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SEEKER’S MASK
BY
P. C. HODGELL



Seeker’s Mask Copyright © 1994 by P. C. Hodgell


Soft cover ISBN 1-892065-34-7







Dedication:

for Teddington Weir, who was and always will be Jorin,
and for Romney Marsh,
and for Melinda.



Introduction to
P.C. Hodgell’s Seeker’s Mask

by Charles de Lint

Back in the summer of 1993, when I was asked by Alan Newcomer of Hypatia Press to do an introduction for a third novel in P.C. Hodgell’s Jame series, I was happily anticipating Pat’s return to the field, not only with this new book, but with further volumes yet to come. I was sure that some Big Name Publisher would snap up the mass market rights and if not fame and fortune, then certainly some measure of it, would come her way.
Sadly, that didn’t happen. The wonderful Seeker’s Mask came and went, and here we are some seven years later and it’s only now coming out in a more consumer-friendly (read: less expensive) edition.
But things are looking up. While Meisha Merlin isn’t a Big Name Publisher, they’re certainly a respected independent publishing house with better distribution than a specialty publisher such as Hypatia Press has, and they have the ability to produce both hardcover and more affordable trade paperback editions. Having already released Dark of the Gods (an omnibus collecting the classic Godstalk and Dark of the Moon), plus contracting a fourth volume from Pat, they’re obviously committed to her work in the long term and that should make a difference.
And you, gentle reader, can make a difference as well. If you like this book as much as I think you will, tell your friends, spread the word. Let’s show the publishing world that quality storytelling can still do well, even if it doesn’t have a huge budget behind its publication and promotion. Speaking of that earlier Hypatia Press edition, I was pleased to be invited to write an introduction for it at the time, and I’m happy now to have been asked by Stephen Pagel of Meisha Merlin Publications to update it for this new edition. To put what follows in context, I wrote it in September of 1993 when I was very busy juggling a number of projects—the story of my life, it seems, ever since I misplaced my spare time and have had to play catch-up every since . . .
***
And How We’ve Missed Her

When Alan Newcomer called up to ask if I’d write this introduction, the last thing I needed to do was take on a new project. It was mid-September and I was already running two weeks late on the deadline for my current novel, which in turn was threatening to make me late on a number of short fiction commitments, not least of which was a second Newford collection due at my publisher by the beginning of October—and I still had a couple of stories to write for it as well.
So trust me on this, I wasn’t looking for work. But I jumped at the chance to write this introduction all the same.
It wasn’t because Alan offered me fistfuls of money. To my recollection the only time remuneration came up in the conversation was when Alan said something along the lines of, “Of course, I can’t actually pay you anything for doing this.” And it wasn’t because of the spiffy books Alan offered to send. I’d already read his two previous publications by Hodgell in their earlier incarnations—Child of Darkness and Bones, which appeared in Berkley Showcase II (1980) and Elsewhere III (1984), respectively. And it certainly wasn’t because I like signing my name so often in a row for a signed edition that eventually I begin to forget what my signature’s supposed to look like.
(This is not as easy a thing to do as you might think when you consider I have a signature that looks more as though someone’s checking to see if there’s enough ink in their pen rather than one composed of letters that are actually supposed to spell out a name. Perhaps it’s a legacy of my grandmother’s Japanese blood and what I’m offering is less a signature and more a chop, my own quirky identifying ideograph. But I digress.)
No, the only reason I agreed was because it would give me an advance look at the manuscript of Seeker’s Mask and after all these years (lord, has it really been eight years since the last novel?), I’ve been desperate to find out what happens next.
Can I assume that you’ve bought this because you, too, were just as enthralled with Pat Hodgell’s previous two books, God Stalk (1982) and Dark of the Moon (1985)? Were you perhaps also somewhat resentful of this Ph.D. of hers that was taking her away from her fiction? Well, fret no more. Her doctorate on Sir Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe is over and done with and finally we have a third installment in our hands, with—dare we hope?—the promise of not nearly so long a wait for the next book?
If this were a fair world, readers would be falling all over themselves in great numbers to acquire this new novel because, simply put, Pat is one of the very few true and original voices to write in the field of fantasy set in a secondary world—by which I mean high fantasy, that sub-genre inadvertently popularized by Tolkien with the publication of his Lord of the Rings. But fair, as they say, is only the first third of fairy tale, and like an elfin enchantment, fairness is difficult to pin down.
The truth is P.C. Hodgell isn’t the household name it should be. Her wondrously dark and tangled fantasies don’t command a huge audience and it has nothing to do with the high quality of her work.
Part of the blame lies with that vast monolith, the NYC publishing machine: because Pat’s name didn’t come up in its internal lottery where it’s decided who’s going to be hot and who not, her books were basically sent out to fend for themselves, wandering the byways and backroads up bookstores and libraries like itinerant rogues or adventurers. I’m sure they’ve had any number of grand escapades along their way and made many true, life-long friends, but without the help of those two Fairy Godmothers, Publicity and Real Publisher Support, fame and fortune has remained elusive.
It’s also partly Pat’s fault in the sense that her output has been so small that she and her work become easily forgotten in a world where public memory only encompasses the last big thing and all information is preferred in fifteen-second bites. (This reference to Pat’s output, I should add, isn’t meant in a negative sense. It’s always important to follow your muse and if your muse insists on your straying from one form of creative endeavor to another, all you can do is comply. The curious thing is that you’re usually better off for the break, but I digress again.)