The upcoming Kickstarter release of the 10th anniversary edition of my fantasy series, Saga of the God-Touched Mage. Has been sucking up soo much of my time this recent past, but it’s been a good … um … well … never mind.
I’ll be talking about God Mage, which is book four, in a moment.
But for now, you can check out the Kickstarter Preview here:
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I’ve said before that the 10th anniversary edtion of the God-Touched Mage combines the original eight volumes into four books, and that—in reality—the first pass at the series was only seven books long.
This is all true.
In fact, when I first finished Lord of the Freeborn, I fully thought I was done. It worked. Garrick had moved from point A to point B, we’d had great fun dealing with espionage and intrigue and family squabbles, and watching massive magics rumble over the planes of the Thousand Worlds. There was character growth, and a lesson sitting right there. Stick a fork in it. The story was dead, Jim, he says, inexcusably mixing genres.
A half hour later, I was walking to gym to celebrate with a workout, when another character raised his little hand and said “ahem.”
About ten steps later, I’d turned around and was right back at the writing desk.
No, it seems, the story was not finished.
Not by a mile.
I wrote that last book on a wave, though. Like my hair was on fire. That’s what happens to me when I suddenly know a truth about my work. It was a total blast to make it happen that way, digging into Garrick in a way that was deeper and more satisfying, giving Darien his own arc, and Will, too, the slight apprentice of the apprentice (of sorts).
This time, when it was done, it was truly done.
I think it was falling into this book that made the whole thing feel real to me, and made me feel happy to be publishing it myself. As I noted while I was writing about Rogue Mage, no one in the Trad world (multiple editors and agents) stopped me to say that the story wasn’t finished. But I knew the minute that the idea struck exactly how important the book that became Lords of Existence was.
Lord of the Freeborn might have finished Garrick’s story, but Lords of Existence let us know what it meant. It may not be going too far to say that LOE is, in fact, the reason the series is here, at the point where the 10th anniversary edition even exists.
I love these books.
I hope you do, too.
You can take a look at God Mage here: