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01/15/2004 Entry: "Recent news from Michelle Sagara West's newsgroup"

--The next book out from Michelle (Sagara) West will be HOUSE WAR, but will be released in paperback. Her publishers didn't feel it was standalone enough to be her first hardcover. It is set in the Sun Sword universe.
--West's promised hardcover launch will most likely be the book after that, and the first of a new series, tentatively titled THE BLACK GAUNTLET. It is also set in the Sun Sword universe, but I guess not as closely tied to the other books.
--West has just turned in the set of 8 short stories for a collection to be published by Meisha Merlin. It will consist of all reprints, but many from very obscure and/or Canadian sources.

Replies: 3 Comments

Ugh. I love Michelle West, but one of my biggest disappointments in reading this year came from the fact that Sun Sword, which was the promised conclusion to the series, did not resolve the Jewel/Terafin House plot line. I gather this is what House War will be about. Can someone post a link to West's newsgroup? Any idea when House War will be out?

Posted by TC @ 01/17/2004 04:55 AM ET

Michelle's mailing list is:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/michellewest/

Yes, HOUSE WAR is about Jewel/Terafin House - something which West says most people are asking for. Her publisher&editor would like to see it too, but wants to get West into hardcover and sees BLACK GAUNTLET as the right choice.

Posted by Rebekah @ 01/26/2004 12:16 AM ET

Here's a more recent post from Michelle:

"I should make clear that to me, The Sun Sword as a series has always been called "The Souther War" (It was the working title, but it was a bit too historical in tone to be used for a fantasy series). So I should have made clear in the author's note that the final volume was the close of
the war in the South -- but because I was right in the middle of it, and -I- knew it, it just didn't occur to me that other people didn't. Writers work in little boxes. Well, okay, I do .

So... SUN SWORD was the last book, for me, in that arc. It's not the last book in that universe, though. And HOUSE WAR, when I write it ... will be Jewel, her den (which includes Avandar), the House War, and the den's past."

Posted by Rebekah @ 02/04/2004 08:57 AM ET