The call came several days before Christmas that year: a prominent and respected New York-based editor of sf/fantasy, whom I’d met through a writing workshop, wanted to buy my novel.
As Christmas gifts go, selling a first novel is way up there on the all-time list (though the top spot will always be the December 22 birth of my son Brian).
The book was The Shadow of His Wings and will be reissued, new cover and all, as an e-book sometime in early January of 2013. Eventually there’ll be a new POD version, but for now it’s the e-corral of Kindle, Nook, Kobo and Smashwords, folks.
Shadow introduced the Six Kingdoms world, and the second book in the series, The Mace of Souls, will also be reissued as an e-book early next spring.
Over the years there have been some people who read those books and wondered if this Bruce Fergusson was ever going to write another fantasy book set in the world of Shadow and Mace. What the hell happened to him?
Was he whisked away into the the Federal Witness Protection program? He does live in Seattle, after all, where that other guy from Goodfellas wound up, exiled to the bland world of suburbia, his neighbors none the wiser that he once was a wise-guy.
The short version, by way of explanation to readers I left in the lurch, is that I wanted to see if I could write something besides fantasy.
A little longer version includes the fact that there happen to be priorities more important than, well, making up stories at the pace you (or the publishing world for that matter) would like.
Still, I always intended to return to the Six Kingdoms and I have—with Pass on the Cup of Dreams, which will be published not only in e-format but also in a POD edition in early summer, 2013. The novel picks up the story of Falca Breks and others where we left them at the end of The Mace of Souls, and by the end of the book there will be echoes from Shadow as well.
In conjunction with the publication of Pass on the Cup of Dreams, I’ll be offering on my website a free download of an illustrated 50-page Six Kingdoms Codex, which will include a new introductory short story, historical backround of the kingdoms, glossary and maps. A role-playing game based on the Six Kingdoms world is also in the works, maybe in time for next Christmas. We’ll see.
Next up: the 4th book in the series, Kraken’s Claw. I’m working on it now: Falca has some new business to attend to in the southern kingdom of Keshkevar and by the end of the book he’s going to be very surprised when he runs into some old business he thought he’d finished.
I’d love to finish the novel perhaps two Christmases from now. Of course, there will be no call from a New York editor–a ghost from Christmas past–for this one but that’s okay. I’m learning to live without traditional publishing’s gate-keeping Scrooges, those few less Christmas cards sent and received.
In the meantime, I’ll be reissuing The Piper’s Sons, a psychological suspense novel, and publishing a brand-new one, Two Graves for Michael Furey, which is set in the Pacific Northwest and also the Erie Canal region of upstate New York.
I mentioned priorities earlier and right now there’s one that can’t wait, so I gotta go.
My wife and I just got a rescue puppy. Her name’s Olivia and she’s about 4 months old, a Lab mix of some sort. She’s a sweet-heart, definitely top-ten material for a list of best Christmas presents ever–no question there–and right now I have to interrupt my business with Falca Breks to take her outside for a walk around the block so she can do her own.
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