We’ve just had an eagerly-awaited delivery in the form of The Destiny of the Dead, the final volume in Ian Irvine’s fabulous Song of the Tears trilogy, set within Ian’s wider Three Worlds sequence.

This really is a major occasion, as it marks the end of an eleven-book cycle and a huge amount of hard work by the author. At around 2.3 million words this is an epic feat indeed. And you never know, there might be room for a few more Three Worlds books one day, if we’re lucky. But for now, that’s it from Santhenar. Except to say that Ian has topped a million Three Worlds books in print worldwide: hurrah!

All three series can be read alone, but reading more books in the wider cycle adds a real sense of historical depth, and a picture of three worlds at war down the ages.

Here are just some of the great things that have been said about the series:

“A worldbuilding labour of love with some truly original touches”
Locus Magazine on A Shadow on the Glass

“Irvine has brought both a lively intelligence and a keen moral sense to the heroics and spell-play of the modern fantasy novel”
Roz Kaveney on The Way Between the Worlds

“A page-turner of the highest order … Irvine can now consider himself comfortably ranked next to the works of Robert Jordan and David Eddings. Formidable”
SFX Magazine on Geomancer

“Epic, non-stop action adventure”
Starburst on The Curse on the Chosen

“Hang on with both hands, because this story waits for no one”
SFX on The Curse on the Chosen

And please read on for book blurbs and more info …

THE VIEW FROM THE MIRROR QUARTET

Thrown together by fate Karan, a sensitive with a troubled heritage, and Llian, a brilliant chronicler, are hunted across a battle-scarred world with a stolen relic. But this relic turns out to be the twisted Mirror of Aachan, which contains a secret that can offer four vying societies survival… or complete extinction.

The View from the Mirror has nothing to do with the (at times) jaded conflict between good and evil. It’s about the struggle for existence between four human species, each believing it has the better right to exist. As such, Ian likes to call it his Darwinian fantasy. We like to call it an enormous, action-packed adventure!

The quartet includes:

1. A Shadow on the Glass
2. The Tower on the Rift
3. Dark is the Moon
4. The Way Between the Worlds

THE WELL OF ECHOES QUARTET

Two hundred years after the forbidding was broken, Santhenar is locked in war with the lyrinx – intelligent, winged predators from the void who will do anything to gain their own world. Despite the development of battle clankers and mastery of the crystals that power them, humanity is losing.

Then Tiaan, a lonely crystal worker in a clanker manufactory, finds an entirely new kind of crystal which wakes her latent talent for geomancy. This is the most powerful, and dangerous, of all the Secret Arts, and a force that allies and enemies alike are desperate to control.

Into this explosive situation arrive the Aachim. Harnessing powerful forces, they have opened a gate into Santhenar to demand half a world as their own. But will the Aachim weaken humanity’s last efforts to save itself, or will they lend their force against a common enemy before both sides are annihilated?

This series is set two centuries after the View from the Mirror Quartet, when the world is greatly changed as a result of events at the end of The Way between the Worlds. It’s a dark world where human society exists with just one goal in mind: its survival in the endless war against the winged lyrinx.

The quartet consists of:

1. Geomancer
2. Tetrarch
3. Alchymist
4. Chimaera

THE SONG OF THE TEARS TRILOGY

After ten years of servitude, Nish is released from the prison of the maimed God-Emperor, Jal-Nish Hlar, his corrupt father. Jal-Nish holds the two sorcerous quicksilver tears, Gatherer and Reaper, and with them controls all of the Secret Art. All opposition having been crushed, he has begun to remake the world in his depraved image.

The only hope of overthrowing him lies in Nish, whom the oppressed people see as a messianic figure. As Nish was dragged off to prison a decade ago, he wildly promised to return and cast down his father – but Nish is powerless and without allies. When Jal-Nish offers Nish everything he has ever desired or another ten years in prison, he isn’t sure he can resist the temptation.

The Song of the Tears picks up shortly after the end of Chimaera, and shows the struggle of a small band of people against a political dictatorship that has arisen from the ashes of a great war. It shows all of Ian’s inventive genius as he describes a world where technology and magic meet – and how those on the edge of desperation try to bend these powers to their needs.

This series includes:

1. The Fate of the Fallen (paperback)
2. The Curse on the Chosen (paperback)
3. The Destiny of the Dead (large paperback)

And, back to The Destiny of the Dead, I’ll leave you with a glimpse into this final instalment. Nish and his few allies are trapped on the Range of Ruin, surrounded by the relentless army of his father, the God-Emperor. But Santhenar faces a colossal external threat and needs Nish as a fighter, in a land whose spirit was broken long ago. A shape-shifting being, Stilkeen, has broken out of the void and is preparing to consume the land. It has come to reclaim the stolen power that once bound its physical and spirit aspects together – and its fury is infinite…