Sunday 1 May 2022

Notes and sketches for the Revenger books

 In the comments to the last post, it was asked if I had any more detailed information on the timeline for the Congregation, as featured in the Revenger series.

I do have some more information on various aspects of that universe, in the form of notes and drawings done for my benefit while writing the books. These were never intended for publication, just as memory aids, and in some respects represent earlier drafts of names and characters compared to how they eventually appeared. Now that the dust has settled, though, I thought it wouldn't hurt to put them up here.

I'm going to present these scans without comment as they should be self-explanatory to those who have read the books. However, if there's anything that's not clear, please feel free to comment and I'll try to shed light. The timeline is right at the bottom.

















































16 comments:

  1. So cool, thank you for this. Kids are amazed an author they know responded to a personal request. I think CS will make a fantastic setting for an RPG. Ten million years of history, aliens, lost cultures and artifacts from previous Occupations, pirates...cannot go wrong :)

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  2. No worries, my pleasure.

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  3. Love the drawings of the Revenger characters; they are very close to what I imagined them to be when reading the books. Thanks for sharing these.
    Norayr

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  4. these are amazing. I want to go back and read them all again after seeing this.

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  5. This is brilliant. Thanks so much for this.

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  6. These are marvelous--even though I often find your script illegible! But it's also a chance for me to tell you how wonderful I thought these Revenger books were. I really believe I've never experienced a universe quite like the one detailed within them, ancient but also cyclic, and exotic, yet close to home. I know that you've said you're done with the Ness sisters, but I hold out hope you'll revisit the Congregation.

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  7. Thanks for the insight.

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  8. Hi Alistair, this notebook is gold. I've always wondered how writers plan their books. I don't think I'd have the mental capacity! I plan to print it, and keep it inside my Revenger collection for future readers. I've combined the pictures into a PDF if anyone else wants to print it: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1CBEG526D6N4T-9ZMMcm1nc-bKY1puLR2/view?usp=sharing

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  9. So cool to see the process, thanks for sharing

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  10. C. John Arthur8 May 2022 at 05:51

    Having seen your artistic endeavors over the years, it was cool to see how you use your artistic skills to construct your books. A real eye opener -and made me think about using the same approach for my fiction...though far I'm less accomplished as both an artist and writer, naturally.

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  11. Nice collection, your creativity is quite something. On related news, you made Penny-Arcade earlier this week :
    https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2022/05/09/books-and-their-covers

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  12. Thank you so much for sharing! Such an insight into your brilliant books. Wonderful.

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  13. Thank you for confirming the length of a league. (I mentally do x5 when reading, happy to learn I wasn't too far off)

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  14. Thank you for sharing - it's great to see your vision of characters and how it matches to the picture I have in my head!

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  15. This is wonderful. Did you create images like this for other books?

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    1. Not to the same extent. There's a bunch of notes for Pushing Ice somewhere on the blog, but it'll be a few years back.

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