Tor Books release the rights to THE SWORD OF SHADOWS series by J.V. Jones

Tor Books have agreed to revert the rights to the first four books in the Sword of Shadows series to author J.V. Jones. Jones had completed the fifth book in the series, Endlords, last year but Tor had declined to publish it. Jones is now free to pursue either publishing the entire series with another outlet, or self-publishing herself.

As has been related before, Jones launched her career in a blaze of success in 1995 with the Book of Words trilogy. Emboldened by a strong critical reception and cover quotes from Robert Jordan, the trilogy went on to sell over a million copies for Warner Books. Jones also published a successful standalone novel, The Barbed Coil, and then started the Sword of Shadows sequence in 1999 with A Cavern of Black Ice. The fourth volume, Watcher of the Dead, was published in 2010. Subsequent major life issues interfered with the writing and publication of further books in the series until she was able to resume work on it in 2017. The writing went slowly due to the demands of the day job, until she was able to leave that job and work full-time on the book in 2024, after which progress dramatically increased.

Jones isn't resting on her laurels, as she has also been shopping around a complete urban fantasy novel, Sorry Jones, and is now some way into the writing of the sixth and final Sword of Shadows novel, A Sword Named Loss.

The reversion of the rights means that Jones now controls the audio, ebook and print rights for her entire body of work. The Book of Words and Sword of Shadows are set in the same world (though you do not need to have read the prior trilogy to enjoy the last sextet), giving a new publisher access to a nearly-complete nine-volume sequence, not to mention two more standalone books.

Whether another publisher would be interested in the series remains to be seen (although I believe some talks have been held), but it does confirm that the remaining two volumes in the superb Sword of Shadows series will appear at some point, which is sure to relieve fans.

Tor Books passes on completing JV Jones's SWORD OF SHADOWS series, author to pursue self-publishing

Tor Books have - in my view unwisely - decided not to publish the last two volumes of J.V. Jones's long-gestating Sword of Shadows series. Jones completed the penultimate novel, Endlords, early this year and has since been working on the final book, A Sword Named Loss.

The decision is not altogether surprising, as the first three books in the series - A Cavern of Black Ice (1999), A Fortress of Grey Ice (2002), A Sword from Red Ice (2007) and Watcher of the Dead (2010) - had been published a significant amount of time ago and the series had gone on hiatus whilst the author battled a large number of problems that had destroyed her writing time. Work on the series resumed several years ago, but at a slow pace as the author had a day job. Once she was able to work on the book full-time, Endlords was concluded relatively quickly.

However, Tor themselves have form for resuming series that had spent many years on hiatus, picking up George R.R. Martin's Wild Cards series after almost a decade on ice in 2008, and publishing the concluding volume of David Keck's Tales of Durand sequence over a decade after the publication of the second volume.

In addition to the completed Endlords and in-progress A Sword Named Loss, Jones was also able to offer Tor the reprint rights to the completed, million-plus-selling, Robert Jordan-approved Book of Words trilogy, but it seems they were not interested.

Somewhat bafflingly, Tor also suggested that "the market for the style of fantasy" may have moved on, which I'm sure will be news to the likes of Joe Abercrombie, James Islington, Mark Lawrence, Robin Hobb, Steven Erikson (who just had a new fantasy novel published by Tor!) and George R.R. Martin.

Jones has not yet heard back from her British publishers, Orbit UK, but I would not be surprised if they took a similar tack to Tor.

Jones has commenced the process of trying to regain the publishing rights to the existing books in the series, which would allow her to self-reprint the existing books and publish Endlords for the first time, probably much faster than if she'd had to wait for Tor to find a slot in their schedule for her. Hopefully this will be a smooth process.

JV Jones to answer fan questions on Reddit tomorrow

Fantasy author J.V. Jones will be answering reader questions on Reddit, at the r/fantasy community, tomorrow. Jones is the author of The Book of Words trilogy, the standalone The Barbed Coil, and the excellent Sword of Shadows series. She recently completed the penultimate Sword of Shadows novel, Endlords, after a delay, and is about to start work on the final book in the series, A Sword Named Loss.

I expect Jones will be answering questions about worldbuilding, juggling a massive epic fantasy series with other obligations and why there was a significant mid-series gap in publication. Also expect her to get into the weeds of the engines of editing and publishing.

The AMA starts tomorrow at 7am PST and goes on until midday (2pm - 7pm GMT).

JV Jones completes ENDLORDS, the penultimate SWORD OF SHADOWS book

Fantasy author JV Jones has completed Endlords, the long, long, long-awaited fifth and penultimate book in the Sword of Shadows fantasy series.

To say the series has been gestating for a while is an understatement: the first book, A Cavern of Black Ice (1999) was published last century. It was succeeded by A Fortress of Grey Ice (2002), A Sword from Red Ice (2007) and Watcher of the Dead (2010), all very fine novels cumulatively building one of the greatest epic fantasy series of the last generation, with superb writing, characterisation and worldbuilding. But after Watcher's publication in 2010, Jones dropped off the radar and many years of radio silence followed. She finally resurfaced in late 2017 via Patreon, confirming that her writing career had been thrown off-track by a succession of personal crises (including bereavements and cross-country moves).

Since then, Jones has been working on a stand-alone urban fantasy novel called Sorry Jones to get back into the swing of things, and then Endlords, the fifth book in The Sword of Shadows. The book's writing process has been slow, due to Jones having a day job and other time commitments, but progress has been steady. Progress exploded in the last few months as she was freed up from those other time commitments and was able to work full-time on the novel to deliver it over the finish line.

The book consists of 62 chapters, which is more than any other in the series, although she notes this may come down in the edit. The full size of the book is unclear, except it is longer than Watcher of the Dead.

ETA: The book is about 250,000 words, compared to A Cavern of Black Ice's 293,000 words. This would make Endlords the second or third-longest book in the series, by a whisker either way.

When the book will be published is unclear. The previous four books were published by Tor Books in the US and Orbit in the UK, but the fifteen-year-wait for Endlords has exceeded all the timelines in her contracts. The prior books in the series have also become harder to find in recent years, and Jones' profile is lower than it was back in the late 1990s and 2000s. There'll likely be contract re-negotiations and extended publication timelines to consider. Tor may also be looking at how fast the sixth and final book in the series could come out, so they're not left hanging again for a long period of time.

Jones does have an interesting additional carrot in any such dealing though, as the rights to her earlier (and still very fine) Book of Words trilogy, set in the same world as Sword of Shadows, has recently reverted to her. This would give any new publisher an impressive eight books with a lot of critical acclaim (and Robert Jordan cover quotes) to relaunch the series.

Hopefully the publishers will be able to confirm a publication plan soon, though I think late 2026 to early 2027 might be the earliest we could realistically expect to see the book.

Jones is also the first (albeit least-known) of four fantasy authors who have left us hanging for over a decade for their next books to actually deliver the next one. Hopefully a good sign that George, Patrick and Scott can follow up soon.

JV Jones closing in on the end of ENDLORDS

Fantasy author J.V. Jones has provided a significant update on her novel Endlords, the fifth and penultimate book in her superb Sword of Shadows series.

The four extant novels in the series are: A Cavern of Black Ice (1999), A Fortress of Grey Ice (2002), A Sword from Red Ice (2007) and Watcher of the Dead (2010). The series is a loose sequel to her earlier work, The Book of Words trilogy, consisting of The Baker's Boy (1995), A Man Betrayed (1996) and Master and Fool (1997).

Since the publication of Watcher of the Dead, Jones has dealt with real life issues and problems that cut into her writing time. She began work on the novel again in 2017 and now reports that she is around six months away from finishing the book. The novel will probably be published some time in 2024, depending on the situation with her publishers.

In the meantime, Jones is already considering plans for the last book in the series, which now boasts the working title A Sword Named Loss.

The Book of Words was a solid opening trilogy, but The Sword of Shadows is one of the A-tier of epic fantasies of recent decades, comfortably sitting on a par with Robin Hobb's Ream of the Elderlings series, George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire and Steven Erikson's Malazan Book of the Fallen (Jones provided a cover quote for Erikson's first fantasy novel in 1999 that was credited with helping boost sales). Getting another two books in the series will be very welcome indeed.

JV Jones completes new urban fantasy novel

Author JV Jones has completed her first novel in six years. Sorry Jones is an urban fantasy thriller featuring a new character getting into supernatural hijinks on the American West Coast.

The new novel is short by Jones's standards, clocking in at 100,000 words or so. Jones has written the novel in just a few months, driven by her early success on Patreon. Originally, it seems that her plan had been to get straight into completing the partially-finished fifth Sword of Shadows novel, Endlords, but upon attempting that she found that her writing skills needed some honing before returning to her fantasy series. This is the project she undertook to do just that.

It remains to be seen if Tor or another publisher will pick up the new novel. But this is encouraging news given that Jones (who has suffered a major relationship crisis and a series bereavement during the past few years) had not written much that she was happy with in over half a decade, and her experiment with both Patreon and this new novel seem to have succeeded in recharging the creative batteries. In addition, Jones notes on her Patreon that writing the new book has already provided insights on how to complete Endlords, such as abandoning her previous strict practice of writing in chronological order in order to skip "difficult" chapters and double back to finish them later, rather than being simply logjammed for weeks on end on single chapters, which was apparently a major problem on Endlords.

Hopefully we'll see this new novel in 2018 and Endlords in the not-too-distant future.

ETA: Julie drops by in the comments to confirm that Endlords will be the penultimate book in the series.

JV Jones update on ENDLORDS and SWORD OF SHADOWS

J.V. Jones has reported on Patreon the status of her current writing projects, confirming that work is underway on Endlords, the fifth Sword of Shadows novel.

The Sword of Shadows series currently consists of A Cavern of Black Ice (1999), A Fortress of Grey Ice (2002), A Sword from Red Ice (2007) and Watcher of the Dead (2010). Work on Endlords began in 2010 but stalled after a few chapters as the author's life entered a tumultuous phase which was only recently resolved. Jones has resumed work on the novel, but cautions that after such a long break she is approaching the project slowly to get back into the same writing space as before and deliver a continuation of the same quality.

Writers are always trying to recreate what we see in our imagination, whether it's a landscape, an emotion, a person, a relationship. We're chasing that almost unattainable perfection that exists as a possibility in our heads. Some writers can manage this right-off-the-block with their very first novel or short story. They are extremely talented and lucky. It takes most of us years of practice to perfectly command all the tools we need to nail a scene.

I wrote over two million words to get there.

Now I have to see if I can do it all over again. 

Jones is also serialising another project, Sorry Jones, on her Patreon as part of a reward scheme for backers. Endlords is still under contract to Tor (in the USA) and Orbit (in the UK) and will be published by them, so Sorry Jones is a way of getting new fiction out to readers sooner and help with funding.

JV Jones breaks silence, joins Patreon

Fantasy author JV Jones has joined Patreon and restarted her Twitter account, breaking over three years of total silence.

Jones is the author of the superb Sword of Shadows series, consisting (so far) of A Cavern of Black Ice (1999), A Fortress of Grey Ice (2002), A Sword From Red Ice (2007) and Watcher of the Dead (2010). A fifth book, Endlords, has been promised, with the series overall expected to last for either five or six volumes. The Sword of Shadows is a sequel to her earlier Book of Words trilogy, consisting of The Baker's Boy (1995), A Man Betrayed (1996) and Master and Fool (1997). She has also written a fine stand-alone fantasy novel, The Barbed Coil (1997).

Jones reports that the last few years have been very difficult but she is now getting her writing career back on track, with finishing her current novel in progress (presumably Endlords) a priority. She is also planning to release blog entries and articles via Patreon.

This is excellent news. It's good to see Ms. Jones back writing and hopefully we'll be seeing the end of the story she started over twenty years ago soon.

Thank you for reading The Wertzone. To help me provide better content, please consider contributing to my Patreon page and other funding methods, which will also get you exclusive content weeks before it goes live on my blogs.

Tor expect to publish new JV Jones novel in 2015

Via Twitter, Tor Books have confirmed that they anticipating publishing the fifth Sword of Shadows novel by J.V. Jones, provisionally entitled Endlords, in 2015.

In response to a request for an update by a fan, Tor replied:

"J. V. Jones is currently hard at work on the 5th Sword of Shadows novel, which we're hoping to bring you sometime next year!"

The previous volume in the series, Watcher of the Dead, was published in 2010. Jones her not updated her website or her Twitter since 2011, leaving readers pondering the fate of the series. However, lengthy gaps between volumes are not unusual: the third volume, A Sword from Red Ice, was published in 2007 five years after the second, A Cavern of Black Ice.