Given the dramatic finish to The Second Siege, I needed to build upon existing storylines and characters while imposing a literal sea change upon the world – a world that was now under the sway of Astaroth and the Book of Thoth.

It was an ambitious undertaking that I tackled between the spring of 2008 and 2010 – a period when I was also getting married and relocating from San Francisco to Brooklyn. Despite all the excitement (or perhaps because of it!) I wanted to indulge every concept, character, or idea and give each its due. The result was an initial manuscript that tipped the scales at over 1000 pages. While the books in many fantasy and science fiction series tend to grow fatter as story progresses, there is almost inevitably going to be some bloat in a novel that size. Either Fiend needed to be split into two books or some of the plot threads and scenes needed trimming.

The process can be a painful one, but I’m convinced that the novel is better for it. That said, you cannot surgically remove forty percent of a work without cutting into bone and there are inevitably some characters, plot threads, scenes and settings that are less developed as a result. Some of these include…

Cutting Room Floor:

• Academic life at Rowan: Many readers love to inhabit a fictional school – particularly one that involves magic – as it gives them an opportunity to explore some of the same issues and dramas that played a role in their past or dominate their present. The concept of a “boarding school story” is one that has been done many times and while I enjoy the intrigues associated with school life as much as the next person, the day-to-day rigors of Rowan Academy are not The Tapestry’s main storyline. In the original draft, we saw more of Max’s brief time in the classroom and were witness to more of his interactions with his fellow students and professors. A more pivotal theme in The Fiend and the Forge concerns Max and his status as an outsider – literally as he has otherworldly blood and emotionally as his ties to loved ones are strained or severed. While I miss some of the atmosphere and banter of a good boarding school tale (Euclidean soccer, study sessions, dating drama) it was a logical cut to make. Close readers of the novel might recall a moment when Max is stealing to Blys and peers inside one of the academic buildings to see his classmates engaged in the late night anguish and camaraderie of exam preparation. It’s a telling moment. Max really isn’t one of them; he’s a hero and heroes often have to work alone. A wistful peek at the “normal life” is all he’s permitted.
  

• Max and Julie Teller: Poor Julie. Despite her smarts and smile, she always ends up on the cutting room floor. There were some nice scenes with Julie in the original draft that detailed the fledgling newspaper wars in Rowan Township and her hot/cold relationship with Max, but ultimately they weren’t critical to the story. Gone by the wayside are some scenes of them on a date (interrupted by Sir Olaf) and a funny little episode where Max tries to buy her a gift (a “sparkly top” to the amusement of some old ladies in a dryad’s boutique) but these had to go. Many readers are interested in this relationship, but given the scope of the main storyline, we ultimately had to reduce its role. We’ll see Julie Teller again – I promise.

• Frigga, Helga, and Sir Olaf: This was to be a storyline throughout the book, culminating in Toby’s unmasking at the end of the book. Unfortunately, it fell into the “amusing scenes of life at Rowan” category and was pared away so that we only get a brief introduction to Sir Olaf and a glimpse into his pompous ways and the strife he has sown between the sisters as they vie for his attentions. There was also a funny story concerning how Toby made his way to Rowan, but the telling would have interrupted the tension toward the book’s conclusion. Rest assured you will hear about it in Book Four. Let’s just say it involves some wealthy lutins, an empty decanter, and a poker game gone awry….
  

• The Monster in the Well: This cut undoubtedly stung the most. While Max is down in the farmhouse well, he discovers a peculiar arrangement of objects in the monster’s lair: a drafting table, framed portraits, and even several file cabinets. While examining the items, Max comes across a diary that detail the strange, sad tale of Robert Hague – a London architect whose horrific decline began when a mysterious stranger approached him in a neighborhood pub. Through his account, we see what was happening in a major city during Astaroth’s rise to power – the toppling of political institutions, civic dissolution, the emergence of vyes, and people’s desperate attempts to evade or placate the new authorities. The stranger commissions Hague to submit a design for a palace on a grand scale – an unprecedented scale. As we learn, the stranger is Prusias and the demon is only too happy to sit by and watch Hague eliminate his competitor in a mad effort to achieve security for his family. His design will become Prusias’s palace, but the man’s physical and moral decline will ultimately transform him into the monster that ends up in the farmhouse well. It was a fun piece of writing as it gave me an opportunity to narrate from a perspective other than Max’s while shedding light on events from the previous book. It also gave us more insight into Prusias and just how evil he really is. Ultimately, it’s a narrative that will find its way into readers’ hands one way or another – perhaps as a “bonus feature” in a paperback or on the web. We shall see….

Not everything ends up on the cutting room floor, however. Here are a few insights into some of the scenes in The Fiend and the Forge and some of the inspiration behind them.

Concepts, Scenes, and their Inspirations:

• The Moon Has a Face – When I was a little boy, we had a book of nursery rhymes that included this poem by Robert Louis Stevenson. Accompanying the poem was an illustration of masked thieves crouched on the garden wall and I loved to find the page and stare it. The combination of the words and picture fascinated me – the frightening concept of thieves and the romantic image of them scaling the roofs and garden walls of a sleeping city. I also think the poem is particularly beautiful - its rhythms and forms just happen to strike a chord with me and I wanted to include it. It was a perfect opening to the book’s setting – a celestial entity that watches over all and has the power to frighten and fascinate…just like Astaroth.

• The Haglings – By the end of The Hound of Rowan, I loved Mum and the concept of hags so much that I resolved to develop the concept further in each book. Thus we meet Bellagrog in The Second Siege and are practically swarmed by haglings in The Fiend and the Forge. I wanted the haglings to defy expectations – unlike most babies, the haglings are not cute or helpless. In fact, they’re just as likely to eat their parent as the other way around. When it comes to the hags, dark humor is the order of the day and it will be interesting to see how they develop now that they’re living back across the ocean and growing Shrope Industries. Rest assured, that we haven’t seen the last of the Shropes!

• Demons and the Médim – As a boy I once read a Norse myth in which the god Thor travels to Jötunheim – the land of the giants – along with several companions. An interesting feature of Norse mythology is that the giants are not merely oversized brutes, but legitimate rivals to the gods and possessing a wisdom and magic all their own. In fact, as Thor travels into Jötunheim, he and his companions are challenged in a variety of contests to test their mettle. In each contest, Thor and his companions are humiliated…only at the end does Thor realize that he has been duped and that he has actually performed heroically against unbeatable odds. When contemplating the demons, I wanted them to be more than “super monsters” but rather a distinct species with a history and culture all their own. It struck me that their culture would be one of extremes – beauty and refinement punctuated by episodes of horrific brutality and primal impulses. The center of their emotional compass would be cruelty – the casual exercise of power for amusement and to demonstrate dominance. What could be more attractive to such beings than contests that span not only the physical, but also the artistic and spiritual? The médim offered me an opportunity to introduce my readers to demons in such a way that we are exposed to a culture that can encompass the beauty of Lady Akiko’s belyäel and Grahn’s unblinking savagery.

• Max’s journey across the sea – As many readers know, Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are inspired Max’s name and several aspects of the story. I was intrigued by the idea that a little boy could be the wildest thing of all and have played with the concept throughout The Tapestry. While Sendak’s Max plays in his wolf suit, my Max encounters the wolfhound in his dreams and the vyes have a distinctly wolfish cast. One of the most magical interludes of Sendak’s tale involves Max’s journey over the sea. As Max McDaniels sets out into the world, I wanted to capture some of the same aspects – a young person set adrift on the sea in a little boat. They both see monsters and they both learn something of themselves. When writing this section, I was mindful of Max’s journey into strangeness. His first encounters are wholly natural – seabirds and storms that ultimately give way to Astaroth’s grotesque experiments. The attack by the shark upon the red seal-like creature was meant to symbolize the savage co-existence and overlap between the old world and the new. Max’s final encounter was to be a boiling sea as a mountain is raised from the depth– a grand reminder that Astaroth has the Book and is reshaping the world. Alas, even plate tectonics are subject to word counts.

• The grylmhoch – Nobody conceives or conveys horror or fundamental strangeness quite like H.P. Lovecraft. I’ve been a big fan of his work for years and wanted to incorporate some of his mythos into my own. To anyone familiar with The Dunwich Horror or The Mountains of Madness, the grylmhoch will seem reminiscent of Wilbur’s barn-splitting brother or the hideous, bubbling shuggoths that are described at with such a fearful reverence. Fold in a bit of Heracles’s encounter with the hydra and we have a nauseating juggernaut who becomes even more dangerous with every blow you land. Lovecraft’s brilliant creations provided me with an opportunity to hint at vaster, older, and stranger universe than we get to experience within the context of The Tapestry. If you’ve never read Lovecraft, I can’t encourage it strongly enough – it is far more imaginative and frightening than anything I’ve read before or since.