I’ll check out the chat thread :) Can’t wait for the next book.

I think that, rather than me re-explaining the novel to you, I’ll just point you in the direction of the Hundred Thousand Kingdoms Open Chat Thread, where you can ask your questions and maybe get answers from other readers. I don’t think anybody else is paying attention to a nearly two-year-old blog post. =)

I will say that it sounds like you missed a few points that were explained in the story, but it would take me awhile to find the page numbers and point out the specific lines — I don’t have a copy of the book handy at the moment. For example, Nahadoth explained to Yeine that Itempas used a demon’s blood to poison Enefa, as demon blood was the only thing that could kill a god. (Yeine later sees a vision of Itempas using a demon-blood-tainted knife to do the deed.) Later, Sieh explains that as Enefa lay dying, Itempas tore out the piece of her body that became the Stone of Earth. It contained the last of her power, and allowed Itempas to defeat Nahadoth (and the other Enefadeh). Because the Stone was used to subdue them, the Stone is the key to their imprisonment. The Enefadeh’s imprisonment was linked to the Stone; the Stone later becomes part of Yeine; ergo the “chains” (which were metaphysical, not real) were linked to Yeine.

Most of chapters 10 and 14 were dedicated to explaining this, so I’m not sure how you missed it. But most other readers seem to have understood the story, so again, maybe you can ask them to help you figure it out. :) Hope that helps!

I wanted to ask a few questions/leave a comment but couldn’t find a way to contact you. So I decided to leave a comment on this post because I found the story of Sven quite entertaining.

I freaking loved your book! I have over the last two years developed an addiction for buying fantasy novels, and I read yours in a day. I love the way you have written it, how it kind of dips in and out of stream of consciousness, and not everything is always spelled out for the reader. But I couldn’t help but feel some things were totally left unexplained, or there were some holes?

How exactly did Itempas kill Enefa, and defeat the others and why were their chains linked to Yeine at the end? Why could the Arameri just not command the Enefadeh to kill one another, and if they couldn’t physically harm one another themselves, why did Yeine fear going to visit Relad? I didn’t get till the end that Nahadoth had two parts … who was the mortal day being? What was the point of the Enefadeh altering Yeine’s blood sigil in the beginning, and what was their original plan they spoke of, and why was it abandoned?

I didn’t get the succession story and I thought the reasoning was weird? Why would Dekarta LET Yeine choose the successor? Why did she have to become an heir to get to that position? Couldn’t Relad just kill Yeine, thereby nullifying any leverage Scimina had – why would Dekarta then make the new ‘chooser’ choose Scimina? And, if she chose Relad, wouldn’t that then save her country, as Relad would surely have Scimina killed?

I found the way in which you created the world absolutely stunning, and you have gained my utmost respect for the originality and detail of your story … but I just felt that some key points were a little shaky and didn’t really fit with the facts.

Hope to hear from you soon!
Josh.

There’s been a lot of theorizing about the dearth by fans of color too, but I’m not sure if anyone in influential/gatekeeper position is listening. This thread convinced me that SFWA doesn’t care about the problem. Other organizations do, but they don’t have SFWA’s clout. It doesn’t help that there are a lot more out-of-the-closet racists out there than just Vox Day — Larry Niven recently made some pretty heinous comments about seeding the Spanish-speaking community with rumors that hospitals were harvesting organs; this was intended to keep them from seeking out healthcare, which he proposed would lower costs. And you’re probably aware of the skirmish some of us recently had with William Sanders over his anti-Arab/Muslim comments. Such gestures are next to useless; these cranky old crazies are institutions within the community, and nobody cares if they offend a few young punks (or brown punks, or female punks, or whatever), because they’ve done it before and nobody shut them down then. It’s that tolerance that disturbs me — that willingness for the SF community to welcome all comers, even if they’re frothing hatemongers, and not just tolerate them: give them awards, put them on decision-making teams. That, along with the frequent and continued publication of books containing stupid racial cliches of the kind you mentioned at NYROSF, suggests there are a lot of closet racists out there. Of course that sends a message to fans and writers of color: you’re not welcome. If you come here, be prepared to do battle with the SF Establishment. Not exactly a welcome mat.

So I’m glad that YA seems to be taking up the torch. My suspicion is that YA appeals particularly to younger writers who don’t feel like wading through the anti-progressive morass of SF fandom; there’s more freedom in this marketing category, more interest in appealing to those audiences that SF still snubs. Maybe YA can revitalize SFdom, by bringing in more young fans who will raise a stink about the kinds of things that are allowed to slide now. I dunno. I won’t hold my breath, though.

Oh, just FYI — there was a lot more discussion of this post in my “unofficial” blog, if you want to go read. =)

The SF community has always been puzzled by the shortage of fans of color, and the low percentage of nonwhite pros. I’ve seen a lot of theorizing about it, but most of that was written by white fans, so I won’t quote it lest I embarrass myself.

As far as I know, the community has one out-of-the-closet racist: Vox Day (Theodore Beale), who is obviously unbalanced. The primary targets of his hate are feminists, conservatives, and atheists, but he’s been known to put in a good word for the Nazis and what he conceives would be their approach to the problem of illegal immigration. For obvious reasons, there’s no telling how many closet racists we have, but I don’t imagine it’s a lot. Where we fall down is in understanding how race operates in society right now.

Political leanings: First, while we do have some hardboiled conservatives, they’re a minority. The U.S. SF community is a lot more liberal than you’d guess from looking at it, Canandian fandom is even more so, and on average British fandom is significantly to the left of U.S. fandom. (I should know more about the Australians and New Zealanders than I do.)

The U.S. community’s third political tendency is Miscellaneous Other: Marxists, Trotskyists, Bakuninists, misc. commies, and whatever Ken MacLeod is, plus libertarians, minarchists, anarcho-capitalists, Objectivists, extropians, a few monarchists, and heaven knows what-all else. (We might even have a few elderly Esperantists or technocrats left.) Taken collectively, they’re colorful but politically ineffectual, except for the ones who write saleable fiction.

Here’s the news you really need to hear: one of the hottest areas in the genre right now is upper-YA sf and fantasy. Some excellent books are getting published, and are selling briskly to a new generation of readers.

In short, we’re not dead yet.