Michael Livingston's Blog, page 7

Appearance: Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance

I am pleased to announce that on Friday, 18 September, I’ll be in Raleigh, NC to make an appearance in support of The Shards of Heaven at the Discovery Show of the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance. At 11am I’ll be sitting on a panel entitled “People: From Medieval Times to the Twentieth Century.”

It should be a tremendously interesting experience, to say the least. Booksellers, I can’t wait to meet you!

Mapping Ancient Alexandria

The Shards of Heaven

It’s Tuesday, folks, which means it’s time for the latest installment of goodness related to The Shards of Heaven, my forthcoming novel from Tor Books.

As you have probably heard, Shards is a historical fantasy: the story takes place within our historical past, but it incorporates certain fantasy elements (like the Trident of Poseidon!). The novel is also, more or less, what’s called a secret history: I tried to weave those fantasy elements into the known facts of history as seamlessly as possible, to the point that one could argue that the Trident really was there at the rise of the Roman Empire — we just haven’t heard about it before.

As you can imagine, this kind of design placed a number of limits on what I could or could not do with the Shards, and I confess this has always been a part of my fascination with the story. I wanted to do the mythological and historical interweaving of luminaries like Tolkien and Jordan and even Martin, but I also wanted to take the extra step of making it a part of our “real” historical world.

Which meant research.

Lots and lots of research.

As we approach the 10 November release date for The Shards of Heaven (pre-order today!), I’m going to share with you some glimpses into the research behind the novel. We begin today with the mapping of the great city of Alexandria.

The plot of the first book of the Shards of Heaven series moves across the Mediterranean largely between the years 32 BCE and 30 BCE. At the time, the two great powers of Rome and Alexandria vied for power, and it was clear from the outset that my story would center on this dynamic as it unfolded in the struggles between Octavian (the future Augustus Caesar) in Rome and Antony and Cleopatra in Alexandria.

Since my story is supposed to keep things as real as possible, that meant I needed maps. If a character walked through one of these wondrous cities, I needed to know where they would be and what they would see. That was easy enough for Rome. Not only can you physically walk through the Forum today, but you can also virtually do so from any where on the globe: thanks to the physical ruins, the copious surviving historical records, and the painstaking work of archaeologists and technologists, we have resources like the Google Earth 3D Map of Ancient Rome, which allows you to wander the streets of 320 CE.

Alexandria is more complicated, however, even though at the time of my book it was undoubtedly the more impressive city. The city was founded in 331 BCE by none other than Alexander the Great, and it was one of the first massive cities to be truly planned and engineered. Three hundred years later it was a wonder of its age — quite literally, in fact, since its harbor boasted the Great Lighthouse, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Alas, on 21 July 365 a massive tsunami (triggered by an earthquake on the island of Crete) struck the city. Buildings were leveled, and much of the great harbor and its royal palaces and monuments sank beneath the waves. The passing centuries did even more damage, as the expansion of the city and the forces of both nature and man progressively eradicated the city of Cleopatra.

At this point, of ancient Alexandria we have only two points of certain reference on land. The first is Saad Zaghloul, a small public park where Cleopatra’s Needles once stood (they’re now in London and New York). These needles once stood in front of the Caesareum. The second is the misnamed Pompey’s Column, on the opposite side of the ancient city. This marks the site of the Serapeum, a large temple to Serapis in Cleopatra’s day. And that’s pretty much it. We have good reason to think that two of the main streets in modern Alexandria more or less follow the course of the two biggest streets in the ancient city, but even that doesn’t tell us much.

Indeed, the more research I did, the more frustrated the picture of the ancient city became. No one, I thought, had taken into account all the evidence we had at hand. No one had produced what I needed: a reasonably accurate map of Cleopatra’s Alexandria.

There were attempts, of course, based on what little physical ruins remain in the city, combined with the descriptions of recorded visits to it, like that of the ancient geographer, Strabo. Many of these attempts are collected on this website dedicated to the search for the body of Alexander the Great. But all of them, to my eye, had errors — like this one from Wikipedia:

[image error]

Wikipedia’s rather inaccurate map.

What made most of these maps wrong was their very inaccurate idea of what the ancient harbor looked like. It had sunk beneath the waves in 365, you recall, and early on some scholars just made a wild guess about what it must have been like — a guess that was repeated so often folks thought it was the genuine reality.

Until somebody looked at it.

It’s astonishing how often this happens in scholarship. Old ideas are given credit because they have been so long held that, well, they have to be true, right?

Certainly not in this case. Beginning in 1992, underwater archaeologist Franck Goddio began systematically surveying Alexandria’s harbor, and he found that it had little in common with what folks thought. He also found a host of remarkable treasures, including the head of a statue believed to be of Caesarion — the son of Julius Caesar and Cleopatra who happens to be a main character in The Shards of Heaven:

Caesarion, rising from the harbor of Alexandria.

(If you keep your eye out for it, this statue actually makes an appearance in The Shards of Heaven; I couldn’t help myself!)

Anyway, as I was unable to find a map suitable for my purposes, I made my own.

Anyone who has watched my career knows that I really enjoy detective work like this. Was Alexander’s tomb beneath the mosque of Nebi Daniel? Or near the Attarine mosque? Or was it where St. Mark’s is now? Or somewhere else — closer to the royal palaces on the Lochian peninsula, perhaps? And what of the Great Library? It’s long thought to have been near Alexander’s mausoleum, but in 2004 archaeologists uncovered lecture halls up near Lochias (near where the modern Alexandrian Library is located).

To make things simpler for myself, I took an existing reconstruction of the city and revised it to take into account the findings of Goddio and a number of other issues. I posted this map to my website in February 2008, noting that it still had issues but seemed better than anything else out there.

It is now the number one hit on Google Images for “map of ancient alexandria,” and it has been featured in Ancient Egypt Magazine.

As I said when I posted it, though, this map still isn’t right. I had many problems with it that I didn’t have time to incorporate.

That changed last September, when Paul Stevens, then my editor at Tor, informed me that The Shards of Heaven would feature not one but two historical maps, and that I needed to provide “map scraps” to aid in the cartographer’s work.

What I sent in reply was this:

My 2014 map of Ancient Alexandria.

What has the professional cartographer in turn made of this?

Read and find out, my friends!

Order-Boost-Review: The Shards of Heaven. Tor Books. November 2015.

Shards of Heaven Release Date Changed

The Shards of Heaven

It’s Tuesday, folks, which means it’s time for the latest installment of goodness related to The Shards of Heaven, my forthcoming novel from Tor Books.

I’ll be keeping this week’s edition quite short, because I want to foreground the big news: The Shards of Heaven has a new release date! The novel will now be released on 10 November 2015, one week earlier than previously planned and — coincidentally — just four days after my birthday.

So why did this release change happen?

Well, I’m terribly sorry, but I can’t actually tell you just yet. I do think it is Very Good News Indeed, however, and you’ll be excited when I can announce it.

What I can tell you right now is that moving up my release date means moving up my publicity plans for Shards. 10 November will be here before I know it! I’m still juggling things around, but this likely means that some posts on my research — like how I mapped ancient Alexandria, or how I imagined one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World — will be appearing sooner than expected.

So stay tuned. More is coming. The Trident is only the beginning.

Order-Boost-Review: The Shards of Heaven. Tor Books. November 2015.

Publicity: Shards of Heaven Tuesdays

The Shards of Heaven

In 14 weeks, my debut novel The Shards of Heaven will hit bookstores. Set against the rise of the Roman Empire and launching into the space between the real and the fantastic, Shards reveals the ruthless quest of the sons of Caesar to find and control the Shards of Heaven, legendary artifacts said to possess the very power of the gods — or of the one God. This epic saga is the culmination of a lot of work and dreaming. I want it to do well.

Plus, folks tell me it is a great book. As Bernard Cornwell says, I’ve “spiced real history with a compelling dose of fantasy,” and the result is (now this is me talking) pretty awesome. I think you’ll agree when you read it.

The trick, of course, is getting you to read it. And not just you, but also that woman over there, and that man you talked to this morning, and that funny kid down the street who is always reading a book while he waits for the bus.

Aside from having a good book, there are many variables that can affect this equation of grabbing a new reader. One, for instance, is the book having good blurbs from trusted sources — which is obviously why above I name-dropped an international bestselling author who also says he “can’t wait for the sequel” (see? just did it again). It’s also smashingly useful to get good reviews, both from big review outlets and from the average reader contributing their ratings on a website.

But the single most essential variable in getting readers is awareness.

Because no matter how good it is, no matter how beautiful it is, no matter how many very awesome people have said You. Must. Read. This. Book. Now. … the truth is that a reader first needs to know that the thing exists.

So that means publicity. And that means, in this case, Shards of Heaven Tuesdays.

From now until a few weeks after the release of the novel, every Tuesday I will be posting a new Shards-centric article on my website — echoed and linked across my relevant feeds on Facebook, Twitter, and Goodreads. There will likely be a few bonus posts, too, in addition to other social media status updates that revolve around some aspect of the novel. I’m not trying to litter your media streams, but in lieu of hijacking Google’s homepage (anyone? anyone?), spreading the word through social media is simply the easiest way for me to let people know about this book … and thus get more readers, which will in turn allow me to publish more books.

Plus, I think you might be really interested in the research and other aspects of writing that went into the creation of the unifying mythology that is The Shards of Heaven.

So I hope you’ll join me. I hope you’ll be interested enough to be the book. And if you like it I hope you’ll give it a good review and share the good news with a friend or two.

Order-Boost-Review: The Shards of Heaven. Tor Books. November 2015.

How to Help a Novelist

The Shards of Heaven

My novel The Shards of Heaven is coming out on November 17, and for many reasons I really want it to do well. A number of you have generously asked what you can do to help toward that end, so I thought an official blog post on the matter might be in order.

How to Help a Novelist: Three Simple Steps

 

1. Order the book.

I want to write more books, and that means I need publishers who want to buy them. And that means sales. Because unless I win a Nobel prize for literature with my historical fantasy about the rise of Augustus Caesar and the Trident of Poseidon — fingers crossed! — the publishers are going to make their decisions based on numbers in ledgers. So nothing could help me more than you purchasing the book.

Where should you buy it? In general, wherever you want. Whether you buy from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, or your local independent bookseller, it still ultimately goes down as a sale, and that’s the Most Important Thing. (And, as an added bonus, encouraging your local library to also buy it is a gift that keeps giving!)

When should you buy it? Well, whenever your finances and interests allow you to do so. But if all such things are equal, I would very much encourage you to pre-order the book. Doing so bumps the Amazon ranking or encourages bookstores to put more copies on the shelves — both of which will lead directly to more sales.

If you want to do even more to help — and thank you thank you thank you — then the best thing you can do is:

2. Boost the book.

People can’t buy what they don’t know about. So tell someone you know about the book. Speaking personally, I know that I’m more likely to buy a book because a friend linked it to me than because some critic gave it a starred review. I think most people feel the same way.

And if you don’t want to put your own stake in it, you can simply share some of the publicity posts I’ll be running on my website and cross-posting to Twitter, Facebook, and Goodreads. These posts are intended to heighten awareness of the upcoming release, and how that happens is by having folks like you, if you are so inclined, share these kinds of things among your friends and family. When it comes to getting the word out, every boost to the signal helps.

If you still want to do more — you are the best — then once you have read the book and (I hope) enjoyed it, the most magnificent thing of all to do is:

3. Review the book.

Whether it’s on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Goodreads, or Somewhere Else, a positive review of my work will encourage others to buy it and share it. And if they like it, they will do likewise, encouraging others to do the same … and pretty soon the rock is rolling and we have ourselves a bestseller on our hands and they’ll be making the movie version — and it won’t be as good as the book, but that’s okay — and all of it might be thanks to your one little click here at the beginning.

Thank you all, as ever, for your support.

Order-Boost-Review: The Shards of Heaven. Tor Books. November 2015.

At the End of Babel: The Story Behind the Story

I am very excited to report that my short story, “At the End of Babel,” has been published on Tor.com.

The cover, featuring the art of Greg Ruth.

It’s a free read, and I confess I’m rather proud of the piece, so please go give it a look before continuing on with this post. (And while you’re there, drool all over that amazing art by Greg Ruth!)

After all, there are spoilers below. You’ve been warned…

Most stories have a story behind them, and this one is no different. Unlike most such things, however, I have reasons to want to share this one.

As I related in an earlier post, my path to publishing fiction began in 2003. It was then that a friend (hi, Fred!) suggested I submit some of the stories I’d been kicking around. So I sent out two. One was a retelling of Beowulf that was quickly picked up by John O’Neill at the very awesome (and sorely missed) Black Gate Magazine (hi, John!). The other tale was a science fiction story that I sent to the Writers of the Future Contest, which Fred had just told me about (yes, I was that ignorant). Some months later, much to my surprise, I was informed that I had won third place in the contest, and I’d be participating in a week-long extravaganza of workshops and celebrations in Seattle.

This was full of awesome.

And it got even better when I met some of my fellow winners that year, a set of wonderful talents that included Ken Scholes, Eric James Stone, Cat Sparks, David Goldman, and many others I consider friends (hi, gang!).

Though the black-tie awards ceremony at the end of the week was intended to be the culminating event of the week-long festivities for the award winners, of far greater impact for me was the 24-hour story — an exercise that was so insane that I regularly subject my own creative writing students to it.

What happened was this:

After a few days of extensive and intensive discussions with some of the greatest living writers in science fiction and fantasy (you have no idea how amazing it is), our workshop leaders — the incredible Tim Powers and the late K.D. Wentworth — gave us 24 hours to write a story from beginning to end. Even worse more fun was the fact that we had to write the story using three seeds we received at the workshop: a random object, an interview with a random stranger, and a book.

My seeds were these:

Some Kleenex. It was a pocket-packet 15 2-ply tissues, with green and purple flowers upon it.
A chat with a sorrowful, slightly paranoid former submariner I met down on the Seattle waterfront.
A book about Native American cultures that I randomly pulled off a shelf in the Seattle Public Library.

From that, in 24 hours, I wrote the first draft of “At the End of Babel,” managing to sleep for maybe five hours. The story, then titled “The Other God, Coyote,” wasn’t great, mind you, but the realization that I could do such a thing, that I could just sit down and make the words move, was both jarring and exciting. It remains, for me, the best thing about the Writers of the Future experience.

One of the first things I did after I returned home to the University of Rochester, enthused and inspired, was to try and polish up the story into something that would sell.

Foremost on the to-do list was my need to flesh out my vision of Acoma. I knew the feel of the place fairly well thanks to my mother: while I moved around a fair bit during my childhood (my father worked for the government), my high school years were spent in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where my mother worked for the local public television station. Through her connections, we came into contact with quite a few artists and artisans in the state, and on one memorable outing we were able to travel to Acoma Pueblo during one of the traditional festivals. The chance to see Acoma in person, and to see it somewhat behind the scenes due to my mother’s access, was priceless. It was, for lack of a better term, a mystical experience. Strong as those teenage impressions had been, however, I knew I needed a bit more research to get the story right.

I needed language.

The entire tale (you did read it, right?) hinges on language and the power it has to define culture. More precisely said, it depends on the fact that this power has been turned into a way of attacking culture by denying people the right to speak their language. This was the point, but it wasn’t a very good one if I didn’t actually use the language of the pueblo.

I don’t know Keresan, but deep down in the bowels of the library at the University of Rochester I found a small and dust-covered grammar for it. I did my best to absorb the language, to feel it, and then to sprinkle it into my text, to make it real and make it right.

Whether I succeeded or not, I cannot judge myself.

Fast-forward a couple of years. I’d sent the piece a couple of places, but it hadn’t gotten any traction. Frankly, something wasn’t working and I didn’t know what it was.

I’d joined the Codex Writers Group in the meantime, which organized a writer’s retreat through the good graces of an up-and-coming writer named Mary Robinette Kowal (yes, she was always an awesome person). Somehow, someway, it was arranged that Ellen Datlow, one of the greatest editors of Fantasy and Science Fiction, would join the retreat and help us workshop stories.

I brought this story.

Some of my fellow writers loved it, calling it lyrical and moving and powerful. Ellen Datlow said it was the kind of story that could win awards (fingers crossed that she has a bit of the prophet in her veins!).

But other folks didn’t like it at all. When pressed, they said that it was just too fanciful. It was set in a dystopia they could not accept. They simply couldn’t imagine a world in which people would work so hard to take away another culture’s right to think, to worship, to speak, to exist.

Well, my story just came out. It’s the first day of July, 2015.

Two weeks ago, a young man walked into an historically black church here in my beloved, peaceful Charleston — about two miles from where I sit — and gunned down nine worshipers in an effort to start a race war. In the days since, at least seven black churches have caught fire here in the south, attempting to rip away the right of people to worship. Multiple candidates for president of the United States are pinning immigrants as the enemy du jour. Judging by my Facebook wall, the recent legalization of gay marriage (only too late by forever) has conservative rage at a staggering pitch, with multiple militaristic declarations of a war in the name of creating a conservative religious utopia that isn’t troubled by all these others who think, act, or look differently.

Sadly, tragically, I think the dystopian vision in “At the End of Babel” isn’t so hard to imagine.

But there is hope. Let’s step back in time for just a moment, to the following ad, which Coca-Cola aired during the Super Bowl in 2014:

Do you remember the backlash? The xenophobic anger that someone dared to sing “America the Beautiful” in a language other than English?

I do. I remember telling more than one person that if translation was so evil they ought to read the Bible in Greek and Hebrew.

But of course the point of the righteous anger wasn’t really about language. It was about identity. It was about people feeling that the existence of people not like them was a threat.

Well, folks, it isn’t. And the sooner we realize that being different isn’t always wrong, that being the same isn’t always right, the sooner we can make the dystopia at the heart of “At the End of Babel” an irrational fantasy.

I for one would be happy for it.

And there is this: the Western Keresan language spoken at Acoma and featured in “At the End of Babel” had, as of the 1990 census, 3,391 speakers. You can hear one of them in that commercial, her voice singing amid the waves of the many living, beautiful languages of America.

So watch it. Listen to it. Yes, it’s sappy. Yes, it ultimately is a ploy for you to buy Coke (I don’t own stock).

But it’s also beautiful. It’s also hope.

JordanCon Schedule 2015

Once again, I am honored to be a special guest of JordanCon, the fantasy literature convention founded in honor of the late Robert Jordan.

As you’ll see, I have a very full convention schedule. In addition to my typical role as academic-who-appreciates-fantasy, I’ll also be squeezing The Shards of Heaven into every conversation I can. You’ve been warned!

Friday, 17 April

4:00 PM Writers Track – Writing Genre Non-Fiction.

There is an entire world that inspires and informs our writing, and sometimes, people like to write about that too. (with Todd McCaffrey and Anthony Taylor)

5:30 PM Writers Track – Query Letters.

A discussion over what to include in your query letter and how to approach publishers and agents as a newer author in general. (with Diana Pho)

Saturday, 18 April

10:00 AM World of the Wheel Track – Robert Jordan’s Redefinition of Tolkien’s Fantasy.

A lecture on how Robert Jordan built on the foundation laid by J.R.R. Tolkien.

1:00 PM Kaffeeklatch – Michael Livingston.

A chance to sit down with me in a small gathering for chit-chat and what-not. Seating is limited, and sign-up is required.

4:00 PM Swords & Sorcery Track – Medieval Moments.

A lecture (second of the day!) discussing the medieval origins of The Hobbit! Think you have it figured out? Come find out!

Sunday, 19 April

11:30 AM Writers Track – Writing in the Past.

Writing on Historical Earth can be extra work. Learn the pitfalls and advantages of it. (With Saladin Ahmed)

Looking forward to seeing folks there!

Cover-up: The Shards of Heaven

My last post talked about the appearance of The Shards of Heaven on Amazon, including the public release of its cover.

Shards of Heaven

What I’d like to do today is talk a bit more about how that gorgeous cover came to be.

Last year, when I signed a contract with Tor Books for my series Shards of Heaven, one of the many questions I pondered was what they would do with the cover. The front of a book can sometimes make or break a book, after all. And of course I had a vague picture in my mind of what it might look like. A few years earlier I had actually spent a lunch break making a mock-up (or perhaps a mockery) of that vision, which was this:

A “cover” I made for Shards back in the day.

It’s important to note that my contract with Tor gives me very little say in the matter of art, and as you compare this image and the actual cover you can see why: Tor has professional art directors and marketers for a reason!

At the same time, I do like to be involved in the process of things, if for no other reason than because I like to know how things work. So I was really pleased when my then-editor at Tor, Paul Stevens, began conversations with me about what I felt the cover might look like. I sent him the above image along with a note begging him not to use it as any kind of model but instead to use it just to get a rough sense of my head-space on the matter.

Thankfully, it was clear from those early conversations that we were of one mind. Shards of Heaven is a historical fantasy. The “Tor” brand would establish the fantasy half of that identity, so the cover ought to establish the history half. Because of their success and our mutual appreciation of them, Paul and I circled around the covers of Bernard Cornwell’s novels. Then, in early September he sent the following email to Irene Gallo, Tor’s phenomenal art director (all materials quoted by permission):

The Shards of Heaven by Michael Livingston is a historical fantasy. The fantasy elements are rather light, so we’ll want this to look pretty much like a straight-forward historical.

It’s the first of three books, so we’ll want a style that will carry over to future books.

I really like the look of Bernard Cornwell’s historicals, even though the time period is incorrect for the books we’re doing. A few examples are attached. Livingston’s favorite is 1356.

Here are a few suggestions from the author of elements that could be used on the cover:

“There’s just a lot of imagery here to play with: bright hieroglyphics on Egyptian stone, blood on Roman steel, triremes crashing in a storm, the Great Lighthouse of Alexandria, Alexander in his crystal tomb.

“The book is set from 32 to 30 BC. Octavian, Juba, Cleopatra, Mark Anthony are all characters. Major events in the book: The fall of Alexandria and the Battle of Actium.”

A few weeks later, Irene wrote back asking whether there was “anything special” that they ought to know if they wanted to show a close-up of a Roman soldier or Roman armor. Given my love of that Cornwell cover shown above, you can imagine that I got all a-flutter and immediately blocked out a couple hours to write a very lengthy email about the matter:

Irene asks a very interesting question, as it happens. For obvious reasons, I think if you’re going to depict someone in armor, it ought to be Pullo or Vorenus. What follows might be more information than any of you want, but ….

Historically, both men were centurions in Julius Caesar’s legions. What happened to them after that is, as far as I know, essentially unknown.

As I’ve portrayed them, they have become members of Legio VI Ferrata (‘Sixth Legion: the Ironclad’) under Mark Antony. More than that, they are in close counsel with Antony and ultimately the royal family of Egypt — which is admittedly abnormal given that they were not of particularly noble status. Technically, then, they probably could not have ranked higher than centurions even in their later years. At the same time, it seems likely that their long role in the court of Egypt would have shown in some way on their armor.

I would suggest, therefore, that the armor be Roman centurion armor of a standard leather-and-mail type

I provided then a number of images, both historical and reconstructed, of Roman centurion armor from the end of the Roman Republic, like this:

Roman Armor

It was a loooong email. (Sorry about that, Irene!)

I focused particularly on the metal medallions that a centurion would have worn on his chest. These are called phalerae, and they are medals of commendation that speak to where the officer had served and what he had done. I made a number of suggestions for medallions that might be found on the armor of one of my characters: the portrait of Alexander the Great, an image of Horus, an ankh, the image of Serapis, or — and this I thought would be really cool — an image based on a coin that Mark Antony created for his Sixth Legion before the Battle of Actium:

Coin of Antony’s Sixth Legion.

Lastly, I emphasized to Paul that if Roman armor was on the cover — which I thought was a great idea — then I didn’t want the armor to be shiny. I wanted it to be lived in. Worn. Stained. Roughed up.

Irene took all this information and then hired the perfect artist to execute the accumulated vision: Larry Rostant.

I know Larry’s work well — he does the covers for both George R. R. Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire and Mary Robinette Kowal’s Glamourist Histories — and the fact that he was tapped to create this cover just floors me.

What floors me even more?

The image Larry created. Just look at it again:

Shards of Heaven

It’s all there, isn’t it? The feel of Cornwell’s historical novels, the “lived in” armor (look closely, there’s stains!), the font styling for my name that matches what little “brand” I have (see my header?), and the phalerae … oh, the phalerae! … there’s the head of Horus, an ankh, an Alexander, and — it’s swoon-worthy — even that image from that coin I referenced.

Is it perfectly historically accurate? No. Is it perfectly fictionally accurate? Yes indeed.

And by whatever gods you believe in, it’s beautiful.

Shards of Heaven for Pre-order!

I can’t stop smiling.

My first novel, Shards of Heaven, is available for pre-order on Amazon, scheduled for release on 17 November. (I’ve not yet seen it available on Barnes and Noble, etc., but it should be there soon!)

Oh yes. It is real, it has a cover, and it is beautiful.

It also has a blurb, from none other than Bernard Cornwell:

A brilliant debut. Livingston has spiced real history with a compelling dose of fantasy! Wonderfully imaginative and beautifully told. I can’t wait for the sequel!

I’ll write more (including more on that amazing cover) as soon as I can, but for now I hope you’ll excuse me while I swoon for a bit.

Brunanburh, Bernard Cornwell, and a Blurb

Bernard Cornwell is perhaps the greatest living writer of historical fiction today. An internationally bestselling author, he’s a legend, an icon, and a fascinating human being.

So imagine my surprise to open up his latest novel, The Empty Throne (Harper, 2015), and find my name in it.

Bernard Cornwell’s The Empty Throne.

Go ahead, pick up a copy for yourself. Turn to the last page (296), the last paragraph of the historical note in the back. What you’ll find is this:

No place in Britain is more associated with the making of England than Brunanburh. It is, truly, the birthplace of England, and I have no doubt that some readers will object to my identification of Bromborough on the Wirral as the site of Brunanburh. We know Brunanburh existed, but there is no agreement and little certainty as to the exact location. There have been many suggestions, ranging from Dumfries and Galloway in Scotland to Axminster in Devon, but I am persuaded by the arguments of Michael Livingston’s scrupulous monograph The Battle of Brunanburh, a Casebook (Exeter University Press, 2011). The battle that is the subject of the casebook is not the fight described in this book, but the much more famous and decisive affair of 937. Indeed Brunanburh is the battle that, at long last, will complete Alfred’s dream and forge a united England, but that is another story.

I’ve picked the novel up at least a dozen times today just to check whether the words are still there. Seriously, it just doesn’t seem like it should be real. It’s extraordinary, and it’s the first of a couple Cornwell connections I want to highlight in this post.

Before I get to the second Cornwell connection, though, I have to point out, as a respectful correction, that it isn’t quite accurate — flattering though it is — to call the casebook a monograph or to give me full credit for it. My name may be the one on the cover, but the book was truly a team effort of essayists and editors and translators, where the sum was far greater than any of its constituent parts. The results are amazing, and I’m tremendously pleased that someone as respected as Bernard Cornwell found our collective arguments convincing:

The Battle of Brunanburh: A Casebook

That matter aside, I cannot overstate what a great feeling it is when someone you hold in high respect returns admiration or approval. I’m certainly a fan of Bernard Cornwell’s, and my deep appreciation for his work — both for its own merits and for its impact on popular interest in some of my favorite areas of study — means this citation for our casebook is really a wonderful thing.

(As an aside, I really will be interested to know if Bernard gets much hate mail regarding the location of the battle. My inbox has slowed a bit in this regard, with only a couple of letters received since December.)

As amazing as this citation from Cromwell is, however, I’m even more excited about the second Cornwell connection on my mind, which deserves its own paragraph:

Bernard Cornwell has given me a blurb for my new novel. And it’s a really good one.

How this transpired is a bit of an interesting story. I have known Cornwell’s work for a long time, but only in the past few years did I realize that he actually lives here in Charleston for half the year. Then, last year, I learned that the Citadel Honors Program needed a speaker for its annual lecture series. My suggestion of Bernard Cornwell was eagerly agreed to, so I dropped the man a line.

To my astonishment, Bernard said that he would not only be thrilled to talk to our cadets, but that he had our book on his desk.

Yep. Brunanburh. He was finishing up Empty Throne, and he was literally reading our casebook when my email arrived. Cosmic fate, no doubt.

I’m pleased to say that Bernard is a marvelous speaker, and a wonderful night got even better when I was invited to dinner with him afterward. It was a great meal, and I had the memorable pleasure of sitting beside him the whole time.

Not long afterward came the news that I had sold three novels to Tor, and when it came time to acquire some blurbs for Shards of Heaven (the first book in the series), I once again dropped Bernard a line. I doubted he’d have time for a blurb, but I figured it didn’t hurt to ask.

To my delight, he agreed to read Shards and give me a blurb for it.

I probably won’t reveal what he had to say until we are closer to the November release of Shards of Heaven — put it on your Christmas list now, folks! — but I can tell you that after reading the novel he gave it an entirely awesome blurb.

Thus I have twice now found myself connected to Bernard Cornwell, which is frankly mind-boggling to me. If you’d have told me one year ago that this was coming, I wouldn’t have believed you.

But since dreams are coming true, here’s hoping that The Shards of Heaven outsells Harry Potter and I can return the favor to Bernard by blurbing one of his books!