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truepennyQ: Much like Tolkien, you have created an entire world with the Doctrine of Labyrinth series. Throughout all 4 books there are references to tales, people, history and places. Is it possible that at some point you will publish a "Silmarillion" type book describing more details of the universe there? And do you have sketches or designs or maps of things in that world?
A: The map of Mélusine is over here.
I doubt strongly I'll ever write a Silmarillion or similar object, for a couple of reasons:
1. A series needs to be WAY more popular than mine for there to be any interest in publishing ancillary materials: Tolkien, Jordan, McCaffrey, Rowling. That caliber. And I ain't there.
2. Although I'm very flattered by the comparison, my world-building methodology is the inverse of Tolkien's. He worked all the history out in loving, exhaustive detail and wrote the STORIES (The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings) as an almost-accidental by-product. He was a philologist and a historian, not really a novelist. (Not a slam! Just a difference in perspective.) Whereas I'm a novelist. I write the stories in loving, exhaustive detail and only work out as much of the history as I need. There are a few places where I know more than made it into the books, but it's, at most, a chapbook worth of material, no more than that. And even there, it's not anything as coherent as The Silmarillion, just incomplete timelines and random notes.
Q: What's next?
A: I wish I knew. At the moment, it seems to be a whole heaping plateful of nothing, while I wait for my creativity to grow back.
Q: Does anybody really know what time it is?
A: If anybody does, it wouldn't be me.
This one got asked twice.
Q: May we please know what happened to Mehitabel? And did she ever hear what became of Felix?
A: Okay. The pure and honest truth is, I don't know. At the end of The Mirador, she's come to the end of the story arc she started in The Virtu; what happens to her next would be a new story arc, without Felix and Mildmay in it. And I don't have any idea what that story arc might be. If I knew, I'd probably be writing another novel about her. If I ever figure it out, I probably will write another novel about her. But right now, I don't have any more idea than you do.
We know there's communication between Esmer and Vusantine, and between Vusantine and Mélusine, and Felix seems pretty determined about sending letters home. So, yes, I imagine Mehitabel will find out what happened to him, one way or another.
Q: At first I couldn't come up with anything I really needed answering. But then I thought, "Well, I've always wanted to know what all of the trumps from the Sibylline were."
I assume it's loosely based on tarot and there are 22 of them? A list would be absolutely wonderful. :)
A: Aha! This one I can answer, because I did have to work it out in detail. Here are my notes:
The suits are Swords, Pentacles, Staves, and Grails. The Sibyl cards replace the Aces and are alt-cards (in the Latin sense of both highest and deepest); they can be either first or last in a suit, depending on the whim of the reader. The Sibyl cards may govern readings in particular ways that have nothing to do with choosing a significator or anything like that. They have some aspects of the Fool in Tarot, and thus are both the alt cards of the suits and the first cards of the Major Arcana.
The 21 Major Arcana (with their rough correspondences in Tarot):
1. The Guide (the Magician)
2. The Spider (the Priestess)
3. The River (the Empress)
4. The Rock (the Emperor)
5. The Bell (the Hierophant)
6. The Hermaphrodite (the Lovers)
7. The Prison (has nothing whatsoever to do with the Chariot)
8. The Nightingale (Justice)
9. The Road (the Hermit)
10. The Wheel (is the Wheel)
11. The Dog (Strength/Lust)
12. The Drowned Man (the Hanged Man)
13. Death (is Death)
14. The Bee-hive (Temperance)
15. The Siren (the Devil)
16. The Spire (the Tower)
17. The Unreal City (the Star)
18. The Dead Tree (the Moon)
19. The Key (the Sun)
20. The Two-Handed Engine (Judgment)
21. The Heart of Light (the World)
The Spider and the Nightingale are both women rather than simply animals.
The Dog is large and looks more like a bear or a wolf.
The Bee-hive is also called the Parliament of Bees.
The Siren is also called The Lady of the Rocks
The Dead Tree has a full moon rising behind it.
Nine card layout; both a spiral and a cross.
6
2
7 3 1 5 9
4
8
1 is the significator
above (2, 6) is what blocks
below (4, 8) is what supports
left (3,7) is the past
right (5,9) is the future
inner circle of spiral is internal, outer is external, so that 9 is in fact the outcome.
layout also not unlike a spiderweb, and you read it widdershins.
I have very clear mental images of most of these cards; I actually drew The Guide, and if I can ever figure out what I did with my scanner driver disc, I'll post a picture of it.
[Ask your question(s) here.]
A: The map of Mélusine is over here.
I doubt strongly I'll ever write a Silmarillion or similar object, for a couple of reasons:
1. A series needs to be WAY more popular than mine for there to be any interest in publishing ancillary materials: Tolkien, Jordan, McCaffrey, Rowling. That caliber. And I ain't there.
2. Although I'm very flattered by the comparison, my world-building methodology is the inverse of Tolkien's. He worked all the history out in loving, exhaustive detail and wrote the STORIES (The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings) as an almost-accidental by-product. He was a philologist and a historian, not really a novelist. (Not a slam! Just a difference in perspective.) Whereas I'm a novelist. I write the stories in loving, exhaustive detail and only work out as much of the history as I need. There are a few places where I know more than made it into the books, but it's, at most, a chapbook worth of material, no more than that. And even there, it's not anything as coherent as The Silmarillion, just incomplete timelines and random notes.
Q: What's next?
A: I wish I knew. At the moment, it seems to be a whole heaping plateful of nothing, while I wait for my creativity to grow back.
Q: Does anybody really know what time it is?
A: If anybody does, it wouldn't be me.
This one got asked twice.
Q: May we please know what happened to Mehitabel? And did she ever hear what became of Felix?
A: Okay. The pure and honest truth is, I don't know. At the end of The Mirador, she's come to the end of the story arc she started in The Virtu; what happens to her next would be a new story arc, without Felix and Mildmay in it. And I don't have any idea what that story arc might be. If I knew, I'd probably be writing another novel about her. If I ever figure it out, I probably will write another novel about her. But right now, I don't have any more idea than you do.
We know there's communication between Esmer and Vusantine, and between Vusantine and Mélusine, and Felix seems pretty determined about sending letters home. So, yes, I imagine Mehitabel will find out what happened to him, one way or another.
Q: At first I couldn't come up with anything I really needed answering. But then I thought, "Well, I've always wanted to know what all of the trumps from the Sibylline were."
I assume it's loosely based on tarot and there are 22 of them? A list would be absolutely wonderful. :)
A: Aha! This one I can answer, because I did have to work it out in detail. Here are my notes:
The suits are Swords, Pentacles, Staves, and Grails. The Sibyl cards replace the Aces and are alt-cards (in the Latin sense of both highest and deepest); they can be either first or last in a suit, depending on the whim of the reader. The Sibyl cards may govern readings in particular ways that have nothing to do with choosing a significator or anything like that. They have some aspects of the Fool in Tarot, and thus are both the alt cards of the suits and the first cards of the Major Arcana.
The 21 Major Arcana (with their rough correspondences in Tarot):
1. The Guide (the Magician)
2. The Spider (the Priestess)
3. The River (the Empress)
4. The Rock (the Emperor)
5. The Bell (the Hierophant)
6. The Hermaphrodite (the Lovers)
7. The Prison (has nothing whatsoever to do with the Chariot)
8. The Nightingale (Justice)
9. The Road (the Hermit)
10. The Wheel (is the Wheel)
11. The Dog (Strength/Lust)
12. The Drowned Man (the Hanged Man)
13. Death (is Death)
14. The Bee-hive (Temperance)
15. The Siren (the Devil)
16. The Spire (the Tower)
17. The Unreal City (the Star)
18. The Dead Tree (the Moon)
19. The Key (the Sun)
20. The Two-Handed Engine (Judgment)
21. The Heart of Light (the World)
The Spider and the Nightingale are both women rather than simply animals.
The Dog is large and looks more like a bear or a wolf.
The Bee-hive is also called the Parliament of Bees.
The Siren is also called The Lady of the Rocks
The Dead Tree has a full moon rising behind it.
Nine card layout; both a spiral and a cross.
2
7 3 1 5 9
4
8
1 is the significator
above (2, 6) is what blocks
below (4, 8) is what supports
left (3,7) is the past
right (5,9) is the future
inner circle of spiral is internal, outer is external, so that 9 is in fact the outcome.
layout also not unlike a spiderweb, and you read it widdershins.
I have very clear mental images of most of these cards; I actually drew The Guide, and if I can ever figure out what I did with my scanner driver disc, I'll post a picture of it.
[Ask your question(s) here.]
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no subject
Date: 2009-04-09 05:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-04-09 05:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-04-09 06:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-04-09 06:17 pm (UTC)Would you like a link to the cards, should I ever get around to drawing them?
no subject
Date: 2009-04-09 06:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-04-09 07:27 pm (UTC)Mainly I think it would be great fun to practice reading them, & I can't see Ace producing commercial copies.
The Sibylline reminds me very much of the deck Madam Sosostris reads
Date: 2009-04-09 06:00 pm (UTC)Re: The Sibylline reminds me very much of the deck Madam Sosostris reads
Date: 2009-04-09 06:03 pm (UTC)The Drowned Man, The Dead Tree, and The Unreal City are all deliberately lifted from Eliot.
Re: The Sibylline reminds me very much of the deck Madam Sosostris reads
Date: 2009-04-09 06:06 pm (UTC)Well, when someone puts out a Sibylline Tribute Deck, I'll be right in line to buy one, and will scare the hell out of all my friends and family with my readings.
Re: The Sibylline reminds me very much of the deck Madam Sosostris reads
Date: 2009-04-09 06:17 pm (UTC)The Bell, though, is Batty Thomas from Dorothy L. Sayers' The Nine Tailors, and I think the Two-Handed Engine is from Milton.
The Nightingale
Date: 2009-04-09 06:26 pm (UTC)"yet there the nightingale
Filled all the desert with inviolable voice
And still she cried, and still the world pursues,
`Jug, jug' to dirty ears."
(lines 100-103).
(I've been a little geeky about that poem since I was a teenager.)
Re: The Nightingale
Date: 2009-04-09 06:28 pm (UTC)Eliot is talking about that same Philomela there
Date: 2009-04-09 06:33 pm (UTC)Damn. I love that poem.
Re: Eliot is talking about that same Philomela there
Date: 2009-04-09 06:34 pm (UTC)My point was that Eliot and I both got there from Ovid and Shakespeare, rather than--as with the other cards--me getting there from Eliot.
Re: Eliot is talking about that same Philomela there
Date: 2009-04-09 07:32 pm (UTC)BTW, did you ever watch Babylon 5? I have a huge crush on Alfred Bester, one of the villains, & when you said Felix was charismatic but also an asshole, I kind of flashed on him. Of course, Felix has a better chance of becoming a better person than Bester. But he has a chance, & is such an interesting & vibrant persona, which is part of why the show & the 3 novels by Greg Keyes are a tragedy for him.
Re: Eliot is talking about that same Philomela there
Date: 2009-04-09 07:35 pm (UTC)Re: The Nightingale
Date: 2009-04-09 06:32 pm (UTC)I haven't read the poem in many years (until just now), but I'm glad it came up so I have a chance to geek all over it again.
I am so totally thrilled that the Bell is Batty Thomas
Date: 2009-04-09 06:48 pm (UTC)I was dithering and drooling to a friend about how much I love the books yesterday. I was trying to explain to her why it is that I had no trouble at all assimilating their vocabulary. I've always read books with a lot of cant in them, and I compared them to the novels of Georgette Heyer, which I got hooked on as a teenager.
I really enjoy the fact that every social group, city and clique in your books has its own vocabulary, catchphrases and mysteries.
Re: I am so totally thrilled that the Bell is Batty Thomas
Date: 2009-04-09 06:56 pm (UTC)Re: I am so totally thrilled that the Bell is Batty Thomas
Date: 2009-04-09 07:02 pm (UTC)Re: I am so totally thrilled that the Bell is Batty Thomas
Date: 2009-04-09 07:06 pm (UTC)Re: I am so totally thrilled that the Bell is Batty Thomas
Date: 2009-04-09 11:10 pm (UTC)Re:Vidal
Date: 2009-04-10 12:14 am (UTC)Re: Vidal
Date: 2009-04-10 12:38 am (UTC)Re: Vidal
Date: 2009-04-10 02:23 am (UTC)Earlier you mentioned one of Dorothy L. Sayers books. If Lord Wimsey was one of your influences I can see where Felix gets his somewhat snotty intellectualism. Lord Wimsey maybe didn't mean to be 'noble upperclassman' but he was a product of his upbringing and the attitude slipped in occasionally.
Re: Vidal
Date: 2009-04-10 02:42 am (UTC)Felix's somewhat snotty intellectualism would be mine. Although it's also a point on which I identify strongly with Lord Peter.
Re: Vidal
Date: 2009-04-10 03:26 am (UTC)Re: I am so totally thrilled that the Bell is Batty Thomas
Date: 2009-04-10 12:31 am (UTC)I learned to love Georgette Heyer novels from my mother, still treasure the collection of them I made as a teenager, and never knew anyone else who would own up to reading her books--it really surprises as well as pleases me how often the new writers I admire cite her as an influence!
And I'm also thrilled that the Bell is Batty Thomas, as The Nine Tailors was the first D.L.Sayers mystery I read and still my favorite, except for Murder Must Advertise.
My copy of Corambis still hasn't arrived, but I expect it tomorrow--it's like waiting for Christmas morning.... Sue Lambiris
Re: I am so totally thrilled that the Bell is Batty Thomas
Date: 2009-04-11 03:08 pm (UTC)Thanks so much for the copy of the map of Melusine. It will make it so much easier when I'm re-reading the books to imagine where they are and where they are going. Personally, I think you are a lot more popular than you imagine and if your publishing company would promote you properly, you could be even better. LOL, I put your books in prominent positions in book stores when I find them.
Re: The Sibylline reminds me very much of the deck Madam Sosostris reads
Date: 2009-04-10 02:29 am (UTC)Re: The Sibylline reminds me very much of the deck Madam Sosostris reads
Date: 2009-04-10 02:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-04-09 11:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-04-09 11:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-04-10 12:19 am (UTC)if only because, for some weird reason, your deck, to me, makes more sense than tarot cards do XD
no subject
Date: 2009-04-10 12:39 am (UTC)Thank you for also explaining the layout. Is it deliberately similar to the organization of the dream-gates in Felix's construct-Melusine? (One of my thrills in rereading Melusine while waiting for Corambis was recognizing the meanings of a few seemingly unimportant images during the first explanation Felix gives of using the construct-Melusine to find the mysterious gardens in his dreams at St. Crellifer's. Sue Lambiris
no subject
Date: 2009-04-10 12:46 am (UTC)And the meaning of the card is the eminence gris, the power behind the throne, the woman who seems helpless and yet controls the puppet-strings of everyone around her. She may use her power for good or for evil. It's the card of deceiving appearances, of intrigue and espionage.
(That's totally off the top of my head, btw. I did not write out the meanings of all the cards.)
no subject
Date: 2009-04-10 03:30 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-04-10 09:35 am (UTC)Hahahahahaha! Okay. Thanks for the QA post.