had you planed it being "partly set" in russia based on the events other there or it was a coincidence?

Coincidence, mostly. I knew that LGBT people had a tough time there, and one of the bits in the story (Alexei thinking that he might be sent to a drug rehab place) was based on an actual news story I read about a Russian teen. But I had already finished the manuscript when the latest round of stuff exploded.

well i think that was a very clever way that you had to put it and try to make people realize stuff out of their "range"

What inspired the train at the ending
I thought it was a very powerful addition to the book and it drew a lot of emotion from me

Trains are a common mythical symbol from a certain time period (which includes the 1890s). It was a way for people to move from one place to another, so when you're talking about moving from one plane of existence to another, the train suggests itself as a metaphor in that case. It's also nice because it has the "we are going; you are staying" dynamic that I wanted for that scene. Previously in fiction there are stories like "That Hell-Bound Train" that make use of the same device.

If you extend the metaphor you can think of the train as Purgatory. I'm not going to nail it down that precisely, but you can certainly make it fit without too much trouble. :)

cool that's what I figured, you captured the feeling of everything gloriously,
the feeling the whole book emoted was fantastic,definatly one of my favorites

I can't wait to read about Meg X3

What happened to Slava? I mean, I guess I know what happened, but what drove him to do it?

That was partly inspired by this: http://www.nydailynews.com/life-sty.....icle-1.1020680 and partly by an article I can't find right now that mentioned a rash of suicides by jumping off buildings. It became a thing (sort of like how here in the Bay Area every couple years you get 2 or 3 people who decide to jump in front of trains all in a short span, only worse).

Anyway, for Slava specifically, he'd failed a test. He believed that this would hold him back and that he would never get out of his town, and felt like he'd let down everyone who believed in him.

Ah okies, aaaaaaaand

1. As the author, have you ever thought of Sol and Alexei getting together? I mean, after the climax I thought I read about some kind of affection of Alexei towards Sol, or was that just me?

2. Will Sol be dating Kendall now? Or is he really just "a boy"?

3. What will happen to Alexei? I mean dating Mike, trying to get asylum or something, or will we read about that all in Black Angel?

Sol and Alexei never really felt like a couple to me. As for what happens after this book, you'll see it in the next one. :)

I could see Sol and Alexei being one of those possibly comical or possibly just horribly awkward situations where circumstances collude to make them briefly explore things beyond the bounds of friendship...either to burst into giggles (which granted doesn't sound like them, but we haven't really seen them at their best either), or for one of them to suddenly ask "What the heck are we doing?" and...yeah, horribly awkward.

Not so much a question, but it might be worthwhile to recap your answer to the question of whether you had RD in mind while you were writing GF. That was good stuff. :)

Are you of the opinion that in the afterlife Nicholas and Konstantin are eventually reconciled?

Will we be seeing more of the vampire fox, and was writing him into RD always part of the "plan", such as it was?

Was trying this into the end of the Russian tsar period always part of the plan? If not, how did that come about?

How on Earth did you manage to write a story that I found so profoundly moving? :p

Yikes. Okay, in order:

1. I did not have this story specifically in mind while writing GF, but there was an implied connection between Alexei and Niki, something I was going to work into GF but which got axed because it didn't work. However, that connection suggested RD strongly, and I knew this would be a story regardless of whether GF did well. I was happy GF did well, though, because then Sofawolf was glad to publish this one.

2. Man, I dunno how the afterlife works.

3. Book 3 is about Meg and so Athos will play a part. Honestly, he slipped into RD almost without me realizing it, but served a good purpose once he got in and helped set up the next book.

4. When I decided to do a Russian-based story and link it to Niki, that is pretty much what was going on in the time period of GF, and it suggested a comparison between a country struggling under an authoritarian regime and a family struggling under an authoritarian regime, so it worked well. Also I kind of fell in love with that time.

5. I keep a detailed file on all of my fans with the help of the NSA and write books specifically tailored to them. Alternately, I draw on my own experiences and try to make them universal. Choose which one you like better.

Thanks Kyell, both for your answers to my specific questions and for taking questions in general! Always fun to learn more about the making of an awesome book. :)

3. I admit to some worry that I'll feel less invested in a story revolving around Meg than around Sol, and especially around Alexei (something about the fox-guy just really hit home for me), but I'll certainly be curious to see how things develop. I was sorry to see him and Meg hit a rough patch towards the end of the book, and hope they'll reconcile.

5. Any chance I can get a copy of my own file? Because I'd be damn curious to read that! :p

6. Did you run into any unexpected complications in moving out of Sol's head and into Alexei's? For instance, there's more than one part in the book where I think readers may feel that Sol's being less than entirely likable...the way he treats Alexei at some points, for instance, kind of made me want to smack the guy (happily Meg was willing to call Sol on it). And because of the change in perspective we're afforded less insights into Sol's perspective on the developments. I hope my question makes sense. :)

6. Somewhat. I mean, clearly Sol is still kind of messed up from his experience with Niki, and that is part of the story. If you look at it from Sol's perspective, Alexei isn't exactly a shining example of friendship either.

But no, when I went into Alexei's head to write the story, that's where the story came from.

I hope we'll get to see Sol when he's in a better place, then.

I agree that Alexei does a couple of non-awesome things in RD, but also feel Sol overreacts a bit...though I guess that's kind of a "wolf" thing to do? Heh.

When their friendship is at its best though...towards the end of RD, for instance...it's lovely to see. I think that might be something I'm liking about these books that OOP hasn't really shown (apologies if I'm overlooking any examples, particularly especially obvious ones...it's been awhile since I read the OOP books). Powerful friendships.

I've got a couple of questions! :)

Is there ancestry between Konstantin, Nikolai and Alexei?
(I could not help but wonder after Alexei called Konstantin "grandfather". And it appeared Konstantin seen his son in Alexei.)

Is the next book of the series destined to finish the series? And if so will we see Niki again in more a more prominent role, like in Green Fairy? Out of all of your characters, and I around seventeen of your novels and novelettes line my library, Nikolai is by far the one I feel the closest connection with.

Simply a fantastic story Kyell! When I started reading I've got to admit, I loathed Konstantin! But by the end I couldn't help but feel great sorrow and pity for him. I do hope he gets to see his son again and maybe even right what he wronged so long ago before this story comes to a close.

Originally I had planned for Konstantin to have known one of Alexei's ancestors. It's still not impossible, but it ended up complicating the book needlessly. The emotional bond between them doesn't rely on blood ties. So no, canonically they are not related that they know of. I mean, Niki didn't have children, and Konstantin had no others, so it would have to be something like Mariya's family's descendants, or maybe an unknown bastard of Konstantin conceived in his later years...

(BTW, 'dyedushka' is not just a literal blood relationship term. It'd be like you finding an old man lost in the street and saying, "Come on, old grandfather, I'll give you a hand." So it's not like Alexei is saying "I'm adopting you as my grandfather.")

"Black Angel" will finish the series as far as I'm concerned, although Rukis is not entirely wrong in considering "Camouflage" sort of an unofficial "Dangerous Spirits" book, and there may be more *like* it. I certainly like the form and the exploration of historical worlds, so I won't rule out something like this again. Niki, however, was Sol's ghost, and "Black Angel" is Meg's book, so while he may play a small role, he won't be central.

Many thanks for the kind words, and yes, that is exactly how I felt about Konstantin as well. I'm glad it came across.

That's unfortunate for me to hear Niki will not be a central character again. But I understand.

Thank you kindly for answering my questions Kyell.

It's interesting to me that Russian does that with "grandfather," because Japanese does pretty much the exact same thing.

I can't remember which book I was reading/which show I was watching, but one of the characters referred to an elderly man as "old father" out of respect/reverence.

Definitely not unique to Russian or Japanese culture. Perhaps something across cultures which have strong definitions of family/elder reverence?

I'm pretty sure chinese culture does too.

I jave a question. What is up with sol getting with the guy who was bullying his friend at the end? I almost stopped liking Sol when I read that peice.

Don't forget that you are reading about Kendall filtered entirely through Alexei's perception. If you look objectively at the things he says and does, it's possible that he doesn't actually have anything against Alexei, but is just one of those big-personality self-centered people who can offend without realizing it, and got upset when Alexei didn't listen to his advice during games. Both Mike and Sol say that he's a nice guy, and they might be overlooking things, but that at least proves that he can be charming when he needs to be. And Alexei was acting weird, and Sol was upset at him, so Sol was probably just looking for another person to talk to.

Fair enough.

Thank you for the response.

Oh and not really a question but I am bringing a bottle of absinthe to AC this year if anyone is interested in trying it. I had some crazy dreams when I go GF and read it while drinking the stuff. Lol . Had to reread parts of the book because my dreams were about it and I lost track of the story line.

I have to admit I'd be curious, though I have reservations about how it will taste. :-P

It's strong a bitter. Word of advice though, don't buy it unless it's Swiss. Most of the stuff on the market does not have wormwood. So your not really getting the full affect.

This is why I have reservations about how it will taste. :p

Lol its not so bad. But u could see how it was for sol. Lol. Think how strong it tasted with his canine taste buds lol

I would prefer not to. :p

Haha yeah might not be the best thing. But it helps paint a picture of how much pain he was in to drink it straight without sugar later in the story.

To be fair, Sol didn't exactly strike me as the most balanced of individuals either.

Oh I got mine on my travels over seas. Lol and ittastes kinda like black liqourice. And I def add the sugar cubes to it because of the bitter taste.

Was it deliberate or just coincidence that the main setting for RD and the main setting for Volle are are just two letters inverted?

(ie Divalia / Vidalia)

Coincidence? I like certain sound combinations, I guess. ^^

By the way, only the 3rd novel I've "read" that made me amost cry. And Bridges was #2 (Chronologically, RD definitely hit me harder). I can't wait to hear "Black Angel", cause I love Meg and her attitude. I did notice she was a bit bitchier then GF. I'm not sure if it has to do with the events of the book, or if she just got moer grumpy on her own, of the weed in vidalia is just lower quality. :)

On that note, another question (A.D.D. is fun!). I remember at RF 2012 Unsheathed podcast you mentioned you don't drink alcohol at all, so I can't help wonder what inspired you to write a novel (now kind of two) that centers around alcohol consumption, as well as several key scenes in the OOP series?

I have a lot of friends who drink. :)

Hi

This is the saddest ending to one of your novels that I've read. Any reason/inspiration for why the story took such a dark turn? Did YOU consider the ending to be happier than I'm making it out to be?


Also: why is Alexei so damn cute what the hell

Well, one of my books has to be the saddest, right? I dunno, it's a book about Russia, so I think sadness kind of comes with the territory. Maybe it's just something to remind myself that not all stories end happily.

I got the audiobook yesterday and I was wondering was sol meant to has as thick a country accent as I am hearing it?

He's from a small town in the south, so I think it fits. I didn't give the voice actor a lot of direction with the voices, but I'm happy with the choices he made, both in this and "Green Fairy."

Yeah I agree its good I was just curious if the thick accent was intended. He almost comes off as someone from Georgia or tennessee.

That's actually very, very close. In fact I had thought it was Georgia incorrectly from reading the maps when reading the OOP books. It appears Millenport is the Forester equivalent of Georgetown, South Carolina.

I found the map from a quick Google search so I have no idea about the site that it's on and such, so I hope it's okay to post this link!
http://anthrozine.com/a.18/stw.map.gif

I actually found a map that has the names of the real cities edited in next to the Forester names but that's definitely on a site not to link to (the site that the search result was from in particular). I knew the Firebirds are from the Forester equivalent of Arizona but it totally went over my head connecting "Phoenix" and "Firebirds."

I'm sure there are a ton of more references in the Forester universe to stuff like that. For example it's funny that I'm in a suburb of the city Hilltown is the equivalent of, and I never noticed just how hilly Milwaukee really is until seeing that name.

Cool thanks

Meg must be a wizard of some kind to be able to summon ghosts. Is she a wizard?

No.

(Just finished it a couple days ago. Can't wait for the next one!)

Slightly off topic, but since Green Fairy was centered around Sol and Red Devil was about Alexei, will Black Angel be about Meg? I understand if you don't wanna reveal that yet though. =3

(I've also nearly exhausted the available supply of your books. I'm afraid of what I'm gonna do when I have none to read while I wait for the next ones! D: The struggle is real <3)

Already did, in response #3 to Doniago above. :D

And have you read "Camouflage" online? :)

whoops! sorry for the duplicate question ^^;

I've glanced at it, but I wanna read the ebooks on my ipad by you before I read that :3 will do though!

In Black angle, are a lot of super natural things going to happen?

About as much as in the other two books.

But I thought meg didn't believe in that stuff?

I just finished the book an hour ago, and...

Sir, I must say, I've read almost all your stuff, and my own intuition about plotting and writing tells me that the story needed to go this way for some reason, but man am I super depressed right now. Despite not showing up directly almost at all...well, the whole situation really just brought me down, way more than things usually do in this vein. I guess I empathize with Alexei and Cat a lot, though my family's never been abusive, but the need to escape, and wondering if I could be too hasty and take a wrong turn...

My heart hurts. Ya done a good yarn once again, but it'll be awhile before I can tackle another.

Was it intentional that Alexei was sort of an unreliable narrator? In terms of the events filtered through his perspective?

Any time you have a first person or tight third narrative, where the events are filtered at least somewhat through the perspective of the character, the narration is going to be somewhat unreliable. The question is how much that matters to the story. In this case Alexei's unreliability is more subtle than Konstantin's or Cat's; we get verification from Sol about Nikolai's life that add depth to Konstantin's tale that his son was wilful and disobedient and we get added dimension to Cat's story from Alexei (Cat never talks about how brutal their parents are, for example). There is nobody to really give an extra dimension to Alexei's narrative, and by and large it is not really all that unreliable. Mostly his perspective affects the people he has strong feelings about: Mike and Sol and Kendall. You do get an interesting contrast to his narrative when Konstantin is offering HIS perspective on Mike, which (although Alexei dislikes it) is not necessarily invalid either. Mike is a little too insistent on making everyone happy: look how much he puts up with from Alexei before finally saying, "You know what, maybe we shouldn't date." In general, though, Alexei's unreliability isn't that important to the story because the story is about him.

But anyway, the short answer to your question is: yes. :D

For some reason I missed that Alexei is a red fox when reading Green Fairy. I'm sure it's mentioned, and my mistake probably is as simple as a silly "Siberia = cold = arctic = white" assumption in my head. Considering the climate of the setting, my mistake made even less sense.

I finally finished reading the book today. Funny enough because Sol uses a phone to read Green Fairy was the inspiration for my using an old Android phone as an e-reader, which makes reading on the bus quite a bit easier than carrying around a full sized e-reader or book. I'll always remember when I read Green Fairy as well because I stayed up most of the night New Year's Day last year to finish.

This certainly was an interesting tale. I went from expecting things to go so poorly, to thinking they would not work out but not go quite so badly, to then being surprised by what eventually happened. I also totally did not see it coming how Konstantine desperately clings to Alexei at the end. I wasn't sure what to expect with Mike in the end, and the ambiguous ending fit well with that impression.

I suppose I should remember this is a Q & A journal. Did Sol stop seeing the bear he was dating? Did he just become friends with Kendall or did they actually start dating? It's interesting to consider just what the world looks like from Kendall's point of view. I'm guessing it was probably quite deliberate that the reader only hears about Kendall's nicer behavior by proxy through other characters? It was also interesting to see Sol from the perspective of another character.

I found it interesting that for most of the book the tension came not from Konstantine's meddling but from how Alexei acted himself, such as his pointless lie about having spent the night with a female sheep. His self-defeating behavior started before meeting Konstantine for the first time (though it certainly got worse after). While the conflict in the book did eventually become quite a bit more than that, was Alexei's behavior intended to make the reader frustrated with him?

Though I don't remember if it was specifically stated, the ending of the book implies that Vlad knew or suspected for quite some time about Alexei's orientation? I liked how in the final parts of the book it became clear just how many people were there for Alexei, and even relatively smaller things like Vlad's encouragement helped set that tone.

The thing I was most suspecting was already answered: the next book will be about Meg. I was as surprised by Meg's dismissing Konstantin's appearance as I was by his appearing before the other characters itself (and that surprised me quite a bit). Though his appearance in the book is fairly brief, I think Athos' addition worked quite well. Did you intend the readers to suspect the next book will be about Meg, or am I imagining that the book seemed to be leading to more of a focus on her as the book itself came to an end?

Thanks for continuing your writing. Your books are always a joy to read.

Thanks for the thoughtful comment!

In re: the questions about Sol, well, that all takes place after the end of the book, so...no spoilers for book 3. :)

And as for whether Vlad knew or suspected, does it matter? I'm not being coy--well, yes I am, but not to avoid the question so much as to say that I don't know that I have an answer because it's not within the scope of the story. What matters is the kind of person Vlad is. Does it make him a different person if he knew all along as opposed to just having found out?

And last, I was certainly putting some slightly puzzling behavior on Meg's part into the end of the book to get people to ask questions like this one that would then be answered in the third book. :)

That's a good point. I suppose in the end it really doesn't matter whether he knew.