Spellfire Thief - Patreon Preview
Added 2025-01-19 21:34:21 +0000 UTCHey, guys!
So here is a preview of the new book. After finishing two other series in a row, I wanted to take a break and do something new. Parts of this story have been burning a hole in my brain for the better part of a year now.
Anyway, this is the previously discussed "magitek" era of the Rivenmire setting, basically a late 1800s fusion of industrial revolution and magical discoveries. The story itself is meant to be something of a heist/swashbuckler with a lighter tone than Dread Knight.
Anyway, let me know what you think!
Comments
Suffice to say, he didn't have any magical abilities back during the war, but he studied at the Spellbinder's academy for a while a few years ago (learning some tricks he could combine with his soldier and thievery experience). That's a whole backstory thing we'll get to in the next few chapters
Sarah Hawke
2025-01-22 23:48:25 +0000 UTCDK past yeah. Spellfire magic (primordial magic) is what they tap into in that series and it causes the caster to get corrupted. In this time that isn't the case, so it's very powerful and it is relatively new. I could make some tweaks the first two chapters for clarification (and probably will, I usually rewrite the early chapters in "book 1s" quite a bit), but I did not want to overload with exposition
Sarah Hawke
2025-01-22 22:48:58 +0000 UTCSo just to be clear, this is the past of the Dread Knight series, right? Also, Ed Greenwood, in the Forgotten Realms setting, wrote a novel called Spellfire, about a character with an innate gift for conjuring or channeling pure/raw magical energy, instead of invoking it through spells and rituals like wizards did. Is that what Zane is doing when he refers to using spellfire, or is he just a standard magic user for the setting? Are there explanations in the later chapters? Usually the world building is pretty good, but I'm a bit confused by his powers. Either magic is a commonplace talent, in which case things should be harder for him, or he is a person with magic abilities, who somehow was serving as a frontline infantry grunt in a world where magic technology is extremely important, but not yet ubiquitous, in which case, he should have been given a gold-plated deferment to go work in a lab or factory. Or he has a unique and special talent of some kind that might not be general knowledge. The pickpocket bit was a little disappointing. Maybe I've read too many Sarah Hawke stories, but it was pretty blatantly clear what Ysara was up to. For one thing, employees in her position, who are expected to engage in sex work at the customer's demand, are universally delighted to avoid the duty when there is a plausible excuse, such as the customer slept the whole trip and missed the other shift. It's not a sex thing, it's a work thing. It's the converse of Tom Sawyer charging people to whitewash the fence - no matter how pleasurable an activity is, the moment you are paid to do it, it becomes work, and if you have the chance to collect the same pay without doing it, you don't make an over the top effort to do it. Then there was her insistence on citing the other train she's going to be working on, which was the clue it was not a theft for profit, even before he realized his valuables were still on his person. I'm not necessarily saying this was a writing flaw (to the contrary, I consider it good world-building and attention to detail on the author's part when something so clearly makes sense like this), but this is the kind of thing you would expect to happen to a much more callow and naive character. Not even Cole or Jorem would have fallen for this. MAYBE Dorian or Mirek, or Alamir pre-Raz, if he was slumming with the commons. But this guy is a military veteran, an experienced thief, with an extensive sexual history, according to him, at least. He should not be so hard up or enthralled by a pretty face and a BJ that he lets this happen. He's carrying contraband and illicit intelligence - he should have been on high alert the moment she sat down instead of continuing with her rounds. So I'm looking forward to learning more about his character & background, and hoping there's more to him than "Hur dur, men like tits".
Uppercase
2025-01-22 22:33:37 +0000 UTCHaven’t had a chance to read yet but a red teifling is the stuff of dreams thank you
Will Barca
2025-01-19 23:58:33 +0000 UTCI love that cover art. Especially the wings. They're pretty clearly mechanical, which adds a dimension to her character. (i.e. she's not just "hot red-skinned succubus" slapped on a book cover. She's somebody. Makes me want to find out the deal with her wings.)
Vairya1
2025-01-19 22:14:38 +0000 UTC
