Thanks for reading CLOAK OF WOLVES & a CLOAK OF ASHES preview!
I’d like to thank everyone for the kind words they’ve sent about CLOAK OF WOLVES!
The core idea of the book was simple:
“Nadia hates law enforcement. What if she had to work with an officer?”
That made for an interesting conflict. The officer in question, Owen Quell, assumed that Nadia was exactly the sort of powerful criminal he hated. On the flip side, Nadia assumed that Quell was a thug and a bully. Both had their reasons for assuming that, but didn’t see the entire picture – Quell didn’t see that Nadia ripped herself apart to save her brother and then the world, and Nadia didn’t see that Quell was a devoted family man who took his job and responsibilities seriously.
It was also fun to write Nadia’s developing “frenemy” relationship with Governor Arnold Brauner. Brauner’s a bad guy, but he’s not that bad of a bad guy – more like a “get out the vote” machine politician and petty racketeer and not someone like, say, Nicholas Connor, who tried to blow up a stadium full of soccer fans. So Nadia doesn’t like him, but she can respect him, and deal with him.
One of the common complaints about long-running fantasy series is that the characters become overpowered. The key to avoiding that problem is to remember that 1.) there are different kinds of power, and 2.) not every kind of power is applicable in every situation. Nadia is one of the most powerful human wizards and can mow her way through a small army of Shadowlands creatures, but that kind of power would not be helpful in her problems with Owen Quell and Arnold Brauner.
I want to start writing CLOAK OF ASHES in December or January, so let’s have a short preview of the book!
###
My name is Nadia, and I’m a shadow agent of the High Queen of the Elves.
I don’t have many friends, but I look after the ones I do have…and I pay my debts.
So when Hakon Valborg’s teenaged granddaughter Lydia is arrested for the murder of her computer science teacher, I agree to help.
But there’s more going on here than just murder.
Because an ancient enemy of both humans and Elves just might have taken up residence in Lydia’s high school…
-JM
Nadia’s a better or at least more shrewd person than I am. When she saved Brauner’s life I would’ve hesitated and he would’ve been killed. I would’ve forgotten about the “not that bad of a bad guy” part. And then I would’ve had to deal with the next bad guy.
By the way, I, for one, don’t mind Nadia being terribly overpowered and having to use that power. That being said, I really liked Cloak of Wolves. But I don’t think the cover matches particularly well with the cute, fuzzy, white wolves.
Nadia did get a chance to mow through a bunch of Shadowlands creatures. I ordered the cover far enough in advance that I hadn’t entirely decided what the book was going to be about.
I agree with Bret on the power scale of Nadia, for me it’s because at the end of the day the world you’ve crafted allows for such a huge assortment of enemies. That’s one of the big reasons I was happy you continued the story, because in the grand scheme of things Nadia’s world has dozens of possible situations where she could legitimately be in danger without it being her fault.
When a character is stupid, ESPECIALLY when they don’t learn from their stupidity, it breeds contempt and you stop caring they manage to get themselves in trouble. Way too many series trend to this IMO. Although it is a feature of over-powered main characters.
The Brauner thing was fun to read, but my favorite bit was the political shenanigans she pulled after she saved Brauner’s life as her “reward”. That was freaking brilliant on your part JM.
….
So, you’re changing the economic foundations of your world. Radically in fact. To keep this a “realistic” fantasy world you’re going to have to change the politics to match yes? If Tarlia’s soon-to-be more powerful human supporters get on the wrong side of the Elven separatists, legally an elf can do whatever they want to the human and nothing will happen to them, that’s a social issue that anyone could take advantage of. You mentioned Nadia was going to be pulled into the “serfdom” debate eventually, can’t help but think of the possibilities.
OH one more thing. Who is Tarlia’s heir? She has to have one right?
Tarlia’s problem and advantage is that she’s a lot like Caesar Augustus at the start of his reign. We remember Augustus as the first “Roman Emperor” but his position was a lot less formalized than that. He was a military dictator, but in 27 BC he made a big show of laying down his offices and commands since the Roman world was at peace. The Senate, well-rehearsed, begged him to keep his offices, and created the title of “Augustus” for him. His power came from the fact that he commanded the army, was the richest man in Rome, had command of the militarily valuable provinces, and held a variety of other offices – he was censor and consul a bunch of times.
Tarlia’s position is somewhat similar. Back on Kalvarion, the High King of the Elves was sort of first among equals of the Elven nobles – he could call the nobles together in war, and judge their disputes, but his power was limited. After her father was assassinated and Tarlia became High Queen, she started consolidating power under herself, and the exile to Earth gave her an opportunity to build a much stronger power base. The Wizard’s Legion is directly loyal to her and no one else, and a lot of human wizards in once place makes for a lot of firepower. The Inquisition started as an “emergency” wartime measure and became a police force to keep an eye on the nobles.
The biggest change she made was to parcel out human cities and nations to the nobles as fiefs, but all the Elven commoners she concentrated in cities that act a lot like the Imperial Free Cities of the Holy Roman Empire – they’re sworn directly to her, and no one else. She also goes to great lengths to keep Elves and humans mostly separate from each other. An Elf can kill a human without suffering a human legal penalty, but Elven commoners are not allowed to leave their cities and travel among humans without a work permit or some other reason. And if they do kill a human, they have to pay a wergild to the human’s Elven overlord. Since the Elven nobles hate the Elven commoner cities, they’re always looking for a chance to screw them, and they’ll make a big deal about a human dead at Elven hands even if they don’t particularly like humans. (Not many humans are aware of this.)
There are lesser sources of her authority as well – if a human corporation gets large enough, she becomes a majority shareholder, and she owns businesses in every single one of the Elven commoner cities. The education system among both Elves and humans is designed to inculcate reverence for her. (“Get ’em while they’re young!”) Tarlia saw on Kalvarion how the Elven serfs became a recruiting ground for the Archons, so at all costs she wants to avoid a large pool of unemployed (or underemployed), unmarried men.
All this means that she is able to wield much more political power than the Elven monarchs on Kalvarion ever managed, which numerous Elven nobles resent.
All her children are dead or presumed dead, so Tarlia has no heir.