Author Archives: Peter Darbyshire
New Story: The Angel Azrael Battles a Dead God Among the Heretics
I’m thrilled to have published “The Angel Azrael Battles a Dead God Among the Heretics,” my sixth tale of Azrael the angel gunslinger in Beneath Ceaseless Skies — thrilled and also bemused. When I wrote the first Azrael story, “The Angel Azrael Rode Into the Town of Burnt Church on a Dead Horse,” I never imagined it as anything more than a solo story in between other projects. And now here we are with a book’s worth of weird west tales. And I’ve written an Azrael novel as well!
How did this wild and very weird west world happen?
The truth is Azrael’s enigmatic and a bit of a mystery to all who meet him — including myself. After finishing that first story I wanted to learn more about him. So I followed him out into the badlands and kept writing more tales to discover his secrets — his relationships with other angels, the nature of the peculiar world he lived in, his troubled past in that world, the curious nature of the buzzards that trailed him everywhere, even the origins of his supernatural six shooters. And each new revelation opened up other questions that led to more tales. How do bibles work in this world? What kind of wars did Azrael fight in during the past? What kind of gods were there before the angels came? The more of Azrael’s world that I uncovered, the more other characters started calling to me to tell their stories, too. So it is that one little story has led to an entire world of weirdness and wonder.
BCS editor Scott Andrews deserves so much credit for helping bring Azrael and his world to life that he should probably have co-author status. He’s helped me to refine Azrael’s voice and his world, and reminded me of what’s compelling about both when I’ve had a tendency to wander. And he’s led me to develop as a storyteller with these tales, guiding me to the true guts of each story so I don’t get lost in my narrative wanderings. Most of all he’s believed in Azrael and his world — sometimes I think more than I have myself. Every writer knows that kind of support is more valuable than anything else.
Given the growing number of the Azrael tales, I thought I’d provide a brief intro for each so readers new to the angel gunslinger series can figure out where they want to start and what to read next. I’ve listed them in order of publication, which is my preference, but you can read them in any order you like.
- The Angel Azrael Rode Into the Town of Burnt Church on a Dead Horse – The angel Azrael rides into the town of Burnt Church for a drink and ends up helping the very strange inhabitants fight off a gang of demons that’s been tormenting them.
- The Angel Azrael Delivers Small Mercies – The angel Azrael encounters an angel who is determined to turn the world into her own personal Hell and only Azrael can stop her.
- The audio version of “The Angel Azrael Delivers Small Mercies” with a new introduction I recorded for the story
- The Angel Azrael Delivers Justice to the People of the Dust – The angel Azrael rides into a mining town that is under siege from curious bone creatures stealing the town’s children. When Azrael intervenes, he discovers that nothing is what it seems in this strange place.
- The Angel Azrael Encounters the Revelation Pilgrims and Other Curiosities – The angel Azrael is hired by a group of pilgrims to guide them through a dangerous stretch of land, where they encounter a city of the dead and an outlaw band of half angels intent on ensuring they don’t make it to their destination.
- The Angel Azrael and the War Ghosts – The angel Azrael tries to stop a group of ghostly soldiers from preying upon travellers and rides straight into his own troubled past.
- The Angel Azrael Battles a Dead God Among the Heretics – The angel Azrael encounters a village full of crazed golems intent upon resurrecting a dead god to unleash upon the world — a god that Azrael has already killed once.
If you like the Azrael stories, please share them with a friend. Word of mouth is one of the best forms of recommendation for a writer and helps lead to new readers. And new readers means the kind of support a writer and journals like Beneath Ceaseless Skies need for new stories.
As always, thanks for reading.
Yes, I’m on Threads
I’m not as active on social media as I used to be for various reasons, but I am on Threads if that’s your thing and you’re looking for people to follow. I’ll mainly be posting about things I find beautiful, intriguing and inspiring — as well as my own writing and my writing process, of course. Hopefully we’ll see a strong and positive community grow there.
Check me out at @peterdarbyshire.
I’m on Instagram as well, although I’m less regular there and mostly post snapshots of my life. That may or may not be of interest to you….
And you can always sign up for my newsletter!
The Angel Azrael Battles a Dead God Among the Heretics – Early Release
I’m thrilled to announce my latest tale of Azrael, the angel gunslinger, is now available for supporters of Beneath Ceaseless Skies’ Patreon.
Ride along with Azrael and his dead horse into the very weird west as Azrael encounters a mysterious preacher, a strange village of mad golems and a god he killed long ago that doesn’t want to stay dead. The very fate of the world is at stake, and only Azrael and his supernatural six guns can decide it one way or another.
Supporters of the BCS Patreon can read the story now. It will go live to everyone else in August.
This marks the sixth Azrael story that Beneath Ceaseless Skies has published. You can read them in any order, but I’m partial to the order of publication.
- The Angel Azrael Battles a Dead God Among the Heretics
Please also check out the audio version of “The Angel Azrael Delivers Small Mercies” with a new introduction I recorded for the story.
The other story in the issue is a new story in the Rook and Rose world by M.A. Carrick (the pen name of Marie Brennan and Alyc Helms. Happily enough, I’m currently reading Brennan’s New Worlds: Year Two after my writing group read New Worlds: Year One recently. I do love it when worlds align like that.
I hope you like the continuing tales of Azrael, the angel gunslinger. Please consider sharing them with friends if so, as word of mouth is one of the most important ways for writers to get noticed and thus to be able to keep on writing.
Thanks for reading!
Has the World Ended Yet? – Beach read edition!
My publisher Wolsak and Wynn is running a beach read sale on its fiction titles until the end of July. Now you can get my book Has the World Ended Yet? at 30% off.
For the latest news about my books, what I’m reading, why I’m wearing a splint on my finger, etc., check out my latest newsletter.
“I wonder what it would be like to live in a world that was always June”
I’ve just published my June newsletter for those of you interested in such things. Contents include:
- News of my latest story sale
- Updates on my latest book projects
- A bit of custom D&D content
- A Kickstarter I’m backing – and so should you!
- My latest book, video and podcast recommendations
You can subscribe to my newsletters here: www.tinyletter.com/peterdarbyshire.
Roll a D7 for a malevolence saving throw
When I’m not writing I like to relax by playing D&D with my writer friends — of course we’re playing the Candlekeep Mysteries adventures, which are all about magic books. Sebastien de Castell is one of the players in our game (a roguish warlock, which is a little too close to Sebastien in real life), and he’s just launched his latest book: The Malevolent Seven. The novel is about a bunch of morally ambiguous mages who are reluctantly recruited into defending their world from a bunch of even more troubling mages. Mayhem ensues. Much mayhem.
To help promote the book, I helped Sebastien create some D&D character cards based on the characters in the book. He’s been posting them on his Twitter account, so please check them out and add them to your own campaign if malevolent mages are your kind of thing.
Here’s what he has posted so far:
While you’re at it, check out Sebastien’s other book series — he’s also the author of the Greatcoats and the Spellslinger books, among others. And no, I’m not jealous at all about how much he manages to write and publish….
The second coming of Cross
I’m beyond excited to announce that my Cross series of supernatural thrillers will be continuing, with a new novel scheduled for 2025. The novel will be published by Poplar Press, an imprint of Wolsak & Wynn. I’m particularly happy about this because Wolsak & Wynn published my last book, Has the World Ended Yet?, and did a fantastic job. They will also be reissuing the first three books of the series in 2024. (The books were originally published under the pen name Peter Roman.)
If you’re not familiar with the Cross books, here’s the description of the first novel, The Mona Lisa Sacrifice:
For thousands of years, Cross has wandered the earth, a mortal soul trapped in the undying body left behind by Christ. He’s been a thief, a con man, a soldier and a drunkard. He’s fought as a slave in the Colosseum and as a knight at King Arthur’s side. But now he must play the part of reluctant hero, as an angel comes to him for help finding the Mona Lisa—the real Mona Lisa that inspired the painting. Cross’s quest takes him into a secret world within our own, populated by characters just as strange and wondrous as he is: gorgons and dead gods hidden away in museums; faeries that live in countryside pubs, trapping and enslaving unwary travellers; and super-rich collectors who trade magical artifacts among themselves. He’s haunted by memories of Penelope, the only woman he truly loved, and he wants to avenge her death at the hands of his ancient enemy, Judas, a forgotten god from an ancient time. The angel promises to deliver Judas to Cross, but nothing is ever what it seems when Judas is involved, and when a group of renegade angels looking for a new holy war show up, things truly go to hell.
The CBC compared The Mona Lisa Sacrifice to the work of Neil Gaiman, while the National Post called it “a deliriously unhinged roller coaster of a novel, blending fantasy, history, horror and humour with the aplomb of an overfull blender,” so that should give you some sense of the book.
For more info on the rest of the series, check out the second book, The Dead Hamlets, and the third book, The Apocalypse Ark.
This news brings two of my favourite things together. Cross has long been the character that most intrigues me as a writer, and his tales are my love letter to literature and myth. And Wolsak & Wynn has been my best publishing experience yet — they’re a great team that really care about publishing quality books. I’m still enamoured with the design of Has the World Ended Yet? years after it was first published! (Check out this backstory about the design process.) I’m really looking forward to continuing the Cross saga with them.
While you’re waiting for the new books to come out, please give Has the World Ended Yet? a read and support Wolsak & Wynn (and me). And if you’ve already read it, please consider giving it a review to let other people know about it. The best publicity for a book is another reader recommending it. And in these challenging times, books need all the publicity they can get. If you’ve already reviewed the book, then you have my deepest gratitude.
As always, thank you for reading.
The apocalypse is now 40% off!
A reminder that you can get my book Has the World Ended Yet? for 40% off from my publisher Wolsak and Wynn! Angels vs. superheroes! Deity salesmen! Supermodel Furies! A murder in Hell! And more tales of End Times! Fight inflation by buying books! The discount applies to both print books and ebooks and is applied at checkout. Buy the book here.
Because the world needs more newsletters right now
You may have noticed I’ve been somewhat quiet on the news and social media fronts of late. One reason for that is I’ve been busy writing. I’ve published some new stories lately and I’ve also written two new novels. Hopefully I’ll have something to share about that in the near future.
The other reason I’ve been quiet is I’ve increasingly found social media to do more harm than good. It’s a complicated thing — I appreciate the broader community/communities that social media can support. It’s a crucial tool for writers — especially when the media has more or less abandoned discussions of books. Social media accounts and online reviews are sometimes the only places that books get mentioned now. But social media can also be incredibly toxic and do real harm to individuals and society. I don’t think I need to remind everyone of the countless examples of that.
The recent controversies over Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter highlighted a feeling I already had of wanting a different way of connecting with people. I’ve always liked blog posts, but it’s difficult to keep track of them without a useful RSS reader service. Newsletters are a little easier, however, and I have subscribed to a number of creator and magazine newsletters that I enjoy. I’ve found myself appreciating the more in-depth experience of the newsletter compared to the ephemeral nature of the social post. Or maybe it’s the old newspaper reporter in me coming out again. Whatever the reason, I decided to start up my newsletter again and see how it goes.
I’ll try sending a newsletter once a month or so over the next year about my writing updates, what I’m up to in my life, that sort of thing. If that interests you, then you can subscribe here. (The most recent newsletter can be found here.) I’m going to try to post more on this journal as well. Maybe someday I’ll even do a Patreon….
In the meantime, I will continue to have a presence on social media, although that presence will likely be somewhat random.
If you know of a culture newsletter that you think others would enjoy, please share it!
As always, thanks for reading.
Peter
The Angel Azrael and the War Ghosts
I’ve written another tale of Azrael, the angel gunslinger, that Beneath Ceaseless Skies has been kind enough to publish. “The Angel Azrael and the War Ghosts” follows the fallen angel Azrael as he crosses paths with some soldiers that refuse to die and who just can’t leave the past behind. Here’s the opening bit:
It was a gunshot that woke the angel Azrael from his dream of the wars and put him on the path to redemption. A single shot that cracked through the hot air of the day like the world had snapped and broken somewhere.
At the time, Azrael was slumbering in the saddle atop the dead horse, letting it take him where it would across the badlands, for he had no destination of his own. He was dreaming of the final battle at the Jericho Wall, of the angel Lazarus standing amid all the dead in the breach in that wall, his bible burning in his hands and flames in his eyes as he stared accusingly at Azrael. The battle cries and screams of the dying were so loud in Azrael’s ears that he almost didn’t hear the shot.
He opened his eyes to find himself riding across the same lifeless plain as when he’d drifted off to sleep hours or perhaps even days earlier. The ground was hard and cracked from the unrelenting heat. He suspected it hadn’t seen a rainfall in his lifetime. It rose and fell here and there, providing just enough cover for someone to set up an ambush. But Azrael saw no other soul, living or dead, and no bullet struck him. There wasn’t even a mark of one hitting the ground anywhere nearby. The shot must have been fired somewhere else, at someone else. He rested his hands on the guns at his hips nevertheless.
The dead horse was following a wagon trail, but that trail had come to a crossroads where it split in two. One branch angled off to the west, while the other disappeared into the horizon in the opposite direction. There were no signs indicating where the trails might lead.
Azrael squinted up at the sky, searching. The merciless sun filled the heavens with a bright emptiness. The two buzzards that accompanied him everywhere were circling to the west, a sure sign there was something of import that way. Azrael nudged the dead horse in their direction. The buzzards had a sense for trouble that was rarely wrong. Experience had taught him it was best not to ignore them.
Bonus feature: I’ve just finished a working draft of the first Azrael novel, and this story hints at a few things that take place in the novel.
Bonus bonus feature: The issue of Beneath Ceaseless Skies also contains a new Bone and Gaunt story by Chris Willrich, “On Magog’s Pond.” If you know Willrich’s writing you’ll be as excited about this as I was. If you haven’t read Willrich yet, then you’re in for a treat.
Bonus bonus bonus feature: The issue also opens up the BCS archives to republish Lavie Tidhar’s “Drowned God’s Heresy.” Does it get any better than this? No. No, it does not.
This marks the fifth Azrael story that Beneath Ceaseless Skies has published. If you’re curious about the order in which to read them, I’m partial to the order of publication.
– The Angel Azrael Rode Into the Town of Burnt Church on a Dead Horse
– The Angel Azrael Delivers Small Mercies
– The Angel Azrael Delivers Justice to the People of the Dust
– The Angel Azrael Encounters the Revelation Pilgrims and Other Curiosities
– The Angel Azrael and the War Ghosts
Please also check out the audio version of “The Angel Azrael Delivers Small Mercies” with a new introduction I recorded for the story.
peter darbyshire 