Dear Mr. Stroud,

After thoroughly enjoying the Trilogy and reading it several times, a few questions seem to be nagging at me. I'll start with the least important first:

1) At the beginning of AoS, Bartimaeus says that he'll take the form of Amanda Cathcart naked when next summoned by Nathaniel, but he never does. Did it slip his mind after bumping into Faquarl? I confess I would have liked to see Nat's reaction.

2) What are the "nine wonders of the world" as mentioned in PG, and how come nine instead of seven? Forgive me if this is a stupid question or I'm missing something here, but how did the Bartimaeus universe end up with two extra wonders?

3) How old was Kitty, anyways? One year older than Nathaniel, or two? She was thirteen in the flashback in GE, and assuming that happened around the time Lovelace caned Nathaniel that would make her two years older, but she appears to be fifteen (one year older) in GE. Which is it?

4) How does a magician become Prime Minister? Obviously they're not elected; does a dying/retiring PM appoint his successor, or is the only was to become PM to seize power like Devereaux's master did? If so, how come everyone hates the (failed) renegades like Lovelace, if coup d'etat is really a "grand tradition reaching back to Gladstone"?

5) How was a lousy magician like Jenkins able to summon an afrit, Naeryan?

6) When Ramuthra disturbs the magic in Heddleham Hall, he inadvertently frees Nat and Bart from their Stricture. So why didn't he do the same for the magical barriers on the doors and windows that were imprisoning the magicians, and alow them to escape?

7) How come spirits don't run out? You said in a response to someone else that the formula for summoning new spirits was lost long ago; we're stuck with the one we have. But magicians seem to go through them awfully quickly; about a hundred all told are killed in Ptolemy's Gate alone, and those don't even seem to be too exceptional circumstances. Nat threatens to send Bart to the marshes of Boston, where "every day a dozen djinn are seen to perish." This might have been an empty threat, but it was still worrying; the number of spirits is not infinite, and there won't be any spirits left soon at this rate!

8) And finally, what's with America? How come only the East Coast was settled? The people of the Bartimaeus universe had the technology to settle the entire continent, so what was stopping them? Certainly no great respect for the Native Americans; Nathaniel called them savages. Besides, the Bartimaeus universe has things that were invented by Americans, such as lightbulbs, cars, etc. Were there British versions of Edison and Ford? Also, now that America seems to be free of England, is it denstined to take England's place as the next world empire?

Thank you; hopefully this'll clear some stuff up.

Jason

Edit: PS: I have another question which isn't exactly about Bartimaeus, but I was curious about anyways so I thought I'd go ahead and ask. In Heroes of the Valley, how exactly does land get won or lost? I can't exactly see the Hakonssons travelling all the way downvalley to recieve tithes of grain from their tenants on the Sveinsson's land, or vice versa, and at the beginning of the story there seems to be no patch near Svein's House that belongs to the Hakonssons. Do all the houses in between get bumped whenever there's a penalty of land?

Another edit: A magician's birth name has power over them because it's an integral part of who they are. So if a magician forgets their birth name and starts to think of themselves by their official name (like Nathaniel did for a while), then doesn't their official name sort of become their birth name, and start to have the same power over the magician?

Hello Jason, thanks for your questions. Without further ado (I've kept you waiting long enough) here are some answers:
1. Yep, a night being chased around London has driven all thoughts of Ms Cathcart from his mind. I'm a bit sorry he never got round to it too.
2. I'm not sure what the full list is, but I think we can assume that most, if not all, of the conventional seven wonders are in there, plus some that were never created in our world. It's logical that Nat's version of Earth has more, as in antiquity they had lots of djinn to help build the things. Also Bart is probably including wonders from further afield - Americas, Asia, Africa - which the Greek compilers of the original 'Seven' list had never heard of. He's pretty well travelled.
3. Hmm. I worked it out when I was doing the trilogy, but I can't quite remember my exact calculations. The safest answer is that she's somewhere between 1 and 2 years older than Nat.
4. Everyone hates a loser. If you're successful, and hold the reins of power, the others will kowtow eagerly until they think you're past it, when they'll try to kill you off themselves. In the magicians' realm Prime Minister is a post a little like a warlord: theoretically you pass it on to the most talented younger guy, but in practise they'll probably kill you before you're ready to let go.
5. Jenkins would probably have never dared do this in the ordinary way, but is spurred on by Lovelace's example. Likewise he may have made several idiotic mistakes in the summoning, which ordinarily would have resulted in the afrit killing him straight off, but of course in this instance Naeryan WANTS to come, and take over his sorry body.
6. A good question: his magic is limited to the area within the pentacle, and can't affect things beyond its perimeter. Having said that, in the upcoming Amulet graphic novel (note subtle plug), we show Heddleham hall devasted by Ramuthra's arrival: a decision made purely for the visual effect...
7. An awful lot were summoned back in the great days of Sumer, Egypt, Babylon and Israel, as you'll see in The Ring of Solomon.
8. Did an American invent the car? I thought it was a German. But it's a good question. There's a fair bit of technology around in Nat's world, but the efforts of many of the great minds through this alternative history have been diverted into magic rather than conventional science. This means that the technology around is much less advanced than in our 'parallel' time. If Edison and Ford existed in Nat's history, it's possible that their ingenuity would have been chanelled into other, more occult spheres. So to answer your question, the history of settlement in America is very different, and the means of conquering territory more limited than in the real world; also the buffalo father of the plains aren't ignorant of magic either. They're probably a hard nut to crack. So settlement has been much slower. Having said that, cities have grown up in America, and in Kitty's future it's more than possible that America will grow into a contender for world power.

Heroes of the Valley: the usual method of consolidating a transfer of land would be for someone from the ruling family to come to live in the newly annexed area, take control and occasionally pass tithes etc along to the master House back up or down the Valley. Usually it would be a second son or similar who carried out this job.

Birthname question: interesting question, philosophically, but I think no matter how 'real' the assumed name becomes - even to the owner - it's never more than a fine-fitting mask, and not as integral to the person as the original name.

All the best,

Jonathan

Wow. Thank you very much, Jonathan, for replying, even if it took a year. I'm honored that I got a response from you. It's like talking to a celebrity (not a celebrity in the popular sense, I know, but to me writers are far more important than movie stars, not to sound sappy or anything).

(About the car, yes, it was invented in Europe, but Ford made it popular. Of course, since it's mostly the magicians we see driving or being driven around, that might have been what happened in the Bartimaeus universe...)

I look forward to reading the Ring of Solomon, and of course the Amulet graphic novel.