Just in case anyone thought I didn’t also own a katana. King of Assassins is the explosive concluding volume of RJ Barker’s epic Wounded Kingdom trilogy. Whatever you were expecting from this climatic book, I think it’s safe to say you’re going to be getting much, much more than you bargained for. This is a…
The True Bastards is the follow-up to Jonathan French’s riveting first Lot Lands adventure, The Grey Bastards. This sequel expands on the story left partly unfinished at the end of the first book, but not in the ways you might expect. This volume switches to the viewpoint of Fetching, now chief of the half-orc…
I recently ordered a French M1866 Chassepot rifle bayonet from 1873 off ebay. The rifle was an early modern style breechloader, and the bayonet was slid over the barrel and a slot on the grip locked it into place. I love the curved yataghan style blade, and in fact I’ve decided to write the character…
This week I learned (thanks to Mage’s Almanac) that the trade publication Publishers Weekly gave The Heron Kings a very nice starred review. I’m told by people familiar with the industry that this is a good thing to have, indicating books of “exceptional merit.” I don’t know about that, but apparently booksellers and even film…
Not enough bone to make a ship out of, but coyote skull insisted on being in the picture. It’s embarrassing how long it’s taken me to get around to this. RJ Barker is well into his second series and here I am still on the first one. It’s part laziness, part other things getting…
I received the Advance Review Copy of The Heron Kings in the mail the other day. It’s weird, I always dreamed of physically holding my book in my hands for the first time, and this is…kinda that? It’s not anywhere near the final version–it’s full of typos and placeholder marks and the like. More…
Swapped out the sword on my desk with a new antique. In my review of Peter McLean’s first book in this series, Priest of Bones, I said I kind of hated Tomas Piety. I still do, and his “wife” even more so, but this time around I feel much more satisfied with how things…
I ordered my second ever antique sword recently, and it finally arrived! It’s a Model 1855 French Infantry Officer’s Sword. Here’s an album: This is a very light sword, weighing only 1 pound 9 ounces. The center of gravity is about five inches out, as you can see by the stand I have it balanced…
…wait, is that a spider? Arm of the Sphinx is the second, much more firmly steampunk installment in Josiah Bancroft’s brilliant Books of Babel series, and represents a kind of inflection point in Thomas Senlin’s journey. What began as a quest to find his lost wife Marya among the vast, labyrinthine Tower of Babel has wrought…
So I decided I wasn’t satisfied with the maps I made for The Heron Kings with the free version of Inkarnate. After some research, I decided to buy Wonderdraft ($30), another map tool. Here’s my first attempt at drawing Argovan and Bergovny, and the greater world around it. I think it looks much better, but…
