A Dribble of Ink

Rumors have beset the eastlands of Aeshau Vaal. Some people flee toward the cities for refuge. One regent, to answer these unseen threats, is set to recall the Convocation of Seats—something that hasn’t been done for ages. But one man doesn’t believe, and would use the fear of nations to advance the power of his dangerous League of Civility.

For Braethen, an author’s son, it will mean the sudden chance to turn his lifelong desire of entering the Sodality into a reality. But being a Sodalist is not the romantic dream he’s read about in his long years of study. As a sworn protector to the feared Order of Sheason, he must be prepared to give more than his life, and to take up a mythical weapon before his hands are even accustomed to steel.

For Wendra, raped and now heavy with child, it will mean learning the reality of a trade that travels the highways across the nations of man, even a trade in human lives. She’ll take responsibility for a pageant-wagon boy, whose street-theater is considered seditious; and find through protecting him that her ability to make song with her voice carries a great power, but one that may flow darkly.

For Tahn, it will mean finding answers to a lost childhood. Words he feels compelled to speak every time he draws his bow may finally be understood, but the revelation it will bring he may wish to have left unremembered. And though it will also introduce him to a beautiful woman of the legendary Far, the nature of their separate and very different lives will force dreadful choices upon them.

These three, and others, attended by a hard man, an exile, whose sentence is to care for orphans and foundlings in the middle of a wasteland, and by a Sheason whose uncompromising, yet best intentions are destroying his own order, will fight the past even as they face a dark future.

Because the threats are more than rumor . . .

One of the 2011’s more intriguing debut Epic Fantasies is Peter Orullian’s The Unremembered, the first volume in the (potentially very long) The Vault of Heaven series. Tor seems to be positioning it, alongside (or perhaps just below) Brandon Sanderson’s The Stormlight Archives, as one of the big, epics to fill the gap left by Robert Jordan’s soon-to-be-finished Wheel of Time. Will it actually live up to that sort of hype? It’s impossible to say. Publishers like to scream to the heavens about every new Epic Fantasy series and how it’s going to re-invent the genre and make Patrick Rothfuss look like a sales-chump (*cough*Robert Newcomb*cough*), but that’s rarely ever the case.

Still, with a beautiful cover and an reasonably interesting synopsis, The Unremembered is firmly on my radar. To help you decide if it’s worth getting excited about, Orullian’s recently released the prologue of the novel on his website.

In addition to this excerpt, Orullian has also published two short stories on Tor.com: Sacrifice of the First Sheason and The Great Defense of Layosah.