Last week, I announced the new standalone novel I’ve been working on for the whole autumn: Blackwood Marauders. You can find more information on the Goodreads link. The blurb, if you don’t want to click:
Growing up in a quiet farm, Luc “Lucky” son of Jak didn’t think much of the world until he fails the military entrance exam and finds himself responsible for a group of vicious, bloodthirsty mercenaries. Raised to be honest, upright, and true, his own ideals clash with the mercenaries’ shaky morals. His problems take a turn for the worst when he falls into a trap set by Roena Blackwood.
The eldest of Duke Iorwin’s daughters, Roena is adamant that life can only go her way. A high priest’s prophecy causes her to rethink her options and take the path less travelled: that of a travelling mercenary.
But killing monsters and saving villages can only get interesting for so long. Luc and Roena find themselves in a twisted plot concocted by none other than the merchant Ylir yn Garr. Together, they must learn to set aside their differences and work together to prevent disaster, even if it means confronting what they ran away from in the first place.
I write in an extremely limited POV, which favours immersion over information–the reader doesn’t know that much more than the characters do, or chooses to divulge, at that given point in time. This means that a series like The Agartes Epilogues have a lot of background information that just isn’t relevant to a particular character arc. Readers lament that there are certain events they would’ve liked to see more of, for example, or blanks they wanted filled in.
This is my answer to that common complaint. Blackwood Marauders is one of the many standalones that I plan to write in this world, with events that overlap the main trilogies. We will follow the character-driven narrative of completely new characters, which means that you don’t need to pick up any of the other books to understand what’s happening here–the plot is self-contained. However, readers of The Agartes Epilogues will have plenty of blanks filled in by these stories, in addition to cameos of well-loved, or well-hated, characters. Most of the events will happen between the one-year gap of Chapter One and Chapter Two of Jaeth’s Eye, making it the perfect book to pick up for readers who’ve been wanting to get into The Agartes Epilogues but have been thwarted by the difficulties in beginning that series.
In Blackwood Marauders, we follow the conception of a mercenary group that later goes on to assist Yn Garr Industries in various “dirty” jobs otherwise not handed over to the Boarshind company (a.k.a. Yn Garr’s A Team). Readers of The Agartes Epilogues may remember certain events that happen near the end of Sapphire’s Flight which utilizes this B Team. My plan is to have follow up books that will take us along the plot of The Agartes Epilogues, all the way beyond Sapphire’s Flight, but they’ll all be fairly self-contained and deal with their own plots. Again, background information is absolutely not necessary–the main characters are all new, and new readers will be given everything they need to know and then some. You don’t even have to read the main trilogies at all!
The mercenary angle is just one side of the story I plan to tackle. Next year, I’ll be doing a standalone prequel set in Dageis that involves mages and necromancy. I also have a series in the backburner that deals solely with Mahe and Izo, focusing on the life of Dageian soldiers and beyond. And so on, and so forth.
I feel like writing this way allows me to tell the stories of this world without getting carried away with 400,000-word tomes that go nowhere, which is all too common in this genre. Every single one of these projects (so a standalone novel, OR a series where I’ve indicated the novels can’t be read by themselves) have a complete narrative arc, and every beginning strives to get the reader to a specific conclusion. It’s messy and glorious and if you follow the madness, I hope you find something to like…
