A Crash Course On A Valley Without Wind

So... today for me has been pretty much all about the documentation.  I wanted to go ahead and get this done so that Erik could start using it in his emails to press.

I had something similar for AI War that was hugely useful for explaining to new players (and to press) just what it was that made AI War unique.  It wasn't a substitute for a tutorial, but it was infinitely better than coming to the game blind and not knowing if it was just a cheap Sins of a Solar Empire clone or what.

At any rate, now we have this Fast Facts crash course wiki page for AVWW, and I heartily recommend it even to players who are mildly familiar with the game.  It has some tips in there that you might be surprised by, and especially if you're coming back after a long absence you might be surprised by quite a bit more.

Everything else stems from that one wiki article, and you can get more detailed information on specific sub-topics if you so desire.  If you know the game well, please take a look at the fast facts and let me know if anything seems off or seems missing.  Or if you don't know the game well, I'd love to know if it's losing you anywhere in there.

But how on earth did constructing that one small page take me all day?  Well, as part of making that page, I also had to add or majorly update the following pages:

Added: What Genre Is This, Anyway?
Added: Everything You Wanted To Know About Missions, But Were Afraid To Ask
Added: How Do I Know If I'm Prepared For An Expedition?
Added all but the destroyed rooms bit: Why Being A "Completionist" Is Both Futile And Boring Here
More minor; Added the hierarchy section, and the section about graphs vs maps (Josh had already done the rest): What are all these maps for?
Added: Permadeath: It Means Give Your Health Bar The Respect It Deserves
More minor; Completely Rewrote: Pausing The Game
Added: What Is The General Game Flow?

So, yeah.  That's been my day, but I think it's been a day well spent.  That's pretty much our reference manual right there, and if there are gaps we now have time to fix it.  Plus, people can now come into the wiki and read in good depth about what makes this game unique, as well as how things are supposed to work.  Hopefully this should cut down on some confusion from people who read old interviews, too. 

Tomorrow, I'm back on the coding warpath for the new mission types and things of that nature!

Force Feedback In Managed DirectX

I recently wrote my first article for Code Project. It's on a pretty niche programming topic, specifically controlling the actuators in game controllers via C#. This is something that should be a pretty basic topic, but a longstanding bug in some Microsoft libraries prevent their examples from working with many game pads. My article outlines the basics of how to do that sort of code, and shows how to work around their bug.

Exciting News

Well, this is certainly the most exciting news I've been able to post in a while. Remember how I've been admonishing you to read DON'T MURDER YOUR MYSTERY, the nonfiction book on writing by mystery editor Chris Roerden? Well, I promise you that my recommendations have not been skewed by the following news, which is a very recent development:

It turns out that the first line from my current WIP will be included in the next edition, DON'T SABOTAGE YOUR SUBMISSIONS. DSYS will be the expanded, cross-genre edition of the 2005 original, which won a 2007 Agatha award among many other honors. DSYS will be released later this year (I'll post a reminder as the time approaches).

This is very exciting for me not just because it's a great publication credit (hooray, query letters), but because I so wholeheartedly support this book. Amongst all the various writing books I own, this one has far and away been the most helpful on a practical, nuts-and-bolts level. It's really an honor to have my writing included with the many other examples of good writing that Roerden uses.

Let's try this hook thing again...

Thanks to more feedback, I give you:

Nine years have passed since the Dead ended civilization, leaving only tiny splinter societies behind. Darrell Williams, a black doctor in a rural white town, is one of the few survivors in a countryside of roving monsters and encroaching wilderness. When his house is stormed by his undead neighbors, he escapes with his daughter, Lela, to find asylum with refugees in an abandoned electronics factory.

Yet something about the post-civilization world is changing. The uneasy equilibrium between the survivors and their supernatural tormentors is suddenly lost. The Dead are becoming erratic and aggressive, and seem to have a particular interest in Darrell’s family. Four-year-old Lela discovers clues to the twisted logic that drives them -- but then she disappears. Darrell is left to search for answers and his daughter with only the help of strangers in a hostile, ruined world.

Nothing is simple with hooks, is it?

One More Hook

All right, thanks largely to Heather (sorry, I don't have a link!) and Karen, I've got a splendiferous new version of my hook to share. This one really is a lot tighter and gets to the point better. Thanks so much to everyone who has offered feedback during this whole (long) process!

Nine years have passed since the Dead ended civilization. Darrell Williams was once a respected black doctor in a rural white town, but now he is one of the few survivors in a countryside of roving monsters and encroaching wilderness. When his house is stormed by his undead neighbors, he escapes with his daughter, Lela, to find asylum with refugees in an electronics factory many miles downriver.

Yet something about the world has changed. The normally-predictable Dead are suddenly erratic and aggressive, and seem to have an unusual interest in Darrell’s family. Four-year-old Lela discovers clues to the twisted logic that drives them -- but then she disappears. Darrell is left to search for answers and his daughter with only the help of strangers in a hostile, ruined world.

Hooking Again...

Looks like I haven't posted a new version of my hook since June, but I have been working on it on-and-off steadily since then. I think I've gotten a lot better at this whole process in general. Here's the shiny latest version:

Nine years have passed since the Dead ended civilization. The few remaining survivors huddle in isolated towns that have been refit to repel the nightmare creatures prowling the countryside. Darrell Williams was once a respected black doctor in a rural white town, but now he is haunted by the memory of his wife, Mary, slumped against the furniture store window where she was inexplicably murdered by transients. He will never forget how the undead rage transformed her as she rose to kill the family she had cherished only moments before.

One quiet morning his house is stormed by his neighbors, all of whom apparently perished during the night in a fire that his four-year-old daughter, Lela, glimpsed in her dreams. The two find asylum with refugees in an electronics factory many miles downriver, but the Dead are escalating out of control there, too. As the creatures become unusually erratic and aggressive, little Lela discovers clues to the twisted logic that drives them -- but then she disappears. Darrell is left to search for answers and his daughter with only the help of strangers in a hostile, ruined world.

Excerpt, and a new rendering.

Today was one of my ten days off for this month, so I did very little revising/writing. Most of my spare time was spent working on a new rendering, this one depicting the factory from the opening chapters of ALDEN RIDGE, as it sits on the river. I've posted a full-height version below, as well as a version that has been cropped to be easily displayed on standard computer monitor dimensions.


Additionally, I've finally gotten around to posting my new excerpt from ALDEN RIDGE. You can read that here. This excerpt only contains one chapter, but the amount of content is just about the same as the two chapters that comprised my (most recent) old version. The new version of chapter one largely takes place just before where the old chapter one started, so most of it is all-new, but it catches up to the content of the old chapter one in the last two or three pages (out of what is a total of twelve and a half standard pages).

In general, I think that this new version is much better written, and contains a lot more to grab the reader's interest. It's written as dark fantasy now, remember, and so no longer exhibits the terseness or extreme pacing of a thriller. And yes, this is written in omniscient third -- please don't complain to me about that. I'm mostly posting this so that this website showcases my best work; I'm really not looking for feedback on this content at this time. I wrote it too recently to be able to make good use out of any good constructive criticism just yet.

Author Bio Updated

Anne Mini recently did a series on how to construct proper author bios (Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5), and this inspired me to redo my own author bio. The old version was much longer, and in some senses more informative, but the problem with it was that it was just too long. There was just too much information that I was trying to convey at once, so the important points were lost in the shuffle. It was really styled more like an encyclopedia entry than a marketing tool, anyway, so I doubt it would have been very effective with professional readers.

As Anne points out, one of the primary purposes of the author bio is to make the author sound interesting. I think my new version does that a lot better (and more concisely) than the old version did. For those of you with websites and/or blogs -- do you have an author bio online, yet? It might be a good thing to do, both as a great thing to have on hand for when agents request it, and to have readily available online in case someone from the industry stops by (you never know, right?).

If you post one, drop me a comment and let me know; I always like finding out more about the people who stop by my blog!

Keynotes

Anne Mini recently made a very interesting post on keynotes, or book concepts, as part of her excellent ongoing Book Marketing 101 series. I highly suggest you check it out. The rhetorical question style of keynote is definitely not something to try on literary agent Nathan Bransford, who is well known to loathe rhetorical questions, but for my own keynote that's the style I chose. This keynote certainly won't be in my hook or query letter, but as a one-liner to pique someone's interest (or get them to ask about my full hook) it might be just the ticket.

Here's my keynote for ALDEN RIDGE:

What would you do if you had to choose between your daughter's soul and the life of every other living person you knew?

My new hook.

Nine years have passed since the undead ended civilization, and now all that remains are small bands of survivors huddling in isolated towns. Ex-doctor Darrell Williams lives with his four-year-old daughter Lela and three other survivors in an abandoned electronics factory. Others weather the assaults of the relentless undead in the nearby ruins of Alden Ridge, but Darrell hasn’t been able to enter any town without suffering a panic attack since his wife Mary was murdered. Yet when his tiny community begins to undergo a nightmarish transformation, Darrell is forced to stray from the factory’s shelter.

Darrell knows he is Alden Ridge’s only hope, for he alone has seen this before -- he and Lela are the sole survivors of the collapse of nearby Stantonsburg. He must quickly discover why the land rots, why animals are becoming supernatural aberrations, and why the townspeople are undergoing the most terrifying changes of all -- despite the risk that saving every other living person he knows may mean surrendering Lela to the dark force that touched her when Stantonsburg fell. As Alden Ridge descends into chaos, he frantically searches for a way to save both his daughter and the town.

Updates to Website and ALDEN RIDGE Exerpt

This evening I've made a few minor graphical updates to the website (and blog), mostly to add more color and a little better visual interest. Note the light blue gradient at the left and right sides of each page, and the new icon new to the title at the very top. One bit of trivia: that icon is currently the only image I've ever made using Adobe Illustrator. I made it several years ago and thought it was good, but I never have worked in Illustrator since. I'm not quite sure why.

Additionally, I've posted a revised version of my excerpt from ALDEN RIDGE. If you've already read it there isn't much point in re-reading it, but of course I always want to have my best work up on the website. Depending on how critical a reader you are, you might not even notice much that's changed, though I assure you that there are quite a few small changes. The revised version fixes a few beat errors, a couple of comma splices, and a number of saidisms. The text is also now significantly less distant from the pov characters, I think. Hopefully Elaine in particular seems more sympathetic in this version, despite her flaws. I've kept the old version online just for the sake of comparison. I don't mind letting people see the mistakes I've made, as long as they also see how I later moved past them.

Even more hook tightening

Here's, the current version, even further tightened based on some excellent suggestions from Karen Mahoney:

Ever since his wife was murdered, Darrell Williams has cared only about keeping his four-year old daughter safe, but doing so is becoming increasingly difficult even in his isolated riverside home. Nine years have passed since the undead grey men ended civilization, and while most of the scattered remaining humans have settled into a routine of bare survival, the order of Darrell’s life never quite recovered. When everyone else in the town near his home is killed in an attack by the grey men, Darrell and his daughter flee to Alden Ridge, where they are welcomed because he was once a doctor.

Together with Elaine Ward and the other inhabitants of an old factory, Darrell hopes he can finally create a good life for his daughter. But the grey men in the wilderness around Alden Ridge are becoming more violent, and it is clear that the town will soon fall. The situation deteriorates even further when two men claiming to be military scouts arrive in town—they say theirs is a mission of aid, but Darrell believes they were involved in his wife’s murder. Darrell and Elaine’s only hope of saving Alden Ridge is to discover the secrets behind the rise of the grey men and the fall of the modern world.

Thoughts? It's about 30 words shorter than the last version, and definitely flows more quickly in a few key places. Rachel, does this help with the issues you had with the last paragraph? Thanks to everyone who has been kind enough to offer suggestions and criticism!

Yet Another New Hook

After considering the comments of the judge from the Fangs, Fur, & Fey contest, I've come up with a completely new version of my ALDEN RIDGE hook. I think this shows more of Darrell's character, and shows more of the overarching conflicts in the story, and is less like a synopsis than before. Here it is:

Ever since his wife was murdered two years before, Darrell Williams has cared only about keeping his four-year old daughter safe, but doing so is becoming increasingly difficult even in his isolated riverside home. Nine years have passed since the undead grey men first appeared and ended civilization, and while most of the scattered remaining humans have settled into a routine of bare survival in small towns, the order of Darrell’s life never quite recovered. When everyone else in the town near his home is killed in an unexpectedly coordinated attack by the grey men, he and his daughter flee to Alden Ridge, where they are welcomed because Darrell was once a doctor.

Together with Elaine Ward and the other few inhabitants of an old factory on the outskirts of town, Darrell hopes he can finally create a good life for his daughter. But the grey men in the wilderness around Alden Ridge are becoming more aggressive and violent, and it is clear that the town will soon fall. Darrell and Elaine do their best to try to hold the people together, but the situation deteriorates even further when two men claiming to be military scouts arrive in town—they say theirs is a mission of aid, but Darrell believes they were involved in his wife’s murder. Darrell and Elaine’s only hope of saving Alden Ridge is to somehow discover the secrets behind the rise of the grey men and the fall of the modern world.

Thoughts? Suggestions? These are the questions that I'm most conscious of:

1) Is it still too much like a synopsis?
2) Do you get enough of a sense of Darrell's character?
3) Does Darrell seem more heroic in this version?
4) Does it bug you that I reveal next to nothing about Elaine?
5) Does the last line need a better transition from the one before it?
6) Is there any place where it just seems like I didn't give enough info?
7) Does any part of it (first paragraph in particular) still seem too much like lead-up?
8) Do you get enough sense of the setting?
9) Anything else that rubs you the wrong way?
10) Finally: Does this seem like a genuine improvement over my old hook, or is it just different?

All comments are much appreciated.

UPDATE #1: This has been slightly revised after some awesome comments at FFF.
UPDATE #2: This has been revised again for clarity in a few places based on some more great comments at FFF, and the last paragraph has also been tightened a bit in response to excellent feedback from Rachel Olivier.

Excerpt from ALDEN RIDGE

I promised to post an excerpt from ALDEN RIDGE nearly a month ago, but I never did. Partly this was because I am still actively working on the book, and negative feedback could have derailed me pretty easily. But my confidence has risen a lot lately, so I thought I would make good on my earlier promise and finally put it online. You can see the first two chapters here, on my new website.

Revised ALDEN RIDGE Hook

After a lot of editorial help from my wife, I now have an updated version of my ALDEN RIDGE hook to show you. The content is basically the same as the first version, but the writing is condensed by about 70 words or so, and it includes a lot more descriptive imagery. It also eliminates a few awkward wordings ("Those two alone," for instance), and combines several sentences that were previously only expressing half-ideas. Here it is:

The year is 2018, and it has been nearly a decade since civilization ended at the hands of the undead grey men—all that remains are small bands of survivors huddling in isolated towns. Darrell Williams and his four year-old daughter Lela drift downriver after escaping from Stantonsburg, which has been overrun. They find shelter at an abandoned factory just outside of Alden Ridge, where Elaine Levine-Ward and several other survivors have been living ever since That Day. No one notices the menace that has drifted downriver with them.

When Darrell arrives, the rest of the factory’s inhabitants have not yet returned from scavenging sulfur at an abandoned farm. Elaine coerces Darrell into an expedition to find them—but the rescue ends in disaster. After nine years of constancy, the grey men are suddenly becoming more violent and aggressive, and frighteningly persistent. Soon other dark creatures—some of them human—begin creeping into town. Darrell and Elaine’s only hope of saving Alden Ridge from Stantonsburg’s fate is to somehow discover the secrets behind the rise of the grey men, and the fall of the modern world.

My opening and closing sentences are virtually unchanged, but the interior of the two paragraphs had a fair bit of work done on them. I think the ending sentence of the first paragraph is particularly more powerful than in the first version (which was pathetically generic, cliche, and empty, I now realize). Hopefully this new version of the hook will maintain a constant, high level of reader interest throughout. But there's always still room for improvement. Any thoughts?

Alden Ridge Hook, and Fangs, Fur, & Fey Contest

Never pass up an opportunity for good feedback. To that end, I note that there is a contest going on at Fangs, Fur, & Fey. Hopefully you've all seen this contest before now, especially if you're an urban fantasy writer. But the contest is open to writers of fantasy, sci-fi, thriller, and other genres, so you might be able to participate even if you don't write urban fantasy. They will be accepting up to 180 hooks, which will be public posted and reviewed by a panel of judges. The best 12 will get to submit the first 5 pages of their work, and those will also be publicly posted and reviewed. The winner gets to have their first 50 pages or first 3 chapters critiqued by literary agent Rachel Vater. That's a great prize, but just being part of the contest itself, and having your hook reviewed, would be wonderful.

So, I've been working on a hook for ALDEN RIDGE, which I'm presently billing as supernatural thriller. Obviously ALDEN RIDGE isn't finished yet, but that isn't a condition of the contest. Since this book is my primary focus right now, this is the one that I'm going to submit to the contest. It opens tonight at 12 AM, and that's when I intend to make my submission. Here's my hook (which has no more spoilers than the back of a book):

The year is 2018, and it has been nearly a decade since civilization ended at the hands of the undead grey men. All that remains of our world are small bands of survivors huddling in isolated towns. Darrell Williams has been living with his four year-old daughter Lela in Stantonsburg, but after years of attacks their town is finally overrun. Those two alone escape to Alden Ridge, a neighboring town with fully thirty survivors. There the situation has not yet become dire—but everything starts to change when Darrell and Lela arrive.

Elaine Levine Ward has been living with her boyfriend Jeff in an abandoned factory just outside Alden Ridge ever since That Day. When Darrell arrives, it has been nearly a full day since Jeff left to scavenge sulfur from an abandoned farm. Elaine reluctantly gives Darrell and Lela shelter on the condition that Darrell will help rescue Jeff—but the rescue ends in disaster, and Elaine and Darrell barely escape the farm with their own lives. After nine years of constancy, the grey men are suddenly becoming more violent and aggressive, and frighteningly persistent. Soon other dark creatures—some of them human—begin creeping into town, and there are more deaths. Darrell and Elaine’s only hope of saving Alden Ridge from Stantonsburg’s fate is to somehow discover the secrets behind the rise of the grey men, and the fall of the modern world.

What do you think? Suggestions would be appreciated, and I'd be more than happy to look at the hooks of others, too.

Combined Hook

I got wonderful feedback on the two hooks that I posted this morning. Thanks to everyone who voiced their opinion; it was all a really great help! The general consensus seemed to be that there were good and bad aspects to both of my hooks, however, and so I'm now putting forth a third hook that attempts to combine the good aspects of the original two hooks. If you have any more comments (good, bad, or ugly--don't hold back), I'd love to hear them. No matter what, I think that this is definitely the strongest hook I've ever had--though there's always room for improvement.

Oh, and one other thing: this new hook doesn't even touch on the Big Spoiler, and there's nothing else here that I wouldn't be comfortable putting on the back of the book. So, read on without fear.

At age twenty-four, with a college degree under his belt and a good job as a guardian magi for a small company, Sean Sunderland feels like he has a pretty good handle on his life. What he never suspected was how much of his life was based on lies. The Otherworld in which he works is actually just one small part of an ancient world that few suspect exists, and a race of demons wants Sean for its own because of magical powers he doesn't even know he has. Even Sean's parents seem to be hiding something--his connection to the Otherworld may be stronger than he knows.

It isn't until the demons try to capture Sean that he becomes aware that his world isn't what he thought. Though he hides his abilities from his family and most of his coworkers, those who are aware of his true nature are unwilling to let him return to the life he loved. The free peoples of the Otherworld want Sean to unseat the lord of the demons, the demons demand that Sean join their ranks or die, and a ten thousand year old vampire needs Sean's help to save his descendants from a malevolent phantasm. Somehow, Sean will have to master his powers well enough to protect himself and those he cares about not only from the demons, but also from the darkness within himself.

New Hooks

Okay, well, based on the feedback that I have received I have now cooked up another couple of hooks that I can potentially use. The hooks themselves have a lot of spoilers in them, and so have been blacked out--you have to highlight them with the cursor to see the text. That way, those of you who don't want anything spoiled won't accidentally read these without meaning to.

Option 1 (focus on powers):

Sean Sunderland grew up thinking that his greatest gift was simply to become a guardian magi who could protect corporations from magical intrusion and the specters that roam the Otherworld. But when the demons try to capture him after his college graduation, Sean discovers that he is one of the last Thaumaturges--powerful magi who can work magic without the runes and amulets that are normally required. Sean's magic is virtually unlimited, bounded only by what he can comprehend in sufficient detail. The problem is, though Sean can already create 300 meter fireballs and slow time, he has very little control over his magic. His magic seems to make him invincible, but the reflexive nature of it also makes him dangerous to everyone around him.

Though he hides his abilities from his family and most of his coworkers, there are ancient creatures who are not willing to let him ignore his abilities. The Eldest Dragon wants Sean to unseat the lord of the demons, the demons demand that Sean join their ranks or die, and a ten thousand year old vampire needs Sean's help to save his descendants from an evil phantasm. Sean knows he will ultimately have to face the demons--but what he doesn't realize is just how terrible their power is, for they are Thaumaturges also, and much more practiced. They kill him and turn him into one of them. Somehow, even as a demon, Sean will have to master his powers well enough to protect himself and those he cares about from not only the other demons, but also the darkness within himself.

Option 2 (focus on intrigue):

At age twenty-four, with a college degree under his belt and a good job as a guardian magi for a small company, Sean Sunderland feels like he has a pretty good handle on his life. What he never suspected was how much of his life was based on lies. The Otherworld in which he works is actually just one small part of an ancient world that few suspect exist, and a race of demons want Sean for their own because of magical powers he doesn't even know he has. Even Sean's parents seem to be hiding something--his connection to the Otherworld may be stronger than he knows.

It isn't until the demons try to capture Sean that he becomes aware that his world isn't what he thought. As Sean is pulled ever more into a struggle as old as humanity itself, it becomes increasingly clear that the life he had struggled for years to build is lost. Even his newfound powers aren't enough to resist the demons--it isn't long before they kill him and turn him into one of them. Despairing at his undeath and desperate to escape the demon civilization in which he is now held captive, Sean must hold fast to his human identity if he ever hopes to escape and save those who still matter most to him.

For those of you who wish to read these hooks, please let me know what you honestly think of them. It would also be useful to me to know which parts catch your eye, if anything does. And also the reverse: what seems prosaic or cliche? I might do a third hook sometime soon, if these don't seem strong enough. For those of you who wish to have nothing spoiled, I'd suggest staying out of the comments section for this particular post, too.

Addition to THE GUARDIAN exerpt

The response to my excerpt from THE GUARDIAN has been really positive, but I must admit that I had very little of it posted before. Because so many people have made overtures of wanting to read more, I've gone on and updated the excerpt so that it now also includes the second chapter. You can jump right to that chapter by clicking here. As always, I'm interested in feedback, so let me know what you think!

Oh, and one other side note--the quote in Latin at the very start of the book is something that I wrote myself; Gnaeus Furius Eboracum is a character in my world, not a real historical person. Ten points if you can tell me what modern European city he lived in! I'll give you a hint: the etymology of his name tells you everything you need to know. Ahh... my Latin teachers will be proud to learn that my five years of Latin weren't for nothing, I imagine.

Overview of THE GUARDIAN

Well, in posting the description for ALDEN RIDGE, I realized that I never did post an overall description for my other book, THE GUARDIAN (the one I am currently looking for agents for). So I thought I would go on and post that, too. This is not the description that I use in my query letters, as this one purposefully avoids revealing the major twist that drives the latter half of the book (and that has been the most intriguing thing to agents).

This is more of a vague book jacket description, if anything--though it's not really in the right format for that, either. It has some elements of a Project Description for a nonfiction book, but doesn't even stay to that faithfully. So, my point is that a description in this fashion isn't good for much of anything inside the actual publishing arena, but I think it will suffice for giving blog readers an idea of what the heck this story is even about.

THE GUARDIAN is set in the present day, but follows an alternate timeline in which computers are of little importance and the Internet does not exist—instead, twenty years ago, the Otherworld was invented. The Otherworld is a magical plane, apparently endless and initially featureless. Over the course of the last two decades, these virgin lands have been built up and settled by citizens of nearly every country of the world we know, which people now call the Outside.

The one blot on the history of the Otherworld is that its inventor was brutally and unexpectedly murdered only five years after he revealed his discovery. His death, and the death of the research team that had worked alongside him, sealed a secret of the Otherworld that only they knew: it was not created by any human hands. The Otherworld has seemingly always existed, and the undetected human civilizations there stretch back well over ten thousand years—perhaps even predating the earliest recorded Outside history.

The protagonist of the story, an Outsider named Sean Sunderland, works in the Otherworld as a guardian magi—one who maintains magical systems and protects his company’s Otherworld facilities from magical intrusion. When Sean passes through a door that inexplicably appears in his office building, he finds himself in an entirely unknown part of the Otherworld, filled with ancient towns, mythical creatures, and an evil that has reigned since the birth of humankind. This is Ivoria, the oldest realm of the Otherworld, separated by a great abyss from the Far Reaches that the Outsiders inhabit.

Ivoria is lorded over by an entire civilization of demons, who hope to capture Sean because of powers he does not even realize he possesses. They hunt the last of the Thaumaturges, powerful magi who are able to control magic without the aid of the runes and amulets which are normally required. As Sean discovers more of Ivoria, he becomes increasingly aware of the connections between it and his own world, and the danger that the unsuspecting Outside populace is in. At the same time, he is forced to face his growing power and the potential threat that he represents to those around him. While Sean tries to reconcile all the conflicting parts of his life, it becomes progressively clearer that he must face the demons if he is to save not only himself, but the masses of innocents suffering under demonic rule.