I just handed in the first novel of my first real epic fantasy trilogy. It’s called Range of Ghosts, and it forthcoming from Tor in 2012. I’m a little in love with this world–it’s a cod-Medieval Central Asian fantasy in the mode of the cod-Medieval European fantasy we see so much of. It’s fascinating to me that there are these vast empires and amazing trading societies, socially and technologically advanced, the history of which is almost absent from the Western psyche except when they are invoked as boogeymen–Genghis Khan, Attila the Hun. My Cossack ancestors claim descent from the Golden Horde, and it was incredibly interesting to bury myself in that history.

These are not, I hasten to say, historical fantasies. They’re high fantasy, but they draw their inspiration from sources usually ignored–or cast as the invading enemy–in most of the Western fantasy tradition. And it’s a largely unvisited realm, outside of the adventures of Conan the Cimmerian. The far East gets some attention, but not the vast empires of the Himalayas and the Steppe.

Temur, grandson of the Great Khan, is walking away from a battlefield where he was left for dead. All around lie the fallen armies of his cousin and his brother, who made war to rule the Khaganate. Temur is now the legitimate heir by blood to his grandfather’s throne, but he is not the strongest. Going into exile is the only way to survive his ruthless cousin.

Once-Princess Samarkar is climbing the thousand steps of the Citadel of the Wizards of Tsarepheth. She was heir to the Rasan Empire until her father got a son on a new wife. Then she was sent to be the wife of a Prince in Song, but that marriage ended in battle and blood. Now she has renounced her worldly power to seek the magical power of the wizards.These two will come together to stand against the hidden cult that has so carefully
brought all the empires of the Celadon Highway to strife and civil war through guile and deceit and sorcerous power.

Reaching far beyond sword and sorcery, The Scar is a story of two people torn by disaster, their descent into despair, and their reemergence through love and courage. Sergey and Marina Dyachenko mix dramatic scenes with romance, action and wit, in a style both direct and lyrical. Written with a sure artistic hand, The Scar is the story of a man driven by his own feverish demons to find redemption and the woman who just
might save him.

Egert is as a brash, confident member of the elite guards and an egotistical philanderer. But after he kills an innocent student in a duel, a mysterious man known as “The Wanderer” challenges Egert and slashes his face with his sword, leaving Egert with a scar that comes to symbolize his cowardice. Unable to end his suffering by his own hand, Egert embarks on an odyssey to undo the curse and the horrible damage he has caused, which can only be repaired by a painful journey down a long and harrowing path. Toria, the woman whose fiancé Egert killed, hates Egert, and is saddened and numb, but comes to forgive the drastically changed Egert. Plotted with the sureness of Robin Hobb and colored with the haunting and ominous imagination of Michael Moorcock, The Scar tells a story that cannot be forgotten.