the Arena's Call (discussion) (Patreon)

So, that's it. I initially planned to write the entrance to Artos, the exploration of the dungeon but I realised that it just didn't fit at the end of this book. It would feel a bit lumped on, so I decided to cut it and add that for the next book.

The good news for those in favor of this series is that I now have a pretty good direction for book 5 of the AoB series. 

Feel free to discuss your thoughts on the series and book below.

DO NOT READ BELOW IF YOU DO NOT WANT TO SEE HOW THE SAUSAGE IS MADE

Other things that changed while writing:

- the introduction of new team members. Writing the arena fight scenes, imagining how the team handles those, how the arena owners would structure them, I realised that Daniel & Co desperately needed more friends. As a team, they're quite imbalanced.

- the emphasis on Daniel's Gift and healing. That seemed to have emerged as a much stronger theme as I wrote. I'll need to relook at the first few chapters on the edit to see if it's too much.

- the ending. The ending was very different from the one I had in my mind. Initially, when I plotted it, I had meant for Daniel to join the other team. Thus the long descriptions, but then I realised, wait. No Guild is going to let spaces available go. And so, I ended up writing more....

and this came out. I think to some extent it is a bit Deus Ex, it's certainly the most Deus Ex book I've written. But it (like Book 5 of the System) stems from themes that have played through the books. So... yeah. Hopefully you guys will let me know what you think.

Reminder - preview chapters are all 1st draft. They haven't been edited and often I add foreshadowing scenes for themes and events that crop-up on the edit and also fix word overuse, phrasing, etc. 

Book is likely released October 1.