A fan called RYAN sent me an email recently, raving about my Archibald Lox series, and ending with a question about the books:

"I wanted to ask you about Archibald Lox. This was the first series from you that I didn’t read as a kid, after re reading Cirque and Demonata (both of which held up and then some. Seriously amazing adventures). Turns out, this became my favorite of your work. Had no clue what it was going in, loved it as I was reading it, loved telling my girlfriend about all the twists and turns. But after I finished it, I realized I was still thinking about it every day for weeks, and I still think about it often. It’s such a magical experience man. Thinking of the ending line still gives me goosebumps. Did not see the twist coming at all. Anyway, the question I wanted to ask is how do you feel about the series now that you’re a a few years removed? Would you put it up with your best, or are there things you’re not happy about?"

Firstly, I view it equally to all my other long series. I spent several years of my life at work on each of them, and I genuinely don't have a favourite between them. (Although I often cite The Demonata as the one I'm proudest of, as it's the one that stretched me most as a writer.) Archie is as dear to me as Darren Shan, the cast of the Demonata, B Smith, or Larten Crepsley.

Having said that, it DOES bug me that I couldn't work in a fourth story arc for the series! Although released as nine short books, I wrote the series as three large Volumes -- The Missing Princess, The Kidnapped Prince, and The Exiled King. I would have loved to be able to include another large book between Volumes 2 and 3, using the word Queen in the title, to make it a nicely rounded royal quartet -- but although I played around with various ideas and story snippets, I just couldn't find a strong enough story to justify its inclusion. The series works perfectly fine as a trilogy, but part of me does still regret that I couldn't find a way to fashion it into a quartet.