Reader Question Day #27 – scheduling and the Roman Empire

Rohaya asks:

Wow, thanks so much for writing the Ghost series. Completed all 4 books in the series in one week. Can’t wait for the next one…if there is one?

Thanks! There is indeed going to be a next one – GHOST IN THE STONE. I’m hoping to start writing it toward the end of September or the beginning of October, depending on when I get done with SOUL OF SORCERY.

I might do a short GHOSTS novella after I finish the rough draft of SOUL OF SORCERY. I’ve been thinking about this for a while – I’ve got a couple different series that I’m juggling, and I suppose it’s annoying to wait for a new book to come out. Once I finish a new book, it might be nice to do a short novella in a different series – to tide people over until the next book in that series comes out, and to clear my head.

But we’ll see how my schedule works out.

Nimbus asks:

Is the world of the Caina/Ghost books explicitly based on the Roman Empire?

Not explicitly. Caina’s Empire, to sum it up roughly, is sort of what the Western Roman Empire would have looked like if it had survived into the Renaissance. So there are some elements like that of ancient Rome – an Emperor, provincial governors, the Legions, and so forth. Then there are things that had no parallel in imperial Rome, like the ban on slavery, of the Ghosts themselves, the fact that the Emperor is elected by the nobles (this will come up in a future novel).

And since they’re fantasy books, there are elements that have no parallel in the real world, like the Imperial Magisterium, or the fact that several of the enemies of Caina’s Empire are ruled by cabals of powerful sorcerers.

So I borrow elements from ancient Rome as it suits the books, but I don’t go for a hard reenactment.

Which is appropriate, really, since I used to be a history major, but I eventually realized that I was less interested in history and more interested in plundering bits of history for fantasy novels.

Manwe asks, concerning SOUL OF SORCERY:

And this comes out in….August, was it? September?

I’m hoping it will come out in late September or early October. The end of August is a possibility, if everything goes flawlessly, but that never happens. So, later September or early October.

-JM