Things are moving along nicely with the artwork. This is the third piece that’s complete, and another is in sketch form. The remaining two have art briefs, and sketches should be coming for those soon.

As I mentioned in the post where I revealed this sketch, this scene shows Muqallad after a particularly grizzly series of events in The Straits of Galahesh. I like how Evgeniy captured the Atalayina, the fabled stone of creation, in Muqallad’s hands. And his take on the akhoz, let’s face it, is nightmarish. And the falling ashes are a very nice touch.

The latest review for The Flames of Shadam Khoreh, and in a way the entire Lays of Anuskaya trilogy, is up at Pat’s Fantasy Hotlist.

Here’s an excerpt that I quite enjoyed. I never associated my writing with Robin Hobb, but then again, our styles are similar, and I greatly admire her writing, so it was very gratifying:

I’ve always said that in terms of style, Bradley P. Beaulieu’s was some sort of hybrid between Steven Erikson and L. E. Modesitt, Jr. But he also has a deft human touch that often reminded me of Robin Hobb. In addition, in The Flames of Shadam Khoreh, with its darker and brooding narrative, there was a definite Stephen R. Donaldson influence that made the Covenant books come to mind quite often. À la Erikson, Beaulieu seems to enjoy throwing his readers into the heart of the tale without offering much in the way of information. In the past, this often resulted in an occasional lack of clarity that left many readers wondering what the heck was going on. The good thing about this being the final volume in the trilogy is that we finally get all the answers we’ve been looking for.

And here’s the payoff:

All in all, The Lays of Anuskaya series is dark, ambitious, complex, and populated with a great cast of characters that leap off the pages. If you are looking for a quality read that’s different from everything else on the market today, this series is definitely for you.

Head on over to Pat’s Fantasy Hotlist for the full review.

These are not complete, obviously, but I liked these early sketches enough to share them. The first is a scene from The Straits of Galahesh. So as to remain as spoiler-free as possible, I’ll only say that this is Muqallad, one of the Al-Aqim, the three elemental sorcerers who tore the fabric between the material and spiritual planes.

Click to embiggen

Creepy, isn’t it? It’s a pretty grizzly scene, so the tone is apropos, methinks.

The second is from The Flames of Shadam Khoreh. It shows a warrior of Hael about to, well, do something nasty to one of the personal guardsmen of the Kamarisi (the emperor) of Yrstanla.

Click to embiggen

I love the horse and the way the horseman was drawn. I like the nice touch of the building in the domed background as well.

This is exciting for me. I’ve gotten to play art director on the interior art for The Lays of Anuskaya, with the talented Evgeni Maloshenkov as the artist. One of the pieces I’d always wanted to do was the dance scene between Atiana and Nikandr. It’s a fan favorite, and it’s one of my favorites as well.

It was great fun visualizing this and then talking back and forth with Evgeni to get his take on it. We played with this one a lot at the sketch stage, because it was such a strong image in my mind, and I think Evgeni did a wonderful job taking that initial vision and expanding on it.

I give you: The Dance.

Justin Landon over at Staffer’s Book Review recently read the final two books in The Lays of Anuskaya: The Straits of Galahesh and The Flames of Shadam Khoreh. Overall, the review was quite positive.

Some bumps when it came to Straits:

In 2011 I called Winds of Khalakovo ‘deep and deliberate’ with poignant dialogue ‘that fits the thematic tones perfectly.’ I believed very strongly it was one of the most promising debuts of the year, kicking off what was a huge year of exceptional debuts for Night Shade Books. Two years later that promise is delivered in the form of Bradley P. Beaulieu’s self-published third book Flames of Shadam Khoreh. Given the pacing problems throughout the series, I would argue that the Lays of Anuskaya was too ambitious for a debut novelist. If that’s true, then those difficulties are on full display in Straits of Galahesh which I cannot recommend on its own.

But some glowing praise for Flames.

However, despite my difficulties with the middle volume, this final installment makes it all worth it. The Flames of Shadam Khoreh isn’t just one of the better books I’ve read this year, but one of the epic fantasy endings I’ve had the pleasure of reading. To potential readers let me stress that this is not an easily digestible collection of novels. Quite the opposite. Instead, I would call it a collection of novels worth investing in. I promise it will pay dividends.

I really enjoy reading Justin’s reviews. He’s not only a good writer, but brings a lot of good insights to the review while not stepping over the “spoiler” line.

Read the full review over at Staffer’s Book Review.

As part of the Kickstarter I ran for The Flames of Shadam Khoreh, we met two interior artwork stretch goals, which meant that we’d have two original pieces per book. These will be added to each of the books on the page facing “Part I” or “Part II”. The artist I chose for the project is Evgeni Maloshenkov, the same artist who did the great interior pieces for my short story collection, Lest Our Passage Be Forgotten & Other Stories.

The first of the pieces is now complete and ready to be unveiled. I give you Rehada, ready to kick some ass.

With only very mild spoilers, this is a scene from the second half of Winds where Rehada has gone off with Atiana, both of them disguised as peasants. Rehada is riding back toward Palotza Radiskoye and is waylaid. And what you see above her is her answer to this inconvenience.

A great new review came in over the weekend from Sachin Dev over at Smorgasbord Fantasia.

I liked his opening:

I still haven’t come to terms with this question, do I love Russian literature.

I tried Tolstoy’s epic, War and Peace. Not once but twice. And I failed both times to complete it. Dostoevsky’s short stories made me a fan but his longer books had just too much going on to invest me in as a serious reader, all this at a younger tender impressionable age.

As an adult my tastes veered away from the contemporary into speculative and I was yet to find anyone who brought in the flavors or Russia – the strong smells of vodka, the white snow and the bleak grey hopelessness – into Fantasy or Science Fiction.

And then came Bradley P. Beaulieu – who has written a deep, well researched fantasy novel set in an alternate world of mountainous archipelago completely inspired by the Russian and East European settings.

And here’s the closer:

Overall, with a rich gloriously detailed world full of symbolism, Winds of Khalakovo announces the arrival of a super talented epic fantasy author in Bradley who has chosen to tread the brave path – eschewing the traditional medieval euro-inspired fantasy worlds – Lays of Anuskaya is an intelligent series with layered complex characters you grow to love at the end of book one. An intelligent high fantasy full of original magic and swashbuckling adventure. Bradley is no Patrick Rothfuss but he definitely is in for a long successful innings. Winds of change, a breath of fresh air. Three stars.

Read the full review over at Smordasbord Fantasia.

I’ve been playing with the design for the bookmarks that were part of the stretch goals for The Flames of Shadam Khoreh, and I think I have something workable.

It was difficult to fill in the space of the front, and when compared directly to the back the font looks perhaps too tall, but I think it’s just my picky brain getting in the way.

So I put it to you. What do you think?

A few August’s ago, my friend, old coworker, and major gun enthusiast Barry Geipel invited me to stop by his firing range and shoot his flintlock. I immediately said yes. I was at that time in the middle of writing my second book and really wanted to hold and fire a flintlock for myself. We went to the outdoor range and Barry showed me the ropes.

It’s one thing to learn about things by reading about them and watching videos, but it was quite another to hold the firearm, to load it and fire it, to feel the kickback as it fired (which was not as great as I was expecting). The musket in question is a 28 Gauge flintlock fowler.

Lots of little things stood out to me on the trip. For example, the spring on the hammer. It’s really strong. It would need to be, of course, because the flint it holds needs to strike the frizzen strongly enough to produce spark, so it makes perfect sense, but it didn’t even enter my consciousness until I was levering the hammer back to half cock.

Another thing was how gummed up the barrel can become and what you do to clean it. The powder leaves residue and it has to be cleared away after a certain number of firings. And the men in the civil war, lacking other things, might have pissed down the barrel to clean it because the ammonia in the urine acted as cleaning fluid.

Other interesting things are how you might get to know each individual gun. They were similar, but they’d each have their own quirks, from the way they fired and released their shot (and the adjustments you would make because of it), the way the ramrod feels as you tamp down the gunpowder and cloth and ball (the shot), the strength of the spring, how easily the frizzen opened and closed, and so on.

It was a really fun experience. It was like taking a crash course through Civil War history with Barry, too, because he’s so knowledgeable about that time period.

Thanks, Barry, for the fun time. Hopefully I’ll get a chance to do that again some time.

478.

That’s the number of pages in the new layout for The Winds of Khalakovo.

That may seem like a small thing, but it’s actually a big deal. Why? First of all, it indicates that I’ve managed to lay out all the pages in the book. And *that* says that I’ve at the very least identified all of the content. Every page has an intended purpose (even if it’s blank right now). All the pages of content are laid down, including fancy chapter headings. And all the front matter and back matter is in.

The only thing left is to generate the maps. I have them, but still have to add whatever borders I want, convert them to black and white, and then place them. That won’t take too much time, but it’ll have to wait for another day.

The other reason the page count matters is for the books size. See, the cover is dependent on page count (more pages, thicker book, and so, larger cover). Having the final page count means I can finally generate the cover from my chosen printing house and work up the graphics for that. That won’t be all that difficult, either, as I have the cover somewhat designed from the ARCs I created, but still, it will be a small hurdle to get that wrapped up, reformatted, blurbs added, and so on.

So 478 is a big number. It means these books are one step closer to being done and out in the world.

And that’s a Good Thing.