When I write what publishers call 'fantasy' I am writing in what I think is the most important tradition of fiction: starting with Homer and up through Shakespeare and Milton, the most important themes to tackle are those of the mythopoeic domain, tales of the body and mind seen through a temperament and a cosmos divorced from current reality so what is said can be more clear.

When the balance is restored, people get hurt.

The gods want to bring a better day, and you are their messengers. Trust not in all you see. Trust only in your hearts. And in us, who love you both.

Here Stormbringer spies the Stepsons, the Theban fighters, and the 3rd Commando, attending to their own. In the face of such unflinching determination and unswerving devotion, the hurricane pauses and calms. Its ravings turn to mutters.

I survive. I survived it all then and I'll survive the rest of it. Without your help.

Bandara was not an easy place to return to: it could hide from the common worlds whose periphery it inhabited. But Bandara never had, in all its years, completely disappeared.

You're talent, and we're the talent scouts.