Editorial Letter quotes

I received the Editorial Letter for the Haeven of Punyal (as well as the edited version, which hopefully I can incorporate this weekend). Here are some of the happy quotes:

This accomplished and absorbing book, a novel blend of steampunk fiction, murder mystery, and code (ranging from the covert speech patterns of the Xivato to the proteins for which DNA codes), was a pleasure to read.
...

Against the backdrop of a fantastic steampunk world where Romans are identified by their tails and the sense of smell is privileged over sight or hearing, this novel is remarkable for being primarily driven not by its admirably speculative setting but by its strong characters of Capa, Chalina, and Punyal, who shift and grow over the full course of the story in response to circumstances beyond their control. Supporting characters also are given room to grow—for example, Black Dog, through his increasingly complex interactions with Chalina.

...

Overall the manuscript’s style is rich but discreet, offering a rhythmically varied syntax filled with descriptive detail, but never calling attention to itself and away from the more important story at hand.

Farsee (temporary title) finished

While "The Haeven of Punyal" is still being edited by the editors at CreateSpace, I just finished Farsee as part of NaNoWriMo, with a total of 50368 words. It is much rougher than my previous two novels, so it will need more editing, but hopefully will be finished on the same time schedule.

Encyclopedia

I added a few more entries to the Encyclopedia that I'm writing related to the books. Hopefully it is entertaining. The new entries are the alerter (from my latest book) and the trireme (from The Daemon of Cormagan).

Alerter

My artist, Marlon Teunissen, is working on the fourth illustration of the Haeven of Punyal. This scene covers one of the steampunk devices used in this book, which doesn't have a name. It is an alerter, and I created a simple rendering of it here, so that she can use it to complete her drawing. The way it works is approximately as follows: using a flywheel (eventually steam powered, of course) a platform slowly turns around, on which a infrared sensitive lens is situated. This lens' focus is changed between certain distances, allowing the valve to open and close depending on whether a heat signature is detected (the alerter uses a similar crystal as the talker, which allows the infrared light to be focused on a valve which opens and closes). In this case the valve doesn't trigger an air stream, but a small silver rod which hits a large bell. As long as the device is powered, this means it will sound the bell each time it finds a relatively large heat signature. It therefore alerts you if there are people nearby.

First illustration done

The first illustration for the Haeven of Punyal is finished. This also means I continued my first editing pass through. It will be a while, but hopefully the book will be done relatively soon.