🚀 go-pugleaf

Redmagic is slogging along...finished chapter 4 tonight, for a total of
15,000 words (thank God for word-counters--they give you such quick,
uncritical progress reports!).

A couple of interesting developments. Since my hero is a supermagician, and
the opposition are smart enough to realize it, he's not under any kind of
physical threat; like the 500-pound gorilla, he can sleep anywhere he likes.
But at the moment he and his opponents are ignorant of one another. They
don't speak the same language, they don't know anything about one another's
culture or values. The bad guys know Calindor is major league and want him on
their side. He knows they're nasty customers but can't resist nosing around
to learn their magic. And the bad guys have completely missed the real source
of the magic "earthquake"--Deir. They assume that a dude who can run a boat
by magic must be capable of throwing his weight around in other ways too.

So this will lead to intriguing mistakes and some eventual consciousness
raising on the part of the Exteca (bad guys). And my hero can't just wave his
magic twanger to solve his problems; all he knows so far is that the Exteca
are an enigma and probably a big problem.

By the way, I ran across a fantasy called Red Magic the other day...part of
some sharecropping multiple-author fantasy series, I think. It could
conceivably pose title problems, but you can't copyright titles (though
Norman Mailer would probably send you exciting correspondence if you call
your next novel The Naked and the Dead). In any case, this book won't be out
until 1994, by which time "Red Magic" will be long forgotten.


--
Crawford Kilian   Communications Department   Capilano College
North Vancouver BC Canada V7J 3H5
Usenet: Crawford_Kilian@mindlink.bc.ca
Internet: ckilian@first.etc.bc.ca