For this book, Jimmy the Hand, Steve Stirling chose this character as one of his favourites, and I was happy to do a story about Jimmy’s ‘first’ solo adventure, long before he saved Arutha from the assassin on the roof tops of Krondor. I think it safe to say that after having written many books about Jimmy/Lord James, I would have been unable to return to that character without being burdened by what I knew lay before him. Steve managed to find the boy who perked up the last four chapters of the first half of Magician and remind me who he was.
In Murder in LaMut, Joel and I got to ‘clone’ three of my favourite characters from his universe, changing them just a little bit to make them Midkemian, yet echoing their well-chronicled history in Joel’s Guardian of the Flames series. My original idea for that story went back years ago to a notion I once had of doing a solo book about Roald, the mercenary friend of Laurie, who was featured in Silverthorn, set in a blizzard-strangled city where murder was done. This worked out better, I think.
Bill wanted to write Xenophon’s retreat through Persia as a fantasy and I wanted to write a Sharpe’s Rifles-style story, so we came up with Honoured Enemy. Bill’s strong background in military history and his familiarity with historical figures gave me strong characters that I cherish along with those I’ve developed; but I could never have imagined them on my own.
All three authors were fun to work with, and as always I learned from getting to peek inside another author’s head. I hope my readers find these books as much of a treat as I do. I look forward to working with other talented writers in the future.
Raymond E. Feist
San Diego, CA 2003
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
As always, my first thanks must go to the mothers and fathers of Midkemia, who taught me the wisdom of listening to other voices.
To every fine writer who taught me how it should be done; I’m still trying.
To Jonathan Matson, again, and as always.
To Jane and Jennifer, two fine editors and better friends.
And to the usual suspects for all the love, support, humour and the richness of friendship.
And most of all, to my daughter Jessica and my son James for keeping it real.
About the Authors
RAYMOND E. FEIST’s previous novels include the Dark War Saga: Flight of the Nighthawks, Into a Dark Realm, and Wrath of a Mad God, as well as the Conclave of Shadows: Talon of the Silver Hawk, King of Foxes, and Exile’s Return; Magician; Silverthorn; Faerie Tale; Prince of the Blood; and The King’s Buccaneer; the four books of the New York Times bestselling Serpent War Saga: Shadow of a Dark Queen, Rise of a Merchant Prince, Rage of a Demon King, and Shards of a Broken Crown; and the three books of his Riftwar Legacy: Krondor: The Betrayal, Krondor: The Assassins, and Krondor: Tear of the Gods. Mr. Feist lives in Southern California.
S.M. STIRLING was born in France in 1953, to Canadian parents—although his mother was born in England and grew up in Peru. After that he lived in Europe, Canada, Africa, and the United States and visited several other continents. He graduated from law school in Canada but had his dorsal fin surgically removed, and published his first novel (Snowbrother) in 1984. Stirling went fulltime as a writer in 1988, the year of his marriage to Janet Moore of Milford, Massachusetts, whom he met, wooed, and proposed to at successive World Fantasy Conventions. In 1995 he suddenly realized that he could live anywhere and they decamped from Toronto, that large, cold, gray city on Lake Ontario, and moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico. Stirling became an American citizen in 2004. His latest books are In the Courts of the Crimson Kings from Tor and The Sunrise Lands from Roc books. His hobbies mostly involve reading—history, anthropology, archaeology, and travel, besides fiction—but he also cooks and bakes for fun and food. For twenty years he also pursued the martial arts, until hyperextension injuries convinced him he was in danger of becoming the most deadly cripple in human history. Currently he lives with his wife, Janet, also an author, and the compulsory authorial cats.
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ALSO BY RAYMOND E. FEIST
Flight of the Nighthawks
Into a Dark Realm
Wrath of a Mad God
Exile’s Return
King of Foxes
Talon of the Silver Hawk
Silverthorn
A Darkness at Sethanon
Faerie Tale
Shadow of a Dark Queen
Rise of a Merchant Prince
Rage of a Demon King
Shards of a Broken Crown
Krondor: Tear of the Gods
Krondor: The Betrayal
Krondor: The Assassins
With Janny Wurts
Daughter of the Empire
Servant of the Empire
Mistress of the Empire
With William R. Forstchen
Honored Enemy
With Joel Rosenberg
Murder in LaMut
ALSO BY S. M. STIRLING
Island in the Sea of Time
Against the Tide of Years
On the Oceans of Eternity
The Peshawar Lancers
Dies the Fire
The Protector’s War
A Meeting at Corvallis
The Sunrise Lands
The Scourge of God
The Sky People
In the Courts of the Crimson Kings
Ice, Iron and Gold
Credits
Map by Ralph M. Askren, D.V.M.
Cover illustration by Geoff Taylor
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
JIMMY THE HAND. Copyright © 2003 by Raymond E. Feist and Steve Stirling. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
EPub Edition © JULY 2008 ISBN: 9780061842665
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