I love epic fantasy, and I live science. When I started writing, I wanted to combine the two. The result? My latest novel, The Ninth Order. It’s now available on all major eBook platforms including Kindle, iTunes, and Smashwords.

The Ninth Order on Kindle

The Ninth Order on iTunes

The Ninth Order on Smashwords

Here’s a brief synopsis:

When the world went mad and war brought civilization to ruin, the Rezernaan restored it. Some call the Rezernaan wizards, and others call them radicals. A young man named Falki rose to the top of their ranks with unprecedented speed. Now he will face a danger that will lead him to partner with twin rogues, an exiled murderer, an heir to an industrial empire, and a strange man from his past.

Falki lives in a world that is still struggling to recover from the ravages of The Fall. The golden days before The Fall were guided by a simple phrase: “Progress through knowledge; knowledge through science”. But then the Great War came, and all the sciences of the past led to catastrophic destruction. Out of the ashes rose a mystical group of protectors—the Rezernaan.

The Rezernaan and the remnants of the civilized world live on a tiny group of idyllic islands that were miraculously spared from the chaos of The Fall. The first pilgrims arrived centuries ago, and found a race of people called the Panotti already there. The Panotti are small in stature, short in lifespan, and fiercely devoted to nature. Falki is their most famous son, and his skill with Rezernaan techniques is legendary amongst his people. But there are others even more powerful than he.

When Vannekar, a malcontent senior Rezernaan, suddenly begins to advocate a revival of the old sciences, the leader of the Rezernaan chooses Falki to run a covert mission to undermine Vannekar’s efforts. Falki recruits a skilled but contentious crew of specialists who will use all their wits and abilities to foil Vannekar’s plans for revolution, but their foe will not go down without a fight. He is cunning, strong, and convinced that the Rezernaan must change, or die.

This isn’t your typical swords and sorcery fantasy. When I started on this story, I was determined to do something new that crossed genres and didn’t rehash the fantasy tropes we’ve all seen a thousand times before. I think The Ninth Order is a fun mashup of the best elements of fantasy and science fiction. It’s the kind of story you often see in Japanese RPGS like the Final Fantasy franchise, but rarely see in American lit. For some reason stories from the west have always drawn a severe line between sci-fi and fantasy. But the two genres really aren’t that different. Both types of story create fictional worlds of pure imagination where the impossible is possible and the unlikely happens every day. But western sci-fi rarely focuses on themes like nature worship and agrarian societies, and western fantasy totally eschews anything resembling high-tech. I believe there is an unexplored middle-ground between these two genres, and authors can use successes in the video game industry as a guide.

So if you’re a gamer and you loved the blending of high-tech and magic in games like Final Fantasy 10, check out The Ninth Order at one of the following links:

The Ninth Order on Kindle

The Ninth Order on iTunes

The Ninth Order on Smashwords