James Barclay

[Milkman]

Hi James,

I read Dawnthief a while back and had this qquestion and then forgot about it again before remebering it again.

I read some of the chronicles and then the legends and Dawnthief last and so a few things stood out:

Magic
In Dawnthief magic whilst existing within the dicipline of the colleges seems to be more 'flexible' than in the other books. For example when Selyn is dieing she sends a mana pulse across the continent, no formal spell I think. Or that mages can use their skills to directly affect their physiologies without the use of formal spell crafting eg Ilkar and Denser healing protecting their internal systems with mana, the 'intravenous (mana) drip' and when Ilkar says a mage can stop his own heart beating (and so kill himself). And I think the method by which Denser opened the secret entrance at Taranspike.
Why was this sacrificed in the later books, I remember thinking so many times how spells could have been modified to do more damage like combining a FlameOrb with a ForceCone, or when fighting mages indoors, sending ForceCones at the cielling to make masonry drop on top of the enemy mages' HardShields and really exhaust them?

Protectors natural magic
In Dawnthief Protectors naturally have some sympathetic(?) relationship with magic and so it is possible for Denser to 'strap' a pair of ShadowWings on to Sol.
Was this dropped in the later books or was there just not much opportunity to make it showy?

Adult material
The concepton of the Night child is pretty graphic. There was nothing like that in the other books (which in my opinion is a good thing) what were your reasons for not doing anything like that again?

[AshleyBoy]

I think its always been pretty consistant.

It is noted in following Raven Books, that if a mage were to die, it would be felt along the base mana trails.


Protectors: In NightChild... they discussed attaching ShadowWings to Protectors when trying to Rescuue Errienne, but the idea was poo-pooed due to the need for only a small force mounting an attack on the ocean elm.


Adualt Material is present in most (if not all) of the 6 Raven Books. I fail to see how this is detrimental to the overall enjoyment of the novels.
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"Hey lazer-lips, your mother was a snow-blower" - Number Johny 5

[Milkman]

[AshleyBoy]

Fair does


still.... set the pace for me; made me want to read the following titles,

Though in all honesty, I read Elfsorrow first then went back and read from the beginning.

I see your point.
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"Hey lazer-lips, your mother was a snow-blower" - Number Johny 5

[Styllian]

I notice Selik seems to be carrying around some mighty strong glue after supposedly shattering into a million pieces in Dawnthief Read through Dawnthief and you'll find it says that (not sure if that's true for the new version)

Adult material is fine for me.

[Milkman]

Does he break after he gets frozen? Well the Black wings did have mages who could have done a healing job either that or they had Handy Andy and a hell of a lot of mdf.

And whilst we're disecting Dawnthief, did I read wrong, or was Ithman quick enough to beat Hirad?!

[Shriker]

[Drizzt]

James wrote Dawnthief a long, long time ago. When it was written it was written as a single novel with a beginning, middle, and end. Through its popularity the following books were spawned, written and published - it's only natural the world building and narrative development continued and evolved as both the story grew and James grew as a writer (thanks, in no small part, to 'The Ascendants').

Just run with it, then read the rest and enjoy the ride.
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