Mobius Books

To celebrate the recent North American release of Crucible of Chaos, the publisher has allowed us to share the first chapter! The prequel novel in Sebastien de Castell‘s Court of Shadows series, it picks up the story of the Greatcoats (the subject of the author’s excellent debut series). Here’s the synopsis:

A mortally wounded magistrate faces his deadliest trial inside an ancient abbey where the monks are going mad and the gods themselves may be to blame!

Estevar Borros, one of the legendary sword-fighting magistrates known as the Greatcoats and the king’s personal investigator of the supernatural, is no stranger to tales of ghosts and demons. When the fractious monks of the abbey rumored to be the birthplace of the gods begin warring over claims of a new pantheon arising, the frantic abbot summons him to settle the dispute.

But Estevar has his own problems: a near-fatal sword wound from his last judicial duel, a sworn knight who claims he has proof the monks are consorting with demons, a diabolical inquisitor with no love for the Greatcoats, and a mysterious young woman claiming to be Estevar’s ally but who may well be his deadliest enemy.

Armed only with his famed investigative talents, his faltering skill with a blade and Imperious, his ornery mule, Estevar must root out the source of the madness lurking inside the once-sacred walls of Isola Sombra before its chaos spreads to the country he’s sworn to protect.

Continue reading →

Today’s the first day of Sebastien de Castell‘s blog tour celebrating the release of his latest novel, The Malevolent Seven. The author has put together a rather cool explanatory video for one of the kinds of magic in this new fantasy world, which you can check out over on CR’s instagram (give us a follow, if you like).

I’ve also tried to embed that video, below, (it doesn’t seem to show up in Safari, but it does in Chrome… Regardless, it serves as a handy link). Before you click through to Sebastien’s video, here’s the novel’s synopsis…

‘Seven powerful mages want to make the world a better place. We’re going to kill them first.’

Picture a wizard. Go ahead, close your eyes. There he is, see? Skinny old guy with a long straggly beard. No doubt he’s wearing iridescent silk robes that couldn’t protect his frail body from a light breeze. The hat’s a must, too, right? Big, floppy thing, covered in esoteric symbols that would instantly show every other mage where this one gets his magic? Wouldn’t want a simple steel helmet or something that might, you know, protect the part of him most needed for conjuring magical forces from being bashed in with a mace (or pretty much any household object).

Now open your eyes and let me show you what a real war mage looks like… but be warned: you’re probably not going to like it, because we’re violent, angry, dangerously broken people who sell our skills to the highest bidder and be damned to any moral or ethical considerations.

At least, until such irritating concepts as friendship and the end of the world get in the way.

My name is Cade Ombra, and though I currently make my living as a mercenary wonderist, I used to have a far more noble-sounding job title – until I discovered the people I worked for weren’t quite as noble as I’d believed. Now I’m on the run and my only friend, a homicidal thunder mage, has invited me to join him on a suicide mission against the seven deadliest mages on the continent.

Time to recruit some very bad people to help us on this job… Continue reading →