The Frugal Wizard’s Handbook for Surviving Medieval England

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At the bottom of this newsletter I talk a little about my inspirations for this book. Either way, thank you all so much for the support! As I thought of it, by instinct, I brought up a display that hung in my vision, visible only to me. It listed my platings, and their status. Looking at that…I had platings from the tips of my fingers all the way up to my elbows. It also worked for force-redistribution and gave me some strength advantages, mostly in gripping ability. I thought I heard a river somewhere in the near distance, and there was a large lump of darkness further on. Maybe a much larger building? I skirted the village, and on the other side, found the river—well, the stream. Here, I knelt and scooped up some water to drink. I figured my medical nanites would neutralize any bacteria before it gave me too much trouble. I’ll stay,” she said. “Take my brother; send him to me with word if anything truly unusual happens with the messengers.”

Regardless, the futuristic world (sometime after 2103) from where our narrator hails not only offers interdimensional travel (not time travel), but also provides people with nannites that heal them from wounds/diseases and with other augments, such as platings under the skin to protect from, say, sharp objects. The medieval world, meanwhile, comes with an intricate mythology that, while fascinating, was somewhat info-dumpey at times. Tress (Secret Project #1) was also a fun adventure, but I felt it developed its world and especially the characters so much better and had a better narrative voice. It's hard to love a first person narrative like this one when you don't like the main character, and I wasn't too invested in this guy for most of it. Of course I do,” I said. “I promise you, I just wanted to grift a little. A warm meal. We weren’t going to scam anyone hard—we’re off for bigger winnings elsewhere, and just were running low on supplies.” That younger fellow is your brother?” I asked. “And the lord of this place…he’s your father, right? So you’re the lord’s daughter?” The final element that connected here was me realizing—as I started working on this—the uncomfortable nature of the topic. Playing with the past meant playing with people’s lives, and there were some parts of this that I felt I needed to hang a lantern on. That’s when I decided to use interjections from the Frugal Wizard’s handbook. (I’d actually had this idea as a title with no context years before.) I figured I could highlight the inherent ridiculous—and somewhat immoral—nature of the basic premise with some satire, making it okay to laugh at the situation all while we talked about human nature. Because I think this is really something we’d do if we had the chance to travel to the past without consequences in the future. So it’s worth talking about it in narrative. That’s part of what SF/F is for—exploring the impossible now so that when some impossible things become reality, we as a society have already had a chance to investigate how we feel about the subject.I shrugged again. “It’s either that, or you try to convince the Little Father I’m a liar—then I do my best scary eelef imitation, and we see who wins. But in that scenario, someone also has to lose.” I think this would be great for those who really like gaming quests and are more in the YA realm. The Frugal Wizard's Handbook for Surviving Medieval England is more of a Middle Grade to YA book. Which makes total sense since Sanderson wrote this story as a gift for his son. Yes, I realize I’m referencing a lot of other books to give a feel for what this feels like, but that’s the best I can do with the phlegm and sore throat and fever, so you’ll just have to tolerate that).

Amnesia. Sanderson wanted to play with a "white room" story. The process of the main character discovering who he was, in bits and misleading pieces, was the least interesting part of the storyline. To then focus the climax on this aspect was disappointing. Around the same time, the book shied away from a significant emotional struggle, discarding it with a shrug. We’ll go out and tell the lord I managed to use your ancient name to bind you. If he asks, tell him the craeft has forced you to do my bidding, and I am banishing you.” It was actually the first time I’d seen their faces, and as soon as I did, I stopped in place. I knew them. That one on the left—the tall brute whose chin and forehead were trying to outdo one another—was Ulric Stromfin. Cut me free,” I said in my most intimidating voice, “and apologize for the treatment I’ve suffered.”Those inside didn’t immediately move to close the gates, perhaps anticipating that the riders might leave again soon. The two did have the look of messengers. So, I took my opportunity, slinking forward through the darkness. I kept telling myself that I wasn’t doing anything dangerous, that this was just some extravagant kind of play acting. The messengers didn’t reply. Together, they strode out the front gates, and the lord—seeming distinctly annoyed—followed with wide strides, shaking his head. In instead turned my attention to my augments. I was fairly certain I had some sort of improvement on my forearms, in fact, as I’d thought earlier, it was called…