Some of you might notice that the Hadrapole serial isn't here.

Based on the extreme lack of feedback, I'm guessing most of you won't.

Hadrapole was an idea I came up with after re-reading a bunch of books in the "Thieves' World" series. These are short story collections set in Sanctuary, a city on the bad side of sleazy. The stories are written by various authors, with various characters. Some authors use other authors' characters. It's interesting. They called it a 'shared setting'. The idea of a shared setting excited me, and I wanted one of my own.

Thus was Hadrapole born. The idea was to have a setting that anyone could set their fiction in. That fiction would be gathered in the Tales of Hadrapole section of AtFantasy. I wrote a couple of stories for it, then got a PBEM together, hoping to create interest. Neither worked.

The PBEM died due to lack of interest. I only ever had two players. They were good players and had great ideas for their characters, but two players was not enough to carry the game on. It didn't generate the interest I had hoped it would.

So, when I started Sword's Edge, I hoped to be able to create awareness there. Using what I had already done with the PBEM, I started the Hadrapole serial. One of the players, Mathieu Roy, even joined me, bringing along his character Maeve Carloman. I liked the stories and I liked the story arc. There were a couple of main plots, both involving three main characters--Gram Lefthand, the honest leader of an untouchable group of city guard; 'Vile-Eye' Andru, the proprietor of the 'Vile Mistress' and Kent Hexham, an ex-actor and proprietor of 'the Red Jester', a decidedly better establishment than 'the Mistress'. I was about half way through the story when I was forced to ask myself: why bother?

And here's where the title of the editorial comes in. There's a cost to doing everything. I'm a writer. I have more ideas, more outlines, more projects than I can possibly complete. Time is my most valuable commodity, because besides my writing and my job, I have a wife and friends, and I want to keep them. Every time I sat down to write the latest instalment of Hadrapole, I wasn't working on my novel in progress, nor was I working on my latest short story, nor the d20 project I've been contracted to complete, nor the million other things I could have been working on. As much as I like the Hadrapole setting, I wondered what it cost me in time. Too much. Once I've finished everything else, once I have 'free' time, then perhaps I can indulge myself. Right now, though, I don't think I can.

It's the same thing with Sword's Edge. I don't get paid for this. I don't get anything, save a few free books. And if there is every money involved, I won't be getting it. The contributors deserve it before I do. Still, while I can cut back on what I'm doing, I could never give up Sword's Edge completely. My big contributions to this e-zine are the book reviews, the Hadrapole serial and the Writers' Workshop. Now that's been trimmed down, and I don't think it will have that much impact.

I'd like to take the opportunity to Mathieu Roy, a fellow Canuck who has given support and presented some great work in our collaboration. Maybe Mathieu will continue with Maeve's story. I hope he does. I will still use Hadrapole, as a setting for some of my short fiction. Some of it may even find its way into Sword's Edge, but not the serial.

If anyone misses it, let me know. It'd be nice to hear that someone enjoyed it.