True courage is not the brutal force of vulgar heroes, but the firm resolve of virtue and reason.

There’s Karatos, the alchemist sentenced to death for being what she is. There’s Siff in the next cell. His death sentence is for killing four soldiers with his bare hands even though he has no memory of how he did it. There’s Skjorl, the Adamantine Man whose job it is to watch over them.

Thing is, though, Siff knows something. He knows something that might just change the fate of the world and right now, any change at all is looking like a good thing. So Kataros has to get him out, so he can show her what he’s found, and never mind that he’s likely going to stab her in the back the first chance he gets. To get him out, she needs Skjorl, even if the Adamantine Man would rather stab himself than help someone like Siff, and that’s only the start of what he’d do to her.

And then there’s the dragon. The dragon doesn’t hate any of them. It’s a dragon. It simply wants to eat them.

The Black Mausoleum. Someone’s going to die.

Chapters 1 and 2 are available online

Actually, it’s probably that guy on the cover, isn’t it.

Review from the British Fantasy Society: “a cracking pace throughout … Well told, nippy, and chock full of twists and turns.”

Review from the Falcatta Times: “characters that step from the page into the readers mind with such a vivid presence that you’ll form attachments with them all whether you love or loath them”

Review from A Fantasy Reader: “…if you like action and character driven plot with scorching fire around the corner, you’ll be satisfied.”

Review from Pauline’s Fantasy Reviews: “…a tautly-plotted action-packed story, with perfect pacing and a terrific blend of character-driven incident and convincing world-building, a totally enjoyable read that I raced through in a couple of days because I just didn’t want to put it down. A good four stars.”

Review from the Ranting Dragon: “Deas has a knack for writing dark and morally ambiguous characters that even George R.R. Martin should envy. Most of all, though, his novels are pure, high-speed whirls of action, suspense, and drama, written with formidable, horrifyingly vivid prose.”

In the spirit of the season, have a present – an excerpty thingy.

Being a seson of not doing much real work, this is one of those times of year when I think about what comes next. So on the cards at the moment, we have:

• Heroic fantasy in which a soldier and a scholar chase a demon across the ruins of a once-great empire.
• Time-travelling teenagers
• Minoan steampunk
• A thirties-noir style fantasy in which wizards are madmen locked up in cages and the dead rise from old battlefields.
• A vaguely sensible attempt at some Martian SF
• Something I can’t even begin to describe but involves a magical parakeet from Belgium who speaks deathless wisdom and can defy time.

I’d say let me know here who you fancy, but it’s the parrot, isn’t it…

Some parts of the dragon-realms fared better than others, when the War of Speakers came to its head and the rogue dragons burst out of the mountains and swept across the desert. Me? I wasn’t in those parts. And Bloodsalt? That fared worst of all.
– Skjorl

About a year ago, I offered an (unspecified) prize for the person to find the most typos in King of the Crags.  The hands down winner won a small slice of immortality, and ‘uncle’ Silvestre now has a small part in The King’s Assassin (out in late 2012) as a sword-master who teaches Berren a lesson or two.

This month’s competition prize is an opportunity to be an Adamantine Man in The Black Mausoleum. Possibly several opportunities. A fiery death is guaranteed, but you’ll appear for at least a few chapters. As usual with these things, I get to veto names that don’t fit. To win one of these cameos, you have to find typos in The Order of the Scales. The prize is nominally for whoever finds the most. Someone on Goodreads claims to have found eight. There may be further prizes for effort if I get several replies.

You can either reply to this post or mail me. Happy hunting.

The magnificent Stephen Youll strikes again: The cover art for The Black Mausoleum. I particularly like the birds and the Fury River flood plain in the background. Oh, and the dragon.

Note – the UK cover art.

After another long had day at the office, Skjorl was disheartened, upon leaving, to discover that Blackscar had not forgotten their altercation of the night before.

There’s Karatos, the alchemist sentenced to death for being what she is. There’s Siff in the next cell. His death sentence is for killing four soldiers with his bare hands even though he has no memory of how he did it. There’s Skjorl, the Adamantine Man whose job it is to watch over them.

Thing is, though, Siff knows something. He knows something that might just change the fate of the world and right now, any change at all is looking like a good thing. So Kataros has to get him out, so he can show her what he’s found, and never mind that he’s likely going to stab her in the back the first chance he gets. To get him out, she needs Skjorl, even if the Adamantine Man would rather stab himself than help someone like Siff, and that’s only the start of what he’d do to her, given the chance.

And then there’s the dragon. The dragon doesn’t hate any of them. It’s a dragon. It simply wants to eat them.

The Black Mausoleum. Someone’s going to die.

Submitted this week.

Progress report: Second draft of The Black Mausoleum completed. No significant structural defects apparent. MS will be delivered on time. Possibly early to make up for the last one. However, there’s just one little detail to be ironed out…

The Black Mausoleum revolves around a smaller number of characters than the previous books in The Memory of Flames, arguably five, depending on whether you count the dragon or not. However, there are a handful of very minor supporting characters kicking about, in particular a couple of hapless dragon-riders and a band of dragon-hunters to whom bad things happen. These are the red-shirts, the spear-carriers, utterly two-dimensional and more akin to part of the scenery than an actual character. They’re speaking parts, but only just, and in some cases, their speaking is limited to saying “Argh!” Right now, they need some names. Currently they’re called Lenk, Logan, Nico (short for Nicodemus) and, er… Dave[1]. It’s possible my editor may have some issues with this selection.

So yes, they need some names. I have a back-catalogue of other people’s annoying RPG characters that I’d happily use and then gain vicarious pleasure from watching them die in various burny squishy ways, but before I do that, here’s an open invitation to all you readers out there: send me a name for someone you’d like to see stomped on by a dragon/crushed under a falling temple/burned/eaten/eaten by canibals. They kind of have to be fantasy-ish and not either obviously copyright infringements or likely to get me thumped by another author at some future con, but other than that, I’ll pick and choose as I fancy from whatever I’m offered and there might be a note on the source in the acknowledgements…

[1] Because they’re Extras and I have a mate called Dave who looks exactly like… oh never mind.

Another year, and things are gonna change around here. At some point, the graphics of my site are all going to change. It’s time, I’m told, to get a bit more dragony. So expect to see some of this…

OK, it’s not the final cover, which won’t have the quote from Joe on it. But I’m an impatient man and bored of waiting for the final cover art (pokes editor gently with a stick. But only gently because I’ve just missed a deadline…)

WHAT? MISSED A DEADLINE? WHAT KIND OF AUTHOR DOES THAT?

A very shame-faced one in this case, because it’s all my own fault. All I can say to anyone else out there who might one day find themselves in the same position is DON’T assume the manuscript you wrote six months ago is ‘fine and just needs a bit of touching up’ and leave looking at it again until a month before it’s due for submission.

The good(ish) news is that The Warlock’s Shadow will only be about two weeks late on my editor’s desk, at which point I can go back to poking him with a large stick instead. About things like THE FINISHED COVER ART FOR ORDER OF THE SCALES,DAMMIT! (although actually, we should all feel a little sorry for the man, as he’s had to pick up a load of extra authors on top of the too much work he already had, and I dare say a lot of them are every bit as annoying as I am).

In more dragony news, the rewrites for Order of the Scales are going fine and the first complete draft for The Black Mausoleum is now sitting on my laptop. Hmmm. Won’t put off those rewrites quite as long with this one.

There are some other changes coming for 2011. I’m thinking of some slightly different content. I’ll try not to be boring, but, tempting as it is to go into detail as to whether the VAT is or isn’t a regressive tax, frankly I’m not that interested, and I suspect that goes the same for most of the people who actually read this. And it would be a huge piece of work. And then we’d get into arguments that would drag on for ages, and I’ll disagree with you about stuff you believe in passionately because the foundations of almost every argument made either way are built on the sand of dodgy statistics, and if there’s one thing that really gets my goat, it’s dodgy statistics… There, see, ranting already!

<Runs off. Has cold shower. Comes back>

No. Expect the occasional post about Star Wars, gaming, and how five-year-old children absolutely understand Munchkin in a way it takes a mature adult years to learn.

Finally, 2010 ended with a couple of rather nice reviews for King of the Crags, anticipating (perhaps) its forthcoming US release.

“Stephen Deas has combined all that’s good in fantasy and spun it around in a thriller-paced tale that will leave you breathless.” The Ranting Dragon.

“Prince Jehal … is brilliant. One of the most complex, twisted and ultimately human characters I’ve read … When I think back over what I’ve read this year … I’m hard pressed to find one I enjoyed more than this one.” SF Crowsnest

Happy New Year!

Sadly there’s not so much fun to be had with this week’s collection of reviews, but one of them comes from a site called Ranting Dragon, so they’re immediately in my good books:

“Though you will immediately notice the depth of this world, it has not been given the attentions it deserves yet. However, that is what gives The Adamantine Palace its tempo, and I’m unsure if that’s such a bad thing.” Ranting Dragon. Interesting comment. Haven’t seen anyone say anything quite like that before, but that’s definitely the choise I was making when I wrote it.

Also, what amounts to a ’suitability for its target audience’ review for Thief-Taker from Readplus in Australia: The novel does contain positive messages and meaningful themes for teenagers about growing-up too fast and wanting to live in an adult world before they are fully prepared to deal with the full consequences.

There’s an interview up at Literary Musings, in which you can find out one or two little snippets about where the dragon books are going, although I should point out that nothing is certain until it’s published. In a possibly more interesting interview (in that it involves monsters and eating people), Sarah Pinborough interviews Alex Milway on her blog today. In theory.

Have finally started writing again after what’s been month off altogether now. The Black Mausoleum rumbles onwards once more. And yes, I’ll put up an page for it in the bibliography at some point. Maybe when it’s done.

The first re-write of The Warlock’s Shadow is finished. There’s a sketchy draft of The King’s Assassin almost sorted out. What this means is… It’s finally time to start work on something new. The Great Re-Writeathon, which if I remember rightly started about last September, is over. It has spanned ten months and four books. Time for something new at last. Time for The Black Mausoleum.

Now I’m not going to say much about The Black Mausoleum, mainly because I haven’t written it yet and don’t know much about it[1]. I have the opening scene. I have some characters. There are some bare plot bones. What there aren’t, are any details. All the flesh has yet to be grown and hung in the right places. And within this congealing soup of  ideas and stringy bits of plot, lies the lurking chilli of opportunity.

What? MORE opportunity? Didn’t we already have some of that last week?

Yes indeed.

For a limited time only (16th September, to be exact), I have a something special in my box of prizes. You may, in a very specific way, put a character into my book. In a very specific way, as in they get a walk-on part that consists of showing up and then getting murdered in some very final fashion. Stamped on by a dragon. That sort of thing. Maybe they get to be tormented or tortured some first.

I have it on good authority that there really are at least a couple of “opportunities” in King of the Crags. I’ll extend the offer to The Thief-Taker’s Apprentice too (26th August). Spaces are limited[2]. First come, first served. Etc. Etc. So: Find typos and get to see your noisy neighbour, lousy boyfriend, the girl that snubbed you back at school, the boss who just never appreciates you EATEN BY DRAGONS! [3]

[1] But what about the synopsis, I hear you ask. Ha! Like that ever bears more than a skeletal resemblance to the actual plot.

[2] “And Lo, the mighty dragon did stomp upon the sea of pointless characters who are named for no apparent reason, and their names were Shem and Lem and Wem and The Person Who Axed Firefly[4] and Clem and…” Nah. Too Biblical.

[3] I reserve the right to Just Say No to anything that doesn’t seem to fit, names that simply don’t work or anything I simply don’t like. Live with it. If your school bully was called Samson Womblecrotch, I fear I will struggle to find a place for him in my world…

[4] Don’t waste your prize – he’s already in. Along with the constantly-rising-from-the-dead-for-the-love-of-science-and-reason-why-won’t-you-just-die Klimitange Skeptic

Yesterday’s big news, which probably almost everyone who reads this already knows, is that I’ve signed up with Gollancz to write four more fantasy books. Strictly, the signing thing hasn’t happened yet, but the deal is done. So, here I’m going to say a little bit more about what’s coming. However, first…

… a cracking fantasy that deserves to be widely read and enjoyed. – My Favourite Books. With “sharp dialogue” and a “rich setting.” Yes, it’s another review for The Thief-Taker’s Apprentice, and the more they come in like that, the more stressed I’m going to get about The Warlock’s Shadow not living up to its predecessor. However, I dare say Strange Horizons will pop up at some point to rip it to shreds and generally put me in my place.

Anyway, little more about these new dragon books:

The Black Mausoleum, is intended to be largely a standalone novel, although several of the major characters appear in The Order of the Scales and if there are any major characters left from The Adamantine Palace by then, well, they might make a brief appearance too. The truly dedicated will have noted that The Black Mausoleum doesn’t get a mention in either The Adamantine Palace or King of the Crags, but gets an entry in the gazetteer:

According to legend, the Silver King predicted his own demise and ordered a mausoleum to be built ‘in black marble across the great river from the endless caves.’ The mausoleum is almost certainly a myth, but this has not stopped dragon-riders, priests, blood-mages, alchemists and speakers (most notably Voranin and Vishmir) from looking for it. The Black Mausoleum allegedly houses the Tomb of the Silver King and whatever treasures that entails.

Make what you will of that. There will be some characters. They may well be looking for the Black Mausoleum. There’s a possibility that one or more has a hidden agenda. One of them will be called Indiana Jones.

The Sea Prince, The Dragon Queen and The Silver King:

We’re back in trilogy-land here. Want to know more about the mysterious Taiytakei? You’re in luck – most of the first two books will be set there. Want to know more about the mysterious Silver King? Wellll… OK, a bit. A mystery from The Adamantine Palace will finally be solved (but at least one won’t). A few new ways to try and control dragons will be explored. One will succeed. There will be a magic knife and a spear, too. There is the possibility of some more overt magic, although to be honest I’m still a little hazy on that part of the story. The cast will largely be new, but at least two characters from The Adamantine Palace will make it at least as far as The Dragon Queen. Jon Weir’s favourite character will continue to be annoying. And, as advertised elsewhere, the Thief-Taker’s Apprentice YA trilogy will be one of the major protagonists in this trilogy too.

However, further books notwithstanding, The Order of the Scales will still have a proper end. No major cliffhangers, I promise.

The Black Mausoleum will come out in Spring/Summer 2012 and I expect to start the business of actually writing it in October. The other three books will follow at yearly intervals. More news as and when it happens.

And before anyone asks, no, I don’t know if there will be a map.

In theory I’m supposed to be taking a couple of weeks off between completing the proof-reading of King of the Crags and launching into the last rewrite of The Thief-Taker’s Apprentice and then the very-far-from-last rewrite of Order of the Scales. So I absolutely haven’t started working on something else and it absolutely isn’t called The Black Mausoleum and there absolutely aren’t 10000-odd words of this already laid down. Absolutely can’t have happened. It’s my fortnight off, after all.

In the meantime, as the UK celebrates(?) its biggest ever lottery win, I note that this would equate to selling roughly 100 million books. I’m estimating a roughly 50/50 chance of achieving this before the sun explodes [1].

For those of you looking for anything more substantial, I have left a mess over on John Scalzi’s blog, in which I fantasize  that there might be some sort of element of vicarious satisfaction or even satire involved in writing stories about enormous fire-breathing monsters burning the shit out of people who badly badly deserve it.

Oh, wait, that doesn’t happen until later…

[1]  All right all right, swells up into a red giant and vapourizing everything, strictly isn’t the same as exploding.