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Welcome to our 14th book club discussion.  This time around, we'll be reading Skein of Shadows by Marsheila Rockwell.  Skein is the sequel to The Shard Axe, which was one of our favorite reads last year.  This time, Sabira will be messing with the drow!

You can check out the author (who goes by Marcy) at her website.  She's the author of a previous Eberron novel, Legacy of Wolves in addition to The Shard Axe and a lot of other non-D&D fiction.  Skein of Shadows takes place in Eberron and is also considered a D&D Online novel for any of you that play that game.

We'll be starting our discussion next Monday, September 10, so go out and download a copy before then. This novel is eBook only, so you'll have to get it in digital format. We'll be following our usual pace of about 50 pages per week.

In the meantime, stop by and introduce yourself and post any preliminary questions for Marcy about the book, Eberron, DDO, the drow, or the writing process in general.

A big Welcome Back to Marcy and all our readers!

I am glad the discussion starts next week. I am in the middle of trying to read The Shard Axe before we start Skein of Shadows, and one more week should get me to the finish line.   

Talk to you all next week.  

Been around for earlier readings, dropped out due to scheduling but thought this was a good enough reason to get my stolen ipad replaced and jump back in. Read both Marcy's previous novels and am curious to see what is going to happen to Sabrina.

Hi All,

I’m going to take a *brief* break from the book club for this selection.  A couple reasons – first, I don’t have an eReader yet.  I think I’m going to inherit one soon, so I don’t want to just rush off and buy one now.  Second, I have really limited reading time and there are a couple other (non-WOTC) books I’ve been waiting to read.

Never fear!  I plan to return for our next selection.  I wish you all another great romp through Eberron!

-GP

Hey, everyone! Just wanted to pop in really quick and say hi!

Looking forward to another awesome book club discussion - you guys were great last time and I had a lot of fun.

Just a quick note, though, for those of you in GP's position (without an ereader). I actually don't have one either, but most of them have free apps you can download for your PC/Mac. I use PC for Kindle, so I can read the books on my laptop. It's not quite as easy to carry around as an actual Kindle, but it's definitely cheaper than going out and buying one. So, please don't let lack of an ereader keep you from participating!

See you all on the 10th!

Regards,
Marcy

Despite the fact that Skein of Shadows isn't yet available in the Amazon UK Kindle store, thanks to some advice from Magicstar1, I can join in with this one - Powells.com, Bluefire Reader and my trusty iPad to the rescue! I'm glad I can take part, as the first book I read with the book club was Marcy's Shard Axe, so it feels right to be reading the sequel here.

Marcy - good to have you with us again! A quick question for you - how much time elapsed between you finishing work on The Shard Axe and knowing that you'd be writing a sequel? How easy was it to get going again?

Cheers,
Steve

Sep 9, 2012 -- 8:18AM, tsukimasu wrote:

Marcy - good to have you with us again!

Good to be back! Thanks for having me!

Sep 9, 2012 -- 8:18AM, tsukimasu wrote:

A quick question for you - how much time elapsed between you finishing work on The Shard Axe and knowing that you'd be writing a sequel? How easy was it to get going again?

Well, I actually always knew I'd be writing two books, as that's what my contract specified - I just didn't know which two books, heh.

I don't really remember the timeframe too well now - WotC was making some editorial changes at the time, so that kind of confused the issue a bit. I had some ideas for sequels that I was batting back and forth with my editor at the time, but then we got the direction from TPTB to tie in to some specific events, and the book ultimately became the Eberron prequel to the Rise of the Underdark (in DDO, the prequel to the opening of the portal between Eberron and the Forgotten Realms, which is related to RotU).

Which became a little problematic when Skein began showing up on FR sites, since it's NOT a Realms book. Some people didn't think it was a big deal that it was being marketed that way, but I did my best to curtail it, because I didn't want people picking up the book thinking Sabira was going to go traipsiong around Menzoberranzan, or something. (SPOILER: She doesn't.)

It wasn't too hard to get back into Sabira's head, since I'd already lived there for so long while writing The Shard Axe. What made things a little more interesting was the fact that DDO was changing faster than I was writing, so it was harder to get back into the setting. I had to keep delaying the book to get caught up with in-game updates that affected the outcome of the story. In the end, the in-game events don't hew as closely to the storyline in Skein as I think they were intended to - hence why it's being called a prequel to those events as opposed to being about them.

Hopefully that answers your questions? If not, let me know, and I'll pontificate a little more.

Regards,
Marcy

Sep 10, 2012 -- 4:21PM, mrockwell wrote:

Hopefully that answers your questions? If not, let me know, and I'll pontificate a little more.

Hi, Marcy - that's a great answer - thanks very much! The idea of writing a story set in someone else's world makes me nervous, let alone matching pace with one that's constantly changing. I'm still not entirely au fait with the links or the barriers between different worlds / editions (neophyte that I am, all I know is the Spellplague was A Bad Thing ) so it'll be interesting to see what I make of it all. Rise of the Underdark certainly sounds interesting, and I do like the idea of themes that span novels, game materials, organised events, and so on. Looking forward to getting stuck in!