197 réponses à ce sujet

[Willowhugger]

Thank you for making the book whatever the case.

It was very good and if you continue to write, I hope to check out your works in the future.

[Tov01]

A friend on LiveJournal wants to know:
 

Spoiler

"There is a minor character early on who mentions that he underwent his Joining during the 5th blight, and he is from Ferelden. He actually says that it happened after King Cailan died, but then the Blight was over before he got to do any fighting. Got that? He was made a Warden in Ferelden between the Battle of Ostagar and the Battle of Denerim.

That's during the events of Dragon Age: Origins when they were only three Wardens around. I don't remember having my PC do it, and I'm sure that Alistair didn't do it (he even says he doesn't know how) so that leaves Riordan. Are we meant to believe that while scouting his way across Ferelden, Riordan stopped to give some people the Joining?"

[CAPT Awesome CG]

Great book, it was outstanding.  I finished it and felt a tickle in the back of my head, does anyone else remember this...
 
http://www.dragonage.../images/image35
 
and do you think it is coincidence that  

Spoiler

there are 13 characters in that picture and there are 13 baby griffons found at the end of Last Flight?

[Willowhugger]

A friend on LiveJournal wants to know:
 

Spoiler

"There is a minor character early on who mentions that he underwent his Joining during the 5th blight, and he is from Ferelden. He actually says that it happened after King Cailan died, but then the Blight was over before he got to do any fighting. Got that? He was made a Warden in Ferelden between the Battle of Ostagar and the Battle of Denerim.

That's during the events of Dragon Age: Origins when they were only three Wardens around. I don't remember having my PC do it, and I'm sure that Alistair didn't do it (he even says he doesn't know how) so that leaves Riordan. Are we meant to believe that while scouting his way across Ferelden, Riordan stopped to give some people the Joining?"

 

Actually, that makes perfect sense.

 

We just never got to see these Wardens in action.

[operageek]

Let me add my congratulations as well, it was a great read! I finished the whole thing in one sitting last night. I particularly liked the fact that there were two female protagonists... and no romance arcs or love triangles with either of them

 

I am very curious to see how the events of the novel will influence or feature in DAI...

[FiveThreeTen]

Just finished it and it was a really good read.

Admittedly, I found the writing less fluid than in Asunder and The Masked Empire (but English isn't my mother tongue).

In some instances I had to look up for some words but that's because there were more descriptions (and that's ok, I like learning new words!).

 

What I really liked:

Spoiler

- Isseya, OMG, her doubts, her resolute sense of sacrifice, her dedication to the Griffons, that's a Grey Warden. Outstanding character (and I usually don't like throwing superlatives around)

- The impending doom and desperation brought by the Blight

- I really felt heartbroken as more and more Griffons were put through the modified Joining, and it's hard to make me care

- The Valya sections were a nice balance and I liked how it showed glimpses of the Mage-Templar war

- The ending felt a bit rushed but satisfying nonetheless because I felt the true weight of the events depicted in Isseya's Journal along with Valya as the eggs hatched :')

 

I may have one question though:

 

I didn't catch the color of Isseya's eyes.
I think it was mentioned in chapter 7 when Senaste's eyes are described: "Her pale blue eyes fixed on Isseya's, pitiless as a hawk's" but it isn't clear if this imply that Isseya share the same color.

 

I ask because I imagine some fans will want to draw some fanarts and many like to know that sort of details.

[Thunderfox]

A friend on LiveJournal wants to know:
 

Spoiler

"There is a minor character early on who mentions that he underwent his Joining during the 5th blight, and he is from Ferelden. He actually says that it happened after King Cailan died, but then the Blight was over before he got to do any fighting. Got that? He was made a Warden in Ferelden between the Battle of Ostagar and the Battle of Denerim.

That's during the events of Dragon Age: Origins when they were only three Wardens around. I don't remember having my PC do it, and I'm sure that Alistair didn't do it (he even says he doesn't know how) so that leaves Riordan. Are we meant to believe that while scouting his way across Ferelden, Riordan stopped to give some people the Joining?"

 Even in Thedas Emigration isn't unheard of. He could be a Fereldan who moved to The Anderfels/Orlais and became a warden there.

[LianeMerciel]

I also really liked Lisme...super cool to see a ...genderfluid (? is that how you intended them to be read?) character, and wanted more time with them! Do you have more of a backstory or tibits on them you could share?

 

Thanks! I'm happy that Lisme was received well. Yes, that character is meant to be fluid in identity, which caused my poor hardworking copyeditor a few headaches, but I liked the concept enough to push through.

As far as backstory, what's there is what's there. That's one of those situations where I'm inclined to let people invent their own backstories and not add too much beyond what's on the page.

[LianeMerciel]

A friend on LiveJournal wants to know:
 

Spoiler

"There is a minor character early on who mentions that he underwent his Joining during the 5th blight, and he is from Ferelden. He actually says that it happened after King Cailan died, but then the Blight was over before he got to do any fighting. Got that? He was made a Warden in Ferelden between the Battle of Ostagar and the Battle of Denerim.

That's during the events of Dragon Age: Origins when they were only three Wardens around. I don't remember having my PC do it, and I'm sure that Alistair didn't do it (he even says he doesn't know how) so that leaves Riordan. Are we meant to believe that while scouting his way across Ferelden, Riordan stopped to give some people the Joining?"

 

If that's Caronel, then

 

Spoiler

he is from Ferelden but was not actually recruited there. It would have been imprudent to stick around after what happened to his family, so he pretty much skipped town immediately and joined up later when he had a little more breathing room.

 

The exact circumstances of Caronel's Joining are deliberately ambiguous because I wanted to leave room to tie in another character later (for example, if there should happen to be an interesting Warden introduced in DA:I who might have done it) and didn't have a clear connection in mind at the time that I wrote this book. But his actual Joining did not take place in Ferelden.

[LianeMerciel]

I didn't catch the color of Isseya's eyes.

I think it was mentioned in chapter 7 when Senaste's eyes are described: "Her pale blue eyes fixed on Isseya's, pitiless as a hawk's" but it isn't clear if this imply that Isseya share the same color.

 

I ask because I imagine some fans will want to draw some fanarts and many like to know that sort of details.

 

First: I am so happy you enjoyed the book, and thank you for the very kind words!

Regarding Isseya's eye color, what I have in my notes is "hazel green." I should note, though, that I tend to change character descriptions a lot between what's in my notes and what ends up making it onto the page, so if something else does appear in the text, then definitely go with that over what I say here.

 

It's pretty spiffy to think people might want to do fan art of these characters. I can't draw a circle to save my life, so I'm always totally thrilled when I see people bringing these characters to life in images. Artistic talent just awes me.

[LianeMerciel]

On a quasi-related note, I might as well go ahead and confess that Crookytail is my dog. Well, one of my dogs. Probably a solid 25% of the reason Last Flight ends the way it does is because I felt so bad about fictionally killing off the poor goober.

Lookit this dork (and yes, his tail is crooked, although you can't see it in this pic):

 

[kukumburr]

On a quasi-related note, I might as well go ahead and confess that Crookytail is my dog. Well, one of my dogs. Probably a solid 25% of the reason Last Flight ends the way it does is because I felt so bad about fictionally killing off the poor goober.

Lookit this dork (and yes, his tail is crooked, although you can't see it in this pic):

Spoiler

 

That's adorable. He's so photogenic!

 

Revas was awesome and all, but if I got to choose a griffon I would totally go for a Crookytail. I'm a sucker for slightly weird and goofy (but insanely cute) pets.

[LianeMerciel]

"Goofy" is definitely a good word to describe (the real) Crooky! I train and compete in a number of dog sports with my other dog (a lot of the griffon training/relationship material draws on that background with working and sport dogs), but Crooky is just... Crooky.

 

 

Looking forward to this. I'll be picking up a hard copy sometime this weekend. A question for you Ms. Merciel, did you chose the premise of your book or did BioWare already have a story in mind and brought you in to write it?

 

That's a good question! The answer might be a little long, though.

Coming up with a storyline for a tie-in book is always a collaborative process. If the author isn't interested in the story or characters, then you're not likely to get a very good piece. On the other hand, the publisher can't allow the book to break anything in the game, and may want to highlight or conceal certain parts of the world depending on their plans for upcoming game releases. Different publishers have different ways of approaching it, but that's always the main trick: balancing the author's creative freedom with the need to stay true to the IP.

 

A potential complicating factor here (I will speculate, although nobody ever actually came out and said this) was that this was the first time I'd done anything with Bioware, and I was a bit of an unknown quantity to most of them. And again, there had been a mixed track record with outside authors in the past, so I think that maybe the Bioware team wanted to keep the novel contained to something that was a little more on the periphery and was less likely to risk messing up things that would be front and center in the game. In other words, the story had to be connected enough to the Dragon Age world to feel integral and important, and to add some interesting aspects to the lore, but also not something that was going to be right smack in the middle of Inquisition -- both because that might take away from players feeling like they were the central figures in the drama as they played through the game, and because if I screwed up with something big then we might all get a tsunami of fan rage.

 

So the Bioware team threw out several suggestions for ideas and characters that hit that middle ground of "connected but not central." I did synopsis treatments for the two that I thought offered the best potential for stories I could tell well -- the Fourth Blight storyline and a different one -- to show the general approaches I wanted to take and plot developments I wanted to use for the concepts. They decided the Fourth Blight story was the stronger of the two, and offered some suggestions for better ways to ground particular plot points in DA lore (all of which were way better than my original ideas, btw -- this is an incredibly creative and talented team!), and then they cut me loose to go write the thing.

 

From the beginning, it was meant to mainly be a book about what happened during the Fourth Blight. The frame narrative was added for three reasons: one, because everybody already knows how the Fourth Blight ended, so there wasn't a whole lot of suspense to the big outcome there, but adding a modern-day thread to the story opened more room for uncertainty; two, because I was concerned that if it was a purely historical story with no clear relevance to the current state of the world, then we might lose a certain number of readers who wouldn't be interested without that hook; three, because adding the frame narrative allowed us to drop in a couple of very small hints about what's going on with the present-day Wardens.

 

And that's how we ended up with Last Flight.

[Tov01]

If that's Caronel, then

 

Spoiler

he is from Ferelden but was not actually recruited there. It would have been imprudent to stick around after what happened to his family, so he pretty much skipped town immediately and joined up later when he had a little more breathing room.

 

The exact circumstances of Caronel's Joining are deliberately ambiguous because I wanted to leave room to tie in another character later (for example, if there should happen to be an interesting Warden introduced in DA:I who might have done it) and didn't have a clear connection in mind at the time that I wrote this book. But his actual Joining did not take place in Ferelden.

Thanks for answering!

[FiveThreeTen]

First: I am so happy you enjoyed the book, and thank you for the very kind words!

Regarding Isseya's eye color, what I have in my notes is "hazel green." I should note, though, that I tend to change character descriptions a lot between what's in my notes and what ends up making it onto the page, so if something else does appear in the text, then definitely go with that over what I say here.

 

It's pretty spiffy to think people might want to do fan art of these characters. I can't draw a circle to save my life, so I'm always totally thrilled when I see people bringing these characters to life in images. Artistic talent just awes me.

Thanks fo the answer. I noticed fanarts based on the novels are slower to appear but I hope to see some Griffons arts around in the next few months!

[wsowen02]

Just wanted to stop in and say that I loved the book.  Initially, the premise was not one I was terribly interested in but I was hooked within a few pages! You did a wonderful job Mrs. Merciel!

[AllThatJazz]

Really enjoyed Last Flight, I found Issaya a very compelling protagonist - I do like characters who do 'bad things' for good reasons and then struggle with themselves over that. I also appreciated how you made Blood Magic seem dangerous -  not just by way of physical harm to the caster or others and demon involvement of course, but also in terms of unforseen and unintended longer-term consequences. Thanks for the hard work, and I hope you write more for Dragon Age  

[Rel Fexive]

Excellent book, a great read and the right blend of action/drama/tragedy/revelation for me.  Plenty of feels to be had also.

[LianeMerciel]

Thank you, everyone. I really am touched that you enjoyed the book.

 

Thanks for the hard work, and I hope you write more for Dragon Age

 

I would love to, but whether that happens or not is probably more in the fans' hands than mine at this point. If you guys liked Last Flight, then let Bioware know. And, conversely, if you didn't, then let them know that, too! (I mean that seriously: if it's not in this thread then it won't hurt my feelings. I'm not even on Twitter or Tumblr or most of the other social networking sites, so I'll never see it. Internet hermiting ftw!)

 

I don't know what their plan is for any future novels in the line. I suspect that decision may be influenced by fan reactions, but in all honesty I don't have any information about that. Your guess is as good as mine.

 

In any case, I really did have a ton of fun getting to write this book, and if they asked me to come back then I'd be delighted (provided the scheduling worked out, of course -- I'm a slow writer and I can't do more than one book a year. I wrote Last Flight in the same year as one of my Pathfinder books and it was brutal trying to hit both of those deadlines while also turning in half-decent work. I think it worked out okay for Last Flight, because this was heavily inspired by real-life war memoirs and books like David Gemmell's Legend, so it was always supposed to be a stripped-down, taut narrative... but even with that, it was still tough, and most of the little things that bug me are tied to deadline constraints. With a more expansive, wider-scope story it would have been outright impossible).

 

And if not, hey, at least I got to do this one.

[nightscrawl]

Hi Liane! I didn't know you were in this thread. Thanks for answering so many questions! I read it over a couple of days -- couldn't put it down. I really enjoyed it. It was quite nice to get back to the Wardens after all this time, and to get away from some of the conflicts of present day Thedas, especially since we will be thrust back into them come November 18.

 

I have to say that I really did not expect the ending and really hope that the game devs do something with it in the future.

 

Spoiler

Also, I found it quite refreshing that there was no major romance content in this novel. All of the previous novels have had some elements of it, some significant to the plot and character development, others not. But it was nice to not have any of that this time around. Don't get me wrong, I really enjoy some good angst over this or that person, but variety is good too!

[LianeMerciel]

Thanks!

 

Another question for you Ms. Merciel. If you had complete free rein on your next Dragon Age novel what/when/where would you like to write about?

 

Hmm, how much can I answer this question without tipping my hand about alternative story ideas that have already been considered...

 

I'll say this: there are a ton of interesting possibilities in the DA world. You could tell thousands of stories in this world and barely start to scratch the surface.

I think it might be interesting to spend some time with the dwarves and explore some of the ramifications of their caste system and the constant tug of war vs. darkspawn over the Deep Roads. The way that golems are created in this world also offers some pretty powerful story potential, although I'd have to spend a while thinking of ways to differentiate and/or echo Shale's storyline without duplicating it too much.

 

I think the Tevinters are very interesting too, particularly in contrast with attitudes toward magic (and, interwoven with that, attitudes toward slavery) in the rest of Thedas. It sets them up to be big obvious blood magic villains, which of course instantly makes me want to grab onto that and try for a more detailed (not necessarily more sympathetic, but more detailed) exploration of how and why all that stuff works.

 

The portrayal of elves in Thedas is also full of neat ideas. I'm the child of an immigrant myself, and I never learned to speak my mother's native language beyond a few words, and when I go back to what is supposed to be the homeland, I always feel weirdly out of place and disconnected from this culture where I imagine that I should feel some familiarity. So all those ideas about being split away from your identity, and not even really knowing anything about what's supposed to be your own history, culture, language -- having to piece that all together from little scraps and distorted myths that have survived centuries of oppression -- all of those concepts are immediately compelling to me. (This comes into play a little with Valya's discovery of the map and [although I screwed up a little getting this onto the page, because it wasn't written as clearly as it should have been] Isseya's misconception of what aravels are. Neither of them has any real idea what the original culture of the elves might have been; they have to rely on tiny shreds of folklore and passed-down rumor to imagine what their heritage should be.)

 

And, lastly, everything to do with magic and mages gets me at once. Partly because it's fun to imagine and the DA magic system immediately throws out a billion and one story ideas, but also partly because it makes combat sequences easier to write.

 

One of the things I struggled with was how to portray the special abilities of non-mage classes in the text. A lot of the things they can do in the game are effectively supernatural, and it occasionally took some thinking for me to figure out how to write them without making it sound like a non-mage character could do magical things. My personal inclination is to strive toward realism as much as possible (within the limits of the genre, of course!), so I didn't want to have people punching each other, flying through the air, and bashing into walls like they were in a superhero comic. It's just easier for me to hit that balance when I can use spell effects to fill in some of the gap between what you see in the game and what you read on the page.

 

Of course, now that I've said all this, probably if I ever do write another DA book it'll have none of these things.

[Lieutenant Kurin]

Hey! Hey! I also loved the book. It was a huge lore fest of fun, although I felt like some of the characters were a bit spartan.

 

That being said, Amadis is a fantastic character. She isn't all goody-goody, or evil to a fault. She's pragmatic, smart and (I'd say), has got a great 'wistful' quality by the end of the book. Reimas' story about her father is fantastic of course, (I was really tired of the "my family member became an abomination" stories, which felt overused to me).

Spoiler

And the hints to Orlais' Wardens being out of contact finally answers my questions to whether all Wardens are bad in DA:I, apparently they have an enemy offshoot just as Templars and mages do. One question though: What exactly is Caronel? We see him casting spells, but he fights with a sword, am I right? Is he a battlemage, arcane warrior, knight enchanter? Or do I have it wrong, and he's like a rogue or something? Bonus question: Is Garahel a rogue?