… is available for pre-order! You can find it by following this link to Audible.com. It doesn’t look like they have the excerpt up there yet, so if you want to hear the first three minutes of the book you can go here. It’s read by the wonderful Christian Rodska, who worked on the Horacio Hornblower novels.

This week I continue on with my Spring Blog Tour. On Monday I enjoyed a chat on the Reader/Writer Podcast with Ben Delano, where I talk about beekeeping, learning the ropes of fantasy writing under Brandon Sanderson, and my debut novel. Follow the link above to give it a listen.

This morning The Mad Hatter’s Bookshelf and Book Review was kind enough to have me on. I wrote about Industrialization in Epic Fantasy and how I used industrialization within the world of PROMISE OF BLOOD.

That’s all for now, but more will be coming. The schedule is packed this month. If you’re not sick of hearing me go on by now, you will be in two weeks.

Giveaway entries closed last night at midnight. All in all we wound up with 216 requests for the book, which really blew me away!

The winners were Lian Zhou of Singapore and Joshua Karl of Lawrenceville, GA.

Congratulations, my friends! I hope you enjoy the books. They are signed and packaged, waiting for a trip to the post office this afternoon.

Sorry to everyone who did not win. Remember that PROMISE OF BLOOD is available for preorder in both hardback and ebook wherever books are sold (and should be up for audiobook soon). Launch date is April 16th. Just two weeks away!

Entries to the ARC Giveaway are closed!

I’ll announce the winners here tomorrow morning.

Things are starting to get a little crazy around here, what with PROMISE OF BLOOD hitting shelves in less than three weeks, so I thought I’d make a quick post to catch everyone up on what’s going on.

PROMISE OF BLOOD just reviewed a rave review from from Nicholas Schmiedicker over at Fantasy Faction. Nicholas had some very nice things to say about the book and gave it 4.5/5 stars.

I’ve also done a couple of interviews recently. One was with the same N. Schmiedicker, and can be read here. The other one was with Shadowhawk over at The Founding Fields. In both interviews I talk a little bit about myself, my book, and writing in general. I also talked a little bit about Technology, Time Periods, and Epic Fantasy over at Fantastical Imagination.

And in the back yard, the bees are bringing out their dead and tossing them off the front step now that winter seems to be clearing. You know. Like ya do.

“I’m not dead yet!”

I lifted the following picture off of Lauren Panepinto’s Instagram yesterday:

Artwork. Look upon it and be merry.

As some of you know, Lauren is the art director over at Orbit, and she did the design for the cover of PROMISE OF BLOOD.

So what are we looking at here? Top left is the final copy of PROMISE OF BLOOD, which have arrived in office at Orbit, alongside a proof for the cover of THE CRIMSON CAMPAIGN. It gives me chills to think about how awesome those two books are going to look alongside each other on a bookshelf.

The rest of the pictures are interior artwork by my friend Isaac Stewart. On the top right is the two page spread of Adro. Bottom left, the city of Adopest. In the middle we have the Kresim Caldera. And on the right, the chapter header pistols that Isaac drew.

I couldn’t happier with how the artwork turned out. I’ve spoken Orbit’s praise many a time for the cover art, but the interior art by Isaac really blew me away. I can say (with admitted bias) that they’re some of the best maps I’ve seen in a fantasy novel.

***** CONTEST ENTRIES ARE CLOSED AND THE WINNERS HAVE BEEN ANNOUNCED! *****

Three weeks left until the international launch of PROMISE OF BLOOD! In anticipation, I’m going to give away two signed Advanced Reading Copies to two lucky winners.

To find out more about the book, go here. You can also read some early trade reviews, or some early reviews on Goodreads.

Follow the instructions below to enter the giveaway:

Email me at brian at brianmcclellan dot com with the subject line “GIVEAWAY.” In the body of the email, give me your name and address (no addresses will be kept or used for any purpose except for the two winners).

This giveaway is available worldwide. I’ll choose the winners at random (one in the US, one outside) on Monday, April 1st – Don’t worry, no April Fools shenanigans. Only one entry per person.

Good luck, everyone!

I should also mention that I have a new guest post up as part of my Blog Tour (you can find the rest at the top of the right sidebar) in which I talk about Technology, Time Periods, and Epic Fantasy over at Fantastical Imaginations.

Last week, I teamed up with the good people over at SF Signal to give away two signed Advanced Reading Copies (ARCs) of PROMISE OF BLOOD. The entries have been tallied – 122 – and the winners have been chosen!

Congratulations to Amanda Eller of Madison, AL and to Michael Carter of Nelson, British Columbia.

I’ll be putting those ARCs in the mail to you this afternoon.

My friends over at SF Signal are giving away two Advanced Reading Copies of PROMISE OF BLOOD. The ARCs are gorgeous, full color trade paperbacks with a blowup of the final book cover featuring Field Marshal Tamas:

Of course, they will be signed. You can enter the contest by going here and following the instructions. Good luck!

It’s my pleasure to unveil the gorgeous cover art for Book Two of the Powder Mage Trilogy: THE CRIMSON CAMPAIGN.

Photo-Illustration by Michael Frost and Gene Mollica
Design by Lauren Panepinto

Once again, Orbit has outdone themselves. I didn’t think they’d be able to come anywhere close to topping the cover for PROMISE OF BLOOD, but just look at this.

THE CRIMSON CAMPAIGN is slated for a February 2014 launch.

Orbit has made the second chapter of PROMISE OF BLOOD available online. To read it, you can go “like” the Facebook page here. If you’ve already “liked” the Facebook page it should be up there for you already.

Don’t have Facebook? Well, you can now read the first chapter by following this link!