A Busy Year

First off, I’ll begin this post in the style to which I have become accustomed: with an apology.

It’s been too long since I last updated the site. The big difference is, this time, I actually have an excuse.

I’ve been writing my ass off.

Since last we spoke, I’ve completed four IP novels—two for Age of Sigmar which I very much cannot talk about yet; and two for Legend of the Five Rings, which I very much can. So let’s focus on those.

Heart of Iuchiban is perhaps the most difficult work I’ve ever attempted. Part mystery, part dungeon crawl, part political drama with POV characters from all seven Great Clans; it really stretched me far beyond my literary comfort zone. Whether I actually pulled it off remains to be seen, but I’m genuinely proud of how the novel turned out.

Honestly, I was quite humbled that Fantasy Flight trusted me with one of the most iconic characters in the L5R setting. And while they had plenty of notes and updates regarding the new edition, I definitely felt free to explore my own take on the immortal necromancer who has been the bane of SO many bands of adventuring samurai. While I did take a slightly different direction than previous iterations, it wouldn’t really be an Iuchiban novel without a terrible tomb full of all manner of tricks and traps.

Soul of Iuchiban is the inevitable sequel, tying up all the loose threads from the first novel (which ends on something of a cliffhanger), and brings our unwilling heroes into a final confrontation with the fate of Rokugan and the Hantei dynasty hanging in the balance (of course).

Again, my lovely editor Lottie Llewellyn-Wells and the fine folks at Fantasy Flight were absolute aces during my pitch sessions. Not only did they provide truly excellent feedback on my more wild ideas, they helped sharpen my plot and characters in fun ways. I was particularly excited to delve into the intricacies of name magic, particularly the power of names (both mortal and spiritual); and how they underpinned Iuchiban’s dark schemes for Rokugan.

I’d be a poor author indeed if I didn’t acknowledge my intellectual debts—not only to the incredibly rich L5R setting, but also my academic studies in East Asian History (particularly Japan). One of the focuses of my research was the role of politics, economics, and culture in the naming of “frontier” spaces. This has pretty heavily informed my previous writing (To Chart the Clouds, in particular), but it can also be seen threaded through both Iuchiban novels.

I’ve always been fascinated by maps and mapping as societal constructs. How a place name can embody not only a history, but a present, and a future—embodying and shaping all manner of expectations. Names are how we understand the world, and how we understand each other. So it was a lot of fun to be able to play with them in the context of one of my favorite fantasy settings.

I could go on for pages about this lovely nonsense, but you didn’t come here to listen to me ramble about the role of liminal geography in framing geopolitical discourse. Wow, that sounded dry even as I wrote it—and I love this stuff.

In any case, I hope you have a chance to check out my novels—both current and forthcoming. I promise they’re more interesting than my thesis.

And, as always, thank you for reading. It really means a lot.