The Malevolent Seven By Sebastien de Castell
Picture a wizard. Go ahead, close your eyes. There he is, see? Skinny old guy with a long straggly beard. No doubt he’s wearing iridescent silk robes that couldn’t protect his frail body from a light breeze. That hat’s a must, too, right? Big, floppy thing, covered in esoteric symbols that would instantly show every other mage where this one gets his magic? Wouldn’t want a simple steel helmet or something that might, you know, protect the part of him most needed for conjuring magical forces from being bashed in with a mace (or pretty much any household object).
Now open your eyes and let me show you what a real war mage looks like…but be warned: you’re probably not going to like it, because we’re violent, angry, dangerously broken people who sell our skills to the highest bidder and be damned to any moral or ethical considerations.
At least, until such irritating concepts as friendship and the end of the world get in the way.
My name is Cade Ombra, and though I currently make my living as a mercenary wonderist, I used to have a far more noble-sounding job title – until I discovered the people I worked for weren’t quite as noble as I’d believed. Now I’m on the run and my only friend, a homicidal thunder mage, has invited me to join him on a suicide mission against the seven deadliest mages on the continent.
Time to rescue some very bad people to help us on this job…
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“The Three Musketeers meets Joe Abercrombie via Mark Lawrence: ‘Guaranteed to increase household swashbuckling by 100%,”’ says Library Journal
“Like the tremendous Spellslinger and Greatcoats series’, THE MALEVOLENT SEVEN is another example of the brilliant and vivid world-building that Sebastien de Castell uniquely delivers through his incredibly original characters and their riveting adventures.—– Chad Stahelski, director of John Wick
“Malevolent Seven is a masterful blend of Sebastien de Castell’s unique brand of wry humour, elegant prose, and wonderfully imaginative worldbuilding. I devoured this book and loved every page”.—Nicholas Eames, bestselling author of Kings of the Wyld
“With a contemporary style, relentless pace, and a unique and exciting magic system, the Malevolent Seven is an action-packed adventure that not only questions the true nature of heroes but the very meaning of good and evil”.—Michael J. Sullivan, bestselling author of The Ryria Revelations
“Doesn’t so much break the fourth wall as shatter it completely – A brutal and hilarious romp of rotters that would make Deadpool proud.”—Peter Mclean, author of Priest of Bones
“Vigorous and action-packed . . . There is no way you can read this book without a grin on your face.”—– James Lovegrove, The Financial Times
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Sebastien de Castell had just finished a degree in Archaeology when he started work on his first dig. Four hours later he realized how much he actually hated archaeology and left to pursue a very focused career as a musician, ombudsman, interaction designer, fight choreographer, teacher, project manager, actor, and product strategist.
His only defence against the charge of unbridled dilettantism is that he genuinely likes doing these things and that, in one way or another, each of these fields plays a role in his writing. He sternly resists the accusation of being a Renaissance Man in the hopes that more people will label him that way.
Sebastien’s acclaimed swashbuckling fantasy series, The Greatcoats. was shortlisted for both the 2014 Goodreads Choice Award for Best Fantasy. the Gemmell Morningstar Award for Best Debut, the Prix Imaginales for Best Foreign Work, and the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. His YA fantasy series, Spellslinger, was nominated for the Carnegie Medal and is published in more than a dozen languages.
Sebastien lives in Vancouver, Canada with his lovely wife and two belligerent cats. You can reach him at www.decastell.com
