Utterly Colossal Epic Fantasy
Another Independence Day and another milestone in indie publishing. The once-and-future epic tale is now back in its original form!
Harbingers of Hope now available on Amazon
Once, It Was a Single Story
What I thought to call Judgement’s Tale when I began chronicling in 2007 was a whopping big yarn. That much, I knew. But as I reeled out the story of Solemn, Treaman, Pol, Anteris, Gareth and many more I started to worry a little. How many pages could one book hold? I made the decision to split the tale into two still-hefty novels, published the first half of the story using the title Judgement’s Tale, and then began working on the conclusion.
That of course was The Eye of Kog. Without even trying, I found I had split the baby right down the middle, as each book is just about 200k words.
But it was always a single story. I wasn’t even fully comfortable calling the second book a sequel.
And now I don’t have to.
No Plan Survives Contact… with the Publisher
The utterly unsinkable Katharina Gerlach made me an offer I could hardly understand,
much less refuse, back in 2012. She has guided my publication efforts since then and I have zero complaints. She excels in cover design and remarked from the beginning that the orange-toned original covers of JT and EoK were not fully satisfactory. I kind of liked them, but then I love any present I get. And I’ll always suspect that this newest project of hers came about at least partly because she just wanted to create a new cover.
See below- pretty snazzy, huh?
Oh, and a super-cool map as well! My original efforts done on Campaign Cartographer 2 software made me happy, but the full-color design doesn’t show up in print very well, so Kat came up with a painstaking hand-drawn copy in B&W. It was fine too, but lacking maybe a bit of that Tolkienesque style. But now:
THAT is a map of the Lands, I can tell you! And it should be in the current copy when it hits paperback.
This was always THE tale, the one I felt I had to tell. Judgement never let me alone until I finished it, and yes I DO know how that sounds but it’s the truth.
Take a look and I hope you enjoy. Audiobook fans, I’m hard at work recording this summer and will certainly let you know once it’s done. Maybe I’ll do one of those progress tracker deals…
Harbingers of Hope
After two millennia of peace the relentless war between Hope and Despair flares again. With the innocent in peril, can raw unproven heroes resist immortal foes?
Treaman lives for the thrill of adventure. Guiding a group of enterprising companions, he’d put his life on the line for any of them. But when the adventurers become lost in a land tainted by the growing curse of Despair, he fears his leader’s mission is destined to end in failure and death.
Solemn Judgement will never see his homeland again. Brought to unfamiliar shores, Solemn burns any chance of return along with his boat and his father’s body, before setting out to seek his purpose. But the determined young orphan has no idea that acquiring his education could unleash the ultimate evil.
As Treaman and Judgement separately trek to seemingly inevitable doom, a prince seeks to rescue an old alliance, a mysterious fighter in black slays monstrous foes with his bare hands, and a broad cast of characters unwittingly play their part. All are hanging onto a slim sliver of Hope for their future. But even their combined might may not be enough to stop the ruthless march of a powerful necromancer and his tide of undeath …
In a world that only dreams of heroes, can they rise up against oppressive forces and prevent the Lands of Hope from descending into foul darkness?
Harbingers of Hope is an epic fantasy novel that will leave you breathless. If you like expansive worldbuilding, fierce magical battles, and monstrous enemies, then you’ll love William L. Hahn’s sweeping tale.
Read Harbingers of Hope to stand up and fight today!
I was always drawn to the events of this first adventure, one of the first two stories I published nearly a decade ago. If you like a classic fantasy quest– doomed secret mission, race against time, mystery monster and a hero who doubts himself– you should enjoy Captain Justin and his exploits. It ends well I think, but you can tell there’s more.
. Feldspar the Stealthic is certainly a less usual hero. Without giving the game away, you might have to count him as more than one person depending on circumstance. Vaulting bone-shattering heights, dodging assassins, probing dark places for even darker secrets, these pose no problem. How to meet the new neighbors, on the other hand? That might be the end of him. I took real delight in penning this first-person, detective-flavored adventure.
Here my efforts hit a definite snag. Alongside the labor to finish another full-length novel, introducing the central member of the Shards heroic triumvirate proved to be the hardest task I have ever faced. And in bringing the beautiful mystic W’starrah Altieri to the page, I believe I did some of my best work. Here the plot swirls together and the conspiracy is nearly exposed. The connections to the other two heroes are captured in cross-over scenes which required some nimble footwork on the calendar of days. New characters, as always, were folded into the action. I finished on a hard note, assuredly (I can say no more).
