Tim Stead's Blog

A brief review. Sanderson’s first book and a good one. This is more or less what epic fantasy should be. It’s original, the characters are watchable, and the plot is good. I read this with more pleasure that some of his later work, but I have one small reservation. The number of unlikely escapes in the climax, the dei ex machina if you will, began to wear out my suspension of disbelief.

Otherwise a cracking good read. Recommended. 

So the Fourth Age of Shanakan is finally complete – a run of ten books. It was certainly fun to write. Apart from the characters, which I always enjoy, I had a lot of fun with dimensions. There is an idea, related to string theory, that there could be as many as ten spatial dimensions. I’m not a physicist, so I just took this idea and ran with it, along with the idea that these “parallel worlds” advanced through time at different speeds, the “friction” between them causing the release of energy of a kind we do not know. Let’s call it magic.

There are a few, rare, worlds where all adjacent worlds advance through time at the same rate. In such a case, no energy is created, so there’s no magic.

But it’s not that simple.

No real spoilers in this, but the entire series is really a slow reveal. What the characters think at the beginning gradually changes as the more complex universe around them becomes known.

So the series is complete. You can read it from start to finish.

Now to scribble a couple of brief reviews.

The tenth and final book of the “Fourth Age of Shanakan” is finished and now has to go through the editing process before it’s available. That’ll probably take a couple of months. It is strange coming to the end of something I’ve been writing for over ten years, but in a good kind of way. I’m going to miss the characters. On the other hand, they’re all your now…

The series is finally coming to an end. I’m over 90,000 words into book ten and I expect to complete the first draft in August. It will be a while before all the usual processes are complete and it’s available to buy.

Just another note. I have been greatly troubled by spam from Russian sources recently, so I have disallowed comments on all posts. If you want to contact me, please use the email on the contacts page. I welcome any communication from my readers.

The ninth book in The Fourth Age of Shanakan, The Language of Ice, has been released. Now available on Amazon as eBook or paperback.

The final book in that series is coming on apace. I’ve passed the 45,000 word mark and am doing around five thousand a week. This one may be a little longer than most of the others because there are so many loose ends to tie together. I’m guessing it will be finished by September and then the usual process will take a few weeks to get the cover done and all the editing passes complete.

The first draft of the ninth book in the Fourth Age of Shanakan is complete. Now it just needs a cover and the attention of my valued proofreaders. The cover is well advanced, so we should be getting the proofs out in a few weeks.

I have already started the tenth book. This will be the last in the series. Where I go from here is anyone’s guess.

If anyone would like to see more of Wolf Narak, Cal Serhan, Kel Anderan or any of the characters I have created, I would welcome the feedback.

The proofs of Twisted Eye, the eighth book in the Shanakan series are on their way. I hope to get everything sorted and the e-book released before Christmas. In the meanwhile, I have begun the ninth book (19000 words in) and it seems to be going along at about five to six thousand words a week. The working title is “Meridan” and the central theme is another voyage for the Wanderer. Other things happen, of course, and Cal’s relationship with Unity will change.

I now plan to make the tenth book the last in this series. That will be something north of a million words on Shanakan. If all goes well, the first draft of book ten shoud be finished some time in August 2024.

What happens after that, I’m still unsure. I was planning an autobiography of Wolf Narak – still a strong possibility. An account of what happened in the Seth Yarra Homeland after The Pity Stone and before Serpentine (a one hundred year gap, give or take), and even a codicil to the Derakwa trilogy.

If anyone had any preferences, please let me know.

In other news, Readers Favorites were kind enough to give me three five star reviews for The Seventh Friend.

You can see them here

On my eternal quest to promote my books – something I’m admittedly poor at – I have been seeking independent, trusted reviews. I was pointed to Readers Favorites, a site that reviews books by both established and independant authors. They are used by Penguin Random House, Simon & Shuster et al. They offer a free review service or, alternatively a chance to get express reviews by paying a modest fee. I chose the latter option, asking for three reviews to get a spread of opinion, and submitted The Seventh Friend.

This is the first review to come back.

Reviewed by K.C. Finn for Readers’ Favorite

The Seventh Friend is a work of fiction in the fantasy, action, and adventure subgenres, and is the opening novel of The Sparrow and the Wolf book series. Penned by author Tim Stead, it is best suited to the general adult reading audience. This mesmerizing tale delves deep into the psyche of its enigmatic protagonist, Wolf Narak, as he grapples with the complexities of his past and the weight of his actions during the Great War. The narrative is rife with tension and intrigue as Narak receives a mysterious message that sets him on a path he can’t ignore. The impending war looms as a dark cloud on the horizon, and Narak must confront his past and embrace his destiny once more.

Author Tim Stead’s storytelling is richly layered, weaving together elements of fantasy and mythology in a beautifully constructed world that invites us into its bloody legacy from the very first page. Narak, the god of wolves, is a multifaceted figure, earning titles that reflect his duality as both a hero and a monster, and he is portrayed with close attention to his every thought and action to be sure that he remains sinister and complex from cover to cover. What makes this book truly exceptional for the fantasy genre is its exploration of moral ambiguity and the nature of heroism. Narak’s internal struggle and his quest for redemption are at the heart of the story, making him a deeply relatable character despite his god-like status because he is flawed, just like us. Overall, The Seventh Friend is a thought-provoking and emotionally resonant journey that fans of fantasy and introspective literature will savor, and I, for one, would highly recommend it.

Just a quick update. The eighth book of The Fourth Age of Shanakan is finished, or at least the first draft is. Now we go into the editing and trying to find all those elusive typos, then the cover, then out to the readers. After all that is done it will appear on Amazon. By which time I expect to be well into the ninth book… Onward and upward.

Happy to announce that I’ve released The Shadow War, the seventh book in The Fourth Age of Shanakan. It covers the same period of time as The Path of Thirteen Steps, but while that book follows Cal Serhan’s time in London, the new book is about what happened in Shanakan while he was gone.

Amazon will take a few hours to process the book. I will post the link here tomorrow.