When Scott Lynch and his publishers, Gollancz, told us we may get our hands on The Thorn of Emberlain – the forth book in the Gentleman Bastard sequence – in 2014 we were excited, but always thought it was pretty optimistic. To have just a one year wait between Gentleman Bastard books seemed too good to be true to us; after all, the wait between Red Seas Under Red Skies and The Republic of Thieves tipped six years.
So, when my friend text me to say ‘did you see that The Thorn of Emberlain is delayed?’ I feared the worst. After diving online to see what the deal was, I quickly found out it wasn’t as bad as the conclusion I’d jumped to; the book had not gone into indefinite hiatus or anything like that, Scott is just slightly behind schedule. To expand upon this: in a blog post Scott said that the book is ‘very deeply underway’ and that the manuscript is going to be handed in ‘only a bit later’ than everyone had planned for. With the manuscript originally being due in mid-2014, Scott feels assured that the book will be only a few months late (so by the end of 2014), meaning we can now expect the book to be on shelves in the first quarter of 2015 – all going well.
I think 18 months for the size of book Scott writes is pretty reasonable and that’s before you consider that each is part of a seven book series and the clever plot threads that must take a heck of a lot of planning. Until then, Scott is blogging every couple of days on his new Tumblr – go check it out!
Jennie Ivins
Absolutely cannot wait for this!