Synopses & Reviews
Ringil, the hero of the bloody slaughter at Gallows Gap is a legend to all who don't know him and a twisted degenerate to those that do. A veteren of the wars against the lizards he makes a living from telling credulous travellers of his exploits. Until one day he is pulled away from his life and into the depths of the Empire's slave trade. Where he will discover a secret infinitely more frightening than the trade in lives...
Archeth — pragmatist, cynic and engineer, the last of her race — is called from her work at the whim of the most powerful man in the Empire and sent to its farthest reaches to investigate a demonic incursion against the Empire's borders.
Egar Dragonbane, steppe-nomad, one-time fighter for the Empire finds himself entangled in a small-town battle between common sense and religious fervour. But out in the wider world there is something on the move far more alien than any of his tribe's petty gods.
Anti-social, anti-heroic, and decidedly irritated, all three of them are about to be sent unwillingly forth into a vicious, vigorous and thoroughly unsuspecting fantasy world. Called upon by an Empire that owes them everything and gave them nothing.
Review
Bold, brutal, and making no compromises — Morgan doesn't so much twist the cliches of fantasy as take an axe to them. Then set them on fire." Joe Abercrombie, author of The Blade Itself
Review
"A powerful turn-everything-up-to-eleven reading experience...Morgan is a gifted writer, and his gifts are lavishly on display here. Adam Roberts, author of Swiftly
Synopsis
A dark lord will rise. Such is the prophecy that dogs Ringil Eskiath—Gil, for short—a washed-up mercenary and onetime war hero whose cynicism is surpassed only by the speed of his sword. Gil is estranged from his aristocratic family, but when his mother enlists his help in freeing a cousin sold into slavery, Gil sets out to track her down. But it soon becomes apparent that more is at stake than the fate of one young woman. Grim sorceries are awakening in the land. Some speak in whispers of the return of the Aldrain, a race of widely feared, cruel yet beautiful demons. Now Gil and two old comrades are all that stand in the way of a prophecy whose fulfillment will drown an entire world in blood. But with heroes like these, the cure is likely to be worse than the disease.
Description
The first novel in a planned trilogy, The Steel Remains finds a man named Ringil, hero from a great war, living nearly forgotten and obsolete in a backcountry village. Then he's asked to find a lost cousin, and he is drawn back into a world that he'd thought he left behind long ago.
About the Author
Richard Morgan is 39 and was, until his writing career took off, a tutor at Strathclyde University in the English Language Teaching division. He has traveled widely and lived in Spain and Istanbul. He is a fluent Spanish speaker. He is married and lives in Glasgow.