Jim Butcher Announces New Fantasy Series

Steampunk: check! Magic: check! Sci-Fi: check!
Steampunk: check! Magic: check! Sci-Fi: check!

Jim Butcher’s Dresden books are some of the highest selling, most highly regarded novels in the fantasy genre. With a narrative style reminiscent of Raymond Chandler’s, the protagonist of the novels – Harry Dresden, Chicago’s only professional wizard – makes a living as a Private Detective. The stories are popular for their consistent humour and the author’s ability to seamlessly merge the fantastical with reality. Other than George R.R. Martin I don’t think there is an author who fans have so consistently told me they ‘always buy the hardback’ of.

Well, following the release of the 16th book this year – Peace Talks – which will make 16 books in 15 years, we may see the release schedule of the Dresden Files slow down a little. Roc Books, an imprint of Penguin Random House, have announced this that they’ve signed Jim Butcher up for a brand new steampunk / fantasy / sci-fi hybrid called The Cinder Spires. The first novel of which will be called THE AERONAUT’S WINDLASS and isn’t actually too far away: it’ll be with us on September 29, 2015 (oh yeah, and that’s a hardback too!).

Editor, Anne Sowards, describes The Cinder Spires as, “Horatio Hornblower meets The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen—it’s a fantastic, creative new series of airships, privateers, warrior monks, and mad sorcerers. Honestly, it’s like Jim put all my favorite things in one book!”

Early reports tell us that the novel is set in a fascinating new world, where an ancient evil has awoken, plunging the world into a shroud of mists filled with monstrous and fantastic creatures. The fate of humanity will rest on the loyalty and courage of a single airship’s crew. And, early reviews seem positive too, New York Times bestselling author David Weber has said, “This is Jim Butcher at his best… It’s steampunk meets magic with a dose of sci-fi for seasoning.”

Of course, this isn’t Butcher’s first series away from Harry Dresden. He penned the Codex Alera series of epic fantasy novels that were released between 2004 and 2009. In a pretty remarkable achievement for a fantasy author a number of the books made the New York Times Bestseller list (peaking at number 13). However, the most favourable reviews for Butcher’s work have come in over the past 5 years (all 5 of his last books have hit number 1 on the New York Times Bestseller list), so I anticipate readers will be expecting even better things from Butcher with this one.

If all goes well THE AERONAUT’S WINDLASS could be a huge hit. With George R.R. Martin having brought mainstream attention to the fantasy genre over the last few years, another New York Times bestseller moving into more traditional fantasy could sell huge amounts of copies to ‘floating readers’. When you add that to his already huge fan-base it could be, as his publishers predict, one of the fall’s biggest genre releases.

Those who can’t wait to see what kind of thing they’ve got to look forward to can check out the following videos by Youtube user Anteru:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73ZgDnircao

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRS_UEAhah8

You can also find a good Q&A session here from Phoenix Comicon where he speaks a bit about the book:

We will bring you a review as soon as we get our hands on a copy!

Share

By Overlord

is a Martial Artist, Reader, Student, Boston Terrier owner, Social Media Adviser (to UK Gov/Parliament) and the founder of Fantasy-Faction.com. It's a varied, hectic life, but it's filled with books and Facebook and Twitter and Kicking stuff - so he'd not have it any other way.

5 thoughts on “Jim Butcher Announces New Fantasy Series”
  1. The release date is the only real piece of news here though, isn’t it? The new series was announced over two years ago…

    Anyway, I’m still looking forward to reading it!

  2. I’m really excited for this new series. I remember him talking about it awhile back, and have been waiting for more info. This truly exciting. If all goes well, he’ll be added the the very small handful of authors who have written three distinctly separate fantasy series. I’m not talking about Brooks, or Sanderson, or any of those great authors who are really just writing gigantic, single stories told through many generations or on many different planets. I’m talking three completely separate series. He’s already got two highly successful, well-loved series.

    I think it will go well be cause it sounds like he’ll have a massive audience: the general fantasy audience, stempunk fans, sci-fi fans, Jim Butcher fans, and probably the weird fiction fans (that being the people who are into things like China Mieville’s work.) It already has the praise comparing it to one of the only great nautical adventure series, and it’s written by the man who has written two highly successful, highly regarded fantasy series. I think Cinder Spires is going to be a much bigger deal than we will imagine.

    I don’t think the Cinder Spires series will slow him down, and here’s why: He’s had no problem writing 16 Dresden Files books in sixteen years, AND six Codex Alera novels as well. Those didn’t slow him down. I don’t think anything will.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.