A Spotlight on The Dead Man

A Month of Rain and Reads Spotlights4 months ago3 min readAdd comment

Welcome to A Month of Rain and Reads, a celebration of self-published and indie SFF throughout the entire month of November. To find out how you can take part and view the whole list of content, visit our introduction post.

Today we’re celebrating the release of The Dead Man by Patrick Samphire, a prequel to Shadow of a Dead God that introduces us to the character of Mennik Thorn for the first time! Shadow of a Dead God was a SPFBO finalist and the entire Mennik Thorn series is worth checking out.

But if you want a taste, then this novella acts as an introduction:

The Dead Man takes place about a month before the events of Shadow of a Dead God.

Becoming a mage-for-hire hasn’t quite turned out the way Nik Thorn hoped.

Sometimes you just have to take whatever job is on offer, whether it’s a missing pet, a curse to break, or tracking down a cheating husband. And sometimes it turns out to be something else altogether.

And if theft, murder, and blackmail aren’t enough, there’s a high mage involved.

This is not what Nik signed up for.

Meet Nik Thorn for the first time in this prequel to Shadow of a Dead God.

The Dead Man by Patrick Samphire is a prequel novella to Shadow of a Dead God and a great introduction to the Mennik Thorn series.

About the Author

Patrick Samphire started writing when he was fourteen years old and thought it would be a good way of getting out of English lessons. It didn’t work, but he kept on writing anyway.

He has lived in Zambia, Guyana, Austria, and England. He has been charged at by a buffalo and, once, when he sat on a camel, he cried. He was only a kid. Don’t make this weird.

Patrick has worked as a teacher, an editor and publisher of physics journals, a marketing minion, a web designer, and a pen pusher (real job!). He has a PhD in theoretical physics, which is about as much use as you might expect. As well as writing, he works as a freelance editor and book cover designer.

He now lives in Wales, U.K. with his wife, the awesome writer Stephanie Burgis, their son and daughter, and their cat, Pebbles. Right now, in Wales, it is almost certainly raining.

Patrick has published about twenty short stories and novellas, two novels for children, and four novels for adults, the first of which was SHADOW OF A DEAD GOD.