Paul Kearney
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Paul Kearney is a Northern Irish fantasy author.
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[edit] Life
Kearney was born in Portglenone, County Antrim, Northern Ireland, in 1967 and studied Anglo-Saxon, Middle English, and Old Norse at Oxford University before spending several years in both the U.S. and Denmark before returning to Northern Ireland. He currently lives and writes in County Down.
[edit] Writings
Kearney made his name with the stand-alone novels The Way to Babylon (1992), Riding the Unicorn (1994) and A Different Kingdom (1995). All of these novels had some common threads between them, most notably the use of a hero from our world who journeys into a make-believe one. Despite strong reviews, these books had commercially disappointing sales, and Kearney was asked to consider a more traditional fantasy epic. The outcome was the Monarchies of God, which brought him a measure of success, and ran to five volumes.
After finishing the Monarchies series, Kearney embarked on a new series, The Sea Beggars, which began with The Mark of Ran (2004) and tells the story of Rol Cortishane. It is based almost entirely around ocean-based adventures. A second volume, This Forsaken Earth (original working title The Stars We Sail By) was published in July 2006. The series was expected to be four books long and the third had nearly been completed when the series was unexpectedly dropped by Bantam in May 2007. However, Kearney was signed-up almost immediately by publisher Solaris Books, who have now contracted him to write a new fantasy epic tentatively entitled The Ten Thousand and based loosely on the Anabasis of Xenophon. Solaris also intend to re-issue the Monarchies of God series as an omnibus in the near future, and publish the finished Sea Beggars Series as soon as Bantam give up the publishing rights.
[edit] Bibliography
- The Way to Babylon (1992)
- Riding the Unicorn (1994)
- A Different Kingdom (1995)
- TheTen Thousand (2008)
The Monarchies of God
- Hawkwood's Voyage (1995)
- The Heretic Kings (1996)
- The Iron Wars (1999)
- The Second Empire (2000)
- Ships from the West (2002)
The Sea-Beggars
- The Mark of Ran (2004)
- This Forsaken Earth (2006)
