How I Would Vote Now: 1979 Hugo Awards (Best Novel)

The Nominees

The Faded Sun: Kesrith by C.J. Cherryh

The White Dragon by Anne McCaffrey

Dreamsnake by Vonda N. McIntyre

Blind Voices by Tom Reamy

The Actual Results

  1. Dreamsnake by Vonda N. McIntyre
  2. The White Dragon by Anne McCaffrey
  3. The Faded Sun: Kesrith by C.J. Cherryh
  • Blind Voices by Tom Reamy

    How I Would Have Voted

    1. No Award
    2. The Faded Sun: Kesrith by C.J. Cherryh
    3. The White Dragon by Anne McCaffrey

    Explanation

    Science fiction is so woke, it was woke before “woke” was a thing. It started in the 60s, with the organization of SFWA (which was an ideologically captured institution from its very founding—seriously, go read about the Futurians and their communist sympathies) and it reached a peak in the 70s. Then the Reagan-Thatcher era and the fall of the Soviet Union pushed the genre to moderate for a couple of decades, but after it went dark & gritty with cyberpunk and grimdark, the wokeness rose up and took over all the institutions of the genre. Which is why, today, most of the award winning science fiction is pink haired butch lesbian cat ladies going where no gender identity has gone before, with a few token minorities thrown in for good measure.

    The late 70s was when the pre-woke era really hit its peak, which is probably why 1979 was the year when we got the worst book to ever win a Hugo: Dreamsnake by Vonda N. McIntyre. Seriously, it is terrible—not for being woke (it isn’t especially political), but just for being BAD. It’s based on a short story McIntyre wrote that won the Hugo the previous year, and the novel seriously reads like bad fanfic… of her own story… so because it assumes that you already know and love the story, the book never actually tells the story in a meaningful way. And of course, the writing is absolutely terrible—almost as terrible as the original first edition cover art:

    McIntyre went on to write some writing books, with terrible advice like “never say ‘he screwed up his eyes in thought!’ Who even does that?” Later, she even founded the writing workshop Clarion West, which seriously makes me wonder about the quality of instruction. But from what I can tell, the whole Clarion / Clarion West / Odyssey workshop network is less about teaching good writing and more about serving as a feeder system for traditional publishing, making sure that the new authors are sufficiently diverse and woke.

    I used ChatGPT to screen Blind Voices by Tom Reamy, and based on what it told me, I decided not to read it. Apparently, the book is about a bunch of naive, innocent midwestern girls who get corrupted (and one of them gets raped) by a supernatural traveling circus. Lots of nihilism and weird sexual content, so I’m gonna pass.

    I wanted to like Kesrith, and actually got several chapters into it, but the book ultimately bored me too much to finish it—which I’ve found is true of most of C.J. Cherryh’s books. Maybe I’ve just become too impatient as a reader, since I did enjoy Merchanter’s Luck and Voyager in Night back when I read them in college, but I don’t have much tolerance for boredom anymore.

    As for McCaffrey’s Dragonriders of Pern series, I DNFed the series after the second book. I know it’s super well beloved by the older generation of readers, but the dragons are just so OP that I couldn’t really get into it. Seriously… if your characters can magically teleport through time AND space, is there anything they can’t do? So where is the conflict? Apparently in lots of interpersonal relationship drama, which is why I checked out.

    How I Would Vote Now: All Years

    Love Beyond the Grave in Bloodfire Legacy

    At the heart of Bloodfire Legacy is a haunting question: can love still protect us after death has already taken everything else? This epic fantasy novel begins with murder, grief, and the lure of vengeance, but underneath all of that runs a deeper current—the enduring love of a father who refuses to abandon his daughter, even from beyond the veil. Lord Arion’s death is not the end of his care for Lyra. In many ways, it is the beginning of the book’s deepest emotional conflict.

    Where the Idea Came From

    Part of the spark for Bloodfire Legacy came from wanting to write the kind of fantasy story my wife especially loves, including some sea-story elements that naturally found their way into the book. But this novel also came from persistence. I actually wrote an earlier version of this story years ago, set it aside, and eventually came back to it because I still felt there was something powerful and worth saving at its core. In a strange way, that fits this theme: some things are too deep to simply let go of.

    How Love Beyond the Grave Shapes the Story

    Lord Arion’s love for Lyra is not just an emotional detail in the background. It is one of the forces that drives the whole story. The moment he dies, his first thought is not for himself, but for his daughter. He realizes that she will wake up fatherless, alone in a court full of danger, and he cannot bear to leave her. Even when he is called toward the peace of the Immortal Realm and reunion with his wife, he chooses to remain behind and watch over Lyra instead. That choice tells you something essential about the book: in this story, death is real, grief is real, loss is real—but love is real too, and it does not simply vanish when life ends.

    That love keeps shaping the novel long after Arion’s death. He watches Lyra grieve him. He watches her longing for justice begin to harden into a thirst for vengeance. He sees the Dark Brotherhood exploit her pain and try to pull her into darkness. Because he cannot touch the physical world directly, he searches for another way to reach her, and that is what leads him to Corin. In other words, one of the book’s most important relationships only exists because a dead father still loves his daughter enough to fight for her. Arion’s love becomes an unseen force in the story—guiding, warning, grieving, and resisting the darkness that wants to consume Lyra.

    What Love Beyond the Grave Says About Us

    I think this theme speaks to one of the deepest human hopes we have: that death does not truly destroy the bonds that matter most. We know loss is real. We know death takes people from us. But we still hunger to believe that love means something more than temporary closeness. In Bloodfire Legacy, love beyond the grave is not just about memory or sentiment. It becomes sacrifice, protection, warning, and moral responsibility. Arion does not remain because he cannot let go in a selfish sense. He remains because he still wants what is good for his daughter, even when he can no longer control her choices. That kind of love is powerful precisely because it is enduring without becoming possessive.

    Why This Theme Matters to Me

    This theme matters to me because I do not think the strongest love is fragile. I think real love endures. Lord Arion’s love for Lyra is moving to me because it costs him something. He gives up rest, peace, and reunion because he cannot bear to leave his daughter alone in her hour of danger. That kind of love feels both emotionally true and spiritually meaningful to me. And maybe that is one reason I kept coming back to this story myself. Even after earlier attempts failed, I knew there was something alive at its center that was worth returning to and worth finishing.

    Where to Get the Book

    Related Posts and Pages

    Explore the series index for The Sea Mage Cycle.

    Return to the book page for Bloodfire Legacy.

    Is Bloodfire Legacy for You?

    Bloodfire Legacy is a fast-moving epic fantasy about grief, temptation, loyalty, and the choice between vengeance and justice. It blends court intrigue, sea-crossing adventure, forbidden magic, and a ghostly father’s desperate effort to save his daughter before darkness consumes her.

    What Kind of Reader Will Love Bloodfire Legacy?

    If you love …

    • fantasy with court intrigue, secret conspiracies, and looming war
    • stories about forbidden magic, moral temptation, and the fight to stay in the light
    • emotional character arcs built around grief, justice, loyalty, and redemption
    • unlikely partnerships, especially between a highborn heroine and a streetwise outsider
    • adventurous fantasy that feels tense and dramatic but ultimately hopeful

    …then Bloodfire Legacy is probably your kind of story.

    What You’ll Find Inside

    Bloodfire Legacy follows Lyra Arion, the gifted daughter of a murdered court magician, as her hunt for her father’s killer draws her toward the Dark Brotherhood and the seductive power of forbidden magic. Alongside her is Corin, a street thief with the rare ability to see and speak with the dead, who becomes both her guide and her lifeline. The result is a fantasy adventure that is suspenseful, emotionally driven, and ultimately uplifting, with a brisk pace, clear stakes, and a strong undercurrent of hope.

    What Makes It Different

    Fans of classic secondary-world fantasy will recognize the royal courts, magical orders, dark conspiracies, and gathering war, but Bloodfire Legacy takes those familiar elements in a more intimate and emotionally immediate direction. Where many epic fantasies focus first on armies and kingdoms, this one begins with a daughter’s grief, a father’s love, and a thief who can hear the dead. It also stands apart through its combination of court fantasy and sea-story energy, plus a strong emphasis on moral struggle: not just whether evil can be defeated, but whether the heroine can resist becoming like the darkness she fights.

    What You Won’t Find

    You won’t find grimdark nihilism, explicit content, or a story that wallows in despair. While the book deals with murder, dark magic, and spiritual peril, it draws clear lines between justice and vengeance and keeps moving toward mercy, courage, and the possibility of redemption.

    Why I Think You Might Love It

    I think this story will especially connect with readers who want fantasy to be both exciting and heartening. In the author’s note, I talk about writing this series to be entertaining, uplifting, and good clean fantasy, with sea-story elements shaped in part by my wife’s reading tastes. That spirit comes through in Bloodfire Legacy: it gives you danger, mystery, magic, and high stakes, but it never loses sight of love, loyalty, and the hope that people can turn back from darkness before it’s too late.

    Where to Get the Book

    Related Posts and Pages

    Explore the series index for The Sea Mage Cycle.

    Return to the book page for Bloodfire Legacy.

    Playing Catch-up

    It’s been a crazy week. On Tuesday, I had a minor accident with the family car, where I tried to step out while the car was in reverse, and the front door impacted a wall and got bent out of shape. So that threw off the whole day, and put us out more than a grand, which is why I haven’t gotten back to blogging daily. But hopefully that will change as I catch up on things.

    Right now, I’m juggling three WIPs, which is a little crazy. Fortunately, two of them are in the same series/world, which makes it a little easier, but not by much.

    I was hoping to finish this WIP completely by the end of the week, but now that’s obviously not going to happen. With my wife busy finishing up her classes for the semester, leaving me to watch the kids most of the day, it’s realistically going to take the rest of the month to finish this book. Which is fine, but a little frustrating.

    First, I need to finish the revised human draft. I’m currently in chapter 2 out of 12, but if I push I can probably finish that next week. Then, I need to do a final polish, cutting the word count down by about 10%. That might take longer, but it will probably require less brainspace, since it’s mostly just looking for unnecessary words and cutting them.

    This book is currently up for preorder, so it needs to get done soon enough that I can send it out to my editor for a copy edit. It is set to release in July, which gives me three months, but the sooner it’s done, the better. For that reason, this book needs to be my priority.

    This is a quick cover mock-up I made for The Soulbond and the Sling using ChatGPT. I will probably make this a J.M. Wight book, but it’s good enough for now. Definitely captures the tone and genre.

    I’m working on the rough human draft for this one, which is probably going to be the most difficult draft. My hope is to finish it by June, leaving another month to do the revision draft and the final polish. So far, it’s going well, but juggling this one with the other projects is starting to get a little difficult.

    I’m going to be on the Blasters and Blades podcast soon, talking about this new series, so I want to get the first four chapters to a state where I can put them into a sample excerpt, hopefully before the end of the month. That way, people who hear the podcast (or find out about it in other ways) can download the sample and sign up for my email list to be informed when the full book comes out.

    I am very excited for this book, and hopeful that it will turn out well! The AI draft is already done, so I just need to translate that into the actual human draft and make it shine.

    I’m also working on the AI draft for The Soulbond and the Lady, book 2 of the series, though this is a much lower priority. Basically, I’m doing just enough to keep my AI writing skills honed, and when I start the human draft of this book, after finishing The Soulbond and the Sling, I’ll focus more on finishing the AI draft for this one. But I am very excited to finish this WIP as well, since I hope to release the first three books in this series all at roughly the same time. So the sooner I can finish this one, the soon I can publish the first book.

    As if that’s not enough, I’m also working on an outline for another fantasy trilogy, which I hope to generate in Sudowrite before the end of the month. Gotta use those credits before I lose them. But that’s more of a fun side project at this point—something to do after the work has been done on everything else.

    At some point, I’m probably going to drop the ball on one of these WIPs. That, or I’ll put everything else on hold to finish Captive of the Falconstar, but I don’t want to do that until I have a good stretch of time and know that I can finish it quickly. In the meantime, I’m backed up on all of the regular publishing tasks, which is why I haven’t posted a new short story for the Vasicek Free Library for this month yet, but that’s coming soon. And hopefully I can get caught up on this blog too.

    The rough draft of Captive of the Falconstar is complete!

    Good news! The rough human draft of Captive of the Falconstar is now complete! I finished it just this morning. It clocks in at:

    • 12 chapters
    • 63 scenes
    • 84,786 words

    The AI draft was a little bit longer, at 85,055 words. I finished that last week (I’ve been working on the AI draft and the human draft concurrently). But the AI draft was never going to be good enough to put out into the world on its own. There were definitely parts that I needed to rewrite in my own words, in order to work out the finer details of the story. That’s one of the reasons why I always do a complete human rewrite of everything I generate with AI.

    The next step is to make a revision pass through the book, to check for any plot holes or loose threads, and to make sure that all of the scene and chapter transitions work the way they’re supposed to. Then I’ll make a final polishing pass, where I cut the word count by at least 10%. At that point, all it needs is a copy edit and/or a proofreading pass, and it’s ready to go out into the world!

    If you want to preorder this book, you can already do so at most of the major online retailers. It’s set to release on July 11th, which is plenty of time to finish all the revisions and edits.

    Captive of the Falconstar

    Captive of the Falconstar

    When freedom is a fantasy, only revenge is real.

    Sonya has lost everything to the Hameji raiders who carried her off across the stars. To make matters worse, her only friend has become a Hameji queen and treats her as a pawn. As rival brides scheme to bear the firstborn son and heir, Sonya is drawn into a ruthless world of power, secrets, and sex. But if she can survive the role she has been forced to play, she may finally have the chance to bring her captors to their knees.

    Order Now!
    About the Book
    When freedom is a fantasy, only revenge is real. Sonya has lost her home, her name, and her freedom to the Hameji raiders who carried her off across the stars. Her only friend has remade herself as a Hameji queen—and now treats Sonya as just another pawn in her desperate game for power. Sonya tells herself that all she wants is to escape. But beneath that hope burns a hunger for revenge. When Lord Khasan takes a second bride to secure a powerful alliance, the women of the Falconstar are drawn into a ruthless contest to produce the firstborn son and heir. As rival queens scheme for position and an old blood feud erupts into war, Sonya is pulled into a world where a woman’s worth is measured by the sons she bears, the favors she can trade, and the secrets she can exploit. In the ruthless game of Hameji politics, captivity takes many forms. And if Sonya can survive the role she has been forced to play, she may finally have the chance to bring her captors to their knees.
    Details
    Author: Joe Vasicek
    Series: Falconstar Trilogy, Book 2
    Genres: Action & Adventure, FICTION, General, Military, Science Fiction, Space Exploration, Space Opera
    Tag: 2026 Release
    Publisher: Joe Vasicek
    Publication Year: July 2026
    Length: Novel
    ASIN: B0GS9C2S52
    eBook Price: $4.99
    Order Now
    $1 off the ebook with coupon code: BUY DIRECT
    Buy from Amazon Kindle
    Buy from Apple Books
    Buy from Barnes and Noble Nook
    Buy from Smashwords
    Joe Vasicek

    Joe Vasicek fell in love with science fiction and fantasy when he read The Neverending Story as a child. He is the author of more than twenty books, including Genesis Earth, Gunslinger to the Stars, The Sword Keeper, and the Sons of the Starfarers series. As a young man, he studied Arabic at Brigham Young University and traveled across the Middle East and the Caucasus Mountains. He lives in Utah with his wife and two apple trees.

    Other Books in the "Falconstar Trilogy"
    Queen of the Falconstar
    Preview
    Some of the links in the page above are "affiliate links." This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission. You will not receive any additional charge. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

    March Reading Recap

    Books I Finished

    Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids by Bryan Caplan

    If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies by Eliezer Yudkowsky & Nate Soares

    The Death of Caesar by Barry Strauss

    Ride the Dark Trail by Louis L’Amour

    The Undoing Project by Michael Lewis

    The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory by Tim Alberta

    The Tall Stranger by Louis L’Amour

    Dataclysm by Christian Rudder

    Throne of the Crescent Moon by Saladin Ahmed

    Creating Character Arcs by K.M. Weiland

    The Mother of the Lord by Margaret Barker

    The Nazi Mind by Laurence Rees

    The Jupiter Knife by D.J. Butler & Aaron Michael Ritchey

    The Lost World of Genesis One by John H. Walton

    Dark Canyon by Louis L’Amour

    The NVIDIA Way by Tae Kim

    Write Naked by Jennifer Probst

    Lonely on the Mountain by Louis L’Amour

    Nightmare Obscura by Michelle Carr

    Books I DNFed

    • This Is For Everyone by Tim Berners-Lee

    • The Bible According to Christian Nationalists by Brian Kaylor

    • The Plot Thickens by Noah Lukeman

    • The Leah Shadow by Harold K. Moon

    • Kesrith by C.J. Cherryh

    • Deryni Rising by Katherine Kurtz

    • Moneyball by Michael Lewis

    • The Making & Breaking of the American Constitution by Mark Peterson

    • Passage by Connie Willis

    Going Dark

    I thought I was at least a month from finishing my current WIP, Captive of the Falconstar. But I made some really good progress over the weekend, and now I think that I may be able to finish it before the start of April—but only if I push really hard to finish it.

    So I’ve decided to put off everything else that doesn’t absolutely have to get done, in order to focus on that WIP. Part of that means putting off this blog. Whether or not I finish Captive of the Falconstar, I’ll be back in April, but this is going to be the last post for a while.

    By the way, if you want to preorder Captive of the Falconstar, you can now do so on Amazon and most other stores! The book description isn’t that good, so I’ll definitely update it before the book goes live, but other than that it’s basically good to go. And if you want to pick up book 1, it’s currently available for free.

    Captive of the Falconstar

    Captive of the Falconstar

    When freedom is a fantasy, only revenge is real.

    Sonya has lost everything to the Hameji raiders who carried her off across the stars. To make matters worse, her only friend has become a Hameji queen and treats her as a pawn. As rival brides scheme to bear the firstborn son and heir, Sonya is drawn into a ruthless world of power, secrets, and sex. But if she can survive the role she has been forced to play, she may finally have the chance to bring her captors to their knees.

    Order Now!
    About the Book

    When freedom is a fantasy, only revenge is real.

    Sonya has lost her home, her name, and her freedom to the Hameji raiders who carried her off across the stars. Her only friend has remade herself as a Hameji queen—and now treats Sonya as just another pawn in her desperate game for power.

    Sonya tells herself that all she wants is to escape. But beneath that hope burns a hunger for revenge.

    When Lord Khasan takes a second bride to secure a powerful alliance, the women of the Falconstar are drawn into a ruthless contest to produce the firstborn son and heir. As rival queens scheme for position and an old blood feud erupts into war, Sonya is pulled into a world where a woman’s worth is measured by the sons she bears, the favors she can trade, and the secrets she can exploit.

    In the ruthless game of Hameji politics, captivity takes many forms. And if Sonya can survive the role she has been forced to play, she may finally have the chance to bring her captors to their knees.

    Details
    Author: Joe Vasicek
    Series: Falconstar Trilogy, Book 2
    Genres: Action & Adventure, FICTION, General, Military, Science Fiction, Space Exploration, Space Opera
    Tag: 2026 Release
    Publisher: Joe Vasicek
    Publication Year: July 2026
    Length: Novel
    ASIN: B0GS9C2S52
    eBook Price: $4.99
    Order Now
    $1 off the ebook with coupon code: BUY DIRECT
    Buy from Amazon Kindle
    Buy from Apple Books
    Buy from Barnes and Noble Nook
    Buy from Smashwords
    Joe Vasicek

    Joe Vasicek fell in love with science fiction and fantasy when he read The Neverending Story as a child. He is the author of more than twenty books, including Genesis Earth, Gunslinger to the Stars, The Sword Keeper, and the Sons of the Starfarers series. As a young man, he studied Arabic at Brigham Young University and traveled across the Middle East and the Caucasus Mountains. He lives in Utah with his wife and two apple trees.

    Other Books in the "Falconstar Trilogy"
    Queen of the Falconstar
    Preview
    Some of the links in the page above are "affiliate links." This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission. You will not receive any additional charge. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

    Healing a Cursed Land in The Winds of Desolation

    Fantasy often asks what heroes will risk to save their people, but it also asks a deeper question: what does it take to heal a world that has already been broken? In The Winds of Desolation, the land itself bears the scars of ancient wrongdoing. The story follows characters who must confront the past, not merely to survive its consequences, but to restore what was lost.

    Where the Idea Came From

    The idea behind this story grew from a fascination with how places carry history. Some landscapes seem peaceful and alive, while others feel haunted by the memory of what happened there long ago. That contrast led to a simple “what if”: what if a land could be wounded by the choices of those who once ruled it, and what if healing it required courage from a new generation willing to face that past instead of fleeing from it?

    How Healing a Cursed Land Shapes the Story

    In The Winds of Desolation, the curse hanging over the land is not just a magical obstacle. It is the result of ancient decisions that reshaped the world and left lasting consequences behind. The storms, the strange magic, and the dangers the characters face are all symptoms of something deeper—a broken balance between power, responsibility, and the land itself.

    This idea drives the choices the characters must make. Some want to escape the cursed region and leave its mysteries behind. Others believe the only path forward is to confront the past and repair what was damaged. As alliances form and secrets emerge, the question becomes clear: is the desolation inevitable, or can courage and sacrifice restore life to a place that seems beyond saving?

    What Healing a Cursed Land Says About Us

    Stories about cursed lands resonate because they echo a truth about human life: our choices shape the world we leave behind. Just as the characters in the story inherit the consequences of earlier generations, people in the real world often find themselves living with the results of decisions they did not personally make. The hope at the heart of this theme is that broken things—whether landscapes, communities, or relationships—are not beyond healing if someone is willing to take responsibility and begin the work of restoration.

    Why This Theme Matters to Me

    One of the ideas that kept returning to me while writing this story is that the world is never truly static. Every generation inherits something—sometimes something beautiful, sometimes something damaged. I wanted to explore what it means to step into that inheritance with humility and courage, and to believe that even a wounded land can be made whole again if people refuse to abandon it.

    Where to Get the Book

    Related Posts and Pages

    Explore the series index for The Sea Mage Cycle.

    Return to the book page for The Winds of Desolation.

    Is The Winds of Desolation for You?

    The Winds of Desolation is a survival fantasy adventure about a small band of travelers stranded in a cursed land where the wilderness itself seems determined to destroy them. Shipwrecked far from civilization and hunted by enemies who control the fate of the land, they must rely on courage, magic, and loyalty to survive. The result is a tense journey across a dangerous landscape where every decision matters.

    What Kind of Reader Will Love This Book?

    f you love…

    • fantasy survival stories about characters stranded in hostile lands

    • classic quest adventures with magic, ancient prophecies, and cursed places

    • small groups of companions relying on loyalty, courage, and cleverness to survive

    • wilderness journeys across strange and dangerous landscapes

    • character-driven fantasy with teamwork, sacrifice, and high stakes

    …then The Winds of Desolation is probably your kind of story.

    What You’ll Find Inside

    The Winds of Desolation follows Alex, a young sea mage who survives a deadly storm only to find himself stranded with his companions in the infamous Lands of Desolation—a cursed wilderness where few who enter ever return. With their captain dead, their supplies nearly gone, and their most powerful ally mysteriously incapacitated, the group must cross hostile territory while evading enemies who seek to control the land’s ancient magic. The story blends tense survival, exploration, and magical intrigue, creating a fast-moving adventure that feels both gritty and hopeful.

    What Makes It Different

    Fans of classic quest fantasy will recognize familiar elements—dangerous landscapes, powerful magic, and a group of companions working together to overcome impossible odds. But The Winds of Desolation leans heavily into the survival aspect of the journey. Instead of a large army or powerful kingdom, the story focuses on a handful of characters struggling to survive in a cursed wilderness while unraveling the mysteries behind it. The result is a fantasy adventure where the landscape itself becomes one of the story’s most dangerous characters.

    What You Won’t Find

    This is not grimdark fantasy built around cynicism or relentless brutality. While the story contains danger and loss, it ultimately focuses on courage, friendship, and perseverance. Readers looking for heavy political intrigue or court drama may also find that the story keeps its attention firmly on adventure, exploration, and survival.

    Why I Think You Might Love It

    I’ve always been fascinated by stories where ordinary people are forced into extraordinary situations and must rely on each other to survive. The heart of this book is that kind of journey: a small group of companions facing fear, uncertainty, and impossible odds while trying to do the right thing. Stories like this remind me that courage doesn’t come from power or destiny—it comes from choosing, again and again, to stand by the people who need you.

    Where to Get the Book

    Related Posts and Pages

    Explore the series index for The Sea Mage Cycle.

    Return to the book page for The Winds of Desolation.