Duncan M. Hamilton's Blog, page 17

Now available on Pinterest!

In my continued efforts to keep up with social media, I’ve set up a Pinterest account. I thought it’d be a useful way to share with you some of the images of places, weapons, armour, and clothing that I draw inspiration from to add flavour to the Middle Sea World.

You can find me here: Pinterest

I’m slowly populating a few boards with images as they cross my path, but there’s a selection of everything, from some buildings that are pretty representative of what you might find in Ostenheim, to the swords they carry, the clothes they wear, and the armour that keeps them safe!

I’m completely new to Pinterest, so if anyone has any tips or suggestions, feel free to drop me a line! When I’ve a bit more time, I’ll try to split the pinned photos up into categories that are more specific to the individual regions, but for the time being, there should be enough to give a general sense of how I see the world my characters inhabit!

The long awaited Ostenheim City Guide…

Ok, I had an email recently reminding me about the Ostenheim City Guide that I was planning to do a while back. I have to admit, with all the work that's been going into getting the entire Wolf of the North trilogy put together, I completely forgot about it! I've dug out the old file, and instead of putting it up as a complete booklet - at least initially - I'm going to post instalments of it here on the blog. I'll be getting on to that over the next week or so.

In other news, the first part of The Wolf of the North trilogy will be going off for line edit shortly, as soon as I've made a few slight changes, so things are well on track with that.

I hope everyone's well!

Overdue update!

Ok, long past time for an update, so here we go. I’d hoped to have more concrete news and more interesting posts coming up at this point, but things haven’t gone as quickly as I’d hoped. As you may already know, my next trilogy is called ‘The Wolf of the North’. My plan for this was to have the entire trilogy written before I released the first part. Right now I have a completed first draft of the second part, and am about 2/3 of the way through the final part, which is progressing at a good pace now.

The first part has been through some rounds of editing, but has a bit farther to go before it’s ready. I am hoping to release this summer, but I can’t be any more specific than that right now.

I hope everyone is well!

End of year report!

 

Just a friendly sparring session!

Ok, first off, apologies for posting here so infrequently. It’s not down to laziness on my part (well, ok, maybe a bit) but because I’ve been hard at work on my next trilogy, The Wolf of the North. I wanted to have at least a first draft of all three books completed before I move forward with the first one, and I’m almost at that point now, so hopefully not too much longer to wait! It’s really hard to believe that over a year has passed since I released The First Blade of Ostia. Time really flies when you spend most of your day in a made up world!

By way of teaser, The Wolf of the North is set in the Middle Sea world, but with new characters and new locations that I haven’t had the chance to explore before. It’s also allowed me to look at the world from a different cultural perspective, and as small a thing as that might sound, it’s been a lot of fun to take these ideas and play around with them from a different viewpoint. It’s the story of a young man from the Barbarian North who, from an inauspicious start, becomes a legend in his own time.

Next year will be all about The Wolf of the North, but the fact that I’ve got a lot of the hard work done on it already means I’ll have a little time for another character who’s been simmering away in the back of my mind for quite a long time now!

That’s about all I’ve got for now, so I hope everyone has a very Merry Christmas! Thanks again for your support and interest in my work!

Best wishes,

Duncan

A little bit of (early) Christmas cheer!

I came across this video, and really enjoyed it, so thought I’d share it here.

Win a paperback copy of The First Blade of Ostia!

I’m running an end of summer giveaway for 10 paperback copies of The First Blade of Ostia over on Amazon.com (US only, I’m afraid). You can enter by clicking on the link:

https://giveaway.amazon.com/p/c9f908d08d00a6fd

Feel free to share the link around, and good luck to everyone who enters!

 

 

Updates…

Ok, time for some very long overdue updates!

Right now I’m working my way through developmental edits for the first part of my next trilogy, The Wolf of the North. It’s set in the same world as The Tattered Banner and the Society of the Sword trilogy, but moves the central location, and takes a look at some concepts that will be familiar to those that have read my earlier books from a different cultural perspective. As always, it’s been a lot of fun to breathe some life into a hitherto untouched part of the Middle Sea world.

I’m afraid I don’t have an ETA for its release yet, but I’ll be sure to keep you all updated!

I hope everyone is having a warmer and sunnier summer than I am (although that wouldn’t be difficult!)

Duncan

Shiny…

I’m always interested in these demonstrations, having grown up with so many incorrect myths about plate armour proliferating, from knights being hoisted onto their horses with mini-cranes to them not being able to get up if they fell over. This demo is quite a good one, and well worth a look if you’re interested in this sort of thing.

They look a little clumsy at times, but are able to move pretty well, and it’s important to remember that actual knights would have spent years training in this gear, so would have been able to perform even more effectively than the guys in the video.

The video, I believe, was put together by people at the University of Geneva.

The Marcher Lord Cover Reveal

In a short while, I’ll be releasing my new novella, The Marcher Lord, so it’s time for the cover reveal! I hope you like it!

Black Sails

I’ve just finished watching the second season of Black Sails, and enjoyed it enough to be motivated to write a post about it! I thought the first season was excellent, and this one was a solid step up, both in terms of the story and the characters.

The storyline is developing nicely and expanding to give the viewer a broader appreciation of the characters and the world they inhabit. A new character was brilliantly sinister, while others were developed to a much deeper level, Charles Vane in particular, who is threatening to knock Jack Rackham from his perch as my favourite character. Vane has been brought from a comparatively two dimensional psycho to a man with much more interesting dynamics, and I’m really looking forward to seeing where they take him in the next season. The sets are incredible, and the ship scenes brilliant. It captures the atmosphere of the period brilliantly, and shows the pirates as far more than plundering, rum swigging savages.

If you haven’t seen it yet, it’s well worth a look. A word of warning however – it’s definitely for a grown up audience. Lots of nudity, violence, and bad language. It’s certainly not Pirates of the Caribbean!