For 15 years, Jim Butcher has been keeping us guessing with his twisty urban fantasy series, The Dresden Files. But now, he’s changing gears and launching a Horatio Hornblower-esque new series, The Cinder Spires. Check out the cover of the first book, The Aeronaut’s Windlass, and an excerpt, exclusively at io9!
The Aeronaut’s Windlass comes out in late September. It’s jam-packed with airships, crazy sorcerers, privateers, warrior monks, and intelligent cats. An ancient evil has rewoken, and the entire world is plunged into a sinister mist, filled with terrible creatures.
And here’s the longer synopsis for the first book:
Since time immemorial, the Spires have sheltered humanity, towering for miles over the mist-shrouded surface of the world. Within their halls, aristocratic houses have ruled for generations, developing scientific marvels, fostering trade alliances, and building fleets of airships to keep the peace.
Captain Grimm commands the merchant ship, Predator. Fiercely loyal to Spire Albion, he has taken their side in the cold war with Spire Aurora, disrupting the enemy’s shipping lines by attacking their cargo vessels. But when the Predator is severely damaged in combat, leaving captain and crew grounded, Grimm is offered a proposition from the Spirearch of Albion—to join a team of agents on a vital mission in exchange for fully restoring Predator to its fighting glory.
And even as Grimm undertakes this dangerous task, he will learn that the conflict between the Spires is merely a premonition of things to come. Humanity’s ancient enemy, silent for more than ten thousand years, has begun to stir once more. And death will follow in its wake…
In other Jim Butcher news, Subterranean Press has announced a collection of Dresden Files stories, uniting the three Bigfoot shorts previously published in other anthologies and the Humble charity bundle eariler this year. Their summary is below:
Chicago wizard for hire Harry Dresden is used to mysterious clients with long hair and legs up to here. But when it turns out the long hair covers every square inch of his latest client’s body, and the legs contribute to a nine-foot height, even the redoubtable detective realizes he’s treading new ground. Strength of a River in His Shoulders is one of the legendary forest people, a Bigfoot, and he has a problem that only Harry can solve. His son Irwin is a scion, the child of a supernatural creature and a human. He’s a good kid, but the extraordinary strength of his magical aura has a way of attracting trouble.
In the three novellas that make up Working For Bigfoot, collected together for the first time here, readers encounter Dresden at different points in his storied career, and in Irwin’s life. As a middle-schooler, in “B is For Bigfoot,” Irwin attracts the unwelcome attention of a pair of bullying brothers who are more than they seem, and when Harry steps in, it turns out they have a mystical guardian of their own. At a fancy private high school in “I Was a Teenage Bigfoot,” Harry is called in when Irwin grows ill for the first time, and it’s not just a case of mono. Finally, Irwin is all grown up and has a grown-up’s typical problems as a freshman in college in “Bigfoot on Campus,” or would have if typical included vampires.
New York Times bestseller Jim Butcher explores the responsibilities of fatherhood and the difficulties of growing up with the elements Dresden Files fans crave—detection, adventure, humor, and magic.
Limited: 1000 signed numbered hardcover copies: $60
Trade: Fully cloth-bound hardcover copies: $35
Lettered: 26 signed leatherbound copies, housed in a custom traycase: $275