by Linsey Hall
So why did I make Cass Cleraux a treasure hunter? I’d have loved to call her an archaeologist, but nothing about Cass’s work is like archaeology. Archaeology is a very laborious, painstaking process—and it certainly doesn’t involve selling artifacts. That wouldn’t work for the fast paced, adventurous series that I had planned for Dragon’s Gift. Not to mention the fact that dragons are famous for coveting treasure. Considering where Cass got her skills from, it just made sense to call her a treasure hunter. Even though I write urban fantasy, I strive for accuracy. Cass doesn’t engage in archaeological practices—therefore, I cannot call her an archaeologist. I also have a duty as an archaeologist to properly represent my field and our goals—namely, to protect and share history. Treasure hunting doesn’t do this. One of the biggest battles that archaeology faces today is protecting cultural heritage from thieves.
I debated long and hard about not only what to call Cass, but also about how she would do her job. I wanted it to involve all the cool things we think about when we think about archaeology—namely, the Indiana Jones stuff, whether it’s real or not. But I didn’t know quite how to do that while still staying within the bounds of my own ethics. I can cut myself and other writers some slack because this is fiction, but I couldn’t go too far into smash and grab treasure hunting.
I consulted some of my archaeology colleagues to get their take, which was immensely helpful. Wayne Lusardi, the State Maritime Archaeologist for Michigan, and Douglas Inglis and Veronica Morris, both archaeologists for Interactive Heritage, were immensely helpful with ideas. My biggest problem was figuring out how to have Cass steal artifacts from tombs and then sell them and still sleep at night. Everything I’ve just said is pretty counter to this, right?
That’s where the magic comes in. Cass isn’t after the artifacts themselves (she puts them back where she found them, if you recall)—she’s after the magic that the artifacts contain. She’s more of a magic hunter than a treasure hunter. That solved a big part of my problem. At least she was putting the artifacts back. Though that’s not proper archaeology (especially the damage she caused to the first tomb), I could let it pass. At least it’s clear that she believes she shouldn’t keep the artifact or harm the site. But the SuperNerd in me said, “Well, that magic is part of the artifact’s context. It’s important to the artifact and shouldn’t be removed and sold.”
Now that was a problem. I couldn’t escape my SuperNerd self, so I was in a real conundrum. Fortunately, that’s where the immensely intelligent Wayne Lusardi came in. He suggested that the magic could have an expiration date. If the magic wasn’t used before it decayed, it could cause huge problems. Think explosions and tornado spells run amok. It could ruin the entire site, not to mention possibly cause injury and death. That would be very bad.
So now you see why Cass Clereaux didn’t just steal artifacts to sell them. Not only is selling the magic cooler, it’s also better from an ethical standpoint, especially if the magic was going to cause problems in the long run. These aren’t perfect solutions—the perfect solution would be sending in a team of archaeologists to carefully record the site and remove the dangerous magic—but that wouldn’t be a very fun book. Hopefully this was a good compromise that you enjoyed (and that my old professors don’t hang their heads over).
As with my other books, I like to include real historical sites in my novels. In Ancient Magic, there were a few places of note. The first was the monks’ island in Ireland. That is a real place called the Skellig Michael, part of the Skellig islands off the coast of southwestern Ireland. It’s an amazing place and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The beehive shaped buildings that I described were inhabited by real monks from the end of the first millennium onward.
The other historic site that I included is on the cover of the book. It is Holyrood Abbey in Edinburgh, Scotland. The final battle site on the hidden island is modeled after the abbey. Edinburgh is just too heavily populated to have an epic final battle without humans noticing, so I moved it to a hidden location :-)
I hope you enjoyed the story and will stick with Cass on the rest of her adventure!
Ancient Magic Acknowledgments
The Dragon’s Gift series is a product of my two lives: one as an archaeologist and one as a novelist. Combining these two took a bit of work. I’d like to thank my friends, Wayne Lusardi, the State Maritime Archaeologist for Michigan, and Douglas Inglis and Veronica Morris, both archaeologists for Interactive Heritage, for their ideas about how to have a treasure hunter heroine that doesn’t conflict too much with archaeology’s ethics. The Author’s Note contains a bit more about this if you are interested
Thank you, Ben, for everything you’ve done to support me in this career. Thank you to my dear friend Emily Keane for reading every story I’ve written and for sharing your great ideas. As always, your comments were amazing. Thank you to Carol Thomas for sharing your thoughts on the book and being amazing inspiration.
Thank you to Jena O’Connor and Lindsey Loucks for various forms of editing. The book is immensely better because of you! And thank you to Rebecca Frank for the beautiful cover. You really bring Cass to life.
Mirror Mage Author’s Note
Hey, there! I hope you enjoyed reading Mirror Mage as much as I enjoyed writing it. The Dragon’s Gift series has really become a labor of love for me because I am also an archaeologist. This series allows me to combine my two loves—writing and history—which has been massively fun.
As with my other books, I included historical sites in Mirror Mage. The most important historical site in Mirror Mage is the ruined city that is the setting for the final battle. This took place at the ruins of Ephesus, the ancient Greek and Roman city in Turkey. The statue of Hercules, the ampitheatre, the library, the brothel, and even the sign pointing to the brothel are all real. You can even visit! I haven’t had the pleasure myself, but a colleague of mine, Dr. Ayse Devrim Atauz, helped me understand the layout and feel of the city. Any errors are my own (or were made to improve the story, like moving the amphitheater slightly).
But one of the most important things about the Dragon’s Gift series is Cass’s relationship with the artifacts and the sense of responsibility she feels to protect them. I spoke about this in the Author’s Note for Ancient Magic, so this might be repetitive for some folks (feel free to quit now if so), but I want to include it in each of my Author’s Notes because it’s so important to me.
I knew I had a careful line to tread when writing these books—combining the ethics of archaeology with the fantasy aspect of treasure hunting isn’t always easy.
There is a big difference between these two activities. As much as I value artifacts, they are not treasure. Not even the gold artifacts. They are pieces of our history that contain valuable information, and as such, they belong to all of us. Every artifact that is excavated should be properly conserved and stored in a museum so that everyone can have access to our history. No one single person can own history, and I believe very strongly that individuals should not own artifacts. Treasure hunting is the pursuit of artifacts for personal gain.
So why did I make Cass Cleraux a treasure hunter? I’d have loved to call her an archaeologist, but nothing about Cass’s work is like archaeology. Archaeology is a very laborious, painstaking process—and it certainly doesn’t involve selling artifacts. That wouldn’t work for the fast paced, adventurous series that I had planned for Dragon’s Gift. Not to mention the fact that dragons are famous for coveting treasure. Considering where Cass got her skills from, it just made sense to call her a treasure hunter (though I really like to think of her as a magic hunter). Even though I write urban fantasy, I strive for accuracy. Cass doesn’t engage in archaeological practices—therefore, I cannot call her an archaeologist. I also have a duty as an archaeologist to properly represent my field and our goals—namely, to protect and share history. Treasure hunting doesn’t do this. One of the biggest battles that archaeology faces today is protecting cultural heritage from thieves.
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I debated long and hard about not only what to call Cass, but also about how she would do her job. I wanted it to involve all the cool things we think about when we think about archaeology—namely, the Indiana Jones stuff, whether it’s real or not. Because that stuff is fun, and my main goal is to write a fun book. But I didn’t know quite how to do that while still staying within the bounds of my own ethics. I can cut myself and other writers some slack because this is fiction, but I couldn’t go too far into smash and grab treasure hunting.
I consulted some of my archaeology colleagues to get their take, which was immensely helpful. Wayne Lusardi, the State Maritime Archaeologist for Michigan, and Douglas Inglis and Veronica Morris, both archaeologists for Interactive Heritage, were immensely helpful with ideas. My biggest problem was figuring out how to have Cass steal artifacts from tombs and then sell them and still sleep at night. Everything I’ve just said is pretty counter to this, right?
That’s where the magic comes in. Cass isn’t after the artifacts themselves (she puts them back where she found them, if you recall)—she’s after the magic that the artifacts contain. She’s more of a magic hunter than a treasure hunter. That solved a big part of my problem. At least she was putting the artifacts back. Though that’s not proper archaeology (especially the damage she sometimes causes, which she always goes back to fix), I could let it pass. At least it’s clear that she believes she shouldn’t keep the artifact or harm the site. But the SuperNerd in me said, “Well, that magic is part of the artifact’s context. It’s important to the artifact and shouldn’t be removed and sold.”
Now that was a problem. I couldn’t escape my SuperNerd self, so I was in a real conundrum. Fortunately, that’s where the immensely intelligent Wayne Lusardi came in. He suggested that the magic could have an expiration date. If the magic wasn’t used before it decayed, it could cause huge problems. Think explosions and tornado spells run amok. It could ruin the entire site, not to mention possibly cause injury and death. That would be very bad.
So now you see why Cass Clereaux didn’t just steal artifacts to sell them. Not only is selling the magic cooler, it’s also better from an ethical standpoint, especially if the magic was going to cause problems in the long run. These aren’t perfect solutions—the perfect solution would be sending in a team of archaeologists to carefully record the site and remove the dangerous magic—but that wouldn’t be a very fun book. Hopefully this was a good compromise that you enjoyed (and that my old professors don’t hang their heads over).
Mirror Mage Acknowledgments
The Dragon’s Gift series is a product of my two lives: one as an archaeologist and one as a novelist. I’m fortunate to have friends from my other life who are experts on historical sites. I’d like to thank Dr. Ayse Devrim Atauz for her help with the ruins at Ephesus (the real life location of the final battle) and Julia, a Roman archaeologist for her help with the Roman brothel and prostitutes.
There was one aspect of combining my two lives that took a bit of work. I’d like to thank my friends, Wayne Lusardi, the State Maritime Archaeologist for Michigan, and Douglas Inglis and Veronica Morris, both archaeologists for Interactive Heritage, for their ideas about how to have a treasure hunter heroine that doesn’t conflict too much with archaeology’s ethics. The Author’s Note contains a bit more about this if you are interested
Thank you, Ben, for everything you’ve done to support me in this career. Thank you to Carol Thomas for sharing your thoughts on the book and being amazing inspiration. My books are always better because of your help.
Thank you to Jena O’Connor and Lindsey Loucks for various forms of editing. The book is immensely better because of you! And thank you to Rebecca Frank for the beautiful cover. You really bring Cass to life!
Stolen Magic Author’s Note
I hope you enjoyed reading Stolen Magic as much as I enjoyed writing it. Writing Cass’s adventures are a labor of love for me because in addition to being a writer, I am also an archaeologist. The Dragon’s Gift series allows me to combine my two loves—writing and history—which has been amazing.
As with my other stories, Stolen Magic features historical sites. The most important historical site in Stolen Magic is the Museum of Magical History, which is a based off the Natural History Museum in London. It’s an amazing museum, but the building itself is also historic. It was completed in 1881 and features incredible architecture that made it a perfect setting for Cass’s third adventure. Not only is it full of old stuff, the building is also old stuff as well.
For the purposes of the story, I cleared out all the dinosaur skeletons and replaced the collections with magical archaeological artifacts. The cover image is meant to be one of the windows of the museum’s main hall, though I’ll confess that we actually used an image of Holyrood Abbey in Edinburgh because it worked better from an artistic standpoint.
But one of the most important things about the Dragon’s Gift series is Cass’s relationship with the artifacts and the sense of responsibility she feels to protect them. I spoke about this in the Author’s Note for Ancient Magic and Mirror Mage, so this might be repetitive for some folks (feel free to quit now if so), but I want to include it in each of my Author’s Notes because it’s so important to me.
I knew I had a careful line to tread when writing these books—combining the ethics of archaeology with the fantasy aspect of treasure hunting isn’t always easy.
There is a big difference between these two activities. As much as I value artifacts, they are not treasure. Not even the gold artifacts. They are pieces of our history that contain valuable information, and as such, they belong to all of us. Every artifact that is excavated should be properly conserved and stored in a museum so that everyone can have access to our history. No one single person can own history, and I believe very strongly that individuals should not own artifacts. Treasure hunting is the pursuit of artifacts for personal gain.
So why did I make Cass Cleraux a treasure hunter? I’d have loved to call her an archaeologist, but nothing about Cass’s work is like archaeology. Archaeology is a very laborious, painstaking process—and it certainly doesn’t involve selling artifacts. That wouldn’t work for the fast paced, adventurous series that I had planned for Dragon’s Gift. Not to mention the fact that dragons are famous for coveting treasure. Considering where Cass got her skills from, it just made sense to call her a treasure hunter (though I really like to think of her as a magic hunter). Even though I write urban fantasy, I strive for accuracy. Cass doesn’t engage in archaeological practices—therefore, I cannot call her an archaeologist. I also have a duty as an archaeologist to properly represent my field and our goals—namely, to protect and share history. Treasure hunting doesn’t do this. One of the biggest battles that archaeology faces today is protecting cultural heritage from thieves.
I debated long and hard about not only what to call Cass, but also about how she would do her job. I wanted it to involve all the cool things we think about when we think about archaeology—namely, the Indiana Jones stuff, whether it’s real or not. Because that stuff is fun, and my main goal is to write a fun book. But I didn’t know quite how to do that while still staying within the bounds of my own ethics. I can cut myself and other writers some slack because this is fiction, but I couldn’t go too far into smash and grab treasure hunting.
I consulted some of my archaeology colleagues to get their take, which was immensely helpful. Wayne Lusardi, the State Maritime Archaeologist for Michigan, and Douglas Inglis and Veronica Morris, both archaeologists for Interactive Heritage, were immensely helpful with ideas. My biggest problem was figuring out how to have Cass steal artifacts from tombs and then sell them and still sleep at night. Everything I’ve just said is pretty counter to this, right?
That’s where the magic comes in. Cass isn’t after the artifacts themselves (she puts them back where she found them, if you recall)—she’s after the magic that the artifacts contain. She’s more of a magic hunter than a treasure hunter
. That solved a big part of my problem. At least she was putting the artifacts back. Though that’s not proper archaeology (especially the damage she sometimes causes, which she always goes back to fix), I could let it pass. At least it’s clear that she believes she shouldn’t keep the artifact or harm the site. But the SuperNerd in me said, “Well, that magic is part of the artifact’s context. It’s important to the artifact and shouldn’t be removed and sold.”
Now that was a problem. I couldn’t escape my SuperNerd self, so I was in a real conundrum. Fortunately, that’s where the immensely intelligent Wayne Lusardi came in. He suggested that the magic could have an expiration date. If the magic wasn’t used before it decayed, it could cause huge problems. Think explosions and tornado spells run amok. It could ruin the entire site, not to mention possibly cause injury and death. That would be very bad.
So now you see why Cass Clereaux didn’t just steal artifacts to sell them. Not only is selling the magic cooler, it’s also better from an ethical standpoint, especially if the magic was going to cause problems in the long run. These aren’t perfect solutions—the perfect solution would be sending in a team of archaeologists to carefully record the site and remove the dangerous magic—but that wouldn’t be a very fun book. Hopefully this was a good compromise that you enjoyed (and that my old professors don’t hang their heads over).
