SEVENFOLD SWORD: SERPENT now available!
I am pleased to report that SEVENFOLD SWORD: SERPENT is now available at Amazon US, Amazon UK, Amazon DE, Amazon CA, Amazon AU, Barnes & Noble, iTunes, Kobo, Google Play, and Smashwords.
-JM
Jonathan Moeller, Pulp Writer
The books of Jonathan Moeller
**** possible spoiler or just stupid question for sevenfold sword***
So Im not sure if I missed something or not but why hasn’t the keeper linked Tamara to the well of tarlion? Have events been happening too fast? She seems a prime candidate.
Given Tamara’s nature (the seven shards), Calliande isn’t sure that it would be at all safe to join Tamara to the Well of Tarlion. Also, events have been moving way too fast for that, even if Calliande thought it was safe.
Cool I was thinking it was something like that was kinda bugging me a bit. I’m finding it really interesting how you have managed character progression without making everyone op cuz of swords. Its a lot of fun
Thanks! Power always has limitations, so it’s best to keep that in mind when writing fantasy novels. I wrote a longer post on the topic here:
https://www.jonathanmoeller.com/writer/?p=8760
*Spoiler* SO I finally managed to read this, and it is probably my favorite of the Sevenfold Sword series. Cathala’s death…..was indeed so worthy of her. Everything leading up to it was just… you could pretty much define the word comeuppance with her character arc this book. Sweet death on page.
I agree with the earlier comments regarding power vis-a-vis the swords and spells. You honestly do a really good job BALANCING power too, which is a trick in and of itself because a lot of it depends on your world building. An example being the sheer number of creatures in this world. If the other sides bring huge numbers to the fights, you can make your characters be pretty powerful and still face the possibility of defeat.
And the mind games you’ve used to counter the Keeper/Shield Knight combo. Rather than have your characters still trying to overcome their own heads, which some of them are a little old for, you’ve had all these mazes put into place by enemies. Which I like both because again, they’re too old to do much more developing and because WHY WOULD YOU FIGHT RIDMARK & CALLIENDE FAIRLY? They kill gods, stop armies, topple evil immortals and cap things off by finding a lot of very scary people who follow them.
Question: Does the frostborn/sevenfold sword world have a name that I have simply forgotten? Not a specific kingdom, but a name of the world like earth?
Thanks! Glad you liked it!
I hadn’t 100% decided what I was going to do with Cathala until I got to that scene. I thought about having Tycharon’s death shatter her mind, and Tamlin would have to take back to Aenesium to have her cared for. I also thought about Tamlin just killing her, but I decided Cathala’s fatal flaw was Pride, and so that had to reflect her ending. Also, Tamlin and Tamara would have been upset if they killed her (even if she did deserve it), but Selene would be cool with it. Though Kalussa would have killed her on sight no matter what anyone said.
The trick to writing powerful characters is to remember that there are different kinds of power, and not every kind of power is useful in every situation. Like, Ridmark and Calliande and the others could have hacked their way into Tycharon’s palace, but then Tycharon could have appealed to the xiatami for help, and Ridmark/Calliande couldn’t have fought them all. And every action causes an unplanned reaction. Like, SHADOW was a reaction to the events of NECROMANCER, and SERPENT was obviously the unplanned consequence of what happened in SORCERESS.
The world does have a name, but I haven’t decided on one yet.
BAHAHA How many books do you need before you name a world JM? You uhhh you need a few more words on page or something? Heh, I don’t know why but that really cracks me up. No I know why….it’s because you come up with the most absurd names of any author I read. The evil rat king got an unpronounceable name but the whole world doesn’t get one? Harsh.
Since you mentioned Tycharon, why did he wait after he got the Sword of Death and the Staff of Blades? It wasn’t until Ridmark and Calliende showed up and he got called before the Council that he started his ritual. Wouldn’t he have started immediately after he got both and enslaved Cathala? Why did he pontificate instead of jumping on the godhood bandwagon?
Tycharon thought he had more time to work on it. Then he was summoned to appear before the Circle of Lords, and he knew that he was out of time and had to act immediately.
It has to be the right name, and I haven’t thought of it yet. Like, Nerzamdrathus was definitely the right name for the Great King of the muridachs. Granted, the audio book narrator will probably hate it, but then SWORDBEARER had the abscondamni, which couldn’t have been easy to pronounce over and over again. 🙂