Tad Williams: The Last King of Osten Ard

Not sure. About a hundred pages, I'd say (I'm writing in separate chapter-files at first, so I don't have a running overall page count). The last couple of months, with the holidays and various kid-related things, have been grueling. I'm expecting to have a nice long stretch in the next few months to get the first draft substantially done.

Can't say for certain, but I'm aiming for a year to a year and a half max between books. I'm pretty good at that these days, and I've actually started and finished several multi-volume series, so it shouldn't take too long altogether.

The (tentative title) Shadow Of Things To Come will be written, but whether between one and two or two and three I don't know yet.

Funny, I was just thinking about this the other day -- connections between the two worlds. I think it's possible that there may be a Michael-Moorcock-style multiverse underlying all my books, but I've never consciously tried to link them all together.

Maybe someday...

I'd like to write that one day, too. Just re-read it the other day and it started me thinking again.

I would LOVE to do more BD, and in fact my plan was to do the first three to set him up, then do standalone in the future, more like regular crime books. I still aim to do that. I love writing the character and the world, and hope to expose more people to it in the future. I even have a title (and story) for the first standalone, whenever it happens -- not for a while, because of the Osten Ard books -- "Forever O'Clock".

Are you still working on A CHRONICLE IN STONE (short stories set in Osten Ard) while writing the current trilogy, or has this project been incorporated into The Last King of Osten Ard series?

At this point many of the ideas that would have been in the anthology book have been used in the new series instead. If I ever write Chronicle, it will have the same framing idea but all different stories. However, I might still do it one day.

Tad Williams is now 2/3 of the way thru 1st draft for Empire of Grass and will deliver it to his publishers summer/fall.

I honestly think it's just going to be three books. I might be terrible wrong yet again, but it feels like I'll finish it in three, in part because I've crammed so much into EoG.

There have been or will be a couple of storylines in TLK that I might want to pursue later on. We'll see.

By the way, I'm nearing the very end of the manuscript for EoG and it has crossed the thousand page barrier.

I don't do this on purpose, you know. These big stories just get...big.

I figure another week or two to finish the rough first draft, then another month to polish.

I have no idea how long the editing process will be, but I think we have a pub date set for fairly early in 2019. Because that’s a bit of a wait, I’m thinking of writing the last short Osten Ard novel (tentatively titled The Shadow of Things to Come) during the next year as well as doing the rewrites on EoG. I’ve also promised a longish story to a Gardner Dozois anthology called “LEGENDS” – they just need me in any anthology with that name, for some reason — and very possibly a surprise story set in another universe of mine as well, which we’ll tell more about when we’re sure it’s going to happen.

May 2019 seems now almost certain to be the pub date for US and UK. But it is not official yet.

Tad is near the end of his 'Empire of Grass' rewrite.

Here's one of the things I can't tell you about. It's too early. But DAW Books + Tad + Michael Whelan are talking about the cover art for 'Empire of Grass' and Michael is painting it soon. I'm really in love with the image - the concept.

I’m very excited about EMPIRE. Readers are going to learn a bunch of things about the history of Osten Ard, and also get answers to some of the many puzzles and mysteries set up in THE WITCHWOOD CROWN. (You’re going to have to wait until the final volume to get ALL of them, of course.) And I promise you at least a few mindblowing revelations in EMPIRE and even more THE NAVIGATOR’S CHILDREN.

Empire of Grass not only meets expectations, but surpasses them in almost all ways.

If you loved Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn but held off on reading The Witchwood Crown out of fear it would tarnish its predecessors, fear no longer. Read it. Then read Empire of Grass. With this book, The Last King of Osten Ard has achieved the greatest possible feat for a sequel: that is, I can no longer imagine the originals without it.

JussiThe Navigator's Children tulee olemaan The Last King of Osten Ard -trilogian päätösosa. Mutta Williams kirjoittaa sen jälkeen vielä lyhyen romaanin The Shadow of Things to Come (työnimi), joka kertoo Asu'an tuhosta 500 vuotta sitten.

I wrote The Lady of the Wood for an anthology that was to be edited by the late and very much missed Gardner Dozois, but his death meant that the story had no home. I haven’t published it yet because between the (already sold) other short novel to go with the current trilogy, I intend to write at least one other Osten-Ard-related short novel, and so I’m going to wait and discuss with my American publishers how they’d like to handle such a bundle of Osten-Ardia.

The short story (Lady of the Wood) is a Camaris story. The original short-novel-that-goes-with-the-new-trilogy was going to be about the fall of Asu’a and Ineluki becoming the Storm King, but I think now I’m going to write that as a separate and slightly longer standalone book, leaving Brothers of the Sky — the tale of how Hakatri and Ineluki slew the dragon Hidohebhi and what happened because of it — as the other connected short novel.

JussiTilanne on muuttunut. Williams päätti kirjoittaa The Shadow of Things to Comen vasta myöhemmin, ja se tulee olemaan suunniteltua pidempi romaani, joka ei ole kytkyssä The Last King of Osten Ard -trilogiaan. TSoTtC:n korvaaja on lyhyt romaani Brothers of the Sky, joka kertoo siitä, kuinka Hakatri ja Ineluki surmasivat Hidohebhi-lohikäärmeen.

Because of this sudden extra year added to the delivery schedule, I decided that I would put CHILDREN aside and finish the second short novel that was meant to go with the trilogy (THE HEART OF WHAT WAS LOST was the first short novel).

So that’s what I’m working on at the moment, with the idea that now it — the short novel — would be published before CHILDREN, which actually works out better for the overall story. So, expect the new short, still tentatively titled THE SHADOW OF THINGS TO COME to be published in 6/21, some months before the last volume of the trilogy finally hits the shelves and the virtual retail world.

And now I’m almost finished with the second short novel, “Brothers of the Wind.”

probably my second-longest book ever after “To Green Angel Tower”