Artwork: Brian McClellan’s “Promise of Blood” (Orbit)

A little while back, Brian McClellan wrote a guest post for me. Ever since then – in fact, a little while before then – I’ve been dying to read his debut novel. My anticipation for the novel was only ratcheted up higher today, when Orbit released the fantastic artwork:

This is fantastic. Can. Not. Wait.

Promise of Blood will be published by Orbit Books in April 2013. Here’s the synopsis:

Field Marshal Tamas’ coup against his king sent corrupt aristocrats to the guillotine and brought bread to the starving. But it also provoked war with the Nine Nations, internal attacks by royalist fanatics, and greedy scrambling for money and power by Tamas’s supposed allies: the Church, workers unions, and mercenary forces. Stretched to his limit Tamas is relying heavily on his few remaining powder mages, including the embittered Taniel, a brilliant marksman who also happens to be his estranged son, and Adamat, a retired police inspector whose loyalty is being tested by blackmail.

Now, as attacks batter them from within and without, the credulous are whispering about omens of death and destruction. Just old peasant legends about the gods waking to walk the earth. No modern educated man believes that sort of thing. But, the thing is, they should.