Author Andy Remic’s The Iron Wolves is the latest to hit my Currently Reading list and is the author of Kell’s Legend trilogy, Kell’s Legend, Soul Stealers and Vampire Warlords (and that’s just for Angry Robot books). Out at the end of this month, The Iron Wolves is an exciting sounding novel that I can’t wait to dig into. As part of the promotional tour, Remic stopped by Attack of the Books to talk about his inspiration.
I originally wrote three fantasy novels for Angry Robot Books, which I enjoyed working on very much. They were KELL’S LEGEND, SOUL STEALERS and VAMPIRE WARLORDS. In the third, Vamp Warlords, I wrote a series of scenes where Kell and Saark, the anti-heroes, have to train an army to take on the evil vampires from a rag-tag rabble of cut-throat inmates in a desecrated prison complex, which had been completely overrun. I loved writing those scenes, and playing with the idea of bad men turning good; seeking redemption, if you like; forgiveness for their evil past deeds. Thus, when asked to pitch The Iron Wolves to AR, I came up with a Dirty Dozen-type idea and The Iron Wolves was born.
We have a group of heroes, The Iron Wolves, who held the Pass of Splintered Bones against a war-host of drooling mud-orcs, and saw the psychotic sorcerer Morkagoth slain. Then, twenty years later, a new threat emerges from the depths of The Furnace – a witch-queen from Hell called Orlana, the Changer, who begins building an army and gathering evil to her cause. She has the ability to shape-change horses into snorting bulky monsters, hence her other name – The Horse Lady.
Realising the threat, the aged and noble General Dalgoran seeks to reunite his elite soldiers of old, his Iron Wolves; but they are no longer the heroes he remembers. Kiki, leader of the Wolves, is a honey-leaf drug peddler and addicted to her own foul narcotic; Narnok is a violent whoremaster with a razor-sliced face, Prince Zastarte a gambler who burns people alive, Dek a nasty, thug-like pit fighter; and Trista, originally a woman of wealth, nobility and religion, has devolved into an assassin who kills married couples on their wedding night – so that their love can never die.
United in hate, the Iron Wolves travel to the Pass of Splintered Bones and the Dakrath Fortress; and as half a million mud-orcs gather, General Dalgoran realises his grave error. Together, the Iron Wolves hold a terrible secret which has tortured them for three decades. They do not wish to save the world – they wish only to be human again.
With regards the idea changing, I always sketch out a plan. It deviates and I add new stuff along the way, but the only major changes with The Iron Wolves was that I’d crammed way too much into the original plan and had to drop many ideas. Hell, these characters were so much fun to work with, I could have written ten books about them! 🙂
Check out my publisher’s Iron Wolves page over at Angry Robot – http://angryrobotbooks.com/
The Iron Wolves: Book 1 of The Rage of Kings
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- The Iron Wolves: Book 1 of The Rage of Kings by: Andy Remic (theghostworks.wordpress.com)
- Recent Arrivals at Attack of the Books (attackofthebooks.com)
- 202 Reasons To Read Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror in December 2013 (Your Monthly SF/F/H Cover Gallery and Holiday Shopping List) (sfsignal.com)
- The Iron Wolves (Excerpt) (tor.com)
- Fiction Affliction: December Releases in Fantasy (tor.com)
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