Richard Swan's Blog, page 2

For those of you who have been waiting patiently for the mass market paperback of THE TRIALS OF EMPIRE to drop, the time is nearly upon us.

USA: 6 August 2024

UK: 8 August 2024

Australia: 12 November 2024

Remember for every pre-order I owe you a firm handshake and a hearty slap on the shoulder.

For those of you poor of memory, here are detailed plot recaps of The Justice of Kings and The Tyranny of Faith.

Happy reading!

Rich

For those of you of the cataloguing persuasion, GRAVE EMPIRE can now be added to your "To Read" lists on Goodreads:

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/213681638-grave-empire

The news is out—my new flintlock fantasy series, THE GREAT SILENCE, has been announced. It is a time of great, gunpowdery excitement.

(Click image to be taken to the Orbit website for the full announcement)

There are lots of exciting things to share in the coming months—the map, the cover, snippets, etc—but for now, I’ve harvested your questions (and in most instances distilled many variations of the same question) and produced this Q&A with some pedigree information you might be interested in.

So, without further ado, let’s prime the pans, soak the sponges, and clear the decks for action.

 

(image credit: Augusto Ferrer-Dalmau)

Q. What is it about?                    

 

Grave Empire is the first book in a new series set two hundred years after the concluding events of my Empire of the Wolf trilogy, in a time period analogous to the mid-to-late 1700s. Here’s the blurb:

 

 

(image credit: Edward Matthew Hale)

Q. Do I need to have read the Empire of the Wolf trilogy to know what’s going on?

No. Veteran readers will enjoy an "enhanced" experience, seeing how the world has changed and evolved, and of course there will be little easter eggs and references; but The Great Silence has been carefully and deliberately written as a fresh jumping off point for readers with no prior knowledge or reading required.

 

Q. Does that mean no recurring characters from the Empire of the Wolf , then? What about Helena and Vonvalt?

There will be no recurring (mortal) characters from the first trilogy.

 

Q. How long is Grave Empire ?

About 150,000 words. Longer than The Justice of Kings, shorter than The Tyranny of Faith.

 

Q. When is it due to be released?

February 2025

 

Q. So it’s finished, then?

Yes, pending a copyedit and proofread

 

Q. Who is the cover artist?

It is not Martina again; given the flintlock time period / narrative, the covers will be in a different (but still extremely cool) style.

 

Q. How long will the series be?

The Great Silence is a trilogy

 

Q. Will it have an annual release cycle?

That's certainly the plan.

 

Q. have you written the other books?

I started writing book 2 as of this past week (being w/c 20 May 2024)

 

Q. Renata Rainer is named in the copy; is she the only PoV character?

No; there are three PoV characters in Grave Empire, and more in books 2 and 3

 

Q. Is the series written in third or first person PoV?

Third.

 

Q. Will this feature more death magic / necromancy?

Absolutely; it is the narrative bedrock of the series.

 

Q. Will there be new creatures? Monsters? Eldritch weirdness?

Yes, yes and yes. There's definitely plenty of weirdness and body horror in this one.

(Image credit: Luca Solomacello) 

Q. What is the main / most compelling difference between the EMPIRE OF THE WOLF and the GREAT SILENCE trilogies (aside from the two century time jump?)

The Great Silence will be to diplomacy, international relations, foreign policy and public international law what The Empire of the Wolf was to law and jurisprudence  

 

Q. Will there be references to previous characters from Empire of the Wolf?

Yes. Indeed, the surname Rainer should be familiar to some readers of The Trials of Empire.

 

Q. Will The Great Silence trilogy be getting a special edition?

I’m not sure, feels likely at some point though

 

Q. What part of history have you taken inspiration from for this series? What sort of research did you do?

Generally the Georgian era (early 1700s – early 1800s). I have drawn heavily on the Seven Years War (what is known in the USA as the “French and Indian Wars) for one of the storylines; thematically, and more broadly, pre-Napoleonic gunpowder warfare—as a friend of mine once put it, “tricornes, not shakos”. Like most fantasy readers I’m something of a history nerd, so I was already broadly familiar with this time period – but here are some of the specific books I read or referenced for this trilogy:

 

The Pattern (The 33rd Regiment in the American Revolution, 1770-1783) by Dr Robbie MacNiven

Georgian London: Into the Streets, by Lucy Inglis

Crucible of War: The Seven Years' War and the Fate of Empire in British North America, 1754 – 1766, by Fred Anderson

Sacred Britannia: The Gods and Rituals of Roman Britain, by Miranda Aldhouse-Green

Choose Your Weapons: The British Foreign Secretary, 200 Years of Argument, Success and Failure, by Douglas Hurd

The Trafalgar Companion: A Guide To History's Most Famous Sea Battle and the Life of Admiral Lord Nelson, by Mark Adkin

Seamanship in the Age of Sail, by John Harland

 

But it is always crucial to note: the Great Silence trilogy is not real life, it is not historical fiction, and "accuracy" always yields to entertainment and narrative expediency.

 

 

 (Image credit: Augusto Ferrer-Dalmau)

 

That's all for now. To be the first to know, sign up to my mailing list here: https://www.stonetemplelibrary.com/blog

Yours most flintlockedly

Rich

 

For those of you of the Warhammer persuasion, I've a new short story out with Black Library. It's called TEARS OF RAPHAELA and it follows the exploits of a lone Space Marine sniper ("Eliminator") of the Lamenters chapter as he stalks a winged Tyranid Prime through a dying city. It's set on the same world as my first BL short story BLOOD HARVEST, which you can find out more about here.

You can purchase it directly from the Black Library website here:

https://www.blacklibrary.com/prod-home/new/eshort-tears-of-raphaela-eng-2024.html

Or it's available on Kindle here:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Tears-Raphaela-Warhammer-40-000-ebook/dp/B0CTHVGP63/

Add it on Goodreads here:

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/211326277

Thanks all

Rich

I sat, staring, wide- eyed at these apparitions, my sense of fear replaced with one of wonderment. There were ten I counted, arrayed around the bed. The number ten had some special significance in the Neman Church, though I couldn’t think of it at the time; perhaps it was the number of Saint Creus’s apostles or perhaps the number of the Deti – Nema and Savare’s demigod children. I could not look at their faces; something intangible discouraged me from doing so. But they looked for all the world like soldiers armoured in gold.

Like armoured angels. Standing guard. Watching over me.

This incredible illustration of a Neman Shrine Guardian was done for me by Jimmy Makepeace. You can find him on Twitter here: https://twitter.com/SaveloyPrincess

I commissioned this beautiful piece from the talented Elena Kononenko (@KononenkoElena) from the TRIALS OF EMPIRE; it's one of my favourite scenes in the novel:.

I reached the fortress in the middle of the morning. It was a blustery, sunny day, and the air was filled with the susurrus of rustling leaves as the pine forests of the Westmark of Guelich swayed in the wind. The last time I had passed by Badenburg, the Sixteenth Legion had turned the ground outside it into a stinking quagmire. Nature had long since reclaimed the damaged earth. Now there was a carpet of rough grass and flowers. The surrounding farmland, too, had been left uncultivated. The result was a place that felt truly wild.

I dismounted my horse and walked through the open gate, Heinrich by my side. I called out many times, but there was no one, or certainly no one who presented themselves to me, nor could Heinrich smell anybody. We spent perhaps an hour or two walking through the castle’s empty hallways and chambers, and then we took our lunch on the battlements, drinking in the view. Above, clouds scudded through the blue sky.

We finished our food and made to leave, when I stopped by the gate.

“There you are,” I said with a smile.

The Duke of Brondsey, our donkey, who we had left here several months before, was standing in the shade underneath the gatehouse. He hee-hawed, and I stroked his face.

Empire of the Wolf Update, 2023 Recap, 2024 Forecast

Another year gone! And how quickly. This year The Tyranny of Faith was published (hardback Feb, paperback August), and with The Trials of Empire bearing down on us (hardback / ebook / audio release date 6 Feb) the time will soon come to close the door on the (medieval era of the) Empire of the Wolf. Please do pre-order it if you plan to buy it - you can do so here (UK) or here (USA) or here (Aus). As always please support your local independent bookshop where you can. For those of you about to read Trials, here is a detailed plot summary of Tyranny to jog those useless brains.

With the upcoming publication of Trials, the story of Vonvalt and Helena is done, though I'll be sure to revisit the world at some point in the future - I've lots more ideas for Law & Order: Sova.

What comes next? I've been working on a few projects this year. I had a short story published with Black Library - Blood Harvest - with another on the way next year.

This year I've also been working on:

A short post-apocalyptic novel (finished); A new flintlock fantasy trilogy (book 1 of 3 written); A new dystopian politcal space opera series (book 1 of 3 written); and A contemporary crime novel about shark attacks (finished, but despised by my agent)

At least one of these will be seeing the light of day in 2025 (announcements to come when my publishers decide the time is right!). I also have some exciting news about my self-published space opera, The Art of War trilogy, for 2024 (can't speak about precisely what this is, but I CAN say that I'm in the process of re-editing these).

So: lots of exciting things in the pipeline as we move forward, not backwards, upwards, not forwards, and always twirling, twirling towards freedom.

Convention Appearances 2024

Currently confirmed:

I'll be doing TBR Con again in January (details to be revealed). I'll also be at Worldcon Glasgow 2024 A veritable smorgasbord of interviews.

Nothing else currently in the pipeline but of course all subject to change!

2023 Interviews and Panels

Need more Richard Swan in your life? Here's a whole day's worth of videos to get stuck into:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AzQKtQc88zQhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1YGRCq4_Dw&t=2256shttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8M20Iq6zt4&t=1747shttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzlFTmPgCXQ&t=3418shttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mIEOtBA43PM&t=3785shttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mq3LN5Li0Sghttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GnxcEAGrUY&t=666s

Artwork

I've commissioned a bunch of Empire of the Wolf character art this year from the wonderful and talented Hannah Elizabeth. You can find her on Twitter and Instagram.

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The Richard Swan Book of the Year Award

Last year I awarded this jointly to Tim Napper's cyberpunk tour de force 36 Streets and Chris Buehlman's exquisite medieval horror Between Two Fires. I've read some great books this year and honourable mention to Sarah Balstrup's The Way of Unity, which was such a wonderfully unique examination of a postreligious fantasy society and easily one of my favourite fantasy books in recent memory.

My Book of the Year Award however has to go to the utterly magnificent Jade Legacy by the peerless Fonda Lee.

I've still got 100 pages left to read but I have been absolutely gripped by this book. The Green Bone Saga is a bona fide masterwork of contemporary fantasy and I would urge everyone who has not yet picked up Jade City to give this series a go. It will blow your socks off.

Closing Remarks

Welp. That's all from me! If you want to get these updates directly in your inbox you can sign up to my mailing list (the form is here). Otherwise - Merry Christmas / happy holidays / pleasant nonreligious stretch of annual leave, nerds. I'll see you on the other side.

Richard

Sydney, December 2023

This is intended to provide an aide memoire to those who are about to read The Trials of Empire (either as an ARC or next February when it is released--or whenever, really) and who have forgotten bits of / all of the plot of The Tyranny of Faith. Like the plot summary for The Justice of Kings (which can be found here) it is fairly comprehensive, but necessarily omits a lot of detail and nuance.

OBVIOUSLY MASSIVE SPOILERS. This summary contains everything, including how the book ends. If you have not read The Tyranny of Faith, and plan to, this post will COMPLETELY RUIN IT FOR YOU.

I can't make it any clearer than that.

The latest character piece from Hannah Elizabeth: Sir Radomir Dragic, the sheriff of Galen's Vale and latterly one of Sir Konrad Vonvalt's retainers. Here he is in the Galen's Vale colours - mustard yellow and blue - and a good rugged duster for the cold, wet winters that the Southmark of Haunersheim is known for.

Another character piece coming soon!

Hi folks,

Some exciting news from me. Since my early teens I've been a fan of the grimdark worlds of Warhammer 40,000. Now, twenty years later, I've managed to tick writing for Black Library off my bucket list; my first BL short, BLOOD HARVEST, is now available.

As Hive Fleet Kraken approaches their home world of Raphaela, Mukta Lim and his fellow conscripts prepare for the worst. However, the arrival of a Tempestus Scion with an important piece of information for the sector's commander may just alter their fate. For the better? Who can say...

You can buy the story directly from the BL website by clicking the picture above; it's also available on Amazon Kindle.

Hope you enjoy!

Rich