Something strange happened while I was writing this, the last Peter Octavian novel. While plotting it, I spent some time thinking about how Octavian could get into Hell without Gaea or Keomany stopping him from doing so. I thought well, Squire could do it, not actually intending that Squire . . . you know, do it. But then I thought, Why not?
That started the ball rolling.
Tom Sniegoski and I created Squire – and Danny Ferrick, for that matter – some years back for our Menagerie novel series. There are four of those: The Nimble Man, Tears of the Furies, Stones Unturned, and Crashing Paradise. We had always intended to do one more but have never had the opportunity. King of Hell takes place, strangely enough, after that unwritten novel, which we still hope to get around to writing one of these days.
Once I realized that Octavian would be dimension-hopping with Squire, it occurred to me that many things were possible and strange plans took shape in my brain. Other links began to grow. If Octavian and Squire could co-exist, then couldn’t Squire be a link to . . . well, everything else?
Readers who are familiar with my other work might notice references to Strangewood, Straight on ’til Morning, Joe Golem and the Drowning City, and others, as well as a tiny cameo or two. Phoenix Cormier is the central protagonist in my novel Soulless, in which you will find a much more detailed account of the events she alludes to in these pages. Wayland Smith appears in all three books in my Veil trilogy, The Myth Hunters, The Borderkind, and The Lost Ones. In the books of The Veil, all sorts of mythological and legendary people and creatures exist side by side, and if I was going to retire Octavian and his surviving allies, well . . . I think he’ll be happy there.
I began writing about Peter Octavian during my senior year at Tufts University, either late 1988 or early 1989. Now, a quarter century later, his story is over.
For now . . .
Thank you for reading.
It means the world.