UPDATE: This Emerald Crucible

I first toyed with the idea for This Emerald Crucible back in the summer of 2018 while travelling through Cambodia, for few things can charge up your inspirational battery like a visit to the enigmatic temples of Ankor. Like silent sentinels from a forgotten age, the structures that await the visitor in those steaming jungles are utterly remarkable and if you've been lucky enough to visit, you'll understand immediately why I felt my creativity sparking up.

No matter how much research you do before a trip, actually being there is always different and in the case of Cambodia, it surpassed what I'd imagined. Standing on the causeway gazing at the hulking, graceful monuments, my imagination couldn't help zipping off to wrestle with questions about their purpose and design, and what kind of minds lay behind their construction.

But it was while sitting at my hotel in Siem Reap watching one of the most ferocious downpours I'd ever experienced that I began jotting notes for what I tentatively named 'Deeds, Mouldering in Shadow,' a new story about a young man charged with saving the last seedlings of an exotic fruiting plant. At that point, I was already well into the first draft of The Torril City Mysterion - "A Pinch of Peril", and I began toying with the idea of intertwining this story into Torril's world, Aliru, which I had already come to love so much.

Well, it's five years later and I think it's finally time to announce a couple of things. Firstly, the first draft of This Emerald Crucible is almost done. It's currently enjoying a round of proofreading with some of my eagle-eyed and wonderful friends before it zips off to the editing desk. I think it's shaped up very nicely and I'm excited to have reached this point, once again.

The second thing to announce is that I lied to you all, because This Emerald Crucible will not be "a one-shot novel set in the world of Aliru", as my homepage claims. At this point, it will almost certainly be two books – the reason being that once I threw myself into the story and became familiar with these new characters, I felt their story needed to play out properly.

If you're a fantasy fan like myself, then this news is probably welcome because there's nothing like sinking your teeth into a great big tome. As long as it's a good one. And that's what I'm hoping This Emerald Crucible is. I really hope when it finally drops, you'll enjoy it as much as I do.

Jim :)