As part of Self-Published Fantasy Month 2021, we at the Uncharted Library are hosting a series of spotlights to showcase the incredible talent of self-published fantasy authors! We’re here with The Binding Tempest by Steven Rudy, book one in The Luminance Saga, a high fantasy adventure where Wheel of Time meets Indiana Jones with steampunk!
Self-Published Fantasy Month is a month-long celebration highlighting the best of what the self-published fantasy community has to offer. To find out more and get involved, visit their official website at https://www.selfpublishedfantasymonth.com/, check them out on Twitter @SelfPubFanMonth, or join The Guild, their Discord Server.
A fallen empire, a failed republic, and a frontier of alchemy, magic and machines…
The Sagean Empire reigned for two thousand years as a deified sovereignty. Through a succession of luminary Dark Lords that could wield energy, they controlled and enslaved humanity and destroyed all history before their rise. But the Empire fell and the last line of the Sagean Emperors was defeated. Ushering in a new era of scientific innovation, but casting the world of Territhmina into chaos.
Forty years after the fall of the Empire, the new republic is failing. In the cities where gas-lamps burn and new gadgets are changing the world, evil stirs in the darkness. . .
When Ellaria Moonstone, an alchemist and formal war general, requested to a meeting in the great city of Adalon, she learns that the Peace King of the New World has gone missing, and she soon uncovers a plot to overthrow the Coalition of Nations. Fearing a Sagean Dark Lord is returning to take over the world. Ellaria sends for help from old allies and expatriates, but trust between old friends is not what it once was.
Now former war heroes, long past their prime and haunted by their pasts, are all that stand against a dark entity threatening the future. Together with a band of young rogues, they must find the missing King and thwart the new Sagean Luminary before war again consumes the world. But the secret to protecting the future is entwined with the mysteries of the past and a relic from the time of the unknown ancients, called the Tempest Stone may control the fate of the world.
Immerse yourself in an epic Steampunk Saga; of magic, alchemy, airships, and ancient mysteries…
For fans of The Wheel of Time series, Shadow and Bone and the Stormlight Archives. The Binding Tempest is the beginning of a New Epic Sci-Fi Fantasy Series. A Classic High Fantasy Adventure injected with steampunk science.
The Binding Tempest was published on 1st June 2021 at 432 pages.
About the Author
In the 4th grade I would say, “I want to be a writer when I grow up, and live in a cabin in the mountains, and drive a Ferrari.”
Of course driving a Ferrari in the mountains is not a great idea, but my passion and goal existed early on. Oddly, I wasn’t a big reader when I was young. The two things that I read were; Stephen King’s “Nightshift”, (he had my same name so he was cool), and Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. Later I became enthralled by the Choose Your Own Adventure books. However, the truth was, I wasn’t interested in writing a book, as much as I was with telling stories and creating worlds. This was going to be what I did. I was sure of it. But the older I got the more taken I became with architecture and building real worlds.
I went to the University of Colorado at Boulder to study architecture. While I was there I took a lot of courses in creative writing and philosophy. Life moves fast and I found myself working in a small important subgroup of architecture, historic preservation. My career in architecture and design has now spanned almost twenty years and I have designed buildings, a lot of custom homes and worked on a wide variety of historical projects.
Still, the urge to write was always there nagging at me. For years I would write down character ideas, and world ideas, names of places and people and ideas for scenes. These story ideas only bloomed brighter when my wife and I had children. I would tell my son stories at night after the book I read to him didn’t put him to sleep.
About seven years ago I was dead set on starting my novel and then my first daughter came and then a second daughter. Free time and opportunity had dwindled with three kids, but COVID happened and after a month of staying home with my kids I realized the end to the pandemic was not going to come quickly and I suddenly had the opportunity to write the novel I had always wanted to write.
That’s what The Binding Tempest is for me. It is a lifetime’s creation finally come to fruition. I will admit most of my storytelling influences are derived from movies and TV. Though I have had many impactfully novels in my life too; Nightshift, The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, East of Eden, and the Eye of the World. With the Eye of the World and the entire Wheel of Time series it was like I had finally found the immersive fiction I had always seen in my mind. Something that rivaled the great flicks I had devoured over and over.
Like all things that are created, the Luminance Saga comes from a place that is both uniquely me but also an amalgamation of all my great influences. My hope was to craft a story that was part Indiana Jones, part Eye of the World, and part pure Sci-Fi.
Now that I have written my first novel I can’t wait to continue. I have a lot of ideas swirling around in my brain like specters awaiting to be plucked and brought to life.
