Benedict Jacka's Blog

Book #4 in the Inheritance of Magic series is into its final section, but right now the main even that’s coming up is the release date for Book #3, A Judgement of Powers.  So here’s the release schedule!

• September 12th (next week) – Chapter 1 released online
• October 10th – Chapter 2 released online
• November 4th – A Judgement of Powers is released worldwide
• November 13th – Reddit AMA

In between will be other posts – I’ve had a few Beginner’s Guide to Drucraft articles planned for a while, but they’ve had to be put on hold since Book #4 is behind schedule.  This happens from time to time, sometimes because a book’s proving more difficult than usual, and sometimes because I just have too much on my plate.  In either case, I usually react by picking whichever jobs I consider lowest on my priority list and ignoring them for a while so that I can focus on the new book instead.  Website articles are usually fairly low on said priority list, so they tend to be the most likely victims.  I’ll try to catch up on them once the first draft of Book #4 is done.

Just finishing off Chapter 16 of Inheritance of Magic #4.  Once that’s done there’s a final section of 3 chapters or so, and then we’ll be done.

This book’s been quite a struggle to get through.  Part of it might be that I’m starting off a new arc of the larger story, so I’ve had to work out a lot of things from scratch.  Part of it might be that my personal life is busier these days and I don’t have quite as much time to spend on writing (though I still spend a LOT).  And part might be that Inheritance of Magic is just turning out to be a very complicated story, with a lot more moving pieces to keep track of than Alex Verus.  Hard to say which it is.

Still, we’re finally in the home stretch!  This section should be done in a few days, after which I’ll aiming to finish the last one by the end of September.  If all goes to plan, by the end of next month, the first draft of the book will finally be completed.  Fingers crossed!

As those of you who’ve read An Instruction in Shadow will know, towards the end of the book Stephen gets hold of a mysterious coded letter.  I didn’t include the decoded version since it wasn’t necessary for the story (chronologically, the reader is going to find out the important bits of the letter immediately at the start of book #3).  I did think some readers would find it an interesting puzzle, though, so I left the coded version of the letter in the book to see how long it would take people to figure out.

It took them about 24 hours.  Never underestimate the collective time and energy of Internet fans.

But not everyone was able to track down that decoded version, so for those people, as well as for those who’d be interested in how Stephen ended up decoding the letter, here’s a decoded version, with Stephen’s comments/annotations.

NB:  this little extract assumes you’ve read An Instruction in Shadow and will make absolutely no sense otherwise, so be warned.  It’s also not particularly reader-friendly since it’s a direct transcription of Stephen’s notes;  since it’s written for his eyes, he doesn’t go out of his way to explain anything.  This extract is also included in Book #3, so readers who don’t follow this blog won’t be missing anything.

Chapter 1 will be following next month.

Okay, having taken a look at the responses from last week, I think I’ll go with chronological order for the extracts.  So:  decoded letter first (since Stephen does that first), followed by Chapter 1, then Chapter 2.

I’ll post the decoded letter with Stephen’s annotations next week on August 22nd, then Chapter 1 in September and Chapter 2 in October.

By the way, since a couple of people mentioned it, the decoded letter with annotations is going to be included in book #3 as an appendix.  (It’s obviously going to be much more accessible to print/ebook readers than those who are getting the audiobook, but it’s really not necessary to understand the content of the novel, so you don’t need to worry too much if you’re getting the audio edition.)

We’re now getting into the run-up to the release of Inheritance of Magic #3, A Judgement of Powers, and I’m at the stage of deciding what I’ll be releasing on the blog.  As usual I’ll be releasing the first couple of chapters around 1-3 months prior to the book’s publication, but one additional thing I’ve been thinking of doing this time round is posting up a piece of bonus material:  the letter from Book #2, decoded and with Stephen’s annotations.  Let me know if you’d be interested, and if so, whether you’d prefer me to release it before chapters 1 and 2 of A Judgement of Powers, or after.  (I’m kind of undecided on which, since it relates to some of the content of Chapter 1.)  Tell me what you think in the comments!

For this week, I thought I’d do something a little different.  For a while now the Czech publisher Fantom Print has been putting out translations of the Alex Verus series.  They’re currently up to book 6, so here are the covers!

I’m actually pretty impressed by them – they obviously paid attention to the events of the books, to the point where I can not only figure out which cover matches to which book, but can also pretty much name the scene/location that they’re using for a reference for most of them.  Very different style from my English covers!

Inheritance of Magic #4 has just crossed the 60,000 words line, which is about the 2/3rds mark for my manuscripts (they tend to come in at about 90,000, give or take).  Around 6 more chapters and we should be done.

Planning to finish the current 3-chapter section this coming week, after which I’ll start work on a new set of Beginner’s Guide to Drucraft articles.  Possibilities include Life essentia, country affinities, or something different.

Here’s the UK cover of the third book in the Inheritance of Magic series, A Judgement of Powers!  Release date is unchanged:  November 4th, 2025.

A few of the most notable non-British and non-American corporations operating within the UK.  Due to the sheer number of such corporations (the list of drucraft companies with an office in London alone would run to pages) this should be viewed as more of a random sample than any kind of comprehensive guide.

A German group that specialises in the use of Matter drucraft in heavy industry, particularly in products utilising steel and other metals.  They produce engines, parts for the automotive sector, and factory machinery.

Maar Group is very large, on a scale with Sinocorp or the US giants, and owns a vast network of Wells spread out across the world, including a Matter S Well in the UK.  It prospered in the late twentieth century, swallowing up many smaller drucraft companies and extending its reach wider and wider.  However, in recent years it has started to falter due to conflicts with the German government, which has repeatedly penalised Maar for regulatory noncompliance, especially with environmental impact laws.  As a result, Maar’s growth has stalled, and now that its international sales have started falling as well, it’s widely believed that its finances are looking a lot shakier than they once were.

The Chinese state-owned drucraft company.  Its official name is the China International Mineralogical Support Company, but most non-Chinese just call it Sinocorp.

Sinocorp is the entity designated by the PRC to govern the sale, purchase and leasing of Wells and aurum outside of China.  It doesn’t quite have a monopoly on all Chinese overseas drucraft, but it has enough advantages that it’s hard for most private Chinese companies to (legally) compete.  As such, most don’t try, and the result is that Sinocorp is absolutely enormous.  They buy up essentia and Wells in vast quantities and ship the aurum back to China.  This is not always viewed positively by the countries in question, and Sinocorp gets a lot of bad press, not to mention frequently having its permits denied.  Still, given who owns Sinocorp, governments are reluctant to oppose them too openly.

Sinocorp has no particular speciality as regards drucraft and will buy Wells of all branches.

A drucraft company based in Taiwan, Alopex competes with Sinocorp around the world, but especially in South-East Asia.  They’re banned from operating in the PRC, but can act freely outside it, and frequently come into conflict with Sinocorp in countries such as Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand, and the Philippines.  Despite being a fraction of the size of Sinocorp, their greater agility has often allowed them to take Wells that Sinocorp has been too slow to acquire.

Alopex specialises in the use of drucraft in the electronics sector, and are generally considered to be on the cutting edge of research as regards the applications of drucraft to semiconductors, integrated circuits, and robotics.

A Japanese company highly focused on Dimension drucraft.  While they use Wells of all branches, they’ve always been extremely focused on the Dimension branch, to the point of aggressively buying up Dimension Wells and recruiting any drucrafters with a talent for using them.  Their goal is to acquire a monopoly on Dimension sigl production within all the countries they operate in, and, while they’ve never fully achieved this, they’re still the UK’s most prominent provider – most people buying a Dimension sigl in the UK are going to think of Mitsukuri first before looking at other options.

Although Mitsukuri is a multinational corporation, its upper management is all Japanese, and many ex-employees have claimed that it’s impossible to be promoted above a certain level in Mitsukuri if you aren’t a Japanese national.   

A French multinational that specialises in buying up essentia in countries where it’s abundant and reselling it where it’s in higher demand – buy low, sell high.  It’s a simple business model, but one they’ve perfected over a long time.

Within the UK they tend to focus on Primal Wells, for the simple reason that it’s the branch other corporations and Houses are least interested in.  Their operations are thought to be highly profitable, but despite their wealth they’re notoriously tight-fisted and have a reputation for paying their employees as little as they can possibly get away with.

Nothing very much to announce this week.  Inheritance of Magic #4 is going slowly, but at least it’s going.

Next week will be the last section in the Corporations series, covering non-UK, non-US corps.