After a weekend of stalking Scott Lynch, author of the Gentleman Bastards series back in April, he finally allowed me to corner him and ask him some questions in a noisy hallway. We spoke of The Thorn of Emberlain, and his plans for the future of his series, Super Secret Lynch #1, and zombies.

https://www.audiomack.com/song/rmlovatt/the-arched-doorway-interviews-scott-lynch

I attempted to clean the audio up a little bit, which may have caused some distortions. My apologies for that, but I hope you enjoy! Also.. I am so sorry for the 7-ish minute mark. I made a joke about doing what I did, and SJardine forced me to follow through with it.

For those of you unable to listen to the audio, /u/justamathnerd on reddit has provided a bit of a recap:

There are no major flashbacks in Thorn of Emberlain. He mentions that “since this is an even numbered book,” there won’t be flashbacks, even though he included some in Red Seas Under Red Skies. I assume that means that the next odd numbered book (the one after Thorn) will have flashbacks.

We’re gonna get some new “main” characters that will stick for the rest of the series, seemingly they’ll be the Spoilers So Far [1] since he describes them as Jean and Locke’s “opponents.” He talks about how there will be two concurrent stories, Jean and Locke’s as well as these new characters.

since he describes them as Jean and Locke’s “opponents.” He talks about how there will be two concurrent stories, Jean and Locke’s as well as these new characters. He can’t talk about his new project, but hopes to be able to by the end of 2015. He includes a cryptic hint: Hint [2] Who knows what that means? I’m sure people will come up with some interesting theories.

Who knows what that means? I’m sure people will come up with some interesting theories. In response to whether there is going to be more magic or Eldren or clarification on any of that stuff, he said there will be more magic and clarification, but that “not every mystery will be revealed, and not every question will have an answer.” He says he’s a “big believer in leaving some things to the reader’s imagination and leaving some things unsolved.”

He hopes that Untitled Lynch #1 will be the first of a series of side-projects or standalones, but he would like the “central spine of [his] work to be the ongoing Gentleman Bastard sequence and related works, and maybe some other long fantasy series.” He likes long series, but he wants to dabble in off-shoots or projects that are unrelated as well.

The main Gentleman Bastard series is 7 books with some non-essential tie-ins (he has some novellas planned, so my guess is that’s what he means). The follow-up to that will be another 7 books set 20 years after the first. It will feature many of the same characters and many of the same type of situations, and will resolve the “grand story.” It will take us to the natural end of several characters’ lives, show off what happens and tie everything up.

He’s optimistic about speeding his pace up. He says he’s gotten it down to two years between books and wants to get it to one. He says if that was the pace, he could conceivably be done in 10 years, and jokes about how he’s “said this kind of thing before.” It sounds like he’s pretty happy with his output and pace which is all that matters, really.

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