SOME SPOILERS BELOW

Q.) Are the Left-Hand Mortons considered permanently in confinement at the conclusion of American Craftsmen?

A.) Permanently and completely? With Madeline now part of the mix? No way. But this is a continuing source of conflict, and I won’t say how it’s resolved.

Q.) Some club members expressed surprise that the Left-Hand Morton spirits took down Madeline and other “baddies,” but spared the Endicotts and other craftsmen at the end of the book’s climactic confrontations.  Can you give any explanation for this?

A.) The heroes themselves were surprised by this, but here’s the explanation. The Left-Hand Morton spirits had three priorities. One was to assimilate other Left-Hand spirits such as Madeline (and they would have gotten Roderick if they could). Another was take revenge on their ancient enemy, Abram Endicott, and assimilate him also if possible. The third was to find a way to incarnate again.

Though released from the House, the Left-Hand spirits still found themselves compelled by the orthodox Mortons (even the dead ones a bit) and they were also threatened by Scherie’s power and compelled by her new Morton status. As for attacking living Endicotts, they might have gotten around to it eventually, but they were fully occupied in general sparring with Pentagon forces and pursuit of their priorities.

Q.) You have been identifying various “magical” disciplines with each new magician character (Puritan, Native American, Persian, etc.).  What made you choose the disciplines you did?  Do you plan to introduce new disciplines in future books?,

A.) Though there are exceptions for reasons of plot, my disciplines for this book were primarily American (whether Native American or European colonialist). I chose to do this as a deliberate constraint (see below where I talk about the influence of L. Frank Baum on this idea of distinctly American fantasy). The conjunction of the historical character of Thomas Morton and classic American literature made me decide to tell this story with a focus on the New England Families, which meant also highlighting the Puritans as the counterpoint to the Mortons.

The constraint of using and creating American magics was difficult, because the European ideas of magic are better known. But it’s also difficult to do anything truly original with the European stories, so I thought the difficulty would be worth the effort.

Book 2, The Left-Hand Way will explode out from this constraint, with the characters starting the story in the craft worlds of London, Tokyo, Istanbul, and Kiev.