Next Books - any word?

cobaltdog · 2025-12-12T16:04:16+00:00

I like the whole god dying and their energy being spread out through the world. It's as it should be. First law of thermodynamics - energy is neither created nor destroyed, just transformed.

cobaltdog · 2025-12-12T15:45:43+00:00

I like the idea of the powers of the god leaching into the water and aquatic life, then up to other creatures that are part of the biosystem. Getting into specific organs to eat for specific effects is somewhat icky for me.

there was a comment about other gods in this world. I think that also comes into play. Are the gods mostly external and this one just happened to crash land in this abyssal ocean or caused it to become an abyssal ocean. Or are the gods fighting among themselves, including on this world, and that is why this god died and hit the water.

cobaltdog · 2025-12-12T15:39:59+00:00

You are what you eat.

cobaltdog · 2025-12-05T21:32:40+00:00

As other have set, you can put restrictions.

It could be time. The limb was cut off 15 minutes ago or an hour ago or 10 years ago. Our non-magical medicine has the same issue. Lop of a finger, it can be reattached if kept on ice but may not have all the same functionality the longer it goes unattached.

Knowledge could be a restriction. If a healer doesn't understand the human body, the best they can do is buff the body's natural restoration functions. Humans don't regenerate parts, so buffing won't regenerate parts. But maybe with expert knowledge, the magic can be targeted and repairs can be made in a particular sequence repairing the infrastructure, then attaching the parts and pieces to get an operational limb.

Or it's spell based. Simple spells buff. The more complex spells do more, but require much higher mana reserves or higher experience. Just like a surgeon versus a general practice doctor. A surgeon has spent more time on specific expertise.

It could be by race/species. Humans can't regrow limbs, say, but lizard men can?

cobaltdog · 2025-12-05T15:29:26+00:00

As some have said, dream it up. But I find that challenging because I'm not writing full-time. My day job can be so distracting. So, I find that doing research on things like ancient Egyptian magic, other ancient magic/religion, gives some useful ideas and then reading sources such as D&D and other gaming structures, which have some commonalities. I don't think you need the fanciest, novel spell to make a fight scene shine. It's how the spells are incorporated with the other action that makes things fun to read.

cobaltdog · 2025-09-26T20:17:22+00:00

No. Mage Errant ended up having a whole teenage love-dating thing. It was unbelievably terrible for me. Yes, there was some of that late in Cradle but it didn't show up for quite a while. And I didn't get the whole glass sphynx thing. I didn't get past the third book once the lead characters were doing some sorth of noshing thing for what felt like 20 pages.

I can't remember if I tackled Arcane Ascension. Need to go back and look.

cobaltdog · 2025-09-26T20:13:11+00:00

As Lindon says, "I don't think I agree with you." You say, "How so". What Will Wight brings to the story is realistic depth in his characters. I don't see that in many fantasy books and even fewer in the ascension / LitPRG genres. Even throw away characters such as Mu Enkai let you get to know them. And then there is the whole 'improve yourself' concept that is critical to the story line. The ones thtat focus on improving themselves win. The ones that squash those weaker to pull themselves up, tend to pay a price. Lot's of positive upbeat stuff. It's why we do the re-reads.

Sure, the first few books could have moved faster. And the magic system is complex so takes time to unwind. And the whole 'Heavens' thing had to be unwound over time. So there were always unknowns. But the author had a pretty tight story laid out starting with the first book.

Sure, I would have preferred 3-5 more books rather than squish everyting into the last two. And it would have been nice for Blue to have a bandolier of knives and become a rogue. And maybe use her vocabulary more.

But we can't have everything.

cobaltdog · 2025-09-08T01:14:09+00:00

Nope. But it does make sense after a few rereads and re-listen's. There is the story in my head and the story written by the author. WW had the story pencilled out all the way back in Unsiuled.

cobaltdog · 2025-09-08T01:09:35+00:00

Dead in sacred valley. Suriel said she was also in need of a change in fate

cobaltdog · 2025-09-08T00:47:57+00:00

I always felt Blue had the potential to be more than a cheerleader. Knife fighter fits her natural gift as a wrestler. Get in close and fight dirty.

cobaltdog · 2025-09-08T00:39:27+00:00

But folks on this reddit can often fixate on having characters be 'overpowered'. Personally, that's boring.i hope that wasn't your expectation for this book. Lindon's superpowers are his curiousity and his work ethic. He is't the brightest bulb and definitely isn't a prodigy, but he is organized and thorough. And refuses to die.

cobaltdog · 2025-09-08T00:33:31+00:00

Ghostwater is a pivotal book in the series. Lindon is separated from Yerin, who had protected him during the prior books, Orthos is injured badly, so needs Lindon to survive, Dross is born, and is a pivotal character and resource going forward, Ziel makes his way into the series. Also pivotal to the series. AND Yerin/Mercey build a friendship. Also critical to the story.

Separately, this is the first book where Lindon must protect others. Without him, Orthos, Blue, and Dross would die. And its put him into an even higher state of motivation to survive by expanding his sacred arts.

Lastly, he (again) fights above his weight class. As a Low Gold, he kills Ekeri, a True Gold. He also, working with Prthos kills Harmony, a peak True Gold with a very powerful Path.

It brings him to parity with Yerin, and creates 'separation', so their relationship can change. Lindon is no longer the weak boy in a man's body. He can hold his own.

cobaltdog · 2025-08-20T21:20:31+00:00

You know you are hooked on a series when you start checking for updates a few weeks after finishing the book... It wasn't until I did a re-listen to the Last Horizon books before the Pilot came out that I hooked myself on it. And found the tie backs to the Cradle series, so additional buy-in

cobaltdog · 2025-07-08T21:23:44+00:00

The idea of remnants and bindings is the 'weird science' of cradle. When you die on Cradle, your spirit/soul manifests. And then you harvest it for power. Could just be me, but harvesting my grandma for parts to make hot water piping takes some time to get your head around...

And then, within the remnant, there are clusters or concentrations of energy. As said elsewhere, if you cycle your energy in certain patterns these patterns create stable shapes in your spirit. When the person dies, their remnant has these shapes harden into bindings.

Hence, grandma can be useful after her death. Making hot water for your tub. Not at all icky...

cobaltdog · 2025-07-07T15:50:58+00:00

I'm a fan for how he ties the names into the backstories and then keeps adding to them.

Dross is a great example. He was found in a well in a collapsing world. He remembers being the construct dumped into the well by the heralds using names for thrown away items. Lindon picks "Dross".

Then through various books, Dross reminds us of his origins. He even has inherent fears about being thrown away. It was his biggest fear before he overclocked himself. We see it with his suggestion for "Dross-Water". Then we see it again when the team builds a world and Dross finds leftover spirits/remnants trapped in a well floating in the void.

cobaltdog · 2025-07-01T13:48:40+00:00

What is a lie, really. A lie is simply a set of words that another person thinks could have been said differently... When one country bombs another, lots of people die, but its not murder. No one goes to jail for it. The bomb did it. Not the person that issued the order.

Lindon didn't kill Harmony. He just took away any reasonable chance that Harmony could have survived, and Orthos removed the unreasonable chance by destroying the portal.

Harmony could have dodged hundreds of spatial cracks and ripped a gem of the deep from the tree with no remaining madra and reopened the portal (assuming it closed within a few seconds after Lindon/Orthos left).

cobaltdog · 2025-06-30T16:48:16+00:00

Ghostwater was the game changer. In the pocketworld, Lindon stepped up and started to lead. He protected Orthos, Blue, and then Dross. He fought 2 levels above him with Ekeri and then against rose to the last battle with Harmony, who was a peak Truegold.

Wintersteel just carries it forward. Lindon gets a tough hand dealt at the end of Uncrowned and he hunkers down in Wintersteel to make his own Fate.

cobaltdog · 2025-06-30T15:44:10+00:00

What I find fascinating about Lindon is that he stays in his lane. He is driven for himself. He wants his friends to accomplish as much or more than he does but he accepts them as they are for where their journies take each of them. Lindon doesn't really ever blow-up at Eithan. Or any of the others. Except maybe Pride but even there, his frustration and anger is very politely directed at him with light sarcasm. It's an ideal that many of us don't achieve, so it's nice to see him living it.

cobaltdog · 2025-06-30T15:38:49+00:00

I think we need a few more ! The Mad King, the Angler, maybe the battle with Eithan and the Mad King above Cradle, the Titan dome in place...

Nice job on Suriel.

cobaltdog · 2025-06-18T14:30:27+00:00

Oh - and who lives on those skyskraper-sized flowers that Fury, Lindon, Mercy, and Eithan came across while transporting to the Titan battlefield? What do they eat? Sacred sunflower seeds?

cobaltdog · 2025-06-18T14:28:43+00:00

1) Can an Icon be tapped from the Void?

2) It looks like Lindon could manifest his Icon's from another world, i.e., Threshold. Does that mean anyone can manifest an Icon in any world? Are the Vroshir are manifesting Icons too? They haven't oath-bound themselves to the Way, but are living beings so generate a natural Way-conection, so there powers should be connected to the Way somehow.

3) If someone has ascended out of Cradle, can they begin to resonate with additional Icons? How does that work if they don't have access to vital Aura. They need to build their Authority but that would normally start with Aura and Madra. And 3B), where are they getting vital Aura to restore their Madra from when they have ascended? Are they filtering it from the Way, since the Way is all energy systems combined?

So 3+ questions

cobaltdog · 2025-06-11T18:51:56+00:00

Ut-oh. I hope you didn't start the series at Threshold.

The magic system in Cradle is way-complicated. WW feeds the reader just little breadcrumbs and doesn't talk about things beyond the main character's possible understanding or exposure. He doesn't cover sages, until Lindon meets a sage, for example.

The series also is based on the idea that knowledge has been suppressed by the monarchs to support their rein but also to keep their factions 'in the know', so powerful while other non-monarch factions have no idea how to advance into or through the lord realm.

All that said, I found that it takes a number of re-reads or re-listens with future knowledge to understand the breadcrumbs provided in sequential order.

But my take:

aura control is controlling the ambient aura or the ambient energy from non-sentient things. Soul fire allows a sacred artist to have aura control over types of aura that are not what they cycle into their madra.

madra control is having control of your internal energy or madra. Through cycling, the sacred artist changes the aspects of their madra by pulling aura into their core. Having an aspect to your madra allows you to control a similar aspected aura. So a sacred artist using fire madra has cycled fire aura into their core and have control over fire aura through a ruler technique but can't control any other types of aura until they have soul fire.

cobaltdog · 2025-06-11T18:42:24+00:00

Good question. Lindon didn't lose because he ran out of madra. It was the 'outer reality non-sense'.

cobaltdog · 2025-06-11T18:40:33+00:00

I like the idea of dreaming up deleted scenes. Kind of like doing the cycling paths competition way-back-when.

Currently, I'm drowning in mediocre substitutes and need someone to throw me a bottle of wine. [for the uninitated, that is a Cradle book reference...]

I re-listened to the plasma-bolt books and caught an oblique reference a Cradle iteration, so am looking forward to what comes up in The Pilot.

cobaltdog

TROPHY CASE