This is the novella that appeared in omnibus for Jalan and Snorri’s trilogy.

It’s a 25,000 word story that takes place after that trilogy and was the start of a sequel I was writing but put aside in favour of other projects.

It covers a sea voyage to the New World and is a pretty self-contained tale, re-introducing us to the delights of Jalan’s cowardly womanising and Snorri’s good hearted Viking vibe. If you recall how much Jalan hates boats … you’ll get a sense of what’s to come.

I had great fun writing this one – I hope you’ll enjoy the read. ML

Like actors getting typecast there is a risk that authors can become trapped in a world of their own making with an obliging but expectant readership demanding more of the same.

In the author’s afterthought at the end of Empire of Thorns, Mark Lawrence discussed his decision to leave Jorg’s story and go on to new adventures, not so much rejecting the possibility of a potential “cash cow” as shooting it “squarely between the eyes.”  His observation that he might regret that decision “In years to come when I’m eating cat food cold from a tin” later prompted me into what I remember as my first tweet at him – or indeed at any author when Prince of Thorns leapt to No 2. spot on Amazon’s fantasy best seller list, ahead of a certain Game of Thrones.

Of course, Lawrence’s writing since Empire of Thorns has gone from strength to strength through a succession of increasingly diverse trilogies with varied but always compelling protagonists.  However, like the Polynesian migrations across the Pacific ocean, Lawrence’s initial leaps of setting were smaller island-hopping jumps, as he remained not just within the fantasy genre but within the world of the Broken Empire that Jorg had bestrode so magnificently.

That brought us Jalan Kendeth, scion of the Red Queen, agent in her war, and endlessly charming but hopelessly dishonest Prince of Fools. Jal and the towering Norse warrior Snorri strode through their own trilogy which twisted and turned to a complete conclusion in The Wheel of Osheim. Snorri retired to the frozen North, Jal became a somewhat unlikely cardinal and Lawrence moved on to writing about warrior nuns, ice planets and many other strange people and places (Including a Trinity College Cambridge May Ball that I remember rather differently than he depicted it).

However, the catch with remarkable characters is that they can lure author and reader back in to explore side quests and past or future paths. It is perhaps no great spoiler to reveal that the Broken Empire setting is in fact a far future flooded Europe, which prompted the question what had happened to other parts of the world, particularly perhaps from readers from the other side of what had become an enlarged Atlantic Ocean.  Which naturally led Lawrence to identify a whole new world, well The New World, waiting for Jal and Snorri’s exploration.

The novella length (25,000 word) story that Lawrence has self-published here (hybrid authors being all the rage) is the opening of a project that could still be developed into a full-length account of Jal and Snorri’s adventures on the other side of the pond. But in the tight time constraints of a carer-cum-author, it must fight with other projects for its place on the To Do List.  However, this novella makes a satisfying and complete standalone story as well as strong case for some follow up novellas!

Cardinal Jal, having predictably disgraced himself, is sent by the Pope on a mission to track down a missionary lost and possibly up to no good, in the New World. The novella covers their attempt to follow in the wake of Columbus in crossing the Atlantic, though the vertically challenged and idiosyncratic Captain Horatious Knellson reminded me a bit of Tom Baker’s portrayal of Captain Rum in Blackadder II (You can see a snippet of that performance here, and also hear Baker’s slightly longer account of the joys(?) of working alongside Rowan Atkinson here )

I enjoyed the brisk and entertaining reunion with Jal and Snorri as the novella blends three of my favourite genres, naval fiction of the sailing era, imaginative fantasy, and a nice element of mystery – if only because, as usual, Jal has very little idea of what is going on or – more importantly – which direction to run in to get away from it all.

Sea journeys in fantasy fiction can be something of a poisoned chalice – and perhaps this is why Rothfuss elided (or just cut) a huge chunk of Kvothe’s narrative in A Wise Man’s Fear. The problem may stem from how to make things happen in the constrained setting and limited cast of a ship and her crew. Lawrence recognises the limitations of sea travel in his description of the weather and in Jal’s desperate recourse to whittling for entertainment.

On fair days, which in nautical parlance meant any day when the rain fell at an angle steeper than thirty degrees, the captain would prowl the deck with a restless sort of violence, eager to find fault with his crew.

By week four I was whittling too. I discovered that I had a rare talent for turning a whale tooth into a crudely scratched whale tooth.

The weather inevitably creates a sense of peril

Storms are dull things. At least if you take away both the fear of drowning and any responsibility for keeping the ship afloat. I had fear coming out of my trousers.

But there are other perils too, strange scratchings in the hold, mutinies real and imagined, monstrous incursions and a point where Snorri’s fate is cast into Jal’s unreliable hands – which is definitely not the place anyone would want to rest their fate.  Much like Blackadder’s Captain Rum, Jal’s Captain Knellson is a navigator whose sense of certainty is only matched by his ineptitude, and as supplies run low everybody is looking around themselves with “A lean and hungry look” (To quote Shakespeare, not Caesar!).

In Lawrence’s sure and inventive hands the story rattles along at a great pace, with entertaining prose and plenty of action heading towards an explosive denouement. I consumed it in a single evening and would argue it presents a strong case for the rest of the story to be told.

The New World is available now on Amazon