Paksworld

Suddenly I need to find something in last part of the Deed that I just can’t spot in my copy–but I’m sure it’s there.    We’ve both looked and we’re not seeing it.    Somewhere–I think but am not sure that it’s between the time Paks gets to Chaya and meets the dying king, and the time she leaves Vérella following Kieri–someone reveals that Kieri’s elven mother chose to make him look more human than half-elven.

If anyone can find that passage and tell me who said that, to whom they said it, where it was said, and in what circumstance–that would be very, very helpful.   I’m revising a scene where I don’t trust my “new” version of that story told from a very different POV and need to check to be sure they are either in accord or there’s a reason for them not to be.    It’s important to know by what chain of informants Kieri learned this.  This just caught my eye last night.

Thanks.

Since I myself don’t enjoy pronunciation guides in books and would rather “hear as I read” whatever my phonics training hands me, I have resisted having a pronunciation guide for a long time.  But this is the era of audio books as well as printed books, and the books are being read in places were vowel sounds (to name one complication) aren’t like the ones I hear around me.    So it’s dawned on me that what I hear in my head should perhaps be laid out in a way that’s helpful to those who want/like pronunciation guides, without being stifling to those who–like me–wing it, right or wrong.  (In other words, if you hate pronunciation guides, don’t look at it when it arrives.)

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The spring Orbit UK catalog is out (hurray!) and the page for Echoes of Betrayal is gorgeous…I love the cover.    There’s just one teeny-tiny problem….the phrase,  “The eagerly awaited climax…”  in the blurb.  All of you who read here know it’s not the climax–there are two books coming after Echoes–but people who don’t follow this blog, or my other online stuff, may not.

So…would you please, when you’re discussing the upcoming book, please let people know that it’s not the end of the story, but the middle, the hinge book?   Or if you’re in a bookstore and the staff say “Oh, the last of the new Paks books is coming out”, would you please let them know it’s not the last–and point them to this blog for current info?     My new contact at Orbit UK, Joanna Kramer  (remember, my editor there, the delightful Bella Pagan, left)  will be trying to get the online catalog fixed in this regard, but the print catalog is…well…printed.

Your efforts will be appreciated (though I’m afraid getting home-made goodies  to all of you just isn’t possible…)    I don’t want any readers confused about this, or unhappy that Echoes does not have the grand crashing climax/resolution that’s coming in Book V.

Thanks.

For the fact-finders among you…I need help!    I’ve misplaced my copy of the Deed (yet again!)  and thus can’t look this up.  In the Deed (I think…may also require access to the Gird & Luap books),  two gnome princedoms are mentioned.  One is Aldonfulk.  What is the other?   A third shows up in Book III, but I’m suddenly worried that I gave it the name of the second (which is in a different location.)

I can think of a couple of places to check:  Sheepfarmer’s  Daughter, when the troop is being taken south to Aarenis, and there’s a brief explanation of the geography and mention of the gnome princedoms on the north side of the Dwarfmounts.  And in Divided Allegiance,  when Paks & Co. rescue the gnome merchants from captivity.    There may be other locations, but I can’t think of them right now.   (How I wish I hadn’t lost the old reference notebooks!!)

Here Oath takes an Easter breather in a caravan “outside of Simrishamn, a very small town almost as far down south the east coast of Sweden as you can go,” as photographer Annica Sandberg reports.

Photo courtesy of Annica Sandberg

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Although the photographer reports that Rocko the llama lost interest in the proceedings and gallumphed away after this photo,  I love the expressions of llama and Dorrin apparently eyeing one another.

Photo courtesy of Angela Hines

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This image is complicated…so here’s the explanation, from Abigail Miller:  “Audiobook having coffee at Jupiter House this evening (4/2) at sunset on the Courthouse Square in Denton. The desktop wallpaper is snow on the plum thicket blossoms two weeks ago on the (ahem!) “first day of spring.”   I add: the green circle (looks like crayon) on upper right corner of screen shows location of Oath icon.

Photo courtesy of Abigail Miller

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‘From the south of England, after a very hard winter, OATH contemplates the Fig, Olive, and Lemon trees in the greenhouse and thinks it will soon be warm enough for them outside,’ wrote Amanda Lee-Riley.   I cropped this, so I hope all three kinds of leaves are still showing.

Photo courtesy of Amanda Lee-Riley

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Holding up its end of the shelf,  the last copy of Oath of Fealty in the Barnes & Noble store in Fargo, ND (as of March 31, anyway):

Photo courtesy of Liz Bennefeld

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Ulrika Rydberg sent several pictures of Oath in Uppsala, all of which would have made a good picture here, but the bust of Carl von Linne did it for me.

Photo courtesy of Ulrika Rydberg

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