Final WARS OF LIGHT AND SHADOW novel gets a release date

The long, long-awaited final novel in Janny Wurts' Wars of Light and Shadow series now has a release date. Song of the Mysteries will be published in May 2024.

The Wars of Light and Shadow series details the conflict between two half-brothers who rise to positions of power, but then face a supernatural threat to the whole world. The series consists of eleven novels divided into five distinct sub-arcs, as follows:

Arc I

• Curse of the Mistwraith (1993)

Arc II

• Ships of Merior (1994)
• Warhost of Vastmark (1995)

Arc III: Alliance of Light

• Fugitive Prince (1995)
• Grand Conspiracy (1999)
• Peril's Gate (2001)
• Traitor's Knot (2004)
• Stormed Fortress (2007)

Arc IV: Sword of the Canon

• Initiate's Trial (2011)
• Destiny's Conflict (2017)

Arc V

• Song of the Mysteries (2024)

The first novel was published in 1993, just three years after the first Wheel of Time novel and three years before A Game of Thrones, making this one of the longest-gestating fantasy series that was still incomplete. However, Wurts began thinking about and planning the series in 1972, making this an ending fifty years in the making.

Janny Wurts completes her WARS OF LIGHT AND SHADOW series

Fantasy author Janny Wurts has reported completing the final novel in her enormous Wars of Light and Shadow series, twenty-nine years after the first book was published.

Song of the Mysteries (working title) is the eleventh and final book in the saga which began with Curse of the Mistwraith. The series tells the story of the conflict between Arithon, Master of Shadow, and his half-brother Lysaer, Master of Light. The story is interesting for its depiction of morality with neither side being entirely in the right or wrong, as well as its detailed worldbuilding and unusually lyrical prose.

The series is divided into five arcs or sub-series, with the first novel forming the first arc, Books 2 and 3 the second, Books 4-8 a sub-series called Alliance of Light and Books 9-10 a duology called Sword of the Canon. The eleventh and final book serves as a conclusion to the overall series.

Wurts is also known for her earlier Cycle of Fire Trilogy (1984-99), the stand-alones Sorcerer's Legacy (1982), The Master of Whitestorm (1992) and To Ride Hell's Chasm (2002) and the collection That Way Lies Camelot (1994). She is also the co-author, with Raymond E. Feist, of the critically-acclaimed Empire Trilogy (1987-92), set in Feist's Riftwar universe.

Song of the Mysteries will likely be published in late 2022 or some time in 2023.

The Wars of Light and Shadow

1. Curse of the Mistwraith (1993)
2. Ships of Merior (1994)
3. Warhost of Vastmark (1995)
4. Fugitive Prince (1997)
5. Grand Conspiracy (1999)
6. Peril's Gate (2001)
7. Traitor's Knot (2004)
8. Stormed Fortress (2007)
9. Initiate's Trial (2011)
10. Destiny's Conflict (2017)
11. Song of the Mysteries (tbc)