Winter Is Coming

Thursday, October 14, 2010

You'd think that sooner or later I'd get tired of these "It is coming!" preview blogs. Unfortunately, you would be wrong.

While Winter Witch isn't yet in the warehouse, the print run has arrived in Seattle's port, where it currently lies brooding underneath the apocalyptic skyline of cranes and fenced-off train yards. (Seriously—sometimes I drive by the port at night just to imagine what a dystopian future might look like.) As a result, we've managed to get our hands on a few early copies, and we're extremely excited.

Although I won't speak to the differences between the stories of Winter Witch and Prince of Wolves just now—you can read the summaries and see them for yourself here—I will speak to the production values and say that we've made some aesthetic improvements this time around. Our debut novel was gorgeous, but with an improved paper stock and an increased font size for added readability, Winter Witch is even thicker and meatier. It also features a brand new map of the region in which the story's set, by our own talented Crystal Frasier, and all the Pathfinder Tales novels going forward will have maps in the front. At Paizo, we aren't afraid to tweak the formula and make improvement as ideas occur to us, and it's our hope that if you liked Prince of Wolves, this book will give you that much more to love!

Now to go stand by the viaduct, look longingly out toward the port, and try to figure out which cargo container is ours...

James Sutter
Fiction Editor

More Paizo Blog.
Dark Archive

James Sutter

Fiction Editor by day

Homeland Defender (PrC) by night


baron arem heshvaun wrote:

James Sutter

Homeland Defender (PrC) by night

Or maybe, just maybe, he's a wee bit wierd.

Paizo Employee Chief Creative Officer, Publisher

Maybe???


Erik Mona wrote:
Maybe???

A lady likes to leave a little to the imagination.

Are you going to eat the rest of that bacon lard?


baron arem heshvaun wrote:
Homeland Defender (PrC) by night

[rant]

That's one broken PrC!

I understand that Expedite Transit is a needed class ability which helps define the class, but don't tell me Channeling Tax and Tariffs, Search and Seizure as a swift action and bonding with Sea Containers of Vast Holding are not all broken! Come on Paizo! Come on !

[/end rant]

Sovereign Court

Uh oh, Baron's multiple personalities are squabbling again.

The Exchange

James Sutter wrote:
Now to go stand by the viaduct, look longingly out toward the port, and try to figure out which cargo container is ours...

Sounds like a challenge to me, any takers?


You'd think I'd get tired of making "want" posts. But no...

I want this! Soon!


Pathfinder Maps, Pathfinder Accessories, Starfinder Society Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

A map! No book is a whole book without a map!


Lanx wrote:
A map! No book is a whole book without a map!

Maybe one that's written in braille. But then again, there's always relief-maps.

Liberty's Edge

I'll probably be getting this despite the fact that it is "thicker and meatier."


MAPS.

8D

Scarab Sages

And here I was hoping that this was about a Pathfinder module based in the Game of Thrones. :(

RPG Superstar 2008 Top 32

Lanx wrote:
A map! No book is a whole book without a map!

The map really is awesome looking. Crystal did a great job.

The Exchange

Karui Kage wrote:
And here I was hoping that this was about a Pathfinder module based in the Game of Thrones. :(

Green Ronin has the ASOIAF license... but the title got me to click on this for the same reason. ;)


Ross Byers wrote:
Lanx wrote:
A map! No book is a whole book without a map!
The map really is awesome looking. Crystal did a great job.

Appropriate pride demands that you show it to us so we can oo and aw.

Paizo Employee Director of Brand Strategy

Kortz wrote:
I'll probably be getting this despite the fact that it is "thicker and meatier."

It's the same number of pages as Prince of Wolves, just on higher quality paper. It's maybe a quarter thicker than its predecessor, but it contains the same amount of words.

Liberty's Edge

Mark Moreland wrote:
Kortz wrote:
I'll probably be getting this despite the fact that it is "thicker and meatier."
It's the same number of pages as Prince of Wolves, just on higher quality paper. It's maybe a quarter thicker than its predecessor, but it contains the same amount of words.

Understood. "Thicker and meatier" just made me think of a soup commercial from the 80s...

Looking forward to it, in any case.

Paizo Employee CEO

The funny thing about this blog post is that we print our novels in the old US of A, so Sutter longingly looking at the port for Winter Witch is futile. Which makes me smile. Hey, James, watch for an Old Dominion truck instead. :)

-Lisa

Contributor

Lisa Stevens wrote:
The funny thing about this blog post is that we print our novels in the old US of A, so Sutter longingly looking at the port for Winter Witch is futile. Which makes me smile. Hey, James, watch for an Old Dominion truck instead. :)

It appears that the warehouse staff have led me on a classic snipe hunt...

*shakes fist*

CURSE YOU, ALVAREZ!


Lisa Stevens wrote:

The funny thing about this blog post is that we print our novels in the old US of A, so Sutter longingly looking at the port for Winter Witch is futile. Which makes me smile. Hey, James, watch for an Old Dominion truck instead. :)

-Lisa

Surely it more romantic to leave him so? Not to mention, a HELL of a lot funnier.


To comment on the actual blog post, I LIKED that Prince of Wolves had small print. It made it feel like a "real" novel instead of like a fluff book. I pick up a "novel" and the print size is so big, I decide it's a Young Adult book and go on. I do understand that larger print can just mean a larger page count, but it seems more like artificial page count once the print surpasses a certain size.

I hope the print size in Winter Witch will still be relatively small. The print size in the Planet Stories books is usually larger (in my limited experience), but then they're larger format books.

Dark Archive Contributor

Wolf Munroe wrote:
I hope the print size in Winter Witch will still be relatively small.

Comparing the PDFs side by side, I find the type for Winter Witch noticeably but only slightly larger. I prefer it. It makes the page look less crowded, but it doesn't feel anything like a "large type" book.

The map is gorgeous.


Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

SO happy to hear that maps will be included in each upcoming novel!

Contributor

Wolf Munroe wrote:

To comment on the actual blog post, I LIKED that Prince of Wolves had small print. It made it feel like a "real" novel instead of like a fluff book. I pick up a "novel" and the print size is so big, I decide it's a Young Adult book and go on. I do understand that larger print can just mean a larger page count, but it seems more like artificial page count once the print surpasses a certain size.

I hope the print size in Winter Witch will still be relatively small. The print size in the Planet Stories books is usually larger (in my limited experience), but then they're larger format books.

It's definitely not large print--we just compared Prince of Wolves to a wide swath of other mass-market paperbacks and decided we were a touch on the small side.

(Fortunately, right about then we all got unsolicited emails offering to increase our font size a full point in just three weeks, with a complete money-back guarantee. It suggested that our current readers might be secretly unsatisfied with the size of our font... what else could we do?)

Contributor, RPG Superstar 2009, RPG Superstar Judgernaut

James Sutter wrote:
(Fortunately, right about then we all got unsolicited emails offering to increase our font size a full point in just three weeks, with a complete money-back guarantee. It suggested that our current readers might be secretly unsatisfied with the size of our font... what else could we do?)

Ah! So you got my email then...

Just kidding. ;-)


Karui Kage wrote:
And here I was hoping that this was about a Pathfinder module based in the Game of Thrones. :(

No, if had been based on A Game of Thrones, the post title would have been "Winter is Very, Very, Very Slowly Coming, Assuming the Author Doesn't Die First".

Contributor

Green Left Eye wrote:
Karui Kage wrote:
And here I was hoping that this was about a Pathfinder module based in the Game of Thrones. :(
No, if had been based on A Game of Thrones, the post title would have been "Winter is Very, Very, Very Slowly Coming, Assuming the Author Doesn't Die First".

Well, knowing the author, I know that he left for Europe this past Monday to check in on the production. More of a case of "Winter is Filming."

Shadow Lodge

I'd still rather he finish the books first :)


Agreed!

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