The Sword Nearly Triumphant
Hello. Thank you in advance for reading.
The Sword Triumphant’s out at the end of the month, and a few advance copies have already made their way to me. I took one on a tour of a castle, along with the other two books in the trilogy.
Three faces of poor Aelfric there, from his initial “I’m an old beaten-down warhorse who was a hero 20 years ago” to “oh god they’ve made me do heroing again, only now I see the folly of it all” to “one last job. one last sword. only properly this time”.
Upcoming Book 3 related events:
Saturday May 17th, Edinburgh: Panel on contemporary fantasy with Stephen Aryan and Annabel Campbell
https://www.toppingbooks.co.uk/events/edinburgh/fantasy-panel-2025/
Saturday May 31st, Cork: Signing in Waterstones (time TBC)
Also, I’ll be giving away a copy to a random person signed up to this newsletter. I’ll make the draw just before I pop off to Edinburgh, so keep an eye on your inbox on Friday.
I won’t be at Gencon this year. Pelgrane, in common with several other UK companies, have decided to stick to US-citizens only for their convention staff to avoid problems at the border. I won’t be at UK Games Expo, either (hence the date of the Cork signing). Nor, despite my best efforts to make schedules work, will I be at the Live D&D Game at the International Literary Festival Dublin. However, to my surprise and joy, it’s looking like I’ll be at the Celsius festival in Spain in July.
I’ll also be doing a small stretch goal for Graham’s Cthulhu Dark kickstarter, assuming it hits the required total.
An event I was at, albeit just in the audience, was John Garth’s talk on Tolkien. I enjoyed it a great deal; there was even some stuff in there I didn’t know, but for those who haven’t read all of History of Middle-earth several times (first for fun, then for work), there’s probably a lot of stuff you don’t know.
Another event I was actually at - Eastercon! Lots of fun. I remain slightly bewildered by sci-fi/fantasy cons, as opposed to gaming cons; I keep expecting to find the door that leads to the giant hall full of games. Why else are all these people here? But I got to do a few panels, attend some others (just remembered that I had an idea for a whole book series in the middle of the panel on portal fantasies, I should probably find where I wrote that outline down) and hang out with many people who are usually just names flitting past on bluesky.
Current work: Editing the first draft of my next (unannounced) novel, which is due at the end of the month, as well as tapping away on The Game That Was Called Shires Out, That May Be Called Foot Patrol But We’re Still Arguing About The Name and a bunch of other projects (Terraforming Mars RPG, Trail of Cthulhu material, other bits).
Currently reading: A few ARCs, plus rereading Gogmagog so I can finally get onto Ludluda. Recent reading included a reread of The Pantomime Life of Joseph Grimaldi, the new John Higgs, and Seeing Like A State.
Currently playing: Dredge, the Lovecraft fishing game on iPad. Werewolf: the Apocalypse 2nd edition, in a very retro campaign. And off to a friend’s board gaming weekend after Edinburgh…
Currently watching: Andor. Then rewatching Andor. Andor’s very good.
The world remains unthinkably absurd. Stay safe and try to stay sane.
Gar
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