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Q&A with Janny Wurts 2023
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Hi Laura, thank you for the enthusiasm and grace to host the discussion!I am jotting a brief welcome note to the participants, readers old and new - please don't hesitate to ask any questions you may have, even if prompted by simple curiosity, or interest in a technique.
There is a well - a very deep well - of back-history and information, behind the world itself (Eras, Ages and tens of thousands of years of events, some apocriphal) - there is also a Paravia Wiki accessible through my website that is divided by spoilers.
If you are hesitant to jump in, there are also excerpts in multiple formats to suit your device, so feel free to kick the tires.
Additional serendipity for newcomers hopping aboard: Amazon happens to be featuring The Curse of the Mistwraith on sale for most of this month.
Welcome to Athera and Happy Reading!
Bringing a question over about the use of prefixes for some names and not for others. What is the significance of the s' in front of s'Ffalenn or s'Ilessid?
chibipoe wrote: "Bringing a question over about the use of prefixes for some names and not for others. What is the significance of the s' in front of s'Ffalenn or s'Ilessid?"The designation denotes a 'named lineage' (vs the 'sen' designation which records a familial descent, but is not recognized by the Fellowship of Seven) This bears on the precepts of Charter Law/and may be changed, either way, should the circumstances surrounding an individual warrant/either recognition or revocation/depending on the individual history of the person in question.
More than that I won't say at this stage - as more detail would involve depth of information that could provoke spoilery territory that the books themselves will cover with more impact in later volumes!
So read on, and ask again in Arc IV, I can answer in far more depth if you still have questions on the subject, then.
A question for you, regarding Athera. Is there anything you can share for early reading of Curse that isn't spoilery for later, about the world itself? Is the continent of Paravia the only one? How big is the planet, etc?
the planet is a touch smaller than Earth; but has a bigger iron core, so density/mass is about par.The axis is slightly more tilted/so seasonal change fluctuates more widely at lower and upper latitudes.
The magnetic field is stronger than Earth.
There are (currently) two major continents/discounting a very small one at the N. pole. Historically: there once were three. the 'Westland' Sea - once was bounded by the "Westland' continent of Mhorovaire that subsided and finally sank in the shock of more than one sundering cataclysms. (there are pretty violent tectonic forces in play on Athera and wide reaching, unstable fault lines). These events preceded Mankind's established residency on the planet.
The twelve electromagnetic channels - or lanes - circle the globe, so if you were to look at a mercator projection, you would see 'twenty four'.
Time - as measured by Sethvir at Althain Tower (and by the Paravians, also) is a siderial calibration.
Calendar time, and dates, notated on documents by town scribes - is measured in days plus, or minus, full moon, and plus, or minus, dark moon. Therefore not in day increments, numbered consecutively - but marked + for the waxing cycle and minus, for the wane/making the lunar month measured in ascending and descending digits.
Further detail will emerge in the story/and, mention of deeper specs would spoilsome of that.
Carrying another question over from the main thread, courtesy of Nirkatze!Sort of a random curiosity--I noticed that the punctuation in the books is all British standard, which isn't common in American authors (single quotes v. double, end punctuation outside rather than inside quotes.) Wonder what the source of that is...
Originally, before reproduction rights became a global thing, one had separate contracts for UK/Commonwealth rights, and US/Canada. So depending which edition you have: if it originated in the USA, then, it will have American spellings. If UK, then, they usually preferred to retain British spelling and formatting.If you had a UK edition that used American spelling and formatting, generally, that was cost cutting: they'd have 'bought' the formatted text from the US publisher (often if the US printing happened first).
All the books, now, originate from HarperVoyager UK, so any new edition will be formatted to their preference.
Thank you both very much, I always love learning about the behind the scenes of both the writing process and the publishing industry...
For Janny:what made Dakar such a big drunk? The other long-lived sorcerors don't seem to have his problem... is it just being driven by his prophecies, or is there a bigger problem? The clans-child also has the sight... but his seemed a closer image. Is Dakar special in that his prophecies and visions are cast much further afield? And how are his prophecies different from the future-casting that the five-of-seven did together?
and
If both Arithon & Lysaer are of kingly lines, why can't they just swap kingdoms? Seems like Arithon got along better with Lysaer's folk and vice versa. I mean, I know it's not that simple. But none of this is simple. I feel like that future-looking session was awfully narrow in its possible questions.
You're most welcome, Nirkatze!Dakar: (some of this is in the glossary) forecast the death of the High King of Havis at age 2. He predicted his mother's death at the tender age of 4...which shifted his family's perception of him from a prodigy to a pariah - the Fellowship of Seven apprenticed him at ten years of age. You will notice two 'types' of prophecy, with Dakar: one is probable foresight, where the event May come to pass - he will have that kind of prescient sight while awake and conscious. The other type - true sight - occurs while he is unconscious and he will not recall any part of the forecast....there is a reason for this, it will unfold before the finale of the series.
The Fellowship's casting of strands is not foresight, but TRUE AUGURY - an energetic mirror of events as they will occur, IF certain factors stay in play - or change. It is mathematical calculation based on electromagnetic 'snapshots' - very refined seeing, requiring vast awareness and perfectly tuned mastery of the elements in a broadscale picture quite beyond Dakar (an apprentice spellbinder)'s capability.
High Kings/Queens on Athera - are NOT exact parallels to our history on earth - not in any way a reflection of a feudal system....I did leave that 'assumption' in place, at this stage....(for reasons/mostly too much information too fast, the intricacies would have swamped the storyline). You WILL learn the difference as the series progresses; each lineage has attributes and each one is CLOSELY tied to the territory. They are not in any way interchangeable - you will come to see WHY, and to understand precisely what happened when (view spoiler) ...all your questions here will be answered in full - read on and wait for it!
Hi Janny, Happy New Year!
Thank you for agreeing to the Q&A with us here. We really appreciate it.
But today I would like to ask you something else. Would you please consider hopping onto the regular BR chat to discuss the book directly with us as we read?
I am making short chapter summaries for readers who need them to better orient themselves and I would really appreciate your opinion on them.
Copy/pasting everything here on the Q&A thread is not very appealing since there are a lot of chapters in a long series.
And I am sure the other readers would also love to have you there.
It would really be a delight to deep dive into the series alongside you.
Would you please?
Here is the link:
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
Thank you for joining us Janny!
Please indicate the book and the chapter your question is based on and put any specific questions in spoiler tags.
Spoiler tags look like this: spoiler: (view spoiler)[... (hide spoiler)]
And you achieve them with html by nesting your questions like this: < spoiler>...< /spoiler> (in your actual code remove the spaces after <, I included them so the code would be readable. It wont work if you copy paste and don't remove the spaces.)