BDH has all the questions. Some were paraphrased slightly for clarity and conciseness.
I’m wondering how much this massive redecorating is draining the Inn’s resources. Hopefully the magic of the 300 guests will more than make up for it? Or will the Dominion pay for the upgrades in addition to giving access to Karron?
Emily
The inn had many powerful visitors since Dina started, and Dina and Sean have been feeding it raw materials on regular basis. The Dominion will, of course, generously compensate the innkeepers, simply because it would be below their dignity to cheap out, but Gertrude Hunt is more than capable of supporting the remodel.
Is Miralitt related to Lord Soren? Will they develop a connection? (Robin) Will she get along with Karat?
Robin
Miralitt’s mother wasn’t from House Krahr. Keep reading to find out more. ::winky face::
Is it easier to decorate older Inns, since they accumulate stuff as guests come and they have a wider inventory?
Yes. The older the inn is, the more rooted it is, the faster and easier it is for it to adjust its environment. And as you have seen through the series, Dina is a pack rat. Most innkeepers are the same way. They squirrel stuff away for later use.
Can the inn feed on garbage from a landfill?
Garbage in, garbage out. The inn occasionally requires raw materials like wood, for example, or fabrics. Usually this happens when the innkeeper wants to conserve the inn’s resources or during the times when time is of the essence. It’s faster to feed a load of marble to the inn then for the inn to synthesize it out of something else. The items that an inn could find at a landfill are likely to be tainted by chemicals. The wood would rot quickly. “Cleaning” and absorbing the core materials from a landfill would take a lot of energy and defeat the purpose of trying to save resources in the first place. Now, if an inn somehow got access to a construction site, it would have a field day gobbling stuff up.
If DIna brings a part of the Inn with her, like her broom, would some of her Innkeeper power travel outside of the Inn’s bounds?
Jenna
Your answer is in Clean Sweep.
Why wouldn’t the inn try to form a portal to Dayson?
Jenna
We don’t know where the new door goes. We’ll have to wait and see.
Does an Inn resist a separation from the Innkeeper, like the one the Assembly threatened Dina with? Does it automatically go dormant after it? What is the process to awaken it and link it with another?
Jenna
The inn that loses its innkeeper would go dormant and hibernate like Gertrude Hunt has done before. It’s not a step the Assembly would take lightly, but they cannot permit a public figure of Sovereign’s renown to die at an inn. That event would threaten the safety of an entire planet. They really didn’t want her to do this, but the autonomy of individual inns is very important.
As an aside, you know when Dina’s name comes up during these Assembly sessions, the innkeepers’ eyes start twitching.
“So, Gertrude Hunt…”
Everyone braces themselves.
The process of awakening the inn is described in the series over the course of several books.
How old is the oldest inn? During the previous book about Treaty stay it sounded like the oldest inn was at least hundreds of years old, maybe thousands? I’d have to check back for the specifics……what I’m asking is, if the outside of the inn never changes then how does a structure that was build hundreds or thousands of years ago and hasn’t crumbled or decayed like the rest of the surrounding structures not stand out (assuming that it hasn’t gone dormant and is still a functioning inn)? Also…if one of the older inns was in North America….then what does that structure look like? Especially if most North American human societies were either nomadic or didn’t engage in large scale building projects when it was built? Can you explain a little bit about the oldest inns, what they look like, and how they don’t stand out if their outer “shell” has remained the same for many many years?
Jenna
Jenna, I’m guessing you’re probably from US.
Oldest building still in use in US and territories after the “discovery” of North America.
Oldest building in US that has been continuously occupied.
One of the oldest buildings in Europe still in use.
Inns did not begin with colonial US. There are inns all over the world. They did not originate in North America.
Why do you assume that the inn can’t alter its façade? If the inn can build new rooms to exact specifications, why can’t the inn change the outer walls?
Especially if most North American human societies were either nomadic or didn’t engage in large scale building projects when it was built?
To summarize: the idea that Native American populations lived in tent-like structures and never engaged in agriculture, or never built cities, or never created cultural monuments is very outdated. We know they farmed and built cities. We know that many of their structures were made of timber and therefore didn’t survive the passage of time, but we also know that they cut dwellings into the living rock. Native American history is a story of vibrant diverse populations. They were not homogenous.
I mean, Cherokees right there in Blue Ridge Mountains had gardens and fields and practiced advanced agriculture. The Three Sisters, corn, beans, and squash, all of those are native to North America. Tomatoes. Potatoes. Peppers. Why do we have those things? Because Native American people grew these crops. Farming necessitates staying in a single spot and the creation of an infrastructure. It requires irrigation, storage facilities, and markets, and leads to formation of gathering places and designated places of worship. Even the Plains Tribes did not become significantly nomadic until the horses became widely available, which occurred in 17th century.
To give us a different perspective, we know with 100% certainty that China had an abundance of large architectural structures well before the Qin dynasty (221-206 BC) but almost none of it survived. Why? The ancient monuments that did survive like the pyramids, Egyptian and South American, were made of stone, while the marvels of ancient Chinese architecture were “made with wood, soil, and brick.” Fires, rodents, rot, natural disasters, all of that tends to destroy non-stone architecture.
If you would like to know more about Native American agriculture and societies, this article is a good jumping off point, Eastern Woodland Cultures. Here is the list of oldest buildings in what is currently US.
It is absolutely possible for an inn to exist in pre-Columbian North America.
How come it has 9 star systems if it’s called the Seven Star Dominion?
Winnie
Patience.
How do you name the aliens? Not the names of the races but the given names? Since they aren’t Earth names you can exactly research?
I shall reveal the secret. Are you ready?
That’s it. We roll it until we hit on a combination of letters that we can alter enough to make a decent name. That doesn’t mean that there is not a pattern for naming members of a particular species. There is and we keep it in mind. And then we check it against google, just in case.
Did you plan that George&co would make it in other series when you were writing the Edge?
Amanda
No. The Innkeeper Chronicles were conceived and written after the Edge. We didn’t plan the Innkeeper series while working on the Edge series. We were still writing KD and the Edge parallel to each other and our small brains were very full. ::smiley face::
I love the Innkeeper serial, but somehow the weeks go slower when I’m waiting for the next installment. Also this is not a conplaint!!! ????????
Think of them as a Life Prolonging Serum ????
I’m here for it ????
Excellent description of what they mean to us ????.
The brilliance of the writing and answers makes my heart all warm and fuzzy.
“As an aside, you know when Dina’s name comes up during these Assembly sessions, the innkeepers’ eyes start twitching.” – LOL I have believed this for ages, heart palpitations every time Gertrude Hunt slips into a session ????
+1000
I think of all of House Andrews books as life prolonging serums. Whenever I need a boost I start all over again ???? And when I know a new book is coming it makes life worth living ????
Me, too. Any time I am sad, or anxious, or just stressed, I go home to Gertrude Hunt. I love ALL House Andrews’s works, but nothing (by any author) soothes my heart the way Innkeeper does (Maud included). I have read and reread and re-reread all their works, but there’s no place like home!
Thank you for always answering our questions
Very cool info thanks
Thank you so much for the extra goodness today.
Thank you!
Thank you!!
So their eyes start twitching, huh? Ha!
This is all so interesting- thank you (Also, I laughed at the paint chips, cause I definitely looked up ‘campfire gray’ to see what it looked like.)
This was a excellent insight on how Inns and Innkerpers exist. I will say I have a fall back explanation when individuals, structures, worlds seem improbable in books I read: Magic! Our world is full of magical people, places and events, ie hummingbirds, so stories are magic too…
Thank you as always for the insights. There is a terrific book about indigenous Australian life pre invasion called dark emu. Talks about the farming and agriculture that was here before the English. Anyway love your writing.
I would love to see an inn get access to a construction site.
Trying to imagine it and I can’t get past the KDrama Hotel del Luna. By day two story brick building, by night skyscraper proportions with a high garden balcony and an indoor sea as the swimming pool.
This works
Love the history lesson with all the buildings 🙂
You are such generous authors for engaging with your fans like this. I wish you and your family (+extended/everywhere) safety, comfort and peace.
You both are awesome. Thank you so much.
I wish you hadn’t posted the link to that fake word generator. I’m going to be on that thing for hours. Such fun!
And excellent discourse on Native American cultures.
Your blog posts always make me smile. Even my brain is smiling right now and it needed a dose of happy.
Thank you.
Thank you!
Thank you for your answer!
Thank you for the information on Native Americans. I saw an episode of Adam Ruins Everything that spoke on it, at least that’s what I think the show was. It was the first I had heard of it but it made so much sense. History really is written by the victors. It’s kind of interesting to watch it (taught history) change in one’s lifetime and really teaches us that just because we learned it in school does not make it true. You must live a life of continuous learning.
Something to aspire to!
And continuous forgetting. 🙂 We become familiar in the specific field of knowledge required for a particular book and then we forget it all to make room for new book’s stuff. 🙂
I thought of the Cahokia Mounds in Illinois. They are the remains of a huge populous city located across the big river from St. Louis, Missouri that is just now being mapped and explored.
And there were more (although somewhat smaller) mounds on the Missouri side of the Mississippi too! They all got levelled during the founding and expansion of St. Louis except for one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugarloaf_Mound
I really like that as well!
I painted my living room Gargoyle last year. I’d love to say that it’s because I love it and it made perfect sense with my decor. I do and it does, but also because of the name.
https://www.ppgpaints.com/cms/getmedia/86e570b5-2ac2-49dc-b634-3a2237a2e904/room-living-room_gargoyle-__ppg1127-4.jpg
That’s why I drink Hobgoblin ale wherever I can find it. ????
Do you eat Hobgoblin grapes when they’re in season as well? ????
Wow! That’s gorgeous
+1 great color.
I agree with this, too. I hope you find your interactions with us as uplifting and rewarding as we find yours with us. I know it must be a burden at times, but seriously- I check your blog at least once a day, every day, and get a wee happy when I find a new post. You are one of the joys in my life.
Great color!
that is a lovely color
For some reason the discussion of the inns being around forever and just changing to match made me think of a speakeasy. No idea why, but now I really want a speakeasy inn!
I know the inns can have portals to other worlds, but can they have ones to other locations on the same world? Almost like having an embassy area, with land that counts as being at the inn?
Well, they sort of are functionally speakeasy already. Mundane Earth citizens can’t stay there. You have to have the inside knowledge to get in.
Ooh, good point!
Thank you so much for answering my questions about the Inn’s resources.
I got to the the description of golden flowers shaped from amber and berries of pearls and I was feeling stressed out.
I guess construction costs are kind of triggering for me.
And now I’m relieved and can continue to enjoy the amazing descriptions.
The comment about the Assembly when Gertrude Hunt comes up made me laugh out loud. I can just imagine the looks on all the faces ????????????
Thank you, for answering these. Poor construction site put near inn, though as a drop off for the inn woods and stones might not be a bad way show it for delivery. Yes, was trying to image ways to make things go away, (like landfills).
Thanks so much.
Makes you wonder why the Assembly gave Dina a dormant/comatose inn.
I have this 60 minutes investigative report type scene in my head where the assembly is asked about Dina and GH. With reporters running after them asking questions like “What can you say about this latest incident at GH?” And the assembly quickly running away while saying “no comment” ????
I also thought of Hotel de Luna when picturing the inn changing facade over the years. Although the first thing that popped in my mind when I first watched the show was they copied Innkeeper.????
I think they covered that in the books, there aren’t that many Inns and seeds are rare.
Lol almost had an embarrassing accident reading this,about 60 minutes. I know I am showing my age, but could see Mike Wallace asking Orro ‘is it true you substitute margerine for butter?’ lol.
O_O Could explain why he’s no longer with us.
Thank you for all these answers!!!
“As an aside, you know when Dina’s name comes up during these Assembly sessions, the innkeepers’ eyes start twitching.
“So, Gertrude Hunt…”
Everyone braces themselves.”
LMAO ????????????
+1
I really thoroughly enjoyed this Q & A! Thank you for indulging the BDH 🙂
Thank you for the answers…
Fake word generator…never imagined that
Thank you so much for answering questions! I love getting more info into the workings of the inn. ????
Apologies if this question has been answered before, but who is the Gertrude Hunt the Inn is named for? Was it Getrude Breslau Hunt ( the one in Wikipedia) or a fictional character?
Thanks so much for your writing.
Nice to have some of my notions about the Innkeeper series confirmed.
Especially that mention of Gertrude Hunt at the Assembly makes them twitch.
I look forward to Fridays, and, as I keep saying, as soon as it’s possible to pre-order this one, I will.
I have a question, sorry. In One Fell Sweep,when Caldenia is explaining the origin of the World Killer she mentions that it was three hundred years prior that the “enterprising ” vampires weaponized the existing pathogen – selling samples (plus the antidote) to fund their research. She bought one, plus the antidote (of course). Ok two questions. First one -does she still have the one she bought stored somewhere (shudder).
Second and main question, so how old is Caldenia, how much longer can she live (without being assassinated), and would that mean the children inherit the inn plus her?
Thank you for everything.
Now I picture Mr. Rodriguez, wishing he never recommended Dina go specialist Inn direction.
lol! I can imagine a few glares in the Assembly meeting if they ever figured out where she got the idea. The meeting description makes me laugh so much!
Also the fake word generator is going to be a very delightful future problem! I love the description of inns and the re-contextualizing of how inns have been very present through out the past in a variety of cultures.
Yeah, but I thought the Assembly mostly didn’t meet in person?
Hehe 🙂
“So, Gertrude Hunt…”
Everyone braces themselves
Mention of pre-European cultures and buildings took my mind immediately to the Anasazi. Hmmm
So Cahokia could have been an inn….hmmmm
What she said!
I recently discovered the Spiro Mounds in Oklahoma, a very developed Native Tribe that does dispel many conceived notions about our Native cultures.
Thank you for creating this space and for Innkeeper. I very much appreciate you.
You might be interested in this research about the history of horses in the Americas. It challenges the theory they arrived with European colonial expansion.
https://indiancountrytoday.com/.amp/news/yes-world-there-were-horses-in-native-culture-before-the-settlers-came
Thank you for sharing this. Last week I read Geronimo’s Story of His Life, an autobiography dictated by him in his native language, and translated by another Apache from an allied tribe, to an Anglo translator. The Anglo translator explains the measures taken to assure that Geronimo’s story was told in his own words.
Nevertheless, I am quite sure that some of the language reflects the unconscious bias of the Anglo translator. For instance, the text refers to the Apache translator as an “educated Indian” and to a skirt worn by Apache women as “primitive”. There are other examples, in spite of the translator’s efforts at fairness. It’s educational.
Thank you for sharing that article!
Paleontological evidence suggests that horses originated in North America and then spread to Eurasia. https://www.livescience.com/9589-surprising-history-america-wild-horses.html
However, we know from the fossil record that they became extinct over 10,000 years ago. There is a number of articles claiming that Native American Tribes rode horses when the European colonization began. They have been proven false.
One of surprising indicators, as was explained to me a long time ago by a Lakota person, is that there is no specific word for a horse in Lakota language. The horses are called šúŋkawakȟaŋ, which means “holy dog.” Some tribes used “big dog.” Cherokee people called them beasts of burden. Some tribes used “deer” with a modifier, others borrowed Spanish word for a horse, etc. Horses were clearly a new concept. 🙂
I love the description of the Hiru’s room and ceiling, too. Picturing it gives me an almost meditative feeling.
Loved the Q and A, the Assembly eye twitch is pure IA magic. And I finally have an answer to my 2 uncle’s who owned a construction company for many years, about where all their material went……
As far as inns ‘pre civilization’, it does show how little was really taught about human history. If course invaders want to dismiss prior cultures, otherwise they can’t justify what they did to those here. Native Americans were called heathens, uncivilized, living lives barely above cave man levels,you name it and sadly when I went to school it wasn’t much better .
Human beings also love in general to dismiss what went on in the past as ‘primitive’ with them superior. Thus the pyramids had to have been ancient aliens, the Inca couldn’t have done what they did,it was aliens.
The Iroquois confederation was a complex set of law that directly influenced the US constitution.
And yeah, the pueblo complexes were incredible, the taos pueblo isn’t even one of the larger ones.
And may I add that Gertrude Hunt herself may look like a Victorian, but how far back would that look ‘normal’? Likely GH existed but looked very different, maybe originally she looked like a settlers cabin or a native American structure, and inside was huge.
The 7 star of 9 star system Dominion? Like Worf on Deep Space 9 when asked about why the Klingons looked like they did back in the day, ‘We don’t talk about it’
Thank you so much in a dark time for the chapters and things like this, it really is a lifeline.
+1
Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, ScientificKnowledge, and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer has some great information on Native American culture, including the Iroquois Confederation. Also on all kinds of biology and ecology, and not dry at all. I’m trying to avoid making jokes about marsh mud in shoes here, in the event that they might deter someone, but probably that someone wouldn’t go for that kind of book anyway. 😀
Are all inns on the planet subject to the rules of the assembly? Are there actually rogue inns with rogue innkeepers (or sovereign inns)? How do they know if an inn is reproducing? Do they just wake up one morning and there’s an inn seed on the patio? Are they clones or does other genetic material make its way in there somehow?
Any plans to write a short story about Caldenia’s back story? I would love to know more about her.
I would love to have an Arland POV story about the Maud rescue. That would be sheer, unadulterated fun.
Thank you so much for the lovely information. I teach history at a community college in MS and yes, the lack of knowledge about the Native Americans in my students is atrocious. Apparently, junior and senior high teachers just skip that part of the textbook. Hollywood movies don’t help either. I had several anthropology classes on Native Americans and I always do an expanded lecture on them in my classes. The diversity of cultures is amazing.
I am keeping you and your family in my prayers.
That was awesome. Thank you. I hope all of your family is safe and well. Much love.
Thank you for the history lesson. Not being snarky–I mean it! Sometimes even we writers (who love the ridiculous amount of research we do) forget our roots.
well….it’s embarrassing to say the least that my upper crust and expensive college education clearly underserved me in pre-colonial US history….sigh….. at a time where more focus is being given to improving awareness and shining light on long-standing inequities that have existed for generations in marginalized communities of many different colors, all i can say is thank you for setting me straight. I shall take this as a learning experience and try to be cognizant that when i reach into my brain to extract information learned in K-12 education, especially concerning minorities, that perhaps i should offer a caveat and a willingness to expand on what i “know”. Thanks for the answers House Andrews!
Unfortunately, the Nomad view is really prevalent. It is taught repeatedly and persistently so unless one takes an anthropology class at a college level, one wouldn’t know any different. 🙂
I can just see the Innkeeper Assembly hearing the name Gertrude Hunt and going “What now?”
This was fun and informative. I even had an idea of what a couple of the answers were.
These questions also show me why I can’t do creative writing. I’m decent at technical stuff, but just I accept what I read and don’t question it, unless there is a really huge disconnect somewhere. I wouldn’t even think of these questions.
Actually in MS they have Native American structures dating back to 4500 BCE. ????https://choctawspirit.wordpress.com/2019/08/16/oldest-native-american-structures-in-north-america/comment-page-1/
Indeed, however the nuance used in the article is “oldest buildings still in use/lived in” ????
The massive earthworks at Poverty Point LA are nearly 4kyo and would have had wooden residential structures associated with, like the more recent mound city at Cahokia in IL. So even during the Archaic period, before horticulture, there were large residential centers in North America.
When the Hessians settled a colony near San Antonio there apparently was a woman whose name was Gertrude Jaeger. She was a hedge witch who cured people with natural medicine. Traudle, her nickname, never married. Later she established a hostel at a crossroad between San Antonio and Austin.
Thank you for your time in answering these questions.
How do inns deal with building inspectors? Say the exterior changes a bit to meet the times, and a busybody calls in a complaint to the local building code/permits department, and they send out an inspection team. How would an elevator nn deal with that?
Dina is our main model into how fastidious Innkeepers are. As long as there is a system that requires building permits, I trust she would obtain them before changes were made because everything in her character development points to it.
Scaffolding and ostensible building material display do a lot to keep people at ease ????. Have you never been surprised over how quickly some buildings seem to rise in comparison to sites that are stuck forever in the same stage? Very good building teams or …????