Posts Tagged ‘Riyria Chronicles’

Riyria Trivia Challenge Results

Have you been participating in the Riyria Trivia Challenge on Facebook? It’s time to tally up the scores and see how you all did! In case you either missed out on all the fun or have fallen a bit behind, here are the questions again. The answers are hidden beneath the jump, but I trust that none of you will cheat. Honor amongst thieves and all, right?

What is Riyria elvish for?
What color is Arista’s hair?
The first to die in the contest in Dahlgren?
All of the members of the Black Diamond Thieves Guild members adopt names related to what?
What was Hadrian’s father’s name?
The independent Wesbaden trader was named?
Who was Mince’s best friend?
Who was known as a “questor”?
Mawyndulë was a member of what tribe?
Pickles got his name because?
According to Grue who is the god of weather and gambling?
Who built the Crown Tower?
Edgar’s Swamp was named after?
What was Dunwoodie’s horse named?
Who were Todd the Tinker and Bill the Baker?

EXTRA CREDIT:

Who was the man in the dungeons under the palace of Aquesta praying for?
What is in the bottom of the well in Drondil Fields?
Arista had a palfrey as a young girl, what was it called?
In the night sky what do four bright stars represent?
What did Merrick’s father do for a living?

ANSWERS: (more…)

The Riyria Trivia Challenge

We’ve received such wonderful feedback from all you Riyria fans, and we know how eagerly you’re awaiting THE ROSE AND THE THORN (US | UK | AUS). Unfortunately we can’t speed up time to the release of the second Riyria Chronicles novel; however, we can all have some fun while we wait. How does that sound? Good? Excellent.

We’re challenging you to test your knowledge of the world of the Riyria Revelations and Chronicles in a month-long Trivia Challenge this September. Will you prove yourself to be as smart as Esrahaddon? Become a fan of the Facebook page to participate, and if you haven’t already, remember to pre-order your copy of THE ROSE AND THE THORN out on September 17.

sullivan_theft-of-swordsSullivan_rise-of-empireSullivan_Heir-of-Novron

THE CROWN TOWERTHE ROSE AND THE THORN

Prequels, because doing things “the right way” is too darn easy

THE CROWN TOWERAll my life I’ve done everything wrong, and yet oddly enough, it works for me. I didn’t graduate college. I didn’t wait to get married, and yet I’ve stayed married to the same woman for thirty years. I didn’t take courses, or read books on how to write, and I gave up my dream of getting published after twenty years of trying. I wrote a six book traditional fantasy series with wizards, dwarves, and elves when such a thing was considered absurd. I self-published when no self-respecting writer would stoop so low, and I signed a contract with a major New York publisher when everyone else was making a fortune in self-publishing. So it should come as no surprise that the next book of mine to be released on August 6th through Orbit, THE CROWN TOWER (US | UK | AUS), is a prequel—because rumor has it no one likes prequels.

As usual, I didn’t know there was a stigma regarding prequels any more than I knew there was a stigma around traditional fantasy, or self-publishing until after I did it. Ignorance is bliss, and they say God watches out for children, drunks, and fools. This may be the case, but I refuse to admit which of those I am.

Prequels are apparently disliked for the same reason people dislike sequels and prologues, except prequels are a combination of both. They have been known to feel tacked on and they also precede the interesting events of the primary story. You can feel a yawn approaching just looking at the cover of such a book. Prequels are usually about the childhood years, or possibly even the parents of some main character, and very likely have nothing at all to do with the original story. Once again not knowing all of this, not knowing how I was supposed to build a prequel, I failed to follow these rules. Instead I made the fateful error of fleshing out an origin-story for a legend.

Because I also made the error of writing a fantasy series that didn’t include the formative years of my main characters—preferring to focus on them after they’d actually become interesting—I had skipped the episode where Peter Parker is bitten by the radioactive spider, Clark Kent crashed on Earth, and Bruce Wayne sees his parents murdered, (I really hope those weren’t spoilers for anyone.) For me it just felt logical to include that story. The fact that the majority of my readers requested it didn’t hurt either. (more…)