Mike Brooks

So this is the big news I’ve been waiting to announce… Orbit Books are publishing my new epic fantasy series! It’s a series that covers a variety of themes, including a huge country spinning towards civil war, but the one that gave me the inspiration to start writing it was about different peoples coming together and, albeit under certain constraints of necessity, learning to live together and work together, appreciating their differences instead of falling straight into mistrust, hatred and violence.

I mean, there is mistrust, hated and violence in the story, but the idea is that those things aren’t inevitable, or universal.

Also: war dragons.

Orbit have put out so many of my favourite books and series over the years, and it’s fantastic to become a part of their stable of wonderful authors (many of whom are also wonderful human beings whom I’m glad to have made friends with over the last few years).

I’ll be sure to share more details about the series in the months leading up to the first release. In the meantime, I’d like to give hearty thanks to my agent Rob Dinsdale, my new editor Jenni Hill at Orbit, my old associate Michael Rowley at Solaris, to everyone who read the drafts and gave me advice, and to everyone who’s supported my work* so far 🙂

*a side-effect of this news is that there won’t be any new Keiko novels for the foreseeable future. Part of this is because of time constraints – I’m still writing for Black Library as well as this new Orbit deal. But also, the world has changed (I feel it in the water, I feel it in the air, etc). The story arc that I’d planned out five years ago, the story that I wanted to tell… it doesn’t quite fit anymore with who I am, with the stories that I want to tell now, with the environment into which that story would have been released. I’m not saying I’ll never go back to the Keiko crew, but I’d want to come up with a new arc for them before I do. Right now, the story of this new world is the one that I need to be writing, in part as a response to the hatred and intolerance that seems to be building in our world.