Tuesday 2 February 2010

Paul Kearney's 'Corvus' not due until 2011

Paul Kearney's upcoming novel Corvus (the follow-up to his seriously good book The Ten Thousand) was - according to Amazon, at least - meant to surface in June this year.

Unfortunately it seems fans will have to wait a little longer - Kearney's agent John Jarrold has stated the following on his blog:

"Paul is due to deliver in May 2010, so a June publication date will not happen! Maybe early 2011. and the third book in the series six months later."

A shame, but I've no problem waiting longer if it means Corvus will be as good as The Ten Thousand.

For what it's worth, I found an early blurb (contains minor spoilers relating to The Ten Thousand):

It is twenty-three years since a Macht army fought its way home from the heart of the Asurian Empire. The man who came to lead that army, Rictus, is now a hard-bitten mercenary captain, middle-aged and tired. He wants nothing more than to lay down his spear and become the farmer that his father was. But fate has different ideas. A young warleader has risen to challenge the order of things in the very heartlands of the Macht. A soldier of genius, he takes city after city, and reigns over them as king. What is more, he had heard of the legendary leader of the Ten Thousand. His name is Corvus, and the rumours say that he is not even fully human. He means to make himself absolute ruler of all the Macht. And he wants Rictus to help him.

Certainly sounds promising.

In the meantime, Kearney fans can check out the new artwork for his Monarchies of God omnibuses over at Aidan's blog. And if you've not read The Ten Thousand yet, give it a go!

8 comments:

Gabriele Campbell said...

Looks like the Monarchies of God omnibuses come out in autumn, within a month or two. Would be nice. I've waited to get my hot little hands on those bad boys for some time since I can't get a complete set of the novels anywhere.

I didn't even know the second Macht book was scheduled, or rumoured to be scheduled, for 2010, after all that hassle with Solaris getting sold.

Btw, if you don't want to wait a year for some kickass soldiers of antiquity, try Ben Kane's Forgotten Legion (and the sequel). He's handed in the manuscript for the third book, so the summer release date on Amazon may even be realistic.

ediFanoB said...

A fully agree that The Ten Thousand is a damned good book.
I wasn't aware that there will be a follow-up. So thanks for information.
By the way Corvus is still listed with release date June 16th at Amazon.de :)

@Gabriele
I know you live in Germany like me.
So you may like to know that the first Monarchies of God omnibus - Century of the soldier - is available for pre-order at Amazon.de, 9,99 Eur and at Book Depository UK, 7,33 EUR (including VAT).

I just added the Monarchies of God series to my book list.

@Gabriele, @James
did one of you read the two books of the Sea Beggars series - The Mark of Ran and This Forsaken Earth?

Gabriele Campbell said...

EdifanoB, I've seen that the books are avaliable on Amazon.de, thank you. Guess who has them in the shopping cart? :)

I haven't read his other books. As I understand, that series was never finished because the publisher didn't buy/print the last book(s) because the sales didn't meet the expectations. I hope Kearney will find a new home for those once the rights return to him, and a chance to finish the series.

ediFanoB said...

Gabriele, thank you for information about the Sea Beggars series.

I didn't doubt that you will order the books :)

James said...

Gabriele - thanks for the rec.

edifanoB - there wasn't originally going to be a sequel; Kearney was adamant that TTT would be a one-off. He later changed his mind (perhaps the fact that TTT did pretty well both critically and commercially was a factor).

And nope, I've not read any of Kearney's books - need to do so.

Adam Whitehead said...

The SEA-BEGGARS series was supposed to be four books in length, and Paul had apparently almost finished the MS for Book 3, STORM OF THE DEAD, when the hammer fell from Bantam. The current plan is to wait for the rights to return from Bantam (which is taking a while) and then combine THE MARK OF RAN and THIS FORSAKEN EARTH into one omnibus volume and then STORM OF THE DEAD and the as-yet-unwritten-Book-Four into a second omnibus and release them as well.

This is taking a while because Bantam UK are playing silly buggers with the rights to the SEA-BEGGARS books. They are letting them go out of print, so clearly have no interest in continuing to sell them, but are also not surrendering the rights voluntarily (bad form, as I understand it, in the publishing business) whilst also having no interest in continuing the series. Very odd.

Paul Kearney said...

Just to update everyone, at the time of writing Corvus is due for publication in November 2010

bob said...

hum... I wonder if Corvus might not be the son of another famous general of the 10 000 ? we'll see when the book comes out.