Duncan M. Hamilton's Blog, page 17
November 19, 2015
A little bit of (early) Christmas cheer!
I came across this video, and really enjoyed it, so thought I’d share it here.
August 19, 2015
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!
August 6, 2015
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
June 10, 2015
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.
May 10, 2015
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!
May 8, 2015
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!
April 26, 2015
Updates and an announcement of sorts…
Ok, time for an update I think!
First off, there’ve been a few minor visible changes to the website, but a fair bit more going on under the bonnet (hood!). There’s still a little more to come, so please bear with me! Between renovating my apartment, minor knee surgery, and finishing off drafts for the first part of my next trilogy, finding time for everything over the past little while has been a challenge!
There’ll be a couple of more interesting things coming down the pipeline pretty soon, one of which is a new novella, called The Marcher Lord. It’s the story of a young, rural swordsman making his first journey to his capital city. It explores a region in the west of the Middle Sea world, called Mirabaya, so it’s been a fun opportunity to roll back the covers from another little bit of the world and explore it. I’ll be posting more about The Marcher Lord over the next few days. Expect plenty of intrigue and swashbuckling!
That’s all for now, so I hope everyone is doing well!
April 7, 2015
Changes afoot…
Fairly significant changes on the way as I’ve just moved host with my website to increase the functionality. It’ll be a bit of a work in progress for the next few days, so I apologise for the mess!
There will be writing related updates in a few days. I hope everyone had a good Easter!
Duncan
February 25, 2015
The Swordsman of Tanosa Free on Amazon
February 2, 2015
Where Next?
