Buy These Books

Within the span of about a week I became aware of four new books from people who are friends, former collaborators, or both. These are very different books from very different people, but I’m spreading the word here in case some of them appeal to readers of this Substack.

The first three authors, Joseph Brassey, Nicole Galland, and Ellis Amdur, all have independent careers of their own writing solo books, but I have had the pleasure of working with them on collaborative projects. The fourth, George Dyson, is an old friend who along with me and a few others was one of the first people involved with Blue Origin circa 2000.Prince of Clay by Joseph Brassey

I first met Joe through HEMA (Historical European Martial Arts) but soon stumbled upon some fiction he’d posted somewhere. From this it was obvious that he was a gifted writer. One thing led to another and we ended up working together, along with several others, on a historical fiction project called The Mongoliad which after many colorful twists and turns ended up being published by Amazon’s fledgling fiction imprint and spawning a number of sequels and graphic novels. Later Joe co-authored one of those sequels, Katabasis, but by that point his solo career was launched and he was writing novels set in an original fantasy universe called The Drifting Lands. Prince of Clay is the third book in that series, of which I’ve been a fan since the beginning. If you would like to dive into a highly original fantasy trilogy, now’s the moment to pick up Prince of Clay and its predecessor volumes Skyfarer and Dragon Road.Boy by Nicole Galland

I met Nicole Galland a long time ago through our mutual agent, Liz Darhansoff. The quality of her historical fiction, beginning with The Fool’s Tale, was so evident that when we launched the Mongoliad project it was obvious to me that we had to invite her along. She ended up becoming a treasured collaborator and, like Joe, later wrote a sequel set in that world. Subsequently, Nicki a…