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The Hidden City

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Hidden City

The Hidden City is avail­able now.  If you’re Cana­dian, the price is 24.95, the US price (but in CDN dollars), rather than the 30.00 CDN it was solicited at. 
 
If you’re australian, it’s avail­able at Galaxy Books. For more, because it has to fly half-way across the world. 
 
The Hidden City is the first book in the House War series.  It’s actu­ally the earliest of the novels, chrono­log­i­cally speaking, that are set in this universe.  It’s also my very first hard­cover — and the jacket is absolutely stun­ning; jpegs don’t capture the feel of it. 
 
I am playing a bit with word­press because I’m aware that I don’t update offi­cial news very often, but the lack of <br> as a feature in editing has caused me an ulcer’s worth of grief.  I do not know much html.  What little I do know is appar­ently not entirely rele­vant to word­press.  We have exchanged words (well, I swear at word­press and it gives me the cosmic rasp­berry) to little effect, but I hope to have some of the kinks ironed out some time soon.
 
In the mean­time, if you find your way here, I’ll answer any ques­tions you want to leave in the comments.  Because that much, I’ve been able to figure out how to do… 

22 Responses to The Hidden City

  1. Mark says:
    March 5, 2008 at 7:37 am

    And if you live in Australia the price is $49.95

    But it’s worht very dollar! :-)

  2. msagarawest says:
    March 5, 2008 at 12:07 pm

    Hey :D. First post! (I’m trying to (very slowly) make a more presentable web-site. So I can do things like update it myself.) I liked the word­press template, but the lack of simple things like is making me crazy enough that I might try blogger.

    49.95 O.O

  3. Roger says:
    March 14, 2008 at 12:58 am

    I am looking forward to reading this book. I will be picking it up this weekend. If you do not mind, I have the following questions:

    1. Do you have an idea of how many books will be in this sequence? On your website, I think your husband esti­mates that there will be 5 books.

    2. Do you know when the second book in the House War sequence will be published?

    Thanks for all the great books.

    Regards,
    Roger

  4. msagarawest says:
    March 14, 2008 at 1:32 am

    1. Do you have an idea of how many books will be in this sequence? On your website, I think your husband esti­mates that there will be 5 books.

    Four at the moment. Two which deal with the early den, and the tran­si­tion to the House Terafin, and Two which deal with the Succes­sion war. Umm, but this is my guess.

    2. Do you know when the second book in the House War sequence will be published?

    I am not finished HOUSE NAME yet. At this point all the struc­tural elements are there, and the book feels very solid to me, and I hope to have it finished by the end of the year at the outside latest. Which that it would be published some time after that =(. I was really hoping to be more on top of the publishing schedule, and I apol­o­gize for this — I found Hidden City some­what trau­ma­tizing to write, and there was a very long period after the book was finished in which I found it diffi­cult to be objec­tive enough to revise.

    Which is the short way of saying that it will be out as soon as humanly possible, and the delay is my fault.

    Thanks for all the great books.

    Thank you :)

  5. Roger says:
    March 20, 2008 at 3:42 am

    Ms. West,

    Yesterday, I finished reading Hidden City: HOUSE WAR.

    I still have not stopped thinking about what I read. I had a feel for Jewel and her den from your earlier books, but these char­ac­ters became almost real in this book. I really enjoyed reading about Jewel, Rath, and, espe­cially, Duster. Three amazing characters.

    You also have reaped many inter­esting plot points in this book. I hope we get read more about them in later books. For example, the rela­tion­ship between Rath and his sister. The house war between House Terafin and the House D (I do not remember the name). Andrei and his rela­tion­ship with this boss. More about the hold­ings and the city itself. Rath and his rela­tion­ship with the fence.

    If you do not mind, I have the followig questions:

    1. Will you be doing a book tour?

    2. If you are doing a book tour, will you be coming to Seattle, WA or Vancouver, BC?

    Thank you.

    Regards,
    Roger

    Shore­line, WA

  6. Michelle says:
    March 21, 2008 at 2:26 am

    If you do not mind, I have the followig questions:

    1. Will you be doing a book tour?

    2. If you are doing a book tour, will you be coming to Seattle, WA or Vancouver, BC?

    Ummm, no plans for a book tour at the moment. I am gener­ally a big home­body, and have never really done a book tour. I’m plan­ning to go to this year’s Worldcon (in Denver, which isn’t really close), though.

  7. Jane says:
    March 25, 2008 at 11:52 pm

    Will the House War series stop at filling in the gap between Hunter’s Death and the Sun Sword Series, or will it conclude Jewel’s plot­line from the Sun Sword Searies (beginin with the death of the Terafin and contin­uing with Jewel’s struggle succeed Amarais)?

  8. Michelle says:
    March 26, 2008 at 2:48 am

    Will the House War series stop at filling in the gap between Hunter’s Death and the Sun Sword Series, or will it conclude Jewel’s plot­line from the Sun Sword Searies (beginin with the death of the Terafin and contin­uing with Jewel’s struggle succeed Amarais)?

    It will conclude Jewel’s plot-line from the Sun Sword with, in fact, the House War. The 2nd book is still early den; the third and fourth start after Jewel arrives from the South.

  9. Chonnie says:
    April 2, 2008 at 4:21 am

    Will there be a contin­u­a­tion to the Sun Sword Series with regards to Tor Arkosa?

  10. Michael says:
    April 5, 2008 at 10:18 pm

    Once again: thank you, thank you, thank you. You remain my favorite author, and Hidden City was not what I expected it would be, in more ways than one. I greatly appre­ci­ated the plot threads you tied-up / created involving Sigurne.

    I have suspected for some time, and now with the specifics laid out in Hidden City am thor­oughly convinced, that Duster’s soul has returned from the Halls of Mandaros. Is this the case?

    (P.S. If you ever need a reminder of how good a writer you are, I will be more than happy to shower you and your books with praise. Thank you again.)

  11. Aaron says:
    April 6, 2008 at 12:16 am

    I love the changes and the graph­ical update this new webhost brings you. Unfor­tu­nately, I’m embar­rassed to note that I’ve never actu­ally book­marked the Michelle West Yahoo discus­sion group, or your Live­Journal page. This is because I inevitably visited your old bibli­og­raphy site first and then linked to those auxil­iary sites, so that I never missed any tidbit of information.

    At this point in time, accessing both sites is a trivial matter on my part. However, without the links you orig­i­nally placed on your sffsite page, I would never have known such a collec­tion of fans were already estab­lished. In other words, *new* readers might appre­ciate the discus­sions we have (and yahoo groups aren’t easily googlable).

    I realize you may be in tran­si­tion, or you might even be attempting to disso­ciate your­self from any one, fan-based forum. If not, please consider adding links to the Yahoo discus­sion forum and your LiveJournal.

    Aaron

  12. Michelle says:
    April 6, 2008 at 3:27 am

    I realize you may be in tran­si­tion, or you might even be attempting to disso­ciate your­self from any one, fan-based forum. If not, please consider adding links to the Yahoo discus­sion forum and your LiveJournal.

    I put them up in the “About the Author” link, because they weren’t likely to change. I still have to put up covers and other things, and break the bibli­og­raphy into smaller chunks, but. Ummm.

  13. Michelle says:
    April 6, 2008 at 3:29 am

    I have suspected for some time, and now with the specifics laid out in Hidden City am thor­oughly convinced, that Duster’s soul has returned from the Halls of Mandaros. Is this the case?

    Other people have asked me this, and I have to confess that this was not my intent with Kiriel (the person most likely to be Duster if Duster did return), although it is true that Kiriel has a soul and that, if Duster was ready, she is the right age.

  14. Michelle says:
    April 6, 2008 at 3:30 am

    Will there be a contin­u­a­tion to the Sun Sword Series with regards to Tor Arkosa?

    Not a direct sequel, although Adam will be active in the House War, and has a role to play after it.

  15. Irene says:
    July 31, 2008 at 1:15 pm

    Dear Michelle,

    I am a fan of your books.

    I was wondering if the Twin Kings will be explored more fully in your next books?

  16. Carlotta says:
    July 31, 2008 at 9:33 pm

    Hi Michelle,

    I would also like to express just how much I love your books. I read several genres and authors, but always tend to go for the books that have some combi­na­tion of Magic, Struggle, Love, and a sense that the world is so real that I could step right into it  — if I could only find the right doorway! I must say that you are one of the best at creating and commu­ni­cating this type of wonderful expe­ri­ence. Thank you.

    I’ve read the Hunter Duology, the Sun Sword series, and the new House Wars book. Eagerly antic­i­pating the next. (I’ve also read the Cast series). However, as suggested by another commenter, there do seem to be loose threads and I wondered if you have any inten­tion of weaving them closed at some point. Here are the threads that I see:
    1. Breo­danirs involve­ment with the demon struggle and/or Cynthia and Steven’s story
    2. The History of the Voyani (more than what we saw in book 4) and the thread of the Cities that are raising.
    3. Merlon(sp?) — he’s a series in and of himself!
    4. I was fasci­nated when the appren­tice mages began drawing their weapons from them­selves in the Sun Sword series. Will you be writing about the Age of Man in any of the books?
    5. Kiriel — You aren’t just going to leave it like that? Are you?

    I’m really hoping that you aren’t one of those authors that like to leave such things to the readers imag­i­na­tion. My imag­i­na­tion is good, but yours is better. I’d rather hear it from you :)

  17. lara runger says:
    October 21, 2008 at 11:27 pm

    hey michelle,
    just to get it out of the way-your books are awesome, the absolute best‑i don’t under­stand what the people who give out the hugo’s are reading, they obvi­ously have over­looked your works. i have read them all except the hidden city at least three times and have pretty good atten­tion to detail if you would happen to be looking for some help in the conti­nuity realm (i have noticed a few conti­nuity prob­lems, espe­cially in regards to the anna­garian lords which made things a bit confusing).
    the above message (carlotta, jul 31) addressed several ques­tions that have been on my mind, and i would like to know what the answers to them are.
    if they are published else­where, please direct me. you don’t seem the type of person to say “hey, get a life”, so i will proceed with some of my wonder­ings, and hope you can enlighten me.
    1) is the child of the hunter god and cynthia the boy coming of age in the north to whom the oracle referred? the child of gilliam and the wild girl (thought that child in the vision was a girl)? or is it adam?
    2) was the dream jewel had in which she was vian­daran’s consort a true dream of a previous life?
    3) how is it that so many of the demons seem to know illara­phaniel? and who is he really-someone who has evidently been around an awfully long time. he appeared to gain skill and depth from the time of the hunters’ oath to the sun sword.
    4) when evayne comes upon kallan­dras on the field of a battle appar­ently lost and he wouldn’t tell her when or where it was-when and where was it, and is it going to come up in your writ­ings? why was he alone on the field of battle-were all of his comrades in arms gone down in defeat? after her father seem­ingly rewarded kallan­dras with a brother in celle­riant, are they not to meet again?
    5)it seems that there was some hint that avandar had some­thing to do with the tragedy that brought morretz to the city, but how could that be?
    6)where has avandar (vian­daran) been since the end of the age of man and why did not allasakar grant him his death after he gave up the city to him?
    guess i’ll quit here, so as to not over­whelm you, gracious lady. write well and bliss to you.
    lara, lady of xanadu

  18. Zubair says:
    March 13, 2009 at 7:23 pm

    Hello Michelle,

    In regard to your skills as an author i am in awe, and without spending fifty lines on praising you and book without really success­fully conveying what i feel, all i can say is this: you, my dear lady, are a Master of weaving tales. I HAD to finished the book in one day … I must say, this is the first I find I do not have an inch of guilt for not getting to my work on time.

    From the start to finish, it was one heck of a roller-coaster ride. I can’t believe you managed to squeeze that many rela­tion­ships and char­ac­ters  — all so well devel­oped — into one book. I love the names you’ve chosen for your two main char­ac­ters — Jewel and Rath. Price­less. I find Rath and Jewel’s rela­tion­ship immensely inter­esting, and more than a little sad. I love every­thing about this world.

    So that leaves only one ques­tion that’s been haunting me ever since the last three (truly heart-thumping) chap­ters in the book: will the second book be published soon?

    Thank you, and thank you again for writing Hidden City. You’ve given me a story that i will remember for a very, very long time. If i ever forget, unlikely as it is, it will not be with intent.

    Best of luck in everything.

    Cheers,
    Zubair

  19. Jacqueline says:
    June 12, 2009 at 1:40 pm

    HI Michelle,

    I’ve almost finished the hidden city, and I like it very much! I’m glad to hear you’re writing more. In the mean time though, which book should I read next? I’ve been unable to figure out whether I should start reading the sun sword series or the sacred hunt series. I’m intrigued to find out more about Jay!

    Love,
    Jacqueline

  20. Kate says:
    August 5, 2009 at 12:39 am

    PLEASE tell me you’re going to tell us what’s up with, and will will happen to, Avandar????

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    January 11, 2010 at 12:14 pm

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  22. Van says:
    August 18, 2010 at 1:23 pm

    Hi…I love your book The hidden city.….I picked it up while in Montreal and I cannot put it down..I‘m at around 400 pages and I cannot thank you enough for your great imag­i­na­tion, the char­ac­ters and the general plot in such a fasci­nating time era. i love the odd combi­na­tion of rath and Jewel/Jay. I‘ll be checking out more of your works after I‘m done with this book. Thanks!

    Van

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