I first read a story (A Spy In The Deep) by Patrick Samphire in The Underwater Ballroom Society and became an instant fan of his work. I followed my reading with The Dinosaur Hunters, and when I heard he was working on an epic fantasy novel, I was so excited. Shadow Of A Dead God is another SPFBO finalist.
I should probably mention his wife, Stephanie Burgis, is another author worth checking out if you love regency fantasy. I reviewed a ton of her work if you’re interested.
Patrick Samphire
Patrick Samphire started writing when he was fourteen years old and thought it would be a good way of getting out of English lessons. It didn’t work, but he kept on writing anyway.
He has lived in Zambia, Guyana, Austria and England. He has been charged at by a buffalo and, once, when he sat on a camel, he cried. He was only a kid. Don’t make this weird.
Patrick has worked as a teacher, an editor and publisher of physics journals, a marketing minion, and a pen pusher (real job!). Now, when he’s not writing, he designs websites and book covers. He has a PhD in theoretical physics, which means that all the unlikely science in his books is actually true. Well, most of it. Well, some of it. Maybe.
Patrick now lives in Wales, U.K. with his wife, the awesome writer Stephanie Burgis, their two sons, and their cat, Pebbles. Right now, in Wales, it is almost certainly raining.
He has published almost twenty short stories and novellas in magazines and anthologies, including Realms of Fantasy, Interzone, Strange Horizons, and The Year’s Best Fantasy, as well as one fantasy novel for adults, SHADOW OF A DEAD GOD, and two novels for children, SECRETS OF THE DRAGON TOMB and THE EMPEROR OF MARS.
Shadow of a Dead God
Summary
Meet Nik Thorn, second-rate mage, broke, traumatised, and with a habit of annoying all the wrong people. Everything would be okay if he could just keep his head down and avoid the notice of the city’s high mages.
No such luck.
When a job goes wrong, Nik is framed for murder. As all hell breaks loose in the city of Agatos, Nik has to scramble to stay alive and prove his innocence. Oh, yeah. And there’s the matter of the new, dark power that is rising in the city and which has Nik firmly in its sights…
Take a taste of Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files, mix it firmly into an epic fantasy world full of gods, mages, and monsters, and you might have SHADOW OF A DEAD GOD.
