Putting the finishing touches on a chapter where one of the main characters learns how to use a “palmloader.” I’m a little leary of adding a substitute for guns in a fantasy novel. I’ve heard that so-called “western fantasies” don’t do all that well because fantasy readers want swords, not guns. If they wanted guns, they’d be reading crime novels.

I hope I’ve been able to hit a nice balance between using projectile weapons–not necessarily a gun–and also appeasing the sword-fanatics by creating the palmloaders, which are so wildly inaccurate that a soldier better be less than twenty feet from a target and also carry a sword as well in case he misses. This somewhat reminds me of the rifles from the Thirty-Years War in Europe. Some of these rifles were so large and unweildy that they were most often carried by two soldiers and had a pole beneath it for stabilizing it when it was time to aim. Another interesting thing about these rifles was that they were just as likely to blow up those using it as it was to shoot in the intended direction.

Not a job I’d want, being assingned to test out prototype guns in the 17th century. I’ve tried to add a little bit of this inaccuracy and unpredictability into the palmloaders, which incidentally, are powered by magic and not gunpowder.