Gunner's Apprentice

Author's Note

And no, that's not a dream sequence. That's taken from the book I'm working on now, The Blood Mirror, book 4 of The Lightbringer Series. I didn't want to tell you up front that it's from the next book because some readers avoid spoilers, and I thought this was important for you to read for reasons I'll explain now.

There's something in fiction that fantasy readers like to call Plot Armor. That's the idea that no matter what happens to other characters, the hero is safe. This is why in so much fiction the best friend always dies. Because the author wants to hurt the main character without losing him. Even some authors who are praised for not using plot armor... really do. Some head fakes notwithstanding, there are always a couple of characters you really can't kill off.

But I say, if you do it right: Why not? Why can't we push the genre forward?

All fiction involves a series of tradeoffs. You can do whatever you want—you just have to be willing to pay the price. I don't mind if you throw my book across the room—as long as you go and pick it back up again. It's simply my job to give you enough reasons to go pick it up.

All my life I've been told I can't do things.

They said, "You'll never get published. You'll never make a living at writing." I said, “Why not?”

When I wrote Night Angel, they said, "You can't write the second and third books of a trilogy when the first book hasn't even been picked up!" I said, “Why not?”

When I started Lightbringer, they said, "You can't have a fat kid as your main character." I said, "Why not?"

And now they say, "You can't kill off the main character halfway through the last book in a series." I say, “Why not?”

They say, "You can't send readers a scene that will never appear in your books and tell them it will." I say, “Why not?”

Yes, it's true. You've been the victim of a small deception. It just so happens that the man who makes his living telling tales has told you a lie. This scene will never appear in the books. This was merely a throwaway scene I wrote one day when I was stuck.

But I sent you this for good reason—mainly my own twisted amusement. Okay, also because even though it's never going into a book, I'm rather pleased with how this scene turned out. And I wanted to share something that would work in different ways for veteran readers of my works, and also for new readers, so if you would like to share this, please do so. I hope you enjoyed my little surprises there. I like to think that it's indicative of what I do repeatedly in my fiction.

I have a little maxim I operate by, and that's this: "Don't give fans what they want, give them something better." So I hope I did that for you, and I hope you forgive me for it. Thank you very much!