At last! The Lordless City will officially be released on August 9 — that’s just over a month away. To whet your appetite, here’s the cover and the blurb.

Arandras Kanthesi, now master of a golem army, is determined to resist the allure of his newfound power. But war is coming, and Arandras must lead his charges into the very maelstrom he sought to avoid.

The god Azador has set its sights on Spyridon, a city whose leadership is riven by discord. Eilwen, the former Woodtrader who is still haunted by the murderous beast within her, and the rogue sorcerer Clade race to defend Spyridon from threats both within and without. Yet each is torn between the good of the city and their own ambitions, and the forces arrayed against them wield a power beyond their imagining.

As the enemy cannons draw near, Arandras discovers the shocking truth about the golems he commands. Appalled, Arandras is forced to make an unthinkable decision — one where any choice will see him branded a monster…

I know. The Lordless City was supposed to be out by now. Late last year I was telling anyone who asked that the book was finished, the only thing left to do was to sort out some final details around publication — cover, maps, that sort of thing — and that they could expect to see a release sometime around February or March. But here we are in May and the book is nowhere to be seen. What happened?

The answer is that I’ve had some major delays with one of those last details — specifically, a new map of the city of Spyridon. Towards the end of last year I lined up an artist to draw the map, and they agreed to a timeline that had me pretty confident I could meet the planned release date. But unfortunately that artist turned out to be overcommitted with other work, leading to repeated delays as I waited for them to start working on the map. By April, with no end in sight, I was left with no choice but to cancel the commission and look for an alternative artist.

The good news is that I’ve been able to find an outstanding replacement artist who has stepped into the breach and is making excellent progress on the new map. I’ve seen some drafts and I’m excited at the work that’s being done. Frustrating as the delays have been, I’m pleased to say that there’ll be no loss of quality — the new map will be every bit as good as those that appeared in The Unbound Man.

That’s all well and good, you say, but that still leaves the main question unanswered. When will The Lordless City be published?

Right now I’m eyeing August as a likely release month. Having been burned once, I’m reluctant to be any more specific until I have the finished map in hand and am completely sure that I can meet a particular date. But I’m as keen for this book to make its way into the world as you are, and I’ll be doing everything I can to make that happen as quickly as possible.

I’m sorry for the delay. I’m grateful for your patience. And I hope to be able to announce a firm release date soon.

It’s been a long time between updates. Almost a year, in fact. But while this blog has lain idle, I’ve been working away at a revised draft of The Lordless City, which I’m pleased to say is now complete. This draft is even now winging its electronic way to my alpha readers, who will read it and tell me how closely it resembles the story I want to tell.

The second draft of The Lordless City is shorter than the first: down from 157,000 words to 152,000 words. Interestingly, this is the opposite of what happened with the second draft of The Unbound Man, which grew by some 9,000 words. This difference reflects the kind of changes that were required in each case. For The Unbound Man, several sequences in the first draft had to be scrapped and replaced with some entirely new pieces. But there was very little of that for The Lordless City — aside from a small section in part 1, most of the work for this draft involved clarifying, cutting, and generally tightening the story.

Of course, the big question is: when will The Lordless City be out, already? Alas, it’s still too early to tell. Much will depend on the feedback from alpha readers and the editing process to follow. Needless to say, further updates will appear here as they become available — and, I hope very much, with significantly greater frequency than in the past year!

Finally! The first draft of The Lordless City is officially done. Weighing in at 157,000 words, it’s slightly longer than the first draft of The Unbound Man (154,000 words) but slightly shorter than that book’s published length (163,000 words) — which is to say that it’s right in the zone I was aiming for.

I’m told some people find first drafts the most enjoyable part of writing a novel. Not me. First drafts are hard. The process of translating the story in your head into actual words is long, laborious, and embarrassingly incomplete, at least to begin with. But the only way to write a good story is to start with a version that’s not so good. You can’t make improvements to something that doesn’t exist.

Don’t get me wrong. There’s some good stuff in that draft, stuff that I’m excited about and that I think you’re going to enjoy. The job now is to refine all of that raw story mass and shape it into a well-formed whole: to smooth off the rough edges, correct the balance of various elements, and make sure each piece is working as well as it can. And that’s what I’ll be working on next.

It’s here! My new short story For The Glory Set Before Them is now out. Check out the blurb and store links below.

I hope you like it!

—

I am Barais neb-Ohel, combat sorcerer under Captain Shansherai. We are summoned to fight and die in service to the All-God and to all Kefira, home of our fathers.

It will, I am told, be glorious.

Widower, diarist, and mediocre sorcerer, Barais neb-Ohel makes an unlikely soldier. When his squad receives orders to reclaim a much-contested fortress from the hated Gisleans, Barais is thrust into the forefront of a long-running war. But the squad’s numbers are few, his own abilities are desperately limited, and as their journey progresses he finds himself questioning the rightness of their cause.

For The Glory Set Before Them is a meditative military fantasy which will draw you deeper into the fascinating world of Kal Arna.

Ebook: Amazon, Apple, Kobo, Nook, Smashwords

You know how ever since the middle of last year I’ve been talking vaguely about a soon-to-be-released short story? Well, it’s taken longer than I hoped, but the story is finally ready to go. It’s called For The Glory Set Before Them, and it will be out towards the end of May.

What’s it about, I hear you ask? Here’s the blurb…

—

I am Barais neb-Ohel, combat sorcerer under Captain Shansherai. We are summoned to fight and die in service to the All-God and to all Kefira, home of our fathers.

It will, I am told, be glorious.

Widower, diarist, and mediocre sorcerer, Barais neb-Ohel makes an unlikely soldier. When his squad receives orders to reclaim a much-contested fortress from the hated Gisleans, Barais is thrust into the forefront of a long-running war. But the squad’s numbers are few, his own abilities are desperately limited, and as their journey progresses he finds himself questioning the rightness of their cause.

For The Glory Set Before Them is a meditative military fantasy which will draw you deeper into the fascinating world of Kal Arna.

—

So there you have it! Publication day is May 27. Keep an eye on the Books page for links to various stores.

In other news, I’m continuing to make good progress on The Lordless City. As expected, I’m moving faster as I get into the final third of the book. Word count has passed 120,000, and I’m on track to complete the draft by the end of the year. That’s the first draft, of course — there’ll be plenty of work to follow, but I’m very much looking forward to finishing this draft and getting stuck into revisions and editing.

I’m a couple of weeks late with this post — but better late than never, right? Here’s where things stand as we farewell 2015 and gear up for a new year.

Next novel

A few days ago I passed the halfway point of the first draft of The Unbound Man’s sequel, still tentatively titled The Lordless City. The word count of the first half is just shy of 85,000, which is pretty similar to the first half of The Unbound Man. So far there have been no major divergences from the outline. Some smaller surprises, yes, and the emergence of several unexpected character threads which contribute some pleasing depth and ambiguity to the whole, but nothing so significant as to pull the story off-track. All of which is to say: so far, so good.

Those of you who remember my last update may recall that in late August I was about a third of the way through the first draft; now, four or so months later, I’ve made it to halfway. If one projects that rate of progress forward into 2016, one might reasonably assume that I could finish this draft by the end of the year. To which I can only say: yes, I noticed that too. I’ve been frustrated for most of 2015 at not being able to write more quickly (primarily due to time constraints), but the truth is that I’ve been progressing significantly faster than anything I managed while writing The Unbound Man. I very much hope that I will complete this draft before the year is out. We shall see.

Short stories

I’ve been making vague comments for a while about maybe putting out a short story sometime soon. I don’t have anything new to report on this just yet, so for the moment those vague comments still stand. As soon as I can say anything more specific, I will.

Other activities

In the wake of the Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off, I participated in a two-part round table with a number of other SPFBO participants over at Fantasy Book Critic. This was followed up by a guest post on the subject of building a world, in which I talked about my various sources of inspiration for the setting of The Unbound Man and how I went about constructing it.

Then in December, I teamed up with Mitchell Hogan and DK Mok to run a Christmas giveaway. Congratulations to the winners, Ilir G and Karla: your books are on their way!

Thank you

Finally, my thanks to everyone who read The Unbound Man in 2015. There’s no shortage of books to read out there, and without the platform or marketing support of some of the bigger names it can be tough to get noticed. Thank you to everyone who gave The Unbound Man a shot. I hope to have more stories for you soon.

Do you like epic fantasy? Do you like winning things? How about books that have been signed by their author? If you answered ‘yes’ to all three questions, the Awesome Emerging Australian Authors Christmas Giveaway is for you.

Win a bundle of the following books:

• A Crucible of Souls by Mitchell Hogan (2013 Aurealis Award winner!)
• Hunt for Valamon by DK Mok
• The Unbound Man by me, Matt Karlov

One bundle will be won by somebody in the US, CA, or UK. Another will be won by somebody in Australia.

US / CA / UK residents can enter here:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Australian residents can enter here:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

The giveaway closes on December 24. Don’t miss out!