It’s awesome, but it also means I’ve been doing production on six books at the same time, and boy howdy, can that keep a body busy! I also have these smaller humans that seem to be around the house a lot more than usual in the summertime. Keeping them occupied feels like a full time job.
But there’s so much to talk about! I’m grateful that Mountain View Public Library in Mountain View, CA invited me to a virtual author talk this month as part of their “Sci-Fi September” celebration.
This event is FREE and available to all, regardless of where you’re from. It will be held September 13, 2023 from 6:30pm-7:30pm PST (Pacific Standard Time).
If that’s a little late for some of my friends across the sea, fear not! The talk will be recorded and posted on the library’s YouTube channel.
In addition to answering questions for my hosts, we’ll be opening the conversation up to questions from viewers, so if there’s something you’d like to ask, make a note! I’m happy to gossip about my books—past, present and future—writing in general, navigating 80’s and 90’s SF movies with GenZ and GenA kids, or whatever else you want to talk about.
It’s finally here!! The long-awaited cover to The Hidden Queen has arrived, and it is fantastic. Darin Bales is the moody nocturnal heartbreaker you never knew you needed in your life.
Desert Prince cover by Tommy Arnold
It was always the plan for The Desert Prince, book 1 of the Nightfall Saga, to feature Olive Paper as both main character and cover star, and for book 2 to feature Darin Bales in the same way. You may remember the Olive cover was done by the indomitable Tommy Arnold, featuring Olive in fighting fit out on the scorched and sunlit Krasian Desert.
Due to a scheduling conflict, Tommy was not available for book two, but we were immensely fortunate to have the amazing Martina Facová not only take his place at bat, but hit it out of the fucking park.
(Did I get that right? Sportball metaphors are not usually my thing.)
Darin Bales playing pipes in moonlight by Dominik Broniek
Darin Bales sketches by Dominik Broniek
The results were nothing short of brilliant. I love Darin’s emo vampire farmboy vibe, with his precious pipes and the dreaded demon doorway frame, mirroring the detailed Krasian-style doorway framing Olive in book 1. Darkness is falling, and Darin’s night eyes are coming to life, along with the shadowy powers he inherited from his demon-eating parents.
Darin was already a favorite for many readers in The Desert Prince, but more than a few of you lamented that he was more supporting cast than protagonist. In The Hidden Queen, Darin truly has his chance to shine.
Darin Bales may have inherited some of his parents’ magic, but it has come at a cost neither of them had to pay. Darin’s senses are too powerful, feeding far more information than he can hope to filter and interpret. As with many sensory diverse people in real life, Darin’s gifts can often seem like a curse—an insurmountable barrier to having a normal life (if there even is such a thing).
Darin struggles to connect with people. To understand their jokes and facial expressions, to comprehend their feelings even when he can smell their emotions.
Darin doesn’t like to fight. He can’t stand crowds. Or bright sunlight. He hates loud noises, strong smells, food with too many ingredients. He doesn’t like to be touched. When Darin’s senses get overwhelmed, there isn’t much he can do but hide and curl up, waiting for the offending input to pass.
But the demons have his mam, and Darin Bales will be corespawned before he leaves her to them.
Demon Cycle book 1, The Painted Man, was first published in the UK in late 2008, followed quickly by its American counterpart, The Warded Man, in early 2009. This not-so-little book I had spent the last seven years working on had finally become a real boy.
Up until that point I had been working in medical publishing, and while I never hated the work, I didn’t much like it, either. And I figured, you know what? I can always get another job I don’t like. Jobs you don’t like are usually pretty easy to get.
So I took a leap of faith and quit in late 2007 to focus on what I thought at the time would be a short jaunt of being a full time writer that I could cherish the memory of when I inevitably went back to a straight job writing emails in some grey cubicle in the Manhattan skyline. I didn’t really think writing fantasy full time was something I would get to do long term, but my book contracts offered me a guarantee of enough income to live on for ~two years, provided I turned my books in on time.
Reader, I did not turn the books in on time.
When making promises to publishers and agents and myself, my output estimates were built atop the baseless—and in hindsight absurd—assumption that I would be 3x as productive writing full time as when I was stealing two hours a day from my commute or sleep to get some words in.
LOL
Creativity doesn’t work that way.
Still, it turned out okay! For some reason, people really liked my books, and I wasn’t that late delivering manuscripts. Months, rather than years… or decades. (The bar in epic fantasy is famously low about these things IYKYK.)
So I thought I would be a “book a year” guy, like my hero Terry Brooks. Turns out I am a “book every 18 months plus a 6 month break to promote and tour” guy. I try to make up for it with really long books, though.
I am so immensely grateful to all the readers who’ve supported me on this journey, told friends, posted pix or reviews, attended launch events, shared beautiful fan art. I still can’t believe this is real life sometimes. Because of this little world I liked to escape to, I am now my own boss. I can make my own hours and spend real time with my kids every day. I can pursue my art. And when I read comics or play videogames, I can legitimately justify it as important market research.
Teenage readers who picked up that first Demon Cycle book are in their 30s now. I’ve literally watched some of them (and the children readers have named after my characters) grow up at consecutive book tour events over the years. It’s humbling, and joyful. As is the steady stream of new readers who came to the series along the way, with millions of books sold worldwide.
So it is my great honor to announce that in celebration of the Demon Cycle 15th anniversary, Del Rey Books will be re-releasing the entire five book series in trade paperback, its first US production in that larger and more readable format.
Featuring slick new cover designs by Szymon Wójciak with terrifying coreling art by long-time Demon Cycle illustrator Dominik Broniek, the printed books will also include bonus novellas and short stories (previously published separately) that are part of the series canon.
The Warded Man 15th anniversary trade paperback releases TODAY, July 18, 2023, followed quickly by The Desert Spear and The Daylight War, both publishing November 7, 2023. The series concludes with The Skull Throne and The Core, on sale March 5, 2024.
This will also give readers new and old a change to get up to speed just before the launch of The Hidden Queen, book 2 of the Nightfall Saga, which releases concurrently on March 5, 2024!
I am not allowed to show you the cover yet, but my loves, Darin Bales is going to break your heart. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
One of my favorite things about my unexpected late-life literary career has always been the travel.
I didn’t have a lot of stamps on my passport for the first 35 years of my life. A high school trip to Canada. 3 weeks with my grandmother in Ireland when I was 15, where I was mostly just there to carry the bags while she visited her sisters and they all attempted to stuff me with meat and potatoes while telling me about my 2nd cousin, once removed who is dead now, by the way. In my 20s I took a few Caribbean vacations that were amazing, but nothing that left me feeling at all worldly.
But then, when I was 35, my first book published in the UK. I went there for the launch, and it feels like I never stopped traveling after that. Book tours, literary festivals, pop culture conventions, the list goes on. Any time I was invited someplace I’d never been before (or had been and loved), I said yes without hesitation. The Demon Cycle is published in 27 languages and I can’t even say how many countries worldwide, and I’ve tried to visit as many of them as I can.
I started feeling like an international man of mystery. I’d amassed a travel wallet with “walking around money” in close to a dozen currencies, and my passport had so many stamps and stickers they started to overlap. I took time on every trip to be in the moment and walk or tour the cities and take local sights, and was beginning to feel like I had a better understanding of the world and my place in it.
Then came the plague. Covid put the kibosh on my planned 2020 travel completely. I did a couple of eastern seaboard events after the vaccine rollout in 2021, and actually got on a plane a few times in 2022, but it was all still US travel.
But at last, the fog has lifted! I’m headed back to Europe TWICE in the coming months and I couldn’t be more excited. I hope this is a sign of a return to normal in the years to come. Fingers crossed for a proper book tour in 2024.
My first European trip since 2019! I am super excited to visit beautiful Luxembourg, where I will be doing talks, panels, signings, and possibly a drunken D&D livestream.
My last trip to Serbia for the Belgrade Book Fair was amazing, so I am thrilled to be able to visit again and see a bit more of the country at the Fantasy Festival in Niš.
Unbelievably, The Demon Cycle is entering its 15th (!!) year. Who would have imagined I’d still be around, getting to do this weird thing I love? Not me, certainly.
It was an honor to have the original series published in hardcover, and the mass market paperbacks have gone back on press over 20 times in the ensuing years. Still, the books have never been in trade paperback (TPB), which is currently the most popular format for booksellers in 2023.
So we’re celebrating the 15th anniversary by re-releasing the original Demon Cycle 5-book series for the first time ever in TPB, with slick new cover designs, and bonus materials, including the tie-in series of Demon Cycle novellas. The spines will line up with a terrifying image to add tension and excitement to any bookshelf.
The new edition of The Warded Man will include the novella The Great Bazaar, which tells the tale of how Arlen acquired the map to Anoch Sun, changing the course of history.
The remaining 4 books will be released one every three months following. More awesome cover reveals to come!
