Sheila E. Gilbert, my Hugo-award winning editor at DAW Books, asked me to draft some sell copy for Master of the World, Book 2 in the Worldshapers series (Book 1 is, of course, Worldshaper, whose cover graces this post). Here’s what I came up with:
Shawna Keys has fled the world she only recently discovered she Shaped, narrowly escaping death at the hands of the Adversary who seized control of it…and losing her only guide, Karl Yatsar, in the process.
Now she finds herself all alone in some other Shaper’s world, where, in her first two hours, she’s rescued from a disintegrating island by an improbable flying machine she recognizes from Jules Verne’s Robur the Conqueror, then seized from it by raiders flying tiny personal helicopters, and finally taken to a submarine that bears a strong resemblance to Captain Nemo’s Nautilus. Oh, and accused of being both a spy and a witch.
Shawna expects…hopes!…Karl Yatsar will eventually follow her into this new steampunky realm, but exactly where and when he’ll show up, she hasn’t a clue.
In the meantime, she has to navigate and survive a world where two factions fanatically devoted to their respective leaders are locked in perpetual combat, figure out who the Shaper of the world is, find him or her, and obtain the secret knowledge of this world’s Shaping. Then she has to somehow reconnect with Karl Yatsar, and finally escape to the next Shaped world in the Labyrinth…through a Portal she has no idea how to open.
And in this world, Shawna has no power to Shape things to her own ends. This time, she’s only got her wits to rely on…and there’s no guarantee that will be enough.
