Tom Lloyd new book, Moon's Artifice is set in a new setting, stepping away from his Epic Fantasy series Twilight Reign. Tom categorized his new novel as ''a fantasy action/conspiracy thriller'' The book will be released on November 21st and Gollancz posted an extract of the first chapter.
Enjoy (here)!
The prohibition on gunpowder weapons for lower castes has been in force for centuries and is obeyed across the Empire of a Hundred Houses. No such ban on lenses or telescopes exists, yet with our Gods residing in bright constellations in the nearer sky, common sense remains the first obstacle to progress.
From A History by Ayel Sorote
For one glorious moment he was flying. Starlight shone wetly on the black slates below – the air around him was still, but charged like a God’s breath before the thunder. On the edges of his vision were faint yellow strands of light that spilled around doors and half-shuttered windows. He stared down as though trying to count the cobbles below the slate-tiled roof. Night’s serene hands cradled him and for that moment he felt the cares of the world slough away as sudden, beautiful clarity washed over him.
Bastard fucking fox.
Irato fell. With shocking speed the awning jumped up to meet him and black lights burst before his eyes. Head and chest smashed into the tiles with a crack that seemed to rip right through his skull. His mind filled with the white noise of pain that momentarily tore him from the world as the air was punched from his lungs.
The divine stars burned a trail through the night as he was yanked around by the force of impact. Then the ground struck him with the heavier thump of meat on the butcher’s block. The delicate tinkle of glass vials chimed around the cobbled street. Irato felt pieces patter as gently as summer rain on his close-cropped hair. A sense of warmth flowed over the black emptiness where his body had once been.
Numbness fleetingly consumed him, sucked him down into the belly of the earth before pain burst hot and jagged to wake him. Unable to command his limbs, Irato lay helpless and stunned – too dazed to recognise the sensations flowering in his damaged body. His arm lay crookedly beneath his chin, tilting it up to look over the blurry grey cobbles of the street. A pale, indistinct shape wavered directly in front of his eyes. His heart thumped two loud beats before the sight suddenly resolved into sharp focus. It was a shard of glass two inches long and shaped like a stiletto, pirouetting delicately in the groove between cobbles, barely a hand span from his eye.
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