And there you have it! Hello all, Robin here, and thanks to the fantastic support from the backers of the Kickstarter (who reached a stretch goal to make this afterword a reality), I’m here to dish about the book and give you some behind- the-scenes information related to the creation process.
Let’s start with the elephant in the room—the ending! If you are like me, you’ve been on pins and needles to see if Trilos/Yolric will ever catch up to his long-lost brother, Turin/Uberlin.
And now we know he does. But to steal from the musical Hamilton, I think we all “want to be in the room where it happened.” Still, for those who have read the Riyria Revelations, we have the answers to some obvious questions, but I won’t go into those spoilers here.
In my opinion, the best part about this ending is the door it leaves open. Many may already know that Michael has refused to write a “post-Riyria Revelations” tale because (a) he doesn’t think he could top its ending and (b) he proclaimed to have tied up all his loose ends . . . except he didn’t. A very long thread was left dangling, and it couldn’t be tied down without A LOT of backstories, which we now have. Yes, it took nine books to get that required foundation, but now that it is laid, I think he’ll want to build on it.
Now before I tempt Michael’s wrath by saying that Esrahaddon might mean a post-Riyria set of books, I should mention a few things.
First, nothing is guaranteed, and no release dates will be mentioned. This is important because if Michael starts walking down that path, he’ll have to get to the end to ensure everything works out as he had hoped. If things go badly, he will throw all of it into the trash, even if that means several years of lost time and hundreds of thousands of words down the drain.
Second, and this is the most important point, is that he will be attempting to write something more challenging than anything he’s done before, and it must turn out exceptionally well for anyone beyond me to see what’s been produced.The degree of difficulty is both a gift and a curse. The gift portion stems from Michael thriving on challenges; the curse exists because he has an extremely high bar, and there is a chance he won’t be able to clear it. But hope springs eternal, and I’m a betting woman, and I think the odds are in my favor.
Okay, enough about what may or may not happen in the future. Let’s return to this book as I’d like to share some of my favorite things. For me, the biggest surprise was the new piece in the puzzle about “The Invisible Hand.” I’m sure I wasn’t the only one who assumed it was Turin, so having that role attributed to Muriel (and all the new revelations about her) fascinated me. This proved that Michael can lie to us about events in the Legends of the First Empire as effortlessly as he did in Riyria. I loved all of it.
Speaking of things I love, I really enjoyed getting a peek into the world of the goblins; ah, sorry, I mean the ancient ones (I don’t want to be demeaning toward them). Niblick was a hoot, and I was thrilled that we were reunited with him later in the book. I missed the little guy. Oh, and here’s a behind-the-scenes thing. Years and years ago, I’m not sure how many, maybe ten or twelve, Michael and I were driving through a subdivision, and he took out his little notebook and started scribbling.
“What’s that all about?” I asked.
He pointed at a sign. “These street names are great. They’ll be perfect for a couple of characters I’ve been working on.” And so Niblick and Mashie were born outside the Westwood Country Club in Vienna, Virginia. It wasn’t until much later that we learned those were types of golf clubs, but by then, the names had solidified, and Michael didn’t care if others were familiar with the terms they came from.
What else . . . oh yes. For those who have read the Riyria Chronicles, you might have been as excited as I was to see a bit about Castell Blythium and the evil that emanates from there. Michael has alluded to Royce and Hadrian’s stay at that spooky castle by the ocean, so I think it’s safe to say that Drumindor (probably releasing in 2024) won’t be the last adventure of that nefarious pair. Oh, and I was thrilled to see more of Ruby Finn (whom we met in Farilane) and horrified to be introduced to Mileva. I hope to hear more about Falkirk, whom I’ve been interested in since The Disappearance of Winter’s Daughter in the Riyria Chronicles. In my humble opinion, these “inter-series connections” are one of the best things about Michael’s stories. For those who have only read the previous books once, it’s worth going back and finding the multitude of cross-references. Each time I discover one, it brings a new perspective to the tale as a whole.
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
Okay, I wanted to save room for one other behind-the-scenes thing. While not widely known, I’ll officially let the cat out of the bag here. A considerable portion of this book hit the cutting room floor. I don’t recall the exact number of words, but it’s probably around 40,000 - 45,000. That was primarily done by removing a lot of Jerish’s backstory and, to a lesser degree, some additional detail involving the introduction of Sadarshakar and Hanis.
Why is it gone? Well, it wasn’t done to shorten an already lengthy book. Michael wouldn’t change his story for something as trivial as that. The truth is it had to go to improve the tale. You see, Michael always says that storytelling is like flying a plane. The most critical times are the takeoff and landing. In the version I received, the plane got off the ground, flew along at its cruising speed, and then the story rewound. We started back at square one with a different character. The same thing happened again with the pair of Fhrey from Merredydd. In other words, Michael launched three planes instead of one, and I felt (and he agreed) that this constant starting and stopping was distracting, unnecessary, and significantly hurt the book’s pacing. We are making these cut scenes available through another stretch goal of the Kickstarter. If you’ve taken the time to read this afterword, you can have access as well. Just email [email protected] with the subject “Esrahaddon Cut Scenes,” and I’ll send it to you. I should note, however, this is raw writing, and it’s not been copyedited nor worked on to make it a standalone tale. I’m warning you about this because I want to set the appropriate expectations.
Okay, two last pieces of housekeeping duties, and then I’ll be done. For me, starting this book was a little like watching Titanic. I mean, I came into the movie knowing the boat would sink. In the same way, I knew that Esrahaddon would destroy and bury Percepliquis. But just as in Titanic, the things we know are only a tiny part of the tale. That said, some may be curious about exactly what happens to Esrahaddon after the city collapses. Yes, we know he survives (as he heard a conversation with his “future self ” while in the Valentryne Layartren), but what then? If you don’t know, I’m going to guess you haven’t read Theft of Swords because his fate is revealed in that book. Michael didn’t see the need to rehash those details, so I’ll refer you to that work if you want to discover more. And no, this isn’t a ploy to sell more books. In fact, I’ll send that portion of Theft of Swords for free to anyone who asks. Doing so won’t violate our publishing agreement since we are allowed to share a certain percentage of the book independent of Orbit. Again write to me at [email protected], and this time put “Meeting Esrahaddon in Riyria” as the subject, and I’ll send that to you.
Before I go, I want to formally apologize to my legion of beta readers. You see, Esrahaddon didn’t go through my usual beta process, which is extensive and requires a long runway. While I’m always busy, the end of 2022 and the start of 2023 were unprecedented in my lack of time. I had hoped to hold the beta in January, but before I knew it, we were deep into March, and the recording date (set many years in advance) was barreling down on me. So there wasn’t a “formal” beta. Instead, we picked a handful of people and gave them an incredibly short timeframe to provide feedback. I know that this disappointed many, and I’m sorry. It simply wasn’t possible, and you have no one to blame but me. I’ll try to do better for Drumindor, which as of March 2023, is now officially done!
I hope you enjoyed Esrahaddon as much as I did. We learned A LOT in this tale, and as I said, there’s a good chance there will be more in the future. I want to especially thank those purchasing Michael’s works through our Kickstarter or buying directly on our website. Retail purchases provide us a much smaller portion of the hard-earned money you pay. So if you’d rather put your dollars in the hands of those who create the stories rather than a bunch of middlemen, then please consider “buying direct,” whether it be for Michael’s stories or any tales by your favorite authors.
Robin Sullivan
March 2023