The Road to Emberlain Novellas!

Far from the power of the great city-states they wander a haunted landscape and meet eccentric people, including a trio of desperate, inexperienced thieves hiding a secret. In the hustle and bustle of civilization Locke and Jean have a thousand options; out here they'll need to scrounge every scant advantage they can muster against the ruthless bounty hunter Caron Chyril and her band of killers. It's a battle of wits against steel. The losers go into the dirt.

Q. What is the Road to Emberlain?

A. The Road to Emberlain is a linked sequence of three novellas bridging the events of The Republic of Thieves and The Thorn of Emberlain, detailing the year Locke and Jean spend crossing the continent and developing the scheme that will bring them to Emberlain in its time of war. Absolutely nothing in these novellas will be essential to readers of The Thorn of Emberlain; no critical plot information will be withheld. However, I hope readers will find these shorter works a pleasant expansion and a deeper exploration of the background story.

The Road to Emberlain novellas are:

I -- More Than Fools Fill Graves
II -- The Mad Baron's Mechanical Attic
III -- The Choir of Knives

Q. Weren't novellas announced using some of these titles years ago?

A. Yes. Originally, many years ago, The Mad Baron's Mechanical Attic was conceived as a prequel to The Lies of Locke Lamora detailing how the Gentlemen Bastards took possession of the brandy they used for their con game. I decided to abandon that idea because I had nothing new or interesting to say on the matter, and I believe a prequel should have something to reveal that recontextualizes the events the reader is already familiar with.

It seemed like a fun little story, but I needed it to be more than just a fun little story, so I shifted it in time to be a bridge between the third and fourth main sequence novel. That was a big improvement, but the picture was still incomplete. I needed a first act. That became More Than Fools Fill Graves, and The Mad Baron's Mechanical Attic slides, largely unchanged, into the middle of this little trilogy.

Q. Wasn't there something about a collected set of novellas called "The Bastards and the Knives?"

A. "The Bastards and the Knives" never existed and it's never going to exist. It was a very early half-shaped notion for an eventual project that was, unfortunately, made public out of a confidential sales and marketing document (by someone I fully believe, incidentally, who was being carelessly enthusiastic, not malicious). Once a listing for a project gets into bookseller databases it's very hard to eradicate for reasons as trivial as 'not existing.' Sigh. That's why you might see references to it here and there with notes like 'published in 2010' and so forth. All of that should be completely disregarded, and anyone offering to sell 'The Bastards and the Knives' on eBay is engaging in straight-up fraud. Oh, the irony. Still, don't be taken in by those assholes.

Q. When and where will The Road to Emberlain novellas be available?

A. This is a project forthcoming from Subterranean Press. The books will be offered in their usual spectacular lettered and limited editions, with original illustrations, many of them signed by me. Subterranean Press has been a world leader in fine collectible editions of SF/F works for decades. All details and release timestables will ultimately be up to them; expect the next announcement about these books to come from them. I will repeat all new information in every channel I have as soon as I have it.

Q. What else should we know about these novellas?

A. They're pretty robust. Each one clocks in around 40,000 words. They're also a fun chance (or so I hope) for a bit of a leg-stretch and some halting to smell the roses, as it were. In these novellas you'll find all the convoluted swearing, desperate schemes, and fast-paced bloodshed you expect from the Gentlemen Bastards, but you'll also find heartfelt conversations, slices of life in Locke's world, elements of religion and philosophy, stargazing, strange mysteries and stranger truths. You'll get songs, campfire tales, and ghost stories told beside empty roads and ruins.

Again, it is crucial to me, as a cornerstone of this project, that nothing in these books be required to understand any of the events of The Thorn of Emberlain. However, if you're eager to spend just a bit more enriching, mystifying, blood-soaked quality time with Locke and Jean, look no further.

Signed Limited-Edition Bookplates!

A couple of months ago, I started receiving a fresh wave of inquiries as to whether or not I offered signed bookplates via mail. The first couple of times this happened, I said that I did not but that I'd be happy to whip a little something up and send it along. Then the requests kept coming. And coming. And coming.

Eventually, I figured out that this had much to do with the recent Broken Binding special editions of the existing novels, which had an unsigned tier. However, regardless as to where the requests are coming from, there are now far too many of them for me to reasonably deal with in a piecemeal fashion.

As a result, I sought out a printer, and I'm going to be offering my first-ever set of signed bookplates! They'll feature original artwork from yours truly, and each one will be hand-signed with a very small amount of room for a minor personalization, such as "To [name]" or "Nice bird, asshole!" or "Hi, mom," or "To the world's best parole officer," or whatever. The plates will be three inches high by four inches wide.

The initial run will be 500 sets of three bookplates. If and when a run of bookplates sells out, I'll draw a new design and have a new set printed up.

UPDATE (October 1): Bookplate art will be revealed on Friday, October 4! If I'm lucky I'll have an order page, too. No promises. Might need the weekend to wrangle the damn thing.

As an added bonus, I'll stick my original bookplate art into one randomly selected envelope as a little bonus. While this might sound like a Willy Wonka Golden Ticket sort of deal, the truth is it basically saves my artwork from cluttering up my desk until one of my cats claims it as a chew toy. Their sad loss could be your gain.

The First-Ever Gentlemen Bastards Short Story!

Grimdark Magazine is celebrating ten years of phantasmagorical grit, and I was invited to be a contributor for the anniversary issue in October. After a bit of discussion, we decided to seize the opportunity to do something really special.

I'm delighted to report that "Locke Lamora and the Bottled Serpent" will be a two-part extravaganza bridging the October 2024 and January 2025 issues of GDM.

In this tale from Locke's teenage years, our nervous, hormonal, romantically-confused hero spends a few months working as a bar-back in one of Camorr's most brutal Right People taverns. This is one of Father Chains' endless series of training and personal enrichment schemes; as per usual, it's full of fuckery, and as per usual, Locke is expected to work it all out himself. His only real ally of the moment is the aging mercenary Mazoc Szaba, a man addicted to risking his own life in a gambling spectacle involving poisoned wine.

As Locke's troubles boil over, so do Mazoc Szaba's debts, and when you publicly flaunt your obligations to the one and only Capa Barsavi, Barsavi reaches out to publicly remind you of them...

UPDATE (October 1): Part I is now available in Grimdark Magazine Issue 40! Click this link to get it!

Cheers!