so. (hide spoiler)]

Jason wrote: "Luiz: [spoilers removed]"

Oh, I see. I had wrongly assumed that Fane Lothian couldn't kill Fhrey (I think I assumed that since he didn't take an active part on the Battle of Grandford).

Thanks for clarifying.

Luiz Fernando wrote: "Hi there Michael, I have a question about Age of Empyre, or more specifically, about Fane Lothian.

(view spoiler)[No, fane Lothian isn't forbidden from Phyre. Why? Well fanes are allowed to break Ferrol's Law. Not only that, but they can grant a pardon to other Fhrey when the desire suits them. For instance you may recall in Age of Myth when Lothian sent Gryndal to Dahl Rhen he got this exemption in case he had to kill either of them in the apprehension.

Don't feel to bad about Makaretta, she eventually finds some solace in the time of Riyria. I won't tell you where or how, but she does show up in one of the Riyria Chronicle stories (hide spoiler)]

Hey Jason, thanks for answering Luiz's question - and you got it absolutely correct!

@Michael: My pleasure! I take a great deal of pleasure in reading and listening to your books, multiple times and I always like to share it with others. I was also glad to help. To be fair, your answer is more comprehensive than my own.

I'm just so glad this forum is here and that we get to share our love of your series.