Yes, I had to break Orestes: The High King into two parts.  And here is the cover for the first part:

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In The Iliad, the Catalogue of Ships states that during the Trojan War, Argos, Tiryns, and the other Argive strongholds were led by Diomedes, not Agamemnon, as one might expect.  Agamemnon commanded the Corinthian contingent, consisting of Kleonai, Corinth, Sikyon, and (presumably, though not mentioned) Nemea.  These states must have been Mycenaean ( Read more... )

May has seen an upsurge in the number of sales for Helen's Daughter, which means word of mouth is getting around.  But the same is not true for the first two books of the Orestes Trilogy.  If you liked Helen's Daughter, you might also really enjoy The Young Lion and The Outcast, and The High King, when it is finished early next year.  The trilogy ( Read more... )

Still detailing the construction of Mycenae's secret underground cistern for Orestes: The High King.  Sadly, very little archeological work has been done on this Late Helladic III feature, so it's very hard to find information about how the construction was carried out.  I'm having to give it my best guess.  If anyone has detailed information, ( Read more... )

In the last phase of Late Bronze Age Mycenae, the ruler of Mycenae (whoever he was) undertook the building of an underground cistern which connected the nearby Perseia spring to the citadel mount, insuring access to water during a siege.  This would have been a major engineering project, involving both tunneling into the hill and laying down clay ( Read more... )

I am only into Chapter Two of the first draft, so we're nowhere near completing this mammoth book, but the cover artwork will give you something to look forward to.


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I enrolled Orestes: The Outcast in Amazon's KDP Select Program, which means I shouldn't be publishing it anywhere else until mid-May. However, I seem to be losing sales because it isn't available in any other format but Kindle. So I opted out of the KDP Program, which means only that I don't want automatic renewal. If an Amazon Prime member sampled ( Read more... )

From an issue of Ancient Warfare magazine, a reconstruction of the megaron at Thebes based on archaeological evidence. You can see how absolutely garish the colors would have been. I have heard that at the issue's press time, the artist hadn't finished rendering the floor decorations, so pretend that the king--Oedipus? Creon?--is having the ( Read more... )

Today, I finally figured out how to pronounce Pylades. It's [pi'la' deez] Believe it or not, I'd been struggling with the correct pronunciation for two years, but was simply too lazy to look it up.

In other news, I am outlining the forty-nine year period that will make up Orestes: The High King. As I do this, I'm having to calculate everyone's ( Read more... )

It has arrived.

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