The Empyrean - Book 4 Marketing (Part 3 - The Announcement of an Unexpected Book)
During the week of April 12th through April 18th, Amazon generated a pre-order page for another Rebecca Yarros book set in the world of the Empyrean.
Needless to say, Instagram caught fire with speculation, and Amazon overloaded with pre-orders. Yarros posted a vague Instagram (which, as of the time of writing this, I can’t seem to find) indicating that this book is not the Fourth Wing graphic novel that she has previously threatened us with. This is something new.
On April 18th / 19th, Yarros then posted this Instagram.
Ummm. WOW.
Okay, so I had this little idea about a year ago to drop a surprise for you guys. But then you not only found it as soon as my publisher put it on preorder, but shot it straight to number one on Amazon without a cover, title, or even a vague idea of what might be coming your way!?!?
You’ve rendered me speechless.
Surprise has been the goal, but I can’t sit here silently and not tell you how thankful I am for you. How utterly overwhelmed I am by the continuous love this community gives. Please know that I never take your enthusiasm and dedication for granted. I know how rare this air is. You are a constant source of joy not just in my life but each other’s, and gratitude doesn’t begin to describe how I feel about this community.
So, thank you. This one is for you guys. I hope you love it as much as I’ve loved writing it. ♥️
(And no, this hasn’t altered book 4’s timeline in the least.)
(Edit to add: this is NOT the upcoming graphic novel 😉)
Now back to my desk for a Saturday session of playing with dragons!
…
Originally, this reaction piece was going to be a positive one (by my standards, anyway). However, after reading this note from Yarros …
This author is incapable of learning from her mistakes, isn’t she?
THE NICE THINGS I WAS GOING TO SAY
Look, I said it in the Onyx Storm review, I said it in the Grinthy review, and I’ll say it again: I think that, in concept, bonus content is a wonderful idea for The Empyrean.
If - big if, but an if all the same - this had been spawned out of Yarros’s planning process for Book 4, this could have been a sign that she was trimming the fat. Sometime between the book being “fully plotted” back in 2023 and whatever planning she supposedly did this past winter, perhaps Yarros realized that certain ideas would make Book 4 as meandering as Onyx Storm. Maybe she decided to pull out extraneous ideas and make them into bonus content.
Not only would such a decision improve the pacing and tighten the plot of Book 4, but it would also help to maintain her audience. This series is hype without substance. Anything to feed the hype machine helps to maintain the core audience. And, by feeding this audience, Yarros buys herself more time to work on Book 4, thereby providing opportunity for further improvement.
So, yes. At a purely conceptual level, I think that some surprise bonus book is a wonderful idea on multiple levels.
IF ONLY SHE’D SAID NOTHING
Okay, so I had this little idea about a year ago to drop a surprise for you guys.
So … this wasn’t something she carved off after a moment of insight about problems in Book 4’s structure. This really is some separate project.
…
Remember how the release of Book 4 was being pushed back so that Yarros could work at a more relaxed and reasonable pace? And I seem to recall her talking about how unhealthy her packed schedule for writing Fourth Wing was, which at least implied that she was delaying to accommodate her health. How does adding MORE projects accomplish either of these objectives?
Now, according to the Amazon page, this book will be only 176 pages. This sounds like a novella, not the sort of bloated monstrosity that is typical of this series. That reduces the workload considerably.
However, the fact remains that this is time that could have been spent to work on Book 4 (or her Contemporary Romance projects) at a reasonable pace. Now that time is gone. And, as Yarros herself has stated:
(And no, this hasn’t altered book 4’s timeline in the least.)
(Edit to add: this is NOT the upcoming graphic novel 😉)
Yarros is explicitly confirming that she is loading herself with multiple projects without adjusting her timeline. Something has to give. And if it’s not going to be her health, and it’s not going to be the graphic novel, then either Book 4 will suffer, or this novella could turn out to be even more rancid sludge that we’ve gotten thus far.
Or … you know … Yarros was lying when she invoked her health and desire to spend time with family as an excuse not to get Book 4 done sooner. Not saying that these things don’t affect her writing, just that Yarros was pulling an excuse out of her ass when she cited them to justify Book 4’s delay. Funny how she can juggle even more projects than before when she actually cares about the writing.
NOW FOR THE NEGATIVE STUFF I WAS GOING TO SAY
There is rampant speculation on Instagram as to what this novella will be about. Some of these hypothetical stories (and the theories supporting them) were reasonble ideas: for example, I saw someone speculate that, since this novella’s release date aligns with Threshing, it would be some character’s Threshing story. Other ideas were … worthy of Yarros. That’s the kindest response I have to the theory that Violet’s as-yet unestablished second sex partner was secretly Xaden, and that the novella would reveal a secret relationship between the pair that was erased from Violet’s memory prior to the events of Fourth Wing.
At least one poster suggested that this will be Violet and Xaden’s wedding, or some other information that fills in the time of Violet’s lost memories at the end of Onyx Storm. I personally feel this possibility is the most likely.
Whatever this content may be, my reaction now remains unchanged from my reaction to the tease for bonus content Yarros posted last summer (which, in hindsight, was probably linked to this novella):
Yarros relies on the audience speculating to infuse her story with substance it doesn’t have.
If Yarros uses this novel to fill in any of the gaps she left when she gave up writing the end of Onyx Storm, that will be a disgusting show of just how lazy a writer she is.
Since writing that reaction piece, I have covered Dan Abnett’s Ravenor Trilogy. As we covered in the review of Ravenor Returned, he failed to provide adequate setup for the Divine Fratery. “Thorn Wishes Talon” was a retroactive patch job that arrived a decade later. For that matter, as we’ll cover later into the review of Pariah, he wrote The Magos while dealing with writer’s block for Penitent … and in hindsight, the worldbuilding of The Magos means that it was at least partially written as a patch for the insufficient worldbuilding in Pariah.
I do not think it is okay that Abnett does this … but it is far more forgivable in his case than what Yarros does, for two important reasons.
First, Abnett making these corrections in later stories is at least a tacit admission that he messed up before. It is an acknowledgement that the original stories had problems that needed to be addressed. Yarros doesn’t own up to her mistakes. In fact, as we saw multiple times in Onyx Storm, she actively breaks her plot, world, and/or characters to insist that her mistakes were deliberate choices. So if this novella is framed as something special for the audience, and then it shows us scenes that should have been omitted in the first place, that is another example of Yarros refusing to accept accountability. She gave up on writing a coherent narrative, and now she wants us to pay her more money to celebrate her fixing it.
Second, Abnett’s mistakes amount to weak exposition and a poorly executed soft reboot at the beginning of a book. People are speculating that Yarros will use this novella to repair a gaping hole in a catastrophic ending. This is like comparing a Band-Aid used to cover a papercut to an attempt to save a decapitated man by sticking a Corgi’s head on his neck.
All this assumes that Yarros is writing to fill in the gaps in her story, of course. Maybe this is a POV swap story. However, as we saw with the POV swaps for Chapter 9, Chapter 16, and Chapter 27 of Fourth Wing, Yarros does not have a great track record with those, either. The precedent set there is content that is a weak retread at best and a plot hole-worsening mess at worst. Also, if it is something wholly new, there is always the slim possibility Yarros will give herself enough breathing room to tear new holes in her story.
Time will tell.
NOT THE UPDATE I WANTED TO WRITE
I hate being so negative about Yarros’s work all the time. I sincerely do want her books to get better. I would love if this surprise book tells a story that is satisfying in its own right, lays a strong foundation for Book 4, and/or makes effective repairs to help redeem the series as a whole.
The issue is that Yarros keeps eroding my optimism before it has time to meaningfully accumulate. Through her contradictory decisions, through her nonsensical statements to the audience, she actively asserts that she has not changed as a writer. This is an author who refuses to improve.
The novella releases September 29th. I will be reading it, as something tells me that it will be required reading to make sense of Book 4. However, there had better be an e-book version. I don’t care if $23.74 is a reasonable price for a hardcover as dictated by market demand - I have no desire to pay Yarros that kind of money, especially not for a mere 176 pages. I’ll wait until the library gets a copy, if it comes to that. If I can get an e-book, you can expect my review of the novella (whatever form said review might take) sometime in mid-autumn. Otherwise, the timing of the review will be dictated by the library waiting list.
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