Winter Witch is Off to See the Printer

Monday, August 30, 2010

Illustration by Jesper Ejsing

August is always a weird time for us, as we alternate between manic, panicked productivity and post-Gen Con recovery. As a result, sometimes we get so wrapped up in our projects that we forget to tell you what it is we're even working on! Such was the case with Elaine Cunningham's new Pathfinder Tales novel, Winter Witch, which after a long run-up finally shipped to the printer two weeks ago!

While I won't spoil the plot, (which you can check out here), Winter Witch is primarily the story of two characters: Ellasif, a shield maiden from the Lands of the Linnorm Kings who's determined to rescue her little sister from the witches of Irrisen, and Declan, a young Korvosan wizard-turned-mapmaker who gets drawn to Irrisen's capital of Whitethrone when the girl he's infatuated with gets kidnapped by weird ice magic. Together with the help of a Varisian caravan, gruff Ulfen barbarians, and a plucky pseudodragon named Skywing, the two make their way across hundreds of miles of dangerous landscape in order to infiltrate the witches' stronghold. Yet it quickly turns out that nothing about their quest is as simple as it appears...

Speaking as the editor, this book is a lot of fun. Though I adore Dave's Prince of Wolves and the gritty, noir-ish feel Radovan and Jeggare brought to Ustalav, I was glad that this book presented a very different voice. In my opinion, Winter Witch has more of a traditional epic fantasy flavor, with a solid dose of Slavic fairy tale thrown in there. I think people will enjoy the characters a lot, and particularly Skywing—it's hard to resist falling for a tiny, overconfident dragon.

And since the subject of Prince of Wolves came up, I think it's high time to reveal a closely guarded secret: Elaine wasn't working alone. It's true! Though the book was originally solicited as being by Elaine, back when she created the characters and outlined the plot, as the writing went on—and as she saw her old friend Dave's excellent work on Prince of Wolves—she decided to bring him in on the project as well, turning it into a collaboration. Given how happy we were with Prince of Wolves, the idea of having two awesome authors on the book sounded fine to us, and together Dave and Elaine wrote what I think is going to be an instant fan favorite.

This post also wouldn't be complete without mentioning that in Winter Witch, and in each Pathfinder Tales book going forward, there's also going to be an excellent new map at the front of the book, detailing the areas where most of the action takes place. For Winter Witch, that map was hand-drawn by our own Crystal Frasier, and it looks marvelous!

Winter Witch should be available in November in time for the holidays, and I sincerely hope you all enjoy it as much as I have. Elaine and Dave have done a bang-up job, and I can't wait to see what they do next!

James L. Sutter
Fiction Editor