Reader Question Day #62 – all about FROSTBORN
This week, we have a bunch of questions about FROSTBORN, the new fantasy series I am planning to start later in the year.
Seraph316 asks:
That was great! I’m really looking forward to this series now! Too bad it will be some time before it comes out. When will the next Frostborn themed “choose your own adventure” start? Anytime soon?
Probably sometime this summer. I want to finish SOUL OF SWORDS first, and go all-in on that book without any other distractions. Doing both a “choose your own adventure” and the rough draft of a novel proves rather more difficult than I expected, alas. 🙂
Manwe asks:
1)Ridmark Arban, how did you come up with that name?
For years I’ve been using the name “Ridmark” is various short stories and novel projects that never quite got finished or published. (In fact, I think in ANGEL SWORD AND OTHER STORIES, one of the short stories as a protagonist named Ridmark.) Since I like the name, I wanted to use it.
The name “Arban” came from the French word “arbalest”, which was a kind of crossbow, which was itself derived from a Roman word for a siege engine, “arcuballista.” Since the humans of Andomhaim were all originally descended from Romano-British who fled the collapse of King Arthur’s court (essentially, sub-Roman Britain) for a new world, I wanted most of the human characters to have names that were Latin or Celtic in origin. I assume Ridmark’s original ancestor was probably an artillery commander in King Arthur’s army.
2)How many books are you planning in this new series?
7 to 16, probably. After I write GHOST IN THE ASHES this summer, I’m going to sit down and write the entire outline for the series, so I know where I’m going and how to get there. Specifically, I want to plot out how many books it’s going to have, and what happens in each of them. I never thought I would have the chance to finish both THE GHOSTS and DEMONSOULED, so as a consequence both series have grown very organically.
So I would like to plan out the entire series thoroughly first.
I think we’ll start off with a bunch of shorter books to introduce the characters and the world, and then wrap up with several longer books.
3)Seeing as this new series will be high fantasy, as opposed to the low fantasy Demonsouled, what differences can we the readers expect to see?
Actually, I think FROSTBORN will start out as sword-and-sorcery, and gradually shift to high fantasy by the time the series ends as the scope of the books expand. I want to capture the feeling of the best computer RPG games, where you start out with a few characters with relatively minor concerns, which by the expands to include the fate of the entire world. DRAGON AGE ORIGINS is a good example of the kind of story arc I would like. In one version of the story, the main character essentially starts out as an impoverished Elvish slum dweller, and by the end of the game his decisions are altering the destinies of nations and kings.
Will there be many fantasy races that make an appearance, elves and orcs already showed up after all. Will it have more of an grand feel to it (low fantasy usually has a smaller scale, high fantasy-grand scale, you know). Etc, etc. That kind of stuff.
High elves, dark elves, orcs, halfings, and probably dwarves will show up, but with their own twists. There will also be new races, like the urdmordar and the taurmanes and the others.
4)Will the new series be out in paperback?
If I can find an economical way to manage it. In other words, if I can find someone to do the layout for me.
5)Will Frostborn have a map?
I will give you a very definite answer of…probably! At the very least I need to sketch myself a map to figure out where I’m going and why. This might be something I hire out, but at the very least I hope to have a simple map here on the website.
-JM