It occurs to me I’ve been pretty quiet about By Force Alone! It won’t officially be out until March in the UK (though you can pre-order an early signed copy from Forbidden Planet here! Which is currently the only place to get them). And it will be out in the US in June (of which more later). But I just wanted to show off the British cover, which is gorgeous! So here it is.
(You can pre-order the book from Amazon (also Kindle edition), Waterstones, Foyles, etc.)
Britannia, AD 535
The Romans have gone. While their libraries smoulder, roads decay and cities crumble, men with swords pick over civilisation’s carcass, slaughtering and being slaughtered in turn.
This is the story of just such a man. Like the others, he had a sword. He used it, he slew until slain. Unlike the others, we remember him as King Arthur.
This is the story of a land neither green nor pleasant. An eldritch isle of deep forest and dark fell haunted by swaithes and tod-lowries, Robin-Goodfellows and Jenny Greenteeths, boggarts and predators of rarer appetite yet.
This is the story of a legend forged from a pack of self-serving, turd-gilding, weasel-worded lies told to justify foul deeds and ill-gotten gains.
This is the story — viscerally entertaining, ominously subversive and poetically profane — of a Dark Age myth that shaped a nation.
And a couple of early blurbs…
“Tidhar turns King Arthur’s court into a gangster’s paradise, full of wheelings and dealings, and true grit. If the tale didn’t go down like this, it should have.” – Silvia Moreno-García, author of Gods of Jade and Shadow and Mexican Gothic
“A beautifully written and thrilling tale, soaked in gore and evocative historical detail, peppered with subtle humour. Tidhar storms the castle of Grimdark, sword dripping with blood, and makes a claim for its crown.” – Angus Watson, author of Age of Iron and You Die When You Die.