New Paul Kearney novel announced

Or rather re-announced with a new title and new cover art. In an (I believe) exclusive scoop, I can reveal that the sequel to the excellent The Wolf in the Attic (2016), formerly known as The Other Side of Things, is now called The Burning Horse. It will be released in autumn 2019 from Solaris Books.

Excellent news for fans of Paul's work.

Why You Should Read...Paul Kearney

Paul Kearney is a Northern Irish science fiction and fantasy writer who may hold the title for "most underread genre author." He published his first book twenty-six years ago and has now written twenty novels, most of them highly critically-acclaimed. Yet his sales remain modest and his profile in the genre is relatively low.

Kearney began his career with three stand-alone novels: The Way to Babylon (1992), A Different Kingdom (1993) and Riding the Unicorn (1994). Each novel was different in tone and feel, although linked by the same thematic device of someone from our world being drawn into a fantasy one. In The Way to Babylon an epic fantasy author is injured and finds himself in his own invented world, where the characters won't let go. In A Different Kingdom - partially an Irish riff on Robert Holdstock's Mythago Wood - a young Irish man is drawn into a mystical alternate world. In Riding the Unicorn, a policeman finds himself in a more traditional epic fantasy world where mighty armies are clashing.

This last book saw a change in Kearney's writing. A keen historical reenactor and fan of secondary world fantasy, he began work on his own epic fantasy series, The Monarchies of God. The series spanned five volumes: Hawkwood's Voyage (1995), The Heretic Kings (1996), The Iron Wars (1999), The Second Empire (2000) and Ships From the West (2002). The books are notable for their Renaissance level of technology (complete with bombards and arquebuses) and their blending of epic fantasy, nautical action, military history and outright horror. They are also unusually short, with none of the books exceeding 400 pages and the last three all being well under 300 pages in length. Kearney would later attribute the disappointing sales of the series - despite heavy critical acclaim and the recommendations of authors such as Steven Erikson and Robert Silverberg - due to the low page count versus those of other epic fantasy series, plus the publisher letting the early books in the series go out of print before the last ones were released (note to publishers: never do this).

Kearney started work on a new trilogy, The Sea-Beggars, with the focus this time firmly on naval action. Monarchies had originally meant to be primarily focused on the story of Captain Hawkwood and his adventures at sea, but other characters had taken over the narrative and that had dropped back to a subplot. For this series, set in a new world, Kearney was determined that the naval action would remain front and centre. He kept this promise and The Mark of Ran (2004) was a well-received and somewhat successful novel. However, the sequel ran into problems. This Forsaken Earth (2006) was released with little marketing and a last-minute title change (it was known as The Stars We Sail By up until just before release) and sold poorly. The series was dropped by the publisher in the UK, but curiously the US publisher refused to let go of the rights (despite also refusing to publish the third book in the series, Storm of the Dead). The result was a legal logjam that, startlingly, remains ongoing, despite other publishers clamouring to re-release and finish the series

At this point Kearney's career seemed to be cursed: he had received immense critical acclaim for all his novels and had committed fans singing his praises online. He also had strong voices in his favour from the likes of Malazan author Steven Erikson (Kearney provided the introduction to Erikson's novella The Healthy Dead), but his sales were modest and the Sea-Beggars publishing fiasco was every author's worst nightmare, wanting to write a book and being prevented from doing so.

Fortunately, Kearney's fans extended to the editorial team at new imprint Solaris Books. They snapped Kearney up to write a new trilogy for them, an epic fantasy riff on the Anabasis by the Greek writer Xenophon (telling the story of a Greek mercenary army trapped behind enemy lines in the heart of the Persian Empire) and then the story of Alexander the Great. The Macht Trilogy, comprising The Ten Thousand (2008), Corvus (2010) and The Kings of Morning (2012), was a critical hit and also sold quite well. Solaris also reprinted Monarchies of God in two omnibus editions: Hawkwood and the Kings and Century of the Soldier, finally bringing the series to a wider audience (particularly in the United States).

Kearney's alliance with Solaris, at that time owned by the Black Libarary (the publishing wing of Games Workshop), also gave him the opportunity to write in the Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000 universes, a long-standing ambition of his. He started with short stories, penning "Broken Blood" (published in Death & Dishonour, 2010), "The Last Detail (Legends of the Space Marines, 2010) and "The Blind King" (2015) before writing a full-blown novel, Dark Hunters: Umbra Sumus, in 2015. Almost ridiculously, this novel also ran into publication difficulties. The American publishers of Sherrilyn Kenyon's paranormal romance series Dark-Hunters objected to the title, but the problems went beyond a simple title change (the Dark Hunters are a famous Space Marine chapter in WH40K and it was impractical to change their name). The novel is effectively on ice until Games Workshop can work out a solution to the problem.

As previously, however, Kearney bounced back strong with a new novel, The Wolf in the Attic (2016). Another major shift in his writing style, this time towards Neil Gaiman-esque modern fairy tales but with his typical grit intact, the book depicts the story of a young Greek refugee living in Oxford during WWII who falls in with a strange crowd (and also meets C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien). The novel received blanket critical acclaim when it came out, on both sides of the Atlantic, and sold very well. Proving his versatility, Kearney also finally managed to get a Warhammer 40,000 novel published. In fact, he got a whole trilogy: Calgar's Siege (2017), Calgar's Fury (2017) and Calgar's Reckoning (2018).

Kearney's next project is a sequel to The Wolf in the Attic, called The Other Side of Things. It is currently scheduled for publication by Solaris in 2019.

Paul Kearney's work is impressive. He writes in concerted, focused bursts where the prose, structure and characters all have exactly the time they need to work, never too much. Kearney does not do filler. He also writes vivid, impressive action scenes but does not glorify violence. His books may feature epic, impressive and exciting battles, but the pointless carnage and waste of life is always exemplified. His musings on heroism and cynicism recall David Gemmell at his best, whilst his sure hand with military action, history and politics are reminiscent of Bernard Cornwell. But Kearney's most formidable ability is how he can spin on a dime and write a mystical (almost magic-realist) fever dream like A Different Kingdom or a modern fable in The Wolf in the Attic. Few modern genre authors can shift prose styles and entire genres with as much ease or confidence, and do so well each time.

Paul Kearney is the best fantasy writer you've never heard of. I urge you to check him out.


Bibliography
Short Fiction
"Broken Blood" (2010, in Warhammer: Death & Dishonour)

"The Last Detail" (2010, in Warhammer 40,000: Legends of the Space Marines)

"South Mountain" (2014, in Dangerous Games)

"Dark Hunters: The Blind King" (2015, Warhammer 40,000 e-story)



Stand-Alone Novels
The Way to Babylon (1992)

A Different Kingdom (1993)

Riding the Unicorn (1994)

The Lost Island (2008, Primeval TV spin-off)



The Monarchies of God
Hawkwood's Voyage (1995)

The Heretic Kings (1996)

The Iron Wars (1999)

The Second Empire (2000)

Ships From the West (2002)

Hawkwood and the Kings (omnibus of Books 1-2, 2010)

Century of the Soldier (omnibus of Books 3-5, 2010)



The Sea-Beggars
The Mark of Ran (2004)

This Forsaken Earth (2006)

Storm of the Dead (forthcoming, on hold due to legal issues)



The Macht Trilogy
The Ten Thousand (2008)

Corvus (2010)

The Kings of Morning (2012)



Warhammer 40,000
Dark Hunters: Umbra Sumus (2015, on hold pending legal issues)

Calgar's Siege (2017)

Calgar's Fury (2017)

Calgar's Reckoning (2018)



Wolf in the Attic Series
The Wolf in the Attic (2016)

The Other Side of Things (2019)

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Two new Paul Kearney novels incoming

Paul Kearney is working on two new novels. The first is provisionally entitled The Other Side of Things and will be a sequel to his critically-acclaimed 2016 novel The Wolf in the Attic.

The Wolf in the Attic was an excellent novel, one of the top genre releases of 2016, and the news that we'll find out what happened next to Anna is most welcome. The Other Side of Things will likely be a 2019 release.

The other novel in the writing process is Calgar's Reckoning, a follow-up to Paul's Warhammer 40,000 novel Calgar's Siege. It's possible there will be even more novels from Paul in this setting, which is good news.

Unfortunately, it sounds like the copyright issues that led to his novel Umbra Sumus: Dark Hunters being put on indefinite hold are continuing. Don't hold your breath on seeing that in the near future.

The Wolf in the Attic by Paul Kearney

Oxford, 1929. The Great Depression is looming. Anna Francis is a Greek refugee, one of many forced to flee the fighting between Turkey and Greece in the aftermath of the First World War. She lives with her father, who continues to campaign on behalf of his countrymen. Whilst Anna's father hosts meetings and writes to politicians, Anna explores Oxford and the surrounding countryside. One night she sees something in the fields that she wasn't supposed to, irrevocably changing her and the course of her life.

Paul Kearney is, very easily, the most underread author in modern fantasy. He has written epic fantasy with vast armies clashing, heroic fantasy about the tribulations of a flawed hero and several "slipstream" stories about people who cross from one world to another. He has also written a personal novel about the real world's intersection with the fantastic. He's even written a Warhammer 40,000 novel about Space Marines (although that's currently on hold due to legal issues). Kearney has an ability to switch gears and voices to tell many different kinds of story that is highly enviable.

The Wolf in the Attic represents another such gear shift. This is a story about a young woman coming of age in a country that treats her like a foreigner, despite her fluency in the language and her father's attempts to integrate. The notion of being a refugee and trying to find a home after your own is destroyed is a powerful one, and Kearney tells this part of the story extremely well. There is also an impressive mastery of POV and characterisation: Anna idolises her father whilst also being honest about his flaws, but even so the reader may pick up on things about him that Anna herself does not (or is in denial about).

These musings on identity, home and growth sit alongside a couple of scene-stealing cameos from C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. Lewis and Tolkien had met and become friends in the mid-1920s and would remain in contact for the rest of their life. They appear very briefly, but Kearney has clearly done his research about the two men, their characters and the times they lived in.

So richly and vividly drawn is 1929 Oxford that the reader may even forget they're reading a fantasy novel until the supernatural enters the fray. First slowly and then with a growing presence, Kearney presents a sort of magical shadow world intersecting with our own, with people and factions represented as one thing in our world but having another role in the other. A mid-novel twist brings the supernatural element much more to the fore and this transition is successful as the book becomes more of a quest or road trip that takes Anna from her comfortable life into something more mystical and primeval.

Kearney has always had an excellent grasp of character and no-nonsense writing, but his writing skills in this book reach new heights with easily the most accomplished prose of his career to date. He handles the transition from the earlier, more grounded chapters to the later, more fantastical ones very well and he makes Anna a compelling protagonist, young but not foolish, inexperienced but not naive. If there is a weakness it might be that some secondary characters are not developed as strongly (Luca most notably) but in a first-person narrative that may be expected.

Overall, The Wolf in the Attic is an unusual book. It has YA hallmarks but isn't really YA. It has elements of fantasy and mythology and history but is more than the some of those parts. The movement between realistic childhood issues and fantasy reminded me somewhat of Neil Gaiman's The Ocean at the End of the Lane, but The Wolf in the Attic is an effortlessly superior novel which has more to say.

The year may only be half over, but The Wolf in the Attic (*****) makes a bold claim to be the best SFF novel released this year (contested, at least so far, only by Guy Gavriel Kay's Children of Earth and Sky). It is a rich and unputdownable read and increases its already-talented author's range and capabilities even further. The novel is available now in the UK and USA.

Paul Kearney's new novel out now

Paul Kearney's new novel, The Wolf in the Attic, is out now (UK, USA). This is the author's first new novel in four years, since he completed his Macht Trilogy with Kings of Morning in 2012.

This book is set in Oxford in 1929 and sees the protagonist, a young Greek refugee named Anna, drawn into unusual events involving her father, the loss of her home in Smyrna and two Oxford dons named Lewis and Tolkien. It's a move away from the epic fantasy series that Kearney is perhaps best-known for, and more of a return to his early stand-alone novels that melded the fantastic with the real world.

There's been some good coverage of the book and some excellent reviews:

Guest blog from Paul at Pat's Fantasy Hotlist.
Interview at Sci-Fi Bulletin.
Interview at Rising Shadow.


Review at Living For Books.
Review at My Books, My Life, My Escape.
Review at Lipstick and Libraries.
Review at Bastian's Book Reviews.
Review at Queen of Blades.
Review at Adventures in Sci-Fi Publishing.
Review at Bookhaunt.
Review at City of Lost Books.
Review at My Bookish Ways.
Review at The Quidnunc.


I am currently about halfway through the novel and hope to bring you all a review shortly.

Paul Kearney and Scott Lynch updates

Solaris Books have revealed the latest version of the cover art for their upcoming new Paul Kearney novel, The Wolf in the Attic, as well as issuing a new blurb. It sounds like Solaris are very impressed with this book and are going to be pushing it out with some fanfare.

In 1920's Oxford a little girl called Anna Francis lives in a tall old house with her father and her doll Penelope. She is a refugee, a piece of flotsam washed up in England by the tides of the Great War and the chaos that trailed in its wake. Once upon a time she had a mother and a brother, and they all lived together in the most beautiful city in the world, by the shores of Homer's wine-dark sea. Anna remembers a time when Agamemnon came to tea, and Odysseus sat her upon his knee and told her stories of Troy.

But that is all gone now, and only to her doll does she ever speak of it, because her father cannot bear to have it recalled.

She sits in the shadows of the tall house and watches the rain on the windows, and creates worlds for herself to fill out the loneliness. The house becomes her own little kingdom, an island full of dreams and half-forgotten memories.

And then one winter day, she finds an interloper in the topmost, dustiest attic of the house. A Romany boy named Luca with yellow eyes, who is as alone in the world as she is.

In this way she meets the only real friend she will ever know.

Kearney also has a Warhammer 40,000 novel, Umbra Sumus, due for release from the Black Library on 7 May 2015.

The Space Marines of the Dark Hunters, descendants of the White Scars and their savage primarch Jaghatai Kahn, are called to battle on the world of Ras Hanem, a world they thought long since liberated from the grip of heresy and returned to Imperial rule. Many years ago, the Dark Hunters defeated the traitor warband known as the Punishers on that world, in a conflict that left deep wounds in the Chapter. But now the Punishers have returned, seeking vengeance upon their would-be destroyers. Captain Jonah Kerne of Mortai Company is set to annihilate the traitors once and for all, but the cost of victory may be too high for him to bear...

Meanwhile, Scott Lynch has confirmed that, despite a slip into 2015 for The Thorn of Emberlain, there will be no more six-year waits. The novel is on track for a mid-to-late 2015 release and Lynch is promising news about some other projects between now and then as well.

New Paul Kearney cover art

Solaris Books have released an early working version of the cover art for Paul Kearney's new novel, The Wolf in the Attic. The novel is due for publication in late 2015.

An early description of the book:

The novel is set in very early 1930′s Oxford, features Tolkien and Lewis as characters, and is told from the point of view of a lonely 11 year old girl. She’s Greek, a refugee from the sack of Smyrna, and one day discovers a Romany boy in her attic. The boy is a shape-shifter, and becomes her friend. The two begin to explore the world around Oxford, discovering things they never imagined existed. The girl, Anna, is obsessed by the Odyssey, and likens the Romany boy, Luca, to Odysseus.

Kearney also has a Warhammer 40,000 novel entitled Umbra Sumus due out before then from the Black Library, but the Black Library is infamously close-mouthed about its release schedule so it is unclear when that will be published. Paul also reports that he has started work on a new novel, something he has been wanting to write for four or five years.

Two new novels from Paul Kearney

Paul Kearney has two new novels in the pipeline. First up is Umbra Sumus, a Warhammer 40,000 novel about Space Marines, which is a stand-alone right now but has sequel potential. The novel features a new chapter of Space Marines and is tentatively planned for publication by the Black Library at the end of 2014 or start of 2015.

Paul has also been contracted for a new novel by Solaris. The Wolf in the Attic is a stand-alone fantasy novel and will be set in Oxford in the 1930s. From the sound of it, it marks Kearney's return to the stand-alone, less epic kind of storytelling of his first three novels. The blurb is as follows:

The novel is set in very early 1930′s Oxford, features Tolkien and Lewis as characters, and is told from the point of view of a lonely 11 year old girl. She’s Greek, a refugee from the sack of Smyrna, and one day discovers a Romany boy in her attic. The boy is a shape-shifter, and becomes her friend. The two begin to explore the world around Oxford, discovering things they never imagined existed. The girl, Anna, is obsessed by the Odyssey, and likens the Romany boy, Luca, to Odysseus.

The Wolf in the Attic will be published in Autumn 2015.

Paul talks about the process that led to the writing of the new novel here, and discusses his recent backlist reissues and Umbra Sumus here.