Legionary Books, LLC

14 August 2010

I am happy to announce that I have finally finished the completed draft to the fourth book in The Artorian Chronicles, “Soldier of Rome: The Centurion.” It is modestly longer than the previous two books of the series, and will probably expand a bit more between editing, rewrites, and a few additions that may be needed to the story. One lesson I have learned from my previous books is the need for thorough proofreading. I have sent this book out to numerous sources and am having it thoroughly read and edited for both story content, as well as grammar.

There will be a delay in publication, seeing as how I am completely out of stock photos and have nothing that would look appropriate on the book cover. I also refuse to simply throw something together so that I can rush it into production. A very hard lesson I learned was that one should never rush things when it comes to refining a novel before publication, and one should never settle when it comes to getting what they want for cover art. Therefore, I will be returning to South Carolina for the annual Castra Romana festival of Ancient Rome in November. Accompanying me will be Kevin Stokes (who you may remember as the villain on the cover of “Heir to Rebellion”) as well as Justin “Vitruvius” Cole. We will be conducting a photo shoot with members of the Legion VI reenactment group, and taking pictures for books four, five, and six of The Artorian Chronicles. We will also be shooting pictures of a new banner / logo picture for Legionary Books.

With that in mind, I envision “The Centurion” going in for publication soon after our return from Castra in November, with a tentative release date sometime in January.

1 May 2010

In light of numerous requests I have received, The Artorian Chronicles are now available through Amazon Kindle, Barnes and Noble Nook, and other digital media. Direct links to each book in these formats are available in the Buy the Books section of this website. Please note that while all the books have been submitted and formatted, not all catalogs are up to date yet. I will post updated links as each book is added to their respective catalogs.

28 March 2010

Greetings Everyone!

Sorry that I have been out of the loop for a while now. The "Baker's Dozen" event at Rediscovered Bookshop was a huge success, not to mention a lot of fun! The turnout was very large, and it was a privilege to meet a number of authors from the region as well. Currently I have a very full summer ahead of me, between work (yes, I still have a day job...for now), school, doing a photo / video shoot to promote the books (more on that later), and a long-awaited vacation to Ireland. So I doubt that I will have any more such events planned prior to the release of my next book.

This brings me to my next update. The feedback I have been given since the release of Soldier of Rome: Heir to Rebellion has been positive, though most agree that it is quite a bit different than the other books of the series. The reason for this is because it was never meant to be part of the series to begin with. When I first wrote The Sacrovir Revolt, I had no idea how to end the story and kept going long after the death of Sacrovir and Florus and the subsequent terrorist rebellion of Heracles. This made the book feel like it was dragging too long and very anti-climactic. After all, there were another 20,000 words (almost 1/5 of the book) that followed after the rebellion was over. Therefore I made what at the time was a hard decision. I cut that entire sequence from the book, pasted it to a new document, and used it to build an entire story, plus an additional book to the series that I had not originally intended. I was a little disappointed that Sacrovir was now much shorter than the first book, The Legionary, but at the same time the ending was now more definitive. I just had to figure out how I was going to write an entire story around these 20,000 words, especially with no epic force-on-force battles to write about.

The reason for there being no large-scale battles in Heir is because historically none are documented during this time period. Though The Artorian Chronicles are historical fiction, I make every effort to keep documented historical facts (well, the facts as told to us by Roman historians at least) intact. My other motivation for writing this book was that I needed to develope the central characters more. To be perfectly candid, I feel that I can write massive battles with tens-of-thousands of combatants all day long. To me that is the easy part. Adding depth and personality to characters so that the reader actually gives a damn about them is a lot more difficult. Still, I could not allow them to age drastically between books. Without Heir, Artorius would have gone from age twenty-two to almost thirty seemingly overnight. 

One unintentional consequence of this was that certain characters who were only meant to have bit parts in the series have now become central players with their own substories intertwined with the main plot. A prime example of this is Legionary Valens. When I first wrote about him in The Legionary, he was mainly there for comic relief; the valiant soldier with questionable morals...even by Roman standards! I kind of pictured him as a sort of Glenn Quagmire from Family Guy, set in Rome. Events that transpired in Heir, particularly those involving his relationship with Magnus' sister, Svetlana (which was originally supposed to be a one-off joke) as well as the slave girl, Erin, have added not only depth and real character to Valens, but also an entire subplot within the series. We have now seen Valens' serious side, and find that there is a lot more to him than any of us (especially me) ever thought.

For those who still long for some more epic battles, you won't be disappointed in the next chapter of The Artorian Chronicles. This is eluded to during the epilog of Heir. With that, I want to let everyone know that I am working on the next book, Soldier of Rome: The Centurion. Currently I am about 30% done with the initial draft, with a little over 43,000 words so far. I hope to have a complete story in place by summer, though between rewrites and editing I do not foresee it being released until fall / winter.

I do hope this finds everyone doing well. If you have any questions or comments, please don't hesitate to write! Best regards,

James

12 November 2009

From the Rediscovered Bookshop website:

It's time for the 3rd Annual Baker's Dozen -- 13 Idaho authors, and you!

The authors scheduled to appear are:

Kim Barnes, winner of 2009 PEN award

Mark Lisk, celebrated local photographer and owner of the Lisk Gallery

Mitch Wieland, BSU creative writing professor

Brady Udall, Best of Boise editor’s Pick for local author

Leslie Patricelli, author more than 12 books for preschoolers from Candlewick Publishers

Stan Steiner, BSU Department of Literacy and The Bookman

Gloria Skurzynski, author of the first fiction published by National Geographic for children

EJ Pettinger, long time cartoonist for the Boise Weekly

Steve Willhite, illustrator of many graphic novels

Aaron Patterson, action/adventure writer, Best of Boise HM for best local author

Ken McConnell, science fiction and mystery author

James Mace, military historical fiction author, widely read in the UK

Baker's Dozen 2009 represents a variety of genres from mystery to children’s fiction, to history to literary fiction and is FREE to the public.

"I'll be there!"

Chaucer, the Rediscovered Bookshop cat

15 September 2009
I will be appearing at "A Novel Adventure" bookstore on Veterans' Day, 11 November 2009. This is a great opportunity for me to meet some of my readers, as well as answer any questions you may have. I will give some insight into the next chapter of The Artorian Chronicles, as well as let everyone know about my other non-Roman project that I've been working on, Wizna Kampf: Wrath of the Wehrmacht. I will also be doing a ten minute reading from one of my books, followed by a book signing.

A Novel Adventure906 W. Main StBoise Idaho(208) 344-8088

20 July 2009

Today the newest book in the Artorian Chronicles, "Soldier of Rome: Heir to Rebellion," was released. Currently it is only available through the publisher's catalog, however I will add updates to the Buy the Books page as soon as it is available through other outlets.

3 July 2009

Here is the cover image for "Soldier of Rome: Heir to Rebellion." It may undergo a few revisions before publication. Please feel free to email me and let me know what you think.

7 May 2009
Soldier of Rome: Heir to Rebellion is now at the publisher! Like before, it will probably be about eight to ten weeks before it comes out in print. Currently I am waiting for the editorial review to come back before it can move to the next stage of production. As much as I want to start on the next book in the series, I just cannot really commit myself to the project until Heir to Rebellion is out in print. I'm grateful for all the help I've received thus far: to my sister Angela Mace-Langorgen and to Robbin Christina for their help proof-reading this book, and to Cody Earl for taking the time to do the cover art and author's portrait photograpy. I must also give special thanks to Kevin Stokes and George Johnson for being such good sports in posing for the cover photo! ;) I will continue to keep everyone posted on the status of Heir to Rebellion, as well as the rest of the series.

25 March 2009
I recently oversaw a photo shoot to come up with the front cover of Soldier of Rome: Heir to Rebellion. The idea I had was for a villain to be standing over the body of one of his victims. My intent was to portray something sinister and evil without creating a picture that was too "busy." The following is the raw image of what we decided on:

I envision some cobblestones underneath the body with perhaps some pooling blood. Please note that the flames in the background of the first two books will be used throughout the entire series.

I still want to know what fans and readers think, good or bad. If you like the picture we've chosen, or if there is something else you would rather see, please contact me and let me know.

22 February 2009
As of today I am FINALLY done with the intial drafts of the next book in the Artorian Chronicles, "Soldier of Rome: Heir to Rebellion."

I've sent it off to my proof-readers, who I hope will have it back to me within a month. I'm currently working with Cody Earl on getting some photography done for the cover of the third book and will keep everyone updated as we progress.

Once I have the drafts back from the proof-readers, I will finalize any changes that need to be made and will then send it off for publication. If everything goes well, hopefully it will be available sometime around May or June.

In the meantime, I am already starting on the next book in the series, "Soldier of Rome: The Centurion." I have a basic outline in place and know generally how the story will flow, although I think it was Stephen King who once said that books tend to take on a life of their own when they are being written. I now fully understand what he meant!

I will keep everyone posted as "Heir to Rebellion" goes through development and will even post proposed cover pictures as we get them to see what readers think. If anyone has any other questions or feedback, please feel free to message me at my email address: james@legionarybooks.net

Best Regards,

James

28 November 2008
After many reviews, both positive and critical, I decided to go ahead and revise and re-release the first book of the Soldier of Rome series, The Legionary, complete with completely new cover art. For those who purchased and enjoyed the first edition of this book there is no need to buy the revised version for the story remains the same. Most of the corrections are grammatical, although I do add a few lines here and there for clarity, namely I add a little bit more to Artorius' relationship with Camilla. I also added the same Cast of Characters, Glossary of Military Ranks, as well as the family trees of the Imperial family that I had in The Sacrovir Revolt.

I am also redoing the cover art of the second book, The Sacrovir Revolt. The content of this book has not changed at all, just the cover art. Below are the revised covers of these books, which should be out during the first part of December. I will update the links to purchase them once they are released. Also, once the second edition of The Legionary comes out I will have the publisher cease all production of the first edition.

13 June 2008

Well it's been a while since I've posted an update regarding my writing, so here goes:

I'm struggling my way through the initial draft of my next Soldier of Rome book, "Heir to Rebellion." To be honest, this book was not part of the original plan for the series. In fact, the sole reason for its existence is because there was too large of a gap between the second book "The Sacrovir Revolt" and what was to be the third book (now the fourth) "The Centurion." That's okay, because this one allows me to more gradually develope Artorius and the rest of the characters instead of having them age eight years overnight. Speaking of age, at times I find that I need to remind the readers (and myself) how young Artorius still is at this stage of the series; 23-years old at the start of Heir to Rebellion.

Those who've read the first two books can already guess as to the basic premise of the third book in the series. It picks up about a year after the end of The Sacrovir Revolt with Artorius and company trying to solve a series of grizzly murders that look to sow the seeds of dissent in the Gallic city of Lugdunum.

For those looking for "epic" force-on-force battles that we saw in The Legionary (and to a lesser extent, The Sacrovir Revolt) I am sorry to say that you will probably be disappointed. Since all books in the Soldier of Rome series are based on actual events, I cannot invent an entire war that historically did not happen. That being said, Heir to Rebellion is still extremely violent and probably the most emotionally wrenching book of the series thus far. I let a couple of female friends read excerpts to get a woman's perspective on certain events, and both literally broke down crying at some of the stuff I had written. Hmm, means this one should be a best-seller! I WILL get on the New York Times list yet!

Right now I'm about halfway through the intial draft and hope to have a complete story ready for revision / rewrite (where the actual work begins) sometime this summer. In all honesty, I do not foresee Heir to Rebellion coming out in print before February of next year. If anyone has any comments, questions, or feedback, please don't hesitate to shoot me a line.

Best Regards!

James

14 February 2008

Today the newest book in the Soldier of Rome series, The Sacrovir Revolt, was released. Currently it is only available through the publisher's catalog, however I will add updates to the Buy the Books page as soon as it is available through other outlets. Having now published my second book is a pretty significant event for me; I just hope readers enjoy this one as much as The Legionary. With best regards,

James

3 December 2007

The proof-reading is complete and now Soldier of Rome: The Sacrovir Revolt sits at the publisher. My eternal gratitude goes to my sister, Angela Mace-Langorgen, for her tireless efforts that made what was once a trainwreck into something readable!

After lengthy consultation with my cover artist Justin Cole, we have decided to take a different route with the cover art. Sketch samples of these changes will be posted on here within the next few days.

Since I am having the publisher run this book through a professional editior, I am not certain as to how long the publishing process is going to take. My best guess is 90 - 120 days, though it may be less if the editing goes rather painlessly. I will keep updating as we get closer to publication. Check back for more information.

James

18 November 2007

13 October 2007

Myself and Don "Praxus" LaMott will be attending Legio VI Ferrata's annual Castra Romana 16-18 November 2007 in Charleston, South Carolina. I will be selling a limited number of autographed copies of "Soldier of Rome: The Legionary." Books will be available for purchase throughout the event, with a book signing on Saturday, 17 November (time to be determined). While I am going to set aside a block of time specifically for book signings, if you do happen to catch me at any time during the event, I will gladly sign any books you may have. Please note that I do NOT charge a fee for this. Looking forward to seeing some of you there!

James

1 October 2007

Anyone familiar with Roman historical novels has probably read William Altimari's book Legion. Mr. Altimari is an accomplished scholar and historical novelist. I am pleased to say that he has given me permission to post one of his essays on this website, entitled "Researching the Historical Novel." This is a must read for anyone who is looking to write their own historical novles.

12 September 2007

*Note: all images from the Ermine Street Guard are copywrited and used with permission.