Howard Andrew Jones's page

will you create more novels ?

Are you asking me in particular, or Paizo in general?

I'm not sure what Paizo plans. I'd probably be up for writing more in the Pathfinder line. Certainly I had big plans for the characters from Beyond the Pool of Stars and Through the Gate in the Sea, and I bet I could come up with a few more Elyana novels as well.

My newest fantasy novel, the first in an action-packed fantasy trilogy from St. Martin's, was just released in March, and the second is coming out in November, and of course I have four Pathfinder novels and two historical fantasy books that are already available... and I'm always writing more. You can keep up to date with my doings at www.howardandrewjones.com

Howard Andrew Jones wrote:

Rysky wrote:

Can't wait to read this! Still need to finish Beyond the Poool of Stars though >_<

Hope you like 'em both. I think the first leads rather easily into the second, sort of like a double-feature!

Cool! And I'm liking Pool so far ^w^

Let me know what you think! And thanks for trying it out.

...Incidentally, I apologize for the delay. I had lost track of when this essay was going to go live...

I love Howard's books. I'm not even finished with this one and I'm hoping for a third with these characters.

Thanks! What I'd honestly LOVE to do would be to write an honest-to-God trilogy (I mean three MORE books, not just one more), but I haven't approached James about that, because I've been writing an honest-to-God trilogy for St. Martin's. But I definitely want to come back to these characters and do a big multi-part quest sequence, if Paizo will let me.

Can't wait to read this! Still need to finish Beyond the Poool of Stars though >_<

Hope you like 'em both. I think the first leads rather easily into the second, sort of like a double-feature!

Just wanted to say I really enjoyed the book!

Thank you! I'm honestly thrilled to hear that.

What Chris said. He is a wise (and kind and talented) man.

A VERY long time. And I'm not sure I'd actually be there yet if I hadn't had the good sense to be married to a doctor. Sometimes there's a very long break between signing checks, royalty checks, and all that. I imagine once, or if, you're lucky enough to have a number of books in print that are selling and steadily earning royalties there'd be something of a steady income and regular checks rolling in.

Mr. Howard Andrew Jones! It was great to meet you at GenCon, and thank you for your words of wisdom. I feel like I know Elyana better just from your comments, and the low magic settings make perfect sense now.

Although I take some pride in being the quartermaster of my group, a part of me always feels just a little bit strange about being able to sell off all different kinds of loot regardless of supply and demand, then going "shopping" for anything and everything that has a GP value to try and survive our next adventure. I'd actually like to try low magic settings in a game, if only for the challenge of playing a character that relied purely on her skills rather than depending on her tools, similar to Elyana. [I hope you know I was being facetious about giving her a magic bow...]

Stalking the Beast

It was a pleasure to meet you! I only wish I'd had a few more copies of BEYOND THE POOL OF STARS because I would very much have liked to sent you home with one of the advance copies.

I've realized recently that other people have been gaming differently me for years. I guess we all bring something different to the table, but I didn't realize just how different my own low-magic approach was when compared to what other people do until I began reading more and more fantasy game novels. I suppose you're doing it right as a GM so long as your players are having fun, and I think most of mine have been over the years. Mine haven't complained, but I see that perhaps the expected standard is different from what I'm used to giving.

I thought I'd loosened up a little and brought more magic in with POOL OF STARS but, having just read some other Pathfinder novels I realize that, no, not that much more. I have a hard time enjoying playing in a super magic rich environment as well as writing in one. I guess I just have a natural inclination to keep it a little grittier. That's one of the reasons I like setting things out in the wilds where I have more of an excuse to keep things simpler.

It's been a lot of fun sitting back and watching the discussion. I've wanted to pop in and comment several times now, but I thought it might be best if I waited until you'd finished discussing the first book.

It seems like you found a lot in the story that I hope readers will find. I'm especially pleased that you saw Elyana's complexity, and her tendencies to let things go.

As to magic -- as a GM, I've always preferred low magic settings. I grew up reading (and re-reading) sword-and-sorcery originators like Robert E. Howard and Fritz Leiber, which is why I still lean on the side of lower magic item availability and casting, and almost no magical healing.

Likewise, because of my personal preferences, when I run Pathfinder I don't run the game with the default settings "as is;" rather I dial down on magical availability of things, and I significantly downplay the sorcerous ability of character classes like rangers. (I also make magical healing far more rare.) For novel writing purpose I dialed available magic up a little more towards the default setting, but, honestly, Elyana is still using fewer spells than she probably would be for a character her level, which is why I decided she's probably mutliclassed with Fighter. And probably there ought to be more magic lying about... but I just don't like that as much.

My own mindset on this is also why Elyana's not tricked out with a whole lot of magical gewgaws. Also, part of the tendency of hers to just let stuff be is my own fondness for Greek myth. When those heroes were done with a magical item it just vanished from the tale and they had to go find a new one, or, more often, manage without it.

I do try to keep close watch on how spells and rules work, and James and the team are good at keeping me on track there, as well as giving me leave to invent weird monsters. (I think at least one I cooked up in PoS turned up in a Bestiary later.) Anyway, while I do try to play to the rules, I try to craft the story first, and where there's a collision between story and rule story wins out.

I am not a great "fine-grain sandpaper" GM, because I tend to forget about multiple layers of rules or even grow frustrated with them. I've always been more about the story, and I believe decades of GMing various games, starting with 2nd edition D&D helped me develop my writing chops. When I run Pathfinder I tend to lean on another gamer friend when we come to upper level combat because I end up spending too much time flipping back and forth in rule books, which slows down the story. There are probably a number of rules that I'm not completely aware of, so I was pleased that one reviewer saw one of the plot developments in Stalking the Beast as rising naturally because of some rule or other that I hadn't remembered. It's great when those sorts of things seem planned...

John Kretzer wrote:

So how was Gencon?

Anything exciting happened that you can share?

Had a fantastic time at GenCon, especially hanging out with Howard... We only see each other once a year, so sipping a beer with him and catching up is great. ...

So, yeah...a good GenCon. You were missed, Dave!

You were, Dave. We would have loved to have had you there with us!

Chris was the first familiar face I saw. We've gotten to be pretty good friends over the last few years, and I love kicking back with him and his wife both in and out of the con.

Chris, I tried to swing by your booth in author's row on the way out, but I didn't spot you -- but then by that point I was flagging. I probably could have done with a better night's sleep before I started the (relatively short) drive home.

Any hobknobbing with the incoming new authors?

I spent a lot of time at the booth with Josh and Gary and got to know them a little better. Chris Jackson and James Sutter and Michael Stackpole I've known for a lot longer and now sitting down with them is a little like a reunion. I also visited briefly with Richard Lee Byers and of course Wes Schneider, who has a novel coming down the pike any month now. I think his book debuts just after my next one.

I spent a little time with incoming Pathfinder author Sam Sykes, having met him many times over the years. He has a hilarious, sly, and frequently gross sense of humor and can get you laughing even while you're groaning. Like Sam, Max Gladstone is a Tor author who'll be doing some Pathfinder work soon, and I was introduced to him by James Sutter Wednesday evening. He's well-spoken with a sharp wit and good singing voice, as I learned when he and Scott Lynch and Elizabeth Bear and Maurice Broaddus and I were fooling around with songs that could be adapted for a Batman musical. As Bear said, Max is built on too many points, because he's also a black belt in multiple disciplines.

We discovered an inordinate number of black belts amongst the author and editorial pool at the con this year. I'm currently working toward my second degree black belt, which usually sounds impressive, but I was surrounded by people who didn't just have a second degree, but had black belts in multiple schools. It was amusing one night when James suddenly realized that five out of the seven nearest people had black belts, with my "partway to second degree" as the least advanced. Usually you have to be at a dojo or tournament to have that many martial artists next to you!

I don't know that there were any truly hilarious moments, but we kept ourselves amused. I probably laughed the most at the Friday and Saturday night dinners when out with Lynch, Bear, Gladstone, and Broaddus (we were joined by Reddit's Steve Drew Saturday). There was the point when Bear tried to decide what part our dinner crew would play on a CSI or Mission Impossible movie, or the aforementioned Batman musical, or pretending we were strangers and introducing ourselves to each other under ridiculous assumed names at a steak house Saturday. I thing that part at least was funny to outsiders because the concierge behind us began snorting with laughter.

As for excitement, I always have a blast at GenCon. The hall of treasures is a wonder, of course, and I think the Writer's Symposium portion of the con is one of the best run writer's conferences around. If you're a writer or thinking of becoming one or just a reader who wants to learn how it's done, the Writer's Symposium panels are a great source of information, and afterward you can get the chance to talk to a lot of your favorite writers. Because GenCon is a gaming convention there aren't as many regular fantasy fans mobbing the authors, so, for instance, you can bump into Pat Rothfuss wandering the halls, or not wait in line after a panel to speak to Elizabeth Bear or Michael Stackpole.

As a general question to any author interested in answering it:

How many of the other PF Tales books do you read?
How much of the campaign setting stuff? Just the ones covering the area your novel is set in? The whole kit and kaboodle? Something else?

I started out with the desire to keep up, but with two kids and lots of books to write, it fell by the way side. I haven't even read all of Dave's books yet, and at this point I consider him a pretty close friend. So… I've read a handful here and there, but there are plenty of interesting looking ones I haven't gotten to yet.

As to the campaign stuff, there's just too much to keep track of unless its directly related to an area I'm writing in. If it's in an area I'm writing about, I've probably read portions of it multiple times.

With regard to ongoing series - one of the reasons I don't enjoy them as a reader is that I "know" they're going to survive for the next book. So when they get into dire straits, I don't really wonder if they're going to get through - just how. (The Worldwound Gambit was the only one I remember where I genuinely entertained the idea that the bad guys might win).

Do any of you ever find that as a constraint? (Like "I'd really like to kill Radovan off here, but that's unacceptable") Or are such considerations purely, 100% driven by the needs of the particular story in question?

I kill LOTS of the central characters. The constraint that bothers me is the availability of resurrection magic. When I game, I usually house rule resurrection magic out of the campaign. I think the ability of "extra lives" or a "do over" can destroy story tension pretty easily.

I likewise turn the "magic dial" down for the player characters, a la old school sword-and-sorcery stories, so that most of the really powerful magics are in the hands of the villains.

Excellent! Thank you for the reply, I'll have to add those suggestions to my reading list. I've read Engraved on the Eye by Saladin Ahmed, that was a nice collection of short stories.

My pleasure! I aim to please.

Incidentally, there's a great memoir by an advisor to Saladin -- not my writer friend, but the one who fought Richard the Lionhearted -- titled An Arab Syrian Gentleman at the Time of the Crusades. Don't let the title fool you. It's pretty incredible and full of all kinds of great anecdotes and adventures that this fellow had in the 10th century, from fighting Crusaders, to hanging out with his Templar friends, to hunting lions and all kinds of things.

I posted a few excerpts on my site a couple of years back so people could sample the awesomeness of this little masterpiece:

http://www.howardandrewjones.com/writing/358

I think it's gradually been getting stronger. The writing staff seems to be loosening up a bit and getting more capable at showing some character development over the course of the story... and Fitz/Simmons are beginning to be allowed some individual characteristics.

Plus, despite the fact my wife and I pick at it we keep reminding ourselves that ten or twenty years ago we would have been thrilled that ANYTHING like this was on TV. It ain't Firefly, but we're enjoying it.

If I were to write some more books featuring the survivors of this one, who would you be most interested in following? There were two primary groups you could follow, and I'm curious to see which one readers would want to see more of.

(If you're going to name names I suppose it would be best to conceal them with "spoilers" tags because a LOT of characters in this one get picked off...)

I'm envious of the teacher encouraging role-playing. That's pretty grand.

And I especially enjoyed the way you put this: "Making it look as though you're still getting that input and unpredictability, when really it's all just coming out of your own head? That's a skill."

I'd never thought about that particular issue like that before. Nicely put.

It sounds like you do a great job in bringing the world to life for your players. I especially like the old school idea of their being no mulligans on the random encounter tables, but the use of that horizon bit is inspired. Something I've played with a little, but not to this level. Excellent link.

I've recently come back to hex crawls myself, and one of the things I prefer to do is to set up various mysteries that can be stumbled upon, along with the random encounters. Dwellings where people are in the midst of agendas, interesting things to interact with, etc.

There are a couple of third party products that I found had some excellent advice on creating an interesting hex crawl. Neither is designed for Pathfinder, but as this is broad brush stuff, I don't think it matters.

One is titled Red Tide: Campaign Sourcebook and Sandbox Toolkit. In addition to having a pretty cool campaign, it has a lot of great thoughts about how to generate interesting elements of a sandbox. Unfortunately, there's also great stuff about sandbox generation in the companion volume, and it's not one of those things where "oh, only the good stuff is in the first one." You kind of need them both.

It's titled An Echo: Resounding and the main description really downplays how much useful sandbox generation info is within. Both this and the preceding product are just chock full of great tables and ideas for how to bring a region to life.

I'm pleased to hear so many of you are looking forward to the book.

Tadkil, you're right -- Drelm is one of the major POV characters this time around. There are three who share billing: Elyana, Drelm, and Lisette.

www.howardandrewjones.com

Hey, I just wanted to drop by and thank you for the kind comments! It's good to be in such fine company. James' first book blew me away and deserves all the recognition it gets!

"I know that there has not been a lot of activity here lately (and that I STILL need to get my butt in gear and start writing reviews), but this is (still) my favorite of the Tales. I would love to see more of Elyana and Drelm."

Aaron, thanks for the kind words. I have signed on to write another Elyana and Drelm book, so more will be coming your way!

I just have to finish a little more work in old Arabia first for my other series, and then I should be able to get started.

Howard