Greetings readers of all things Swan, and Merry Christmas! We are standing on the precipice of that bizarre, liminal, unconstructed space between Christmas and New Year where time loses all meaning. So, a quick end of year newsletter before we lose all sense of ourselves.
Let's get into it, shall we?
Grave Empire
My next release is of course Grave Empire, the first book in the Great Silence trilogy. This is my next big tentpole fantasies series, a stand-alone work set two hundred years after the events of the Empire of the Wolf. This is currently on track to be released on 4 February 2025.
For those of you who follow me on social media, you will have seen the Goldsboro exclusive special edition.
These are all going to be signed and numbered, and have extremely cool sprayed edges. Numbers are limited to 750, so act quickly to pre-order.
Also revealed yesterday was the gorgeous Broken Binding special edition!
This has custom board art and edges by Jeff Brown and endpaper art by Peng Lu. Details for the sale of this can be found in the Tweet above. Look at this!!
If you would like to meet me in person and get a signed (regular) hardback copy of Grave Empire, I will be appearing at Waterstones Covent Garden alongside other fantasy luminaries-- Adrian Tchaikovsky, Anna Smith Spark, and Mike Brooks.
This is a ticketed event taking place on 6 February 2025; hope to see some of you there!
I also plan on being at Worldcon Seattle and Fantasycon in Brighton in 2025, and likely more conventions too, now that I'm back in the UK.
Grave Empire Artwork
One of my favourite things to do is take some of my hard earned money and pump it back into the creative ecosystem, and 2024 has been no different. Most recently I've been having a blast commissioning Hannah Elizabeth to do me some political cartoons ahead of the release of Grave Empire:
But I also have to give this incredible piece by Hannah Charlton from the Justice of Kings a second airing:
The Scour
Also coming out next year is The Scour (slated for October 2025) from Grimdark Magazine. This is a prequel novella set fifteen years before the events of The Justice of Kings, featuring (inter alios) Vonvalt and Bressinger. I saw what Adrian did with Anna Smith Spark and Michael Fletcher’s In the Shadow of their Dying (in fact I was lucky enough to get an advanced copy of it) and I think GDM are going to be huge in the novella space in the coming years. This is a really exciting project and I’m really pleased to be returning to the character of Vonvalt for a good old-fashioned fantasy police procedural.
You can pre-order The Scour on Amazon here.
Interviews
As usual I've managed to squeeze a few in this year including with one of my favourite modern fantasy authors Fonda Lee.
2026
Looking further afield, 2026 will be a busy year for Swan fans. As well as the second novel in the Great Silence trilogy (currently untitled, but the first draft is written) which is slated for a February release, I also have two other books coming out. The first of these is an unannounced Warhammer 40,000 novel from Black Library (I can’t give any details on this yet, save that I have written the first draft of this as well), which as a lifelong Warhammer player is something of a bucket list item for me. The other is an also unannounced dystopian science-fiction novel which I am tremendously excited about. In fact, this may be the most excited about a book I’ve written I think I’ve ever been. This one has sold to 2 major transatlantic publishers (not Orbit, who publish my fantasy) and it’s going to be huuuge, I feel it in my bones. So lots to look forward to!
The Numbers
I wrote 300,000 words this year, on the following:
150,000 on book 2 of the Great Silence (untitled)
82,000 on an unannounced Warhammer 40,000 novel
50,000 words on an unfinished, shelved sequel to the Trials of Empire following Sir Radomir (I don’t have the time to finish or revisit this anymore)
16,000 words and counting on The Scour (the Empire of the Wolf novella)
Which is a pretty good showing for me. I also edited a bunch of stuff but that’s much messier and harder to quantify.
The Richard Swan annual book award (or whatever I called it last time)
Honestly it’s just Empire of the Vampire by Jay Kristoff. It’s incredible. I can’t remember the last time I was so utterly absorbed by a fantasy novel (or any kind of novel, really, especially such a long one).
Fin
Phew. And that's it! Once again, merry Christmas to those who celebrate and a Happy New Year to everyone whether you celebrate it or not. I'll see you on the other side.
Best
Rich