I am happy to say that I have just signed a contract for the publication of the (first?) story featuring centurion Nennius Britannicus and his Contubernium.
I am currently revising the proofs.
As soon as the story will be out I will post here (and everywhere else) the relevant links.
I am very happy (but I guess you guessed that).
Talk about never throwing away anything.
It was August 2014, my life was pretty different, I was about to publish a new collection of Aculeo & Amunet stories and I mused about doing a spin-off of the series, focusing on the character of Centurion Nennius Britannicus and his contubernium.
For the uninitiated, the contubernium is the smallest unit of the Roman army – a band of eight men, led by a decanus, with two auxiliaries, and maybe a mule. The guys, called contubernales, lived together and fought side by side. It was a very tightly knit sort of military unit, and probably one of the (many) reasons why the Roman Legions were so awesome in the field.
So back in the summer of 2014 I decided I’d do a spin-off series, and call it Contubernium. I said I would be…
Something like Hill Street Blues, but set in Alexandria, in the Third Century.
A city filled with zealots, fanatics, weirdos and loose women.
With Lovecraftian creatures.
It would be fun.
But then the project went nowhere.
I had my Scrivener file with all its odds and ends and stuff, but quite clearly there was not a good story in there. So I filed the lot away.
Fast forward 30 months. Continue reading
OK, you know the drill – new ebook coming in two weeks, great cover, you can pre-order it…
What about a sneak peek at the contents?
The Hand of Isfet is a 35.000+ words collection, with five new stories about Aculeo & Amunet – that some of you might already have met in Bride of the Swamp God and in Lair of the White Ape.
What’s inside The Hand of Isfet?
Well, for instance, there’s Centurion Nennius Britannicus, and his band of brave legionaries – a contubernium, to be more historically accurate.
This happens somewhere near the middle of the story that gives the title to the whole ebook. Continue reading
Karavansara 