Looking Down the Hallway

What’s that in the distance? An actual new book! I thought those things had gone extinct a couple years back?

 

So did I. 

 

But I’ve been busy getting familiar with the blank page again and returning to dusty manuscripts that needed a hard shaking, some polish, and some air-drying for good measure.

 

What does that even mean?

 

It means, that I finally finished Shadow of the Dragod, Book 1 of the Dragod Saga, a brand-new series set in a post-apocalyptic fantasy universe that I like to equate to the Dark Sun universe created for D&D many moons ago.  

 

I know, I know. You’re probably asking yourself how the heck I could start a new series when there’s only book 1 in the Scarred World Saga…

 

Well, turns out I’ve got a bit of a tendency to get sidetracked by open doors I’ve never peeked inside before. 

 

Just so happens that on the other side of this door I ended up writing the longest book I’ve ever written at 264k words.

 

Here’s the elevator pitch I’m working with: 

 

It’s been 1000 years since the Dragod rose from the gut of the world to burn away civilization and turn the land to ash. Only thanks to the magic of a lowly sorcerer was the continent-sized dragon slain and the remainder of humanity saved. But despite the god’s defeat, its fire could not be stamped out. Even now, the magical, crimson flames still dance across the world, coughing forth demonic creations who intend to finish what the Dragod started and snuff out the rest of those who remain.

 

Blain Aldaldin is one of those survivors. An apprentice scribe living in the last known library in the leftover world, he’s been tasked with bringing back the lost art of language and restoring some semblance of order by recording the land’s unfolding history. But that’s a tall order for a boy who’s seen too many horrific things to know the futility in words.

 

When prophecies start running rampant, greater monsters begin emerging from the ever-spreading red flames, and signs of hope blossom across the ash-swept realm that may signal the end of the fire once and for all, Blain is caught up in an adventure that pulls him far from home. A journey that will force him to look up from his book and make sense of the world with his own eyes, and find out who he’s meant to be;  

 

A recorder of the world’s final gasp, or someone who can bring it back from the brink.  

 

Hopefully that’s piqued your interest.

 

If so, I’m hopeful for a summer release.  Right now, it’s with my editor (the fantastic Tamara Blain.) Should get back the manuscript in May/June, which I’ll need a month or so to go over again, package it up, and then send this bad larry out into the nethers.

 

So yeah, no official date yet. But the wheels are in motion.  

In the meantime, as I await the book’s return after having gone through Tamara’s fine tooth-comb, there are other things in motion that can now not be undone.

But that is a blog for another time. 

Until next time, Fellow Creatures!

 

Stay super,

 

-Jeff