The Book Plank

Saint's Blood by Sebastien de Castell, Greatcoats #3 How do you kill a Saint? Falcio, Kest, and Brasti are about to find out, because someone has figured out a way to do it and they've started with a friend. The Dukes were already looking for ways out of their agreement to put Aline on the throne, but with the Saints turning up dead, rumours are spreading that the Gods themselves oppose her ascension. Now churches are looking to protect themselves by bringing back the military orders of religious soldiers, assassins, and (especially) Inquisitors - a move that could turn the country into a theocracy. The only way Falcio can put a stop to it is by finding the murderer. He has only one clue: a terrifying iron mask which makes the Saints vulnerable by driving them mad. But even if he can find the killer, he'll still have to face him in battle. And that may be a duel that no swordsman, no matter how skilled, can hope to win. Two years ago Sebastien de Castell...

Knight's Shadow by Sebastien de Castell, Greatcoats #2 Tristia is a nation overcome by intrigue and corruption. The idealistic young King Paelis is dead and the Greatcoats – legendary travelling magistrates who brought justice to the Kingdom – have been branded as traitors. But just before his head was impaled on a spike, the King swore each of his hundred and forty-four Greatcoats to a different mission. Falcio Val Mond, First Cantor, with the help of fellow Greatcoats Kest and Brasti, has completed his King’s final task: he has found his Charoites – well, one at least, and she was not quite what they expected. Now they must protect the girl from the many who would see her dead, and place her on the throne of a lawless kingdom. That would be simple enough, if it weren’t for the Daishini, an equally legendary band of assassins, getting in their way, not to forget the Dukes who are determined to hold on to their fractured Kingdoms, or the fact that the heir to the th...

When t he Whole World i s Against You - Building Fantasy Settings Ever have one of those days when it feels as if the whole world is against you? Excellent. Well, perhaps not excellent for you but I suspect it made for a great story. Dramatic storytelling comes from conflict. As a writer and as a reader, I don’t just want the conflicts the heroes face to be against other characters. I want the world to be an opponent - the deadlier the better. I want it to a source of danger on all levels of human experience: physical, social, emotional, psychological, and spiritual My first step in building a fantasy world is to look for what you might call the contrasting dynamic: contrasting because it works against the needs of the main characters and dynamic because it drives all the other elements of the world. In Traitor’s Blade , I wanted to explore what happens to fundamentally heroic characters when they discover that heroism has utterly failed - that the things they ...

Author interview Sebastien de Castell Author bio: Sebastien de Castell had just finished a degree in Archaeology when he started work on his first dig. Four hours later he realized how much he actually hated archaeology and left to pursue a very focused career as a musician, ombudsman, interaction designer, fight choreographer, teacher, project manager, actor, and product strategist. His only defence against the charge of unbridled dilettantism is that he genuinely likes doing these things and that, in one way or another, each of these fields plays a role in his writing. He sternly resists the accusation of being a Renaissance Man in the hopes that more people will label him that way. Sebastien lives in Vancouver, Canada with his lovely wife and two belligerent cats ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hi Sebastien, welcome over at The Book Plank and for taking your time to answer these few questions. SdC: I'm del...

Traitor's Blade by Sebastien de Castell, Greatcoats #1 Falcio is the first Cantor of the Greatcoats. Trained in the fighting arts and the laws of Tristia, the Greatcoats are travelling Magisters upholding King’s Law. They are heroes. Or at least they were, until they stood aside while the Dukes took the kingdom, and impaled their King’s head on a spike. Now Tristia is on the verge of collapse and the barbarians are sniffing at the borders. The Dukes bring chaos to the land, while the Greatcoats are scattered far and wide, reviled as traitors, their legendary coats in tatters. All they have left are the promises they made to King Paelis, to carry out one final mission. But if they have any hope of fulfilling the King’s dream, the divided Greatcoats must reunite, or they will also have to stand aside as they watch their world burn…     I am going to be honest, I wanted to read Traitor's Blade solely on the cover at first, yes I know never judge a book by its cove...