Hi Mr. Stroud.

I'm a girl from Denmark, so there might be some misspellings in this..

First I just want to say that i love the trilogy! the books are so amazing, I have the danish copys, but I wanted to read the originals, so I also have them in english now. a little nerdy, I know :$
They are definately my favourite books! Did i say they are amazing? :D

But I have a few questions.

1) In GE it says that Honorius can't fly because he's bound to Gladstones bones, but in PG Bart flies with Nathaniel. How come Bart is able to fly when he's inside Nathaniel?

2) When Kitty summons Bartimaeus and he challenges her to step outside the pentacle she refuses, but what would have happened if she did step outside it? Would he have killed her like he said?

3) are you working on any new projects right now? I'm eager to read more of your work.

(http://www.heroesofthevalley.co.uk - gladstone/admin)

Much admiration from Denmark
- Lea

Hello - sorry to be so long answering your questions!

It's great that you able to read the books in 2 languages - I'm very envious. Are the jokes in Danish similar or completely different?

1. A good question: you're right that Bart and Nat fly, and Faquarl also does so when he's using Hopkins' body. In GE Bart makes disparaging comments about Honorius not being able to grow wings and fly, but thinking about it, there's no real reason Honorius couldn't have flown too, unless being in the decidedly inanimate bones makes it less easy than a living body. Bart does say in PG how tricky it is, and how much energy it uses, so maybe Honorius didn't have sufficient energy after so many years rotting away inside the skeleton...

2. Hmmm. Tricky. Probably not. But it's a 'probably', not a 'definitely'.

3. Heroes of the Valley should be out in Danish before too long (not sure when yet) - hopefully you can check it out in both languages! In the autumn 2009 I've got a couple of short things coming out - a fantasy story about a dragon hunter, and a retelling of an Icelandic ghost story. See my website for details...

All best wishes from England,

Jonathan