A Contest
13/5: And closed! Clearly, I underestimated the difficulty again, as there was only ONE correct answer. As I’m giving away
On Titles
The Gutter Prayer was always The Gutter Prayer (well, it started out as Nanowrino2014, but that title would never fly.) The Shadow Saint was The Divine Machine for a very long time. Book 3 eluded a title for a long time. Structurally, there are two plot strands: stuff’s going on in Guerdon, and at the same time Cari’s having adventures far away across the sea. The two strands come together as the book goes on, but any title would have to fit both plot lines. The working title was Anchorhold – an anchorhold is the small cell where an anchorite, a walled-up monk, dwells, which fitted the Guerdon/Spar plot, and it felt nautical enough to cover all Cari’s ocean voyaging. However, as the book’s part of a series, the title had to confirm to the format of the other books. So, THE SOMETHING SOMETHING. I proposed a bunch of possibilities to Orbit. THE DIVINE ANCHOR THE BURNING SEA THE DROWNED FIRE
Prologue Reading
Last year, at the height of lockdown, I read part of the prologue of The Broken God. Here it is
Pointers to Elsewhere
That author photo is getting quite a workout.
Terminus
Here’s an interesting curiosity – a piece of short fiction that contains seeds for parts of what became the Black
A Broken God FAQ
Some questions that are frequently or not so frequently asked. Is this the last book in the Black Iron Legacy? No!
A Harnessed Death
I wrote this many years ago, as part of an artistic jam thing that a friend ran. I’ve always quite
The Shadow Saint Refresher
SPOILER SPACE SPACE WHERE SPOILERS GO DON’T WANT THIS STUFF TURNING UP ON A CASUAL GOOGLE SEARCH HERE ARE SOME FAKE SPOILERS THE SPY IS A RAVELLER JERE’S NOT DEAD ALCHEMISTS ARE LOVELY PEOPLE HOW’S YOUR PANDEMIC GOING I HOPE YOU’RE WELL THANKS FOR READING RIGHT, THAT SHOULD DO IT.
The Broken God Cover
The original blog post is over at Orbit, but here’s the cover in all its watery glory. That’s our girl Cari there, by the way. And what’s going on? Down, down, into the chill depths. Ilbarin City is almost unrecognisable, a corpse city, but sometimes the rippling blue light catches the outline of some monument or street corner, and it all snaps back in her memory. The strange impression that if she swims deep enough into the darkness she’ll reach the old docks of ten years ago, before the war, with the Rose waiting for her. Captain Hawse on the deck, looking up at her swimming down out of the sky. But she can never go deep enough. Swim up. Claw back the light. She breaks the water, drags herself over to the raft, and slings another sack of yliaster onto the pile. Then down again. They can only work for two or three hours a day before exhaustion and cold defeat
Notes From The Holding Pattern
2020. Fuck 2020. Actually, if I’m being honest, it was a nothing year, a hollow year. No-one close to me got terribly ill, no-one’s in dire circumstances. Finances are healthy. The kids are doing fine. Everything is on track – but it’s all been a dull grind of worry and mere survival. A slow and boring disaster, at least here. You talk to friends you haven’t spoken to in months – haven’t seen in person in a year – and no-one has any news, because no-one can have any news. The only news is numbers – infection numbers, hospitalisation numbers, r-values, lockdown levels, distance-from-home limits. Electoral college percentages, Georgia opinion polls. And now, mercifully, vaccine percentage effectiveness, vaccination schedule estimates. Better numbers, but still… It’s all fine. Work-wise, I always knew it was going to be a bit of a down year, as I switched to doing more child-care – but I assumed there’d be the option of the occasional
Gareth Hanrahan 