Kormak: Stealer of Flesh Released
Just wanted to announce that Stealer of Flesh, the first Kormak novel– well, a collection of linked novelettes really, has been released. In a blatant effort to promote sales, the Kormak short story Guardian of the Dawn will be free until midnight Thursday as well. STEALER OF FLESH To the world at large, he is a mercenary and assassin, a brutal killer with a deadly blade. In reality Kormak is a Guardian, one of a near-extinct order sworn to protect humanity from the servants of the gathering darkness. The Ghul are the Stealers of Flesh, an ancient race of demons Read more…
Two Different Paths
I have been experimenting with writing 2000 words of new fiction every working day since the New Year. This is in addition to outlining, planning, revising and producing new ebooks. It’s led to some interesting (for me, at least) consequences. Right now I am working on two different projects and my methods are about as different as I can possibly imagine. The first is The Fist of Demetrius, my second Macharius novel for Warhammer 40K. This started off last year as a simple first person narrative and mutated into something else as it progressed. The second project is my sword and Read more…
In the Meantime, In Between Time
I am in that strange space you sometimes get into as an author. I am revising one manuscript, preparing another for publication and writing another all at the same time. That seems to happen more and more often these days as I do my work for Black Library, try and get my backlist into print in ebook format and even write a new novel. So what exactly have I been up to? Well, yesterday I killed an ork with a shotgun. OK– I didn’t. Leo, the narrator of The Angel of Fire did. I just watched him do it while keeping Read more…
The Queen’s Assassin
When I was about nine years old a group of local lads threw me into the deepest part of the Marine Lake, a huge man-made pool made by damming off an area of the harbour with a massive concrete breakwater. I had not yet learned to swim. It was sunny. The sky was blue. My mouth was filling up with salty water. I was trying to shout for help while flailing around in water too deep to stand in. It washed over my eyes and blurred my vision. The concrete ledge was covered with broken barnacles that ripped my hands Read more…
The Serpent Tower
The Serpent Tower is an impregnable fortress built by an ancient, pre-human race, bristling with terrifying, magical weapons, watched over by unsleeping, sorcerous sentinels. It has never fallen to siege. Now it is the lair of the sinister sorcerer Lord Ilmarec who holds Princess Kathea, rightful heir to the throne of Kharadrea in his lustful clutches. In order to save his own life, Rik must penetrate the ancient secrets of the Tower and rescue the Princess from her uncle. And all the while he is pursued by an undead horror born from the vilest necromancy, created with the sole purpose Read more…
Guardian of the Dawn
Guardian of the Dawn is my personal favourite of all the sword and sorcery short stories I have written. I can still remember sitting down one evening at the table in the living room in our old shabby flat in Modrany and starting to write it. It came out of nowhere as many stories do. I began in the middle, with Kormak in the forest about to confront the elder world demon. It was a scene that surprised me with its odd echoes of Kipling in the language used and a formal structure of challenge and response between man and Read more…
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