On art and insects

I got a nice surprise this weekend. A reader sent me a lovely drawing of a scene from the newest book, Whom the Gods Hate. This awesome picture was too good to keep for myself, so I asked if it was okay to include on my blog. Permission granted, so here it is. The original is very large, so hopefully this squished little blog version does it some justice. I love the comic book style. It reminds me of those Prince Valiant comics that were in the Sunday comics when I was a kid - those may still be in the Sunday comics but it's been years since I've picked up a newspaper. Thank you, super fan!

I'm roughly a third of the way done with the final book in the trilogy. It's coming along nicely. I'm excited to complete the story of these adventurers for you. In the meantime, here is an entry from the glossary on a creature that plays a small part in the newest book, Whom the Gods Hate. This insect gets mentioned in passing and has some "screen time," but I go into more detail in my glossary about the little beastie than in the book.


Husks – Husks are an insect like creature about the size of a dog. They have long legs and thin, brown bodies with dark non-uniform spots. Husks usually live in small hives of twenty to thirty individuals. They build their brown wood-like nests high in trees. The hives are hard to spot as the husks use tree bark to create their nests which acts as a natural camouflage. The name Husks comes from what they do to their prey. They are blood drinkers and will attack large animals in groups, draining them completely leaving behind “nothing but the husk,” as the saying goes. Though they do not desiccate their prey, it has long been misperceived that they do. Rather, the drained body decomposes strangely due to the anticoagulant the husks inject into their prey. The anticoagulant coincidentally draws moisture to the surface of the body making the body dry out in a short period of time. Husks are dangerous to any travelers who enter woodlands where they are known to live, but due to their specific requirements – they have trouble living in lower altitudes and warmer climates -- they are not a prolific species.