Paul Kearney

Paul Kearney is a Northern Irish fantasy author.

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.

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 quickly signed-up by publisher Solaris Books, who contracted him to write a new fantasy epic entitled "The Ten Thousand" and based loosely on the Anabasis of Xenophon. This book was published in August 2008. 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. Kearney has also written a tie-in novel based on the "Primeval" TV series.

Bibliography

* "The Way to Babylon" (1992)
* "Riding the Unicorn" (1994)
* "A Different Kingdom" (1995)
* "The Ten Thousand" (2008)
* "Primeval: The Lost Island" (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)
* "Hawkwood and the Kings" (forthcoming, the first volume of omnibus edition)
* "Century of the Soldier" (forthcoming, the second volume of an omnibus edition)

The Sea-Beggars
# "The Mark of Ran" (2004)
# "This Forsaken Earth" (2006)
# "Storm of the Dead" (forthcoming, as part of an omnibus edition)

External links

* [http://www.paulkearneyonline.com/ Official website]
* [http://www.fantasybookspot.com/node/2258/ Interview with Paul Kearney at Fantasybookspot (2007)]
* [http://www.sffworld.com/interview/173p0.html Interview with Paul Kearney] at [http://www.sffworld.com SFFWorld.com]