wow! and a demo of Book 2 is coming out in February, that's really great! I'm happy to read he is also considering to brush up book 1. Book 1 was great, charming and had an great concept for the world and intrigue, but the map felt very cramped and some puzzle lacked narrative to guide the player.
Never heard of Fortune and Glory or Crimson Diamond. Will be sure to check them out :)
Parsers are my favourite, but I can only imagined how much effort must be put into it to make it work effectively. I can see the need for a very advanced respones mechanism and coding as well if you allow the player to use commands such as ask about and tell about.