Paksworld

So this afternoon I was hacking away at stuff, helped by Ms. Rancherfriend who has an excellent eye for the “enough of that, already” passages (she’s the reason the first Paks books did not chronicle every single hour of slogging through the mud. )  And while talking to her, a nagging little worry about a scene you will now never see  (because it Did Not Happen that way!)  suddenly rose up even though she hadn’t mentioned it, and I asked her what she thought about it.

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This snippet from Echoes of Betrayal comes fairly near the beginning…those familiar with Kings of the North remember that Pargun has invaded and though the scathefire may be over, the Pargunese are still around.  Some snippage may occur within the snippet.

Who:  King Kieri is POV

Where:  Between Chaya and the Honnorgat River

When:  Night.  The Lyonyan force is camped alongside a scathefire track

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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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Writer emerges from the undergrowth, stained and ragged and wild-eyed from having taken “the short cut” to getting this thing in order.   Taking it down to be printed somewhere else never happened, due to Lifestuff.    So Writer elected to do it all in the machine (the printer is not happy about churning out lots of pages in a hurry.  Some pages in a hurry, fine.  800+ pages in a hurry…not fine.)   Writer then looked at the mass of thick, impenetrable brush in front of her and spotted what looked like a short-cut game trail.   And plunged in.

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Most of you may have seen the cover art elsewhere, but it’s now time to show it off here for anyone who might wander through:

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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.

I am deep in chronology now, maybe halfway through, and discovering that I have duplicated some events (though the way the scenes are written varies a lot) and completely left out some very important ones.  Last night’s work session was on one such scene (a plot-mover for sure.)    Getting the others into even rough order helps a lot in seeing overlaps, duplicates, and gaps.

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Today’s snippet of Echoes is from a sidestory that wasn’t working in the book itself–well, part of it is, but the specific conversations aren’t there.  So this is something you’ll know when you read the book  that others won’t.

And the snippet will make more sense when you have the book.   Actually this is two chunks, two different conversations.

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The random-number generator has kindly done its thing on the list it was given (pruned of duplicate entries, non-entry comments, and my bright ideas), and Richard (no initial, no last name) has won the ARC.

Richard, email me via the link on my website, www.elizabethmoon.com, with a mailing address and I’ll ship it off.

Non-winners,  your enthusiasm, inventiveness, and humor win my undying gratitude for the pleasure you’ve given me, in what turned out to be a tougher several weeks than I expected.   There will be Snippet later today or tomorrow.

Thanks again, everyone.