I’m writing to inquire where you feel the Grand Illusion series going next. I’d love to have another book with Stefan, but I get the feeling you feel that story has gone as far as it needs to.

If… if I did write another story about Stefan and Avraal, it would have to be at least a decade farther into their future. At present, I’m not ready to write such a story. I am considering a prequel novel, but that’s all I’ll say at the moment.

I have two questions from reading “Recluce Tales.” First, “Heritage” reminds me that there seems to be a contradiction between Hamor being an empire in Lorn’s time and a hodgepodge of duchies when Cyador falls. I’ve always admired how your story lines are internally consistent across widely separated arcs, but this seems hard to reconcile. How do you explain this seeming inconsistency? Second, you write that your editor has pleaded with you over the years to not write the story of Cyador’s founding. Why not? Thanks.

How about the idea that, as in the old and new kingdoms of ancient Egypt, there was an empire in one time, a disintegration, and a rise of a new and stronger empire later?

David Hartwell was my editor at Tor for more than thirty years, and he felt strongly about the matter. Even after his death several years ago, I respect his judgment. The next four Recluce books, however, will deal with the period beginning roughly eighty years after the rationalist landing on the world of Recluce. That’s likely to be the closest I’ll get to the founding — except for the short story entitled “The Vice-Marshal’s Trial” in Recluce Tales

Have any of your books been optioned for movies or tv? Would love to see Recluce or Imager books on TV or in the theaters.

Over the years I’ve had a few inquiries about whether the rights were available for the Recluce books (which they are), but nothing has ever come of the inquiries. So far, I’ve never had any inquiries at all about the Imager Portfolio.

Have you thought about a Recluce novel where two characters that can use a glass for far-seeing, send each other messages over a long distance by painted signs seen through the glass?

Actually, I’ve thought about it several times over the years, but decided that the “resolution” issue would make it too difficult to be practical. By resolution, I’m talking about the ability to see characters or symbols in a glass clearly… and that doesn’t even take into account lighting problems or whether mages could focus on the signs or paper. In the later of the forthcoming books about Alyiakal, however, I’ve addressed the “glass” communication issue/problem in a different way.

I greatly enjoy the Grand Illusion series; more so than the others in your extensive works. Not that I haven’t bought, read and enjoyed almost all the others. But, when can I expect the next in the GI series? I read that the next 4 in the Recluse series have been finished. But the publishing schedule that I saw has them in the next 2 or 3 years. It used to be that I worried would favorite authors like Heinlein and Pournelle finish story arcs before they left us. I’m getting to the point where I have to worry about will I last long enough to see them advanced. Thanks from the owner of just about everything in your inventory since The Hammer of Darkness

P.S. A new Ghost novel would be nice but I see difficulties in continuing it!

In response to the last point first, I actually suggested another ghost novel to my publisher, but the sales of the last ghost book — Ghost of the White Nights — were so poor that Tor felt it wouldn’t work.