There's a new historical note and a couple more letters from you guys out there. Keep them coming!
I have been sent the definitive cover of The Wolf Sea... and here it is. You
have to admit, it is much better than the one being touted on Amazon at the
moment and I am well chuffed with it. What do you think?
Apart from that, I am fighting my way through a script to do with the Battle
of Largs for a new local radio station which is about to get up and running
here. Writing scripts is a new thing for me and a lot tougher than I had imagined,
especially ones for radio – I have to rely on the actors putting the
mood across and, though I can set a scene in sounds, it is the dialogue that
matters.
If it works out, I will post it on the site...
A LITTLE more than a month ago I was at Lanark, one warrior in a company of
warriors, women, children and like-minded people, all recreating both the Viking
past of the town circa 1067AD and the medieval period, around the mid-1300s.
The beauty of having both a medieval and a Dark Age show together is that you
get twice the fighting and also a deal of medieval pageantry and partying.
I fought with a lot of people, including Paul Allen. We battered away at each
other, Viking and English soldier of proud Edward’s army (sod the history,
a fight is a fight) and had a good time. I sat round a fire with him listening
to his stories, even though I was feeling rotten with a cold and the rain was
chucking it down. I watched him dance with his partner in a mad ceilidh afterwards
in the beer tent and generally having a good time, waved him and others off,
with promises of doing it all again at the next show – maybe Hastings,
which is around now.
He went his way, I went mine. He went to practice jousting, I went to sort
out school visits as part of the team that takes Viking heritage to primary
school kids.
Now Paul is dead. Jousting, his lance shattered – as it is meant to do – but
one of the shards took a freak turn and speared him in the eye. He died not
long afterwards.
Fans who have been kind enough to write about The Whale Road have had a few
complaints, one of them being how ruthless I am at killing off well-loved and
crafted characters. My reply has always been that, as a fiction writer, I am
God and Odin all rolled into one and that neither deities nor the Norns give
a toss about how loved a person is.
I did not need this tragic moment of life imitating art to be so harshly reminded
of it.
My heart goes out to his partner and all the others left behind to grieve.
There's more bad news for anyone who cares about ancient heritage - but hopefully there's still time to do something. Read the story here.
The paperback of The Whale Road is released this month, as is the US edition, and a talking-book version recorded by TV star David Rintoul (of Dr Findlay fame). If you're a first-time visitor to the site after catching a new version of the book, welcome! I hope you stay around, and maybe even join the fun.
Some mullings on the month ahead, including new releases and one of the best Viking weekends of the season. Read the full story here.
Living in the past in Norway... and coming home to find some our own ready for destruction. Read the full story here.
I've stuck up some of the comments and queries I received during April. Thanks a million - and keep them coming!
There's a new historical note to read. Thanks for all your kind emails - I'll be posting some comments and replies soon.
Waterstone's in Putney Waterstone's in Putney (that's London) is hosting an author v customer quiz on Thursday April 26th. Phone Mark or Chantelle on 020 8780 2401 if you'd like to reserve tickets.
The list includes..
Saul
David (presenter of Sky One's So You Think You Are Royal? among other claims
to fame)
Alison Weir (Isabella: She-Wolf Of France)
Jessie Childs (Henry VIII's
Last Victim)
David Loyn (BBC's Developing World correspondent)
Justin Pollard
(historian, biographer and film writer for QI)
Alice Hogge (God's Secret
Agents)
David 'Cheap As Chips' Dickinson
Paul Strathern (Medici; Godfathers
of the Rennaissance)
Sophia McDougall (Romanitas)
Rosemary Furber (What You
See Is What You Get)
Matthew Parker (Panama Fever)
Tom Holland (Persian Fire)
Adam Zamoyski
(The Polish Way)
David Boyle (Blondel's
Song)
Leonie Frieda (Catherine De Medici)
...some of the best historical minds on the planet – and me. Bargain, I call it.
Lovely to see The Whale Road at Number 23 in the sales charts - one behind the might Conn Iggulden (author of the Emperor series about Caesar) with his new one is about Ghengis Khan. Thanks to all who've parted with their cash!
Along with positive comments in the Herald, the Coventry
News and many other publications, it was nice to see a feature about the book
in my old paper, the Daily Record.
"People think it would have been brilliant if they'd lived in such-and-such and era," he said. "But they never see themselves in the same social position as they are now.
"My dad was a train driver and part-time chimney sweep, which means I'd have been lucky to live as a charcoal-burner. I'd have no teeth and fewer ambitions.
"What finally clinched it was when I got appendicitis at 43 – that was a death sentence before modern medicine."
Thanks and regards to the old boys from Anderston Quay!
I'll be appearing with Simon Scarrow (author of the Eagle series and Young Bloods) at the Huddersfield Literary Festival on Friday, March 16 at 7.30pm, reading from The Whale Road and doing a Q & A. Hope to see you there!
I'll be appearing on Glasgow's Clyde 2 station on Monday, 12th March at 10pm. Alex Dickson will be talking to me about The Whale Road - so tune in and learn a little more. You can listen online via www.clyde2.com.
Me signing 500 first-edition copies for booksellers and specialist dealers at HarperCollins in Bishopbriggs, Glasgow. I wore out a whole pen and drank umpteen cups of black coffee – while thanking God my name wasn't Robert Farquhar-Cholmondley Low.
Quite exciting to see the media beginning to pay a little attention, just ahead of publication. I've been booked in for a couple of radio appearances - check back soon for details - and there's some press coverage planned too. It's a bit of a change to be the headline rather than the person trying to make the headline fit...
HarperCollins are proud to present The Whale Road by Robert Low, published in hardback on 5 March 2007 at £12.99 (UK).
'A company of warriors, desperate battles, an enthralling read' - Bernard Cornwell
'A fantastic book, one of the best I have read for years. There's a wonderful earthiness to proceedings and he creates a tangible sense of being there. There's a sturdy, lyrical and epic quality about the writing which makes it feel like the kind of saga a Viking would recount in his old age' - Simon Scarrow
THE first in a brand new series charting the adventures of the Oathsworn, a band of Vikings on the chase for the secret hoard of Attila the Hun.
Life is savage aboard a Viking raider. When young Orm Rurikson is plicked from the snows of Norway to join his estranged father on the Fjord Elk, he becomes an unlikely member of a notorious crew. They are the Oathsworn - so named after the spoken bond that ties them in brotherhood - and they ply a casual trade on the ocean wave, selling their swords to the highest bidder.
But times ar changing. Loyalty to the old Norse Gods is fading, and the followers of the mysterious White Christ are gaining power across Europe. Hired as relic hunters by the merchant rulers of a bustling city, the Oathsworn are sent in search of a legendary sword of untold value to the new religion. With only a younf girl as a guide, their quest will lead them into the deep and treacherous waters of the Whale Road towards the cursed treasure of Attila the Hun... and to a challenge that will test the very bonds that hold them together.
Welcome to my website! I'm hoping it will build as time goes by. Feel free to send me your comments and queries: robert@robert-low.com