[FormSpring just isn’t working for me anymore – can’t even get my password, so I wanted to have these questions added somewhere we could reference them again… This also gives me a quick break to get ahead.  Consider it a bit of a bye week.  That said, some of the questions were directed to E, and some to me as author, so I am shifting back and forth as appropriate.  Feel free to ask questions (of either) in the comments!]

Are there demons and angels and devils in E’s world?

As creatures of the Beyond, some will take that shape, yes.  As forces or messengers of the aspects of “Good” or “Evil,” E specifically does not believe in such.  The -cubi, for example, could be messengers of the aspect of Lust, and come from Smutvania with a capital of Pornsville… but just as there are many creatures that hold up what E would consider “deity forms” there’s never been any “Prime Creator” type that he believes has actions upon reality.  “Deity forms” usually are things that are, in effect, small worlds of their own.  A King of its own court, so to speak, and some of them, like the Shadow King, can warp reality to some degree while it has synchronization with it.  That synchronization is a thin thread, though, unless fed by other powers.  Dragons are different; they exist in many places at once, as E discovered, including in some part, our reality.  Does that make them more powerful than gods? Or just different?

Does “the power of belief” shape creatures in E’s world, or do the creatures shape belief?

There is a level of consensus in reality that reflects the nature of the universe as a whole, including its seeming ability to be affected by the observer.  This sounds very quantum and loosey-goosey (wibbly-wobbly if you must) but nevertheless implies a universe capable of change on both micro and macro levels.  In E’s world, Crowley was onto something when he talked about “change in conformance to will,” but the split comes in that magic is changing reality from outside (Beyond) in conformance to will, and belief and the ability of the observer changes it from within, much as exercise changes the body and mind.  Belief and observation change things a lot more slowly, because they’re smaller forces.  Synchronized belief (like the “standardization of sermons” a la the Mormons and such) has a bit more power (much as group prayers for health and healing are effective) because it is making more consensus, much as a bunch of skeptics can somewhat overpower a magical effect because they’re creating a small consensus reality of, shall we say, disbelief.  A more interesting corollary may be the question, “Does spirit exist within reality or as a symbiont from the Beyond anchored to this reality?” In E’s world, it can be both, and that implies that spirit may be a different reality from what we know physically, entirely.  If both truths can co-exist, that means E’s idea of what “primal reality” is might take a shaking.

What are your future plans for Dr. E?

Right now I’m trying to get in ~2000 words a week in the current run, which is actually vaguely plotted out through about the next ~80,000 words, to create what I’m loosely calling “Book Two.”  In the meantime, I am rewriting “Book One.”  When I say, “re-write,” I mean almost entirely.  There are characters and scenes that are similar, and the overall thrust of things seems to be along the same lines, but it’s very, very different.  I also have some other short stories planned (I am thinking around May I’ll release the next so that I can have a few weeks off during our family’s “month o’birthdays”) but those won’t happen until I’m happy with them, and “Da Goblinz” was about two years in the writing and rewriting.)

Is 2000 words all that hard?  Well, yes and no.  It’s a stretch for me because I tend to write in ~750 word bursts, and keeping the coherency for the extended-length entries has been a struggle.  I write far more than that each day, just never on the same topic.  (Well, my co-workers might disagree, but that’s their learning curve at which I’m poking fun.)  It’s harder to plot it out – when it was just a bunch of cliff-hangers I could give a punch to at the end of each, it was a lot easier, and whenever I didn’t contradict myself I gave myself a mental gold star.  Now I am taking it a bit more seriously, and thus it’s more of a challenge.  As long as it’s a challenge and not an obstacle, we’re good.

Are vampires sexy (or glittery) in E’s world?

I did not know that there was strawberry-scented body and hair glitter spray until a moment ago, so thank you for asking.  I love when I learn something new.  It might even make it into the story.  That said, only as much as the original creature the parasite attaches to is “sexy.”  Or glittery, I suppose.  Yes, the parasite can (and as I understand them, they regularly do) impose magical compulsions to impress their food, but the rule with vampires is that the harder the parasite works, the more the original creature (not necessarily human, by the way) is used up, and the more things affect the parasite directly.  So choosing naturally “sexy” (or, glittery, I suppose) creatures is a way to maintain the parasite’s strength.

Tell me about shapeshifters in the E world. Since Matana was studying werewolves, how does the idea that magic comes from the Beyond work with shifting?

Well, E very recently decided he prefers the term “slipskins,” but it’s nowhere a consensus choice.  I see where you’re confused because with Vampires it makes perfect sense; they’re in connection with the Beyond due to the parasite, but with shapeshifters it seems to be a lot more self-contained.  It’s really a lot of the same.  Those that are cursed pretty much have a spell that acts like the parasite: it provides a trigger-related opening to the Beyond, that trigger usually being the state of the moon, but can include a number of other items from emotional distress to the smell of sauerkraut (if that’s not the same thing.  Ahem.)   That leaves items (also usually tied to the Beyond – things like demonic capes and selkie skins and the like, that don’t actually belong in this world therefore they don’t pay attention to the rules – well, the ones of this reality, anyway), creatures actually from the Beyond (which really don’t count), and natural slipskins.  Natural ones obey natural laws and would be exceedingly rare, and for E, downright theoretical.  The idea with them is that there are cells that change, from smooth muscle tissue that innervate, and erectile tissues that allow for the vascular spaces that engorge with blood.  Natural shapeshifters would have a mutation that allows for DNA changes that go forward or backwards on an evolutionary scale.   But, really, that’s science fiction, and E is an urban fantasy.  So it’s more of a mental exercise on his behalf.

Can I trust the “facts” I get out of this series?

Not sure what you mean by that question, but if you were asking, say, why putting a condom in your wallet is a bad idea, that kind of thing I wouldn’t skimp on.  If you were asking if all women were witches, no, that’s E’s aspect (in a Fate sense) talking.  If you were asking, “If I open a door, could something bad come inside,” I would say that leaving such an exercise to the student would be a cute phrase but not one I could in all compassion leave alone.  The answer then is simply, “Yes.”

Knowing your author is a Shirley Jackson fan and the House in the Haunting of Hill House closes its own doors, how does something like that work in your world?

Honestly, in my world, the House acts as its own parasite dimension [for lack of a better term] off of the Reality I know. You have to enter its threshold for it to act on you, and its existence in the town bends the local reality because of the weight of its Otherness. It wants to be closed off, and whatever walks there went mad long ago. It wants to be alone. It closes doors because it’s being pulled towards self-implosion. This suggests that there are numerous sites like that which, for whatever reason, have pulled themselves out of the World. What’s important to know is that Reality does tend to heal itself of these pimples, reverting to the inexorable tide of consensus. The scabs of these places generally dry up and are reborn into the natural flow, but sometimes Things grow powerful in them. (It’s probably bad form to call vampires “the pus in the pimples of reality,” but tact is optional with monsters, right?)

How many fey courts are there, really?

Really? Really? Seriously, there’s no real answer to this question that would satisfy, if you’re hoping for some kind of “Seelie versus Unseileigh” or “Sidhe versus Garuda” or “Summer versus Winter” kind of breakdown. Frankly, I think the rule is anytime one of the fey manages to gain enough power, chutzpah, cottage cheese… (it’s the fey – who can tell?) to manipulate a demesne of whatever materials lie Beyond… a Court is born. (So you can have a Court of Flowers, a Court of Cottage Cheese, a Court of Red-tipped Sunflowers that Lie Beyond the Reach of Dawn…) and there will be multiple fealties and connections between them. Just as witches need a system of roots, the Courts need to be recognized by others to have efficacy. Larger courts would be Empires, recognizing a number of smaller courts and their royalty. Remember the rules of Hospitality; you treat a foreign King differently than your own, and a King different than a Knight, and a Knight different than a man on the road. Because the fey get their power from rules, an unsworn fey would be an odd thing indeed. Oathbreaking can unmake such a creature, so its position in a web of favours owing-and-owed is a significant sign of power and purpose. Still, some realms are more solid and/or attractive than others, so their names (Arcadia, Tír inna n-Óc, Valhalla, Ydalar, all places Beyond) filter into our conscious as their anchors become more solid to our reality.

I’ve been watching Fringe, and I think that Dr. E’s universe is an alternate universe in the tradition of that show. Besides the existence of Doors and all that it implies, what other differences exist between E’s world and ours?

The first difference, of course, is that we don’t have “Fringe.” (Truth be told, I, like a number of others with a genre preference, have been burned so many times by the networks that I figure until I’m convinced it will come to a fair conclusion that watching any such program is just a path to heartbreak. And don’t get me started on the inanities of Certain Shows That Shall Not Be Named in regards to putting on a production based on stream-of-consciousness associations. At least *I* admit I’m a rough draft.)

This ends up being a null set from my perspective. I live in a world of magic and modernity, where a Dragon looks like a hit-and-run accident, where covens consolidate power, where Google is slowly converting Books of Shadows, where I can get a direct deposit via a Russian sorcerer, and where you can start on one of the eight corners of Monaco and Colfax via public transportation and end up somewhere completely else once you’ve passed the other streets.

Maybe the question is, “Where do the interstices fail?” I still need to make a living. The places I refer to exist or have existed in time. The Questor and his wife have names and an address. Once you accept the first part (that there can be Doors and they can be Opened and Closed) I don’t think much of the rest is that outlandish. Or maybe it’s just a really slippery slope I don’t notice anymore.

OK, making it past downtown Boulder in forty minutes from the eastern side of Aurora… well, if you’re not worried about speeding tickets, and you’ve got a clear shot on a summer’s night, that’s maybe plausible. But I was pushing it.

What character does Dr. E play on gaming nights? And in what system?

Answering the second part first, because it does put the first part into perspective… The GM does a homebrew system that’s evolved over about twenty years of play and now doesn’t really fit the boundaries of the original D&D game it started as, especially as the GM likes to write inflammatory messages on story gaming boards and occasionally absorb some of their lessons.  It’s a bit more Talislanta.

I play two characters (at one point we split into two groups in the same world) but my oldest character is a Witch Hunter who was a halfbreed raised in the warm seasons with his Clan and in the cold seasons with his mother in the mage school. He’s now making a move towards being a Prince of a conquered land, but his love interest is amongst the conquered peoples and isn’t entirely happy with this plan.

The second character is a failed Bard who took up piracy and then found he had a significant magical talent (that had nothing to do with musical ability) and he’s trying to find a mentor that will let him balance the needs of his crew with the call of his magic.

Like most game fiction, it’s better “in the moment” than written, and so it should stay that way.

Are there any zombies in the Dr. E universe?

Let’s just drop virus and alien types immediately, because those are outside my playground.

I want to just say, “No,” but that’s disingenuous at best.

Are there creatures whose volition has been warped by magic? Yes, but under that broad umbrella you could say anything from vampires to wizards count, too. (I believe that magic is addictive in some fashion and the use of it does change you.) Empty shells filled with negative “undead” energy or simply the overwhelming command to replicate the state? Not so much. Yes, I am convinced there are forms of magical slavery that will bind your will against you, but I understand that there are rules for how and when they’re used. At least, I hope so. Humanity has a lot of advantages against that which lies Beyond, and I don’t want anyone thinking that home ground is the least of them.