Spotlight: Battlemage – Stephen Aryan

About the Book

‘I can command storms, summon fire and unmake stone,’ Balfruss growled. ‘It’s dangerous to meddle with things you don’t understand.’


BALFRUSS is a battlemage, sworn to fight and die for a country that fears his kind.

VARGUS is a common soldier – while mages shoot lightning from the walls of his city, he is down on the front line getting blood on his blade.

TALANDRA is a princess and spymaster, but the war will force her to risk everything, and make the greatest sacrifice of all.

Magic and mayhem collide in this explosive epic fantasy from a major new talent.

Publication date: September 22nd, 2015 (Orbit)

About the Author

I’m a lifelong fan of fantasy and science fiction. It started with The Hobbit, The Belgariad, the Earthsea books, the Shannara books and then David Gemmell, who was a huge influence on me and my writing. For most of that time I have also been reading comics. It began with superhero comics from DC and Marvel, but now I read comics across many genres and from a wide variety of comic book publishers.

I’m a writer and podcaster. I’ve previously written a comic book column and comic book reviews for Tor.com, developed intellectual property into comic book pitches for a media company, and self published a superhero comic. Since 2007 I have been co-hosting a comics and geek culture podcast. I have also spoken on panels at comic book conventions about comics and podcasting. I’m also working on several comic book projects.

Battlemage is being published by Orbit books in the UK and USA in September 2015 and it’s the first in the Age of Darkness trilogy. I am represented by Juliet Mushens of The Agency Group.

You can find me online on Twitter, Facebook, Goodreads.