Since you’re reading this, I must assume you fall into one of three categories: You’ve read Nolyn and enjoyed it enough to come back for more; or you’re a completionist and insist on finishing all the books of a series, regardless of how you feel about them; or it could also be that you just picked this book off a shelf because you liked the cover but know nothing about me or the world of Elan. Given these three options, I’d like to say thank you for coming back, or for sticking with me, or welcome to my world.

The book you’re about to read is the second in a trilogy,but don’t fret,newcomer, because it’s not necessary to start at the beginning. Like the previous book, Nolyn, this one can be read as a stand-alone story. The reason why has to do with how I structured the trilogy. Most of my other series tend to be a continuous story divided into complete episodes. They feature the same characters that develop and grow over the course of a multi-book plot. For this series, The Rise and Fall, I went a different way.

My desire was to tell the two-thousand-year history of the Novronian Empire, something that features prominently in my two other series. Legends of the First Empire shows the empire coming into existence. The other, the Riyria Revelations series, takes place long after the empire is gone. This left a glaring hole between the two, where readers could almost connect the dots, but not quite.

I was faced with the dilemma of covering a lot of ground. To do this in the same manner as I had with Legends and Riyria would require hundreds of novels. I’m not a young man, and I don’t have that kind of time.

My solution was to create a trilogy of “one-and-done” novels that focus on the lives of three significant individuals who alter the course of history and highlight the most distinct periods in that era—hence Nolyn, Farilane, and Esrahaddon. These books are separated by significant gaps in time. Nolyn starts eight hundred and fifty years after Legends. Farilane picks up a bit over one thousand years later.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

Esrahaddon will take place two hundred years after that. As a result, there isn’t much opportunity for long-term character development—unless you realize that the main character in each book is the empire itself.

Farilane is the second novel in this series, forming the keystone that joins the eras. As such, Princess Farilane has a foot in both worlds, so the novel blends the elements and styles of both Legends and Riyria.

This was a fun book to create, and truth be told, the one I was most excited to write. I began sketching it in note form long before the other two. Farilane heavily influenced each of the other books’ focus and direction, which I think would have pleased her. There was even a time when I considered skipping Nolyn altogether and revealing what had happened through commentary and discoveries in ancient texts. In the end, I decided that was cheating. I really couldn’t skip the first eighteen hundred years and claim to have covered the history of the empire. I’m glad I didn’t, as Nolyn helped provide vital foundations for what comes next.

For those of you who are curious, or concerned, or both, the draft of Esrahaddon has already been completed. It will be my twentieth published novel, and unless editors run rampant through its pages with bloody scalpels dripping with red ink, it will be my longest. If nothing unforeseen happens this year or the next, Esrahaddon should release in the early summer of 2023. And we all know that nothing unexpected is likely to occur in the 2020s. That’s just ridiculous.

My greatest hope at present is that everyone reading this Author’s Note will also be here to read the one in Esrahaddon. I don’t care if you buy or read the book. I’d just like for you to still be around.

Michael J. Sullivan January 13th, 2022