What is Canon?

[Qianweilian He/him]

In Isles of the Emberdark, an edited version of Sixth of the Dusk is included. However, there's differences. Is the original novella decanonized now?

[Treamayne]

3 hours ago, Qianweilian said:

In Isles of the Emberdark, an edited version of Sixth of the Dusk is included. However, there's differences. Is the original novella decanonized now?

Excerpt from Brandon's Preface to Isles of the Emberdark:

Spoiler

As can be expected from its origin, Isles of the Emberdark leans upon and requires understanding of the novella Sixth of the Dusk. Indeed, key points of the novella are integral to the larger plot of the book.

That presented a problem. It’s generally not a good idea to write a full-on novel sequel to a piece of short fiction most of your readers (probably) haven’t read. I didn’t want to release a novel that required homework—imagine picking this up, then realizing you had to hunt down an obscure novella to be able to appreciate it. I also didn’t want to revert the character and start all over, as that wouldn’t be fair to either the narrative or the people who had read the novella.

The solution, then, was to build the story of this book in such a way that I could include the novella as a set of flashbacks. This was an exciting challenge, and I found it slotted in fairly well. Therefore, the original novella Sixth of the Dusk is included here in the first part of the novel, set off in its own chapters, as flashbacks. Judging by the experiences of my beta readers, if you’ve never read that novella, you’ll find it a fairly natural part of the story—and by the end of the first part, you’ll be fully up to date on everything that happened in Dusk’s past.

However, if you have read Sixth of the Dusk, especially recently, you may find yourself wanting to skip or skim the novella chapters. I’m here to tell you that’s just fine. I did tweak it to better expand the mythology and worldbuilding of Dusk’s world, but the changes are slight, and you can pick up on them without needing to reread.

As far as I can recall, the only real Canon Change was:

Spoiler

Patji's Fingers renammed as Cokoban's Fingers

All of the rest of the changes were small details or added detail referencing Cakoban and the Drominad Mythology.

Hope that helps

[lacrossedeamon]

Mentions of Cakoban added to the flashblacks, I think earlier reference to the Ones Above, and retconning some elements about the mainland.