James Clemens – the return

I’ve been a fan of James Clemens since I first read Wit’ch Fire back in 1998. It was freaking awesome!

The entire series was a joy to read, although I was a little disappointed with how he swung things at the end (but that’s a me thing, nothing to do with him).

Then he embarked on a second series, Godslayer. Set in a different world with a different premise, this series had all the hallmarks that had made the Books of the Banned and the Banished so enthralling. He released the first and second volume of these books, then got a deal to write thriller fiction which he did under the name James Rollins.

Well, these books made him bank. And much like Lustbader (who abandoned his epic fantasy series when he got the contract to write more Bourne books by the Ludlum estate) Rollins/Clemens abandoned his fantasy series and focused on the work that was paying the bills.

On the one hand you can hardly blame the man, but on the other it was a massive ‘fuck you’ to the fans who’d spent money on those books and invested the time reading (and reviewing and hand selling them).

But that’s life I guess.

Anyway, I intermittently look up James Clemens online every so often, hoping I will find some information about the conclusion of Godslayer. Imagine my surprise to discover he has signed a deal with TOR (as James Rollins – well this pseudonym is more well known these days than James Clemens) for a new series called Moon Fall.

Here are the details from the press release:

Untold millennia ago, the world ceased its turning. It left one side frozen, locked in eternal darkness; the other a blasted ruin, forever facing the sun. Continents shifted, oceans boiled away, lands sank under miles of ice. To survive, life evolved in strange and unpredictable ways to fill the harsh niches of this new landscape. Even its people were forced to retreat to the only inhabitable region of the globe: to the band of twilight lands trapped between the burning brightness and frozen darkness. Within these lands, tribes and kingdoms struggle against one another, vying for power among the magic, myths and prophecy that grip their lives. But a young girl foretells a new apocalypse approaching, one that will end all life for all time. Her reward is a charge of grave heresy, punishable by death.

As she flees, she gathers an unlikely alliance of outcasts to join her cause to save their world. The journey will take them into lands both burning bright and eternally frozen, to face creatures unimaginable and enemies beyond reason. All the while, hostile forces will hunt them. Armies will wage war around them. To stop the coming apocalypse, it will be up to this group to form a fellowship strong enough to move a planet, to melt the amber that forever traps their world—and set it turning once again.

Sounds pretty awesome! And James is a captivating writer, so I am kinda excited.

Moon Fall book one, The Starless Crown, is expected to be published in summer 2021 (that’s US summer so Winter for the Southern Hemisphere).

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