Chapter 34 - The Interview

In which our hero meets an imposing woman.

Chapter 34 - The Interview.pdf

This Blog is not Dead!

I'm just very, very busy. We're just one push away from finishing this thing, and 90% of the text is already written. It will come.

Chapter 33 - Za'dar is back!

Busy busy busy. So busy. So Za'dar is back. Huzzah!

Chapter 33 - A Prospect.pdf

Thought for the Day

You can't write your way out of despair; it's akin to trying to reach a high branch on a tree by climbing up yourself.

--Sogol

Chapter 32 - Politics

Meh. There it is again. The aching suspicion that everything you've written is an utter waste of time. I mean, I've never been under the illusion that the War of the Gyro is amazing. It was never intended to be. But sometimes I just wonder why I'm wasting my time. Nevertheless, I've gone to far to turn back now, so here's yet another chapter. This one includes the word victuals, for some reason.

Chapter 32 - Politics.pdf

Chapter 31 - Introductions and Preparations

Truckin' on...

Chapter 31 - Introductions and Preparations.pdf

A Chapter with Tamohara in it

She is my favorite character in the book. Any resemblence to the person who blogs next to me is entirely coincidental (the family that blogs together, well, blogs together).

Chapter 30 - Tamohara Arrives.pdf

Chapter 29 - A Primer on Phantasian Architecture

If I had an editor, this is just the kind of chapter that might get cut. But I don't have an editor, and so I get to use the word vertex, describe two things as monstrous in the same sentence, and say "spiralling in a vertigo inspiring helix", which is all good clean fun.

Chapter 29 - Mirrors and Sundry.pdf

Part V - Phantas

This chapter was the first written on this novel. In fact, the first words spoken were the inspiration for the whole thing. This is also where the novel starts really moving towards the climax. Having gotten to this point in publishing this online is a pretty big deal for me. It finally looks as though the end is in sight.

When I started this project, Philaros jokingly suggested that since seven is the sacred number of Talislanta, I should write seven Tal novels. That's definitely not going to happen. Nevertheless, I do have outlines and fragments of several more novels and stories. My plan was to write linked stories that would have a loose relationship to one another, but that weren't specifically sequential; something more like The Chronicles of Narnia than The Lord of the Rings. For example, the second book was to focus on the mysterious stranger who questions Za'dar in Chapter 15. Za'dar, Feuried, and Tamohara also were to have many adventures. Feruid was to die in book four, and at the beginning of book seven, Za'dar makes a cameo as a much older (but still vigorous) man living in Zanth. I also have a multi-chapter tale about a Sniper Bug and his many adventures questing in an enclosed garden in Dracarta. Perhaps I'll finish that off and publish it seperately one day.

Chapter 28 - Phantasian Memories.pdf