Wolfskin, the third and final book in the Common Saga, has been published. The trilogy that I started work on nine years ago, is complete.
This is an epic moment. A time of triumph and joy and celebration. A major milestone for this series and for me as a writer.
And yet, right now, I’m also very overwhelmed and tired.
Release weeks are usually monumental events. There’s interviews and podcasts and guest blog posts and social media posts and every other kind of posts and events and marketing and publicity and all the rest of it. I could do that here, sure. I could tell you how good the book is and why you should buy it immediately.
Instead, I want to do a little bit of introspection.
It was 2015. I was 20 years old. Brash, hot-headed, hyperactive. I’d written a sci-fi novel that had been widely rejected by almost every major agent in the business. One of those rejections arrived in my inbox mere hours before me and my family flew to the USA for a holiday.
I spent the entire flight, and part of my trip, ruminating on my failure. Wondering what I’d done wrong. How I’d screwed up. How I’d missed my chance.
And how I would likely never, ever fulfill my dream of being a published author.
I was devastated.
But I’m stubborn. I didn’t quit.
And then, on one sweltering day in December 2016, I sat down to write chapter one, page one of what would become Stormblood.
Never in my wildest imagination did I think I would end up where I am today. That not only would I sell a book, I would sell three of them.
I’d publish a trilogy and would reach tens of thousands of people around the world.
I’d fulfill my dream of becoming a traditionally published author.
After a while, the work that you’ve put into your passions can fade into the background. before can fade into the distance.
You forget just how much effort and sweat and blood and tears went into the thing that you were put in, the emotional labour involved.
The hard nights, the loose plot threads, the uncertainty. The mountain, looming ahead, taunting you.
As some of you know, that did not go away when I sold these books. If anything, it increased.
Still, now that I have reached this high point, I like to remind myself where I came from. The place where I once was. How long and arduous this climb has been.
And how damn proud that 20-year-old kid, thinking that his dream of publishing a novel had been dashed forever, would be if he could see me now.
Especially because it’s these books that I’ve called my first series. I do believe that they are miles better than anything I was capable of writing or even envisioning myself writing when I first started them.
Wolfskin especially. It is the best book in the series by far. Everything from the aesthetic and set-pieces to the character work and even the prose, is firing on all cylinders. I edited it within an inch of its life (and my own) to make it so.
And so far, people have been agreeing.
The emails, Instagram photos, tweets, interviews, podcasts and responses I’ve had with this launch have been . . . a lot. Something about this launch feels different.
Like I’ve actually gained some traction.
Like, for the first time, my series could be a true part of SFF consciousness. I don’t know. Early days.
All I know is that the days and weeks surrounding a book’s launch are some of the most important of its life. Especially now, as Wolfskin is the final title.
If you do want to support the book and the series further: Please talk about it.
Tell your friends. Your colleagues. Ask librarians to order it. Post on forums about it. Post pictures of it (and feel free to tag me in them), whether they’re your purchases or when you spot them in bookstores.
And if you’re inclined, please review them. Even a star rating on Amazon goes a long way.
It means the world to me.
This is not the last word on the Common, but it is last on Vakov’s story. I’m off to new horizons. But before I do that, I want to sit on this mountain ledge and feel the wind in my ears and see just how far I’ve come.
And, of course, I want you all to enjoy the final chapter in this trilogy that has taken most of my 20s to complete.
And so, thank you. Thank you for cheering me on and making this climb with me.
To celebrate the release of Wolfskin, I’m going to be doing an AMA – where anyone can come along and ask me any questions they like – on the r/scifi subreddit. The time we have scheduled is 10:00 AM AEDT / 6:00 PM CDT, on the 27th of March, 2026. My username is JeremySzal (a bit of a giveaway, I suppose!), and I’ll likely be posting information about it here when it goes live.
Early review copies of Wolfskin are now available on NetGalley!
For the uninitiated, NetGalley is a sort of preview screening for reviewers, tastemakers, critics, book bloggers, et cetera. It’s used to build hype, give books exposure, and provide a sneak preview of new titles.
So if you do want to be able to get a copy of Wolfskin and be involved in the launch, you need only go and request a copy. It is, of course, totally free.
My publisher has also put the entire series up on NetGalley, so if you haven’t checked the books out yet (heresy! Heresy, I say!), you can request a copy of those as well.
I am not in charge of deciding who gets a copy, alas. So it is in the hands of the publishing gods whether or not this gift is bestowed upon you.
There’s always a bit of anxiety, releasing a new book out into the world. But it is also a huge relief and thrill, too. I know the book is good; I worked my arse off on it, and I cannot wait to see the reactions of readers.
And because I am such a tease, here’s one of my favourite quotes from the book:
“I would die for my friends. But I would rather kill for them.”
The first person to actually guess which character is saying that line gets a free digital copy of Broken Stars. Hint: it’s not Vakov!
(Also, if you’ve actually read the book already, it doesn’t count!)
That’s all from me today. Lots to do, and lot of cool stuff in the works. Go forth and put in your request, and I hope you get a copy!
Like most years, it certainly has had it’s ups and downs. The good and the bad and the goddamn ugly. I’m going to try and not focus on the latter two, because there’s enough of that in the world, but some of it will be mentioned.
So let’s get the bad and ugly over with:
As I mentioned a few newsletters ago, I have chronic pain from my nailgun wound, and combating it, doctor and clinic visits to fix it, is a daily struggle. I am hoping that 2026 will be the year that I kick it down for good, but you never know.
There is also the shooting/terrorist incident that occurred at Bondi Beach, less than 10 minutes from where I live, becoming the deadliest shooting in Australia since Port Arthur 30 years ago.
I have zero desire to sensationalize or monetize an act of such horror, or honour those who perpetuated it by naming them. I am mentioning it because I had at least five groups of family/friends/acquaintances who were there at the time – and there was a point where we didn’t know where everyone was – so it’s something that has affected me deeply. We are all okay, though. Thank you to everyone who wrote in to ask.
Now that unpleasant topic is over with, let’s move onto the good stuff.
Writing:
The first half of 2025 was spent working on various projects. I don’t want to talk about them in any great detail, because I feel like books should remain the author’s personal project until a first draft is down, or until it’s truly ready to be sent out. A lesson I had to learn the hard way.
Still, I will reveal there have been two major novels in the works, both very different beasts Note that these are not actually the titles, but only placeholders!
The first is what I will call Rage. It’s the thing I’m most interested in traditionally publishing next. It’s similar to what I’ve done before, but also not. Much more epic and widescreen. Prose that’s much more lyrical, theatrical, less rough and jagged.
I have a first draft down, but I’m looking at some major (and I do mean major) revisions before I start sending it out.
The second project is what I’ll call Redemption. Very, very different to my other work. It has a female protagonist, and is very much high fantasy, but that’s all I’ll say. It does have a romance element to it, like all my books have, but it is not romantasy.
That’s all I can say about them in any detail for now. I’ll continue to work on them into the new year, with the aims of having one, or both, on submission to publishers, where they will solicit shocked gasps of shock, amazement, shock, wonder and delight. Probably.
The latter half of the year was spent working on Wolfskin. The book clocks in at a hefty 197k (!!!), 9k longer than Blindspace and 42k longer than Stormblood. The original draft was. . . a great deal longer, and after it had been cut down, a lot of refining was required to truly make the book shine.
I do it for you, dear readers!
I actually put the finishing editorial touches on the book when I was in Tokyo and Sapporo a couple of months back. I love the idea of working on a piece of art in multiple locations, because it means you get to take a bit of that place with you.
Of course, the work is only truly complete when the proofs are finished, and I completed those the other day. While I am genuinely sad to see it go, I am very relieved that it is out of my hands and will soon be out in the world.
Publishing:
I had zero publications in 2025 – besides two stories that got translated into German and Estonian – but no new material. But that will change shortly, because…
Upcoming Publications:
Wolfskin will be coming out!
The final book in the Common Saga will be dropping on March 4 (all the best people pre-order books, so get those orders in!). This will make it four years and three months since the last installment, Blindspace, was published, although I did self-publish Scream in Blue in 2022, and my collection Broken Stars in 2024, so I suppose it hasn’t really been that long since I’ve had a release.
Wolfskin would have come out much sooner, even in mid-2025, but that’s up to the publisher, not me, and the decisions of the market can be obfuscating and baffling, to say the least. I can only control the writing and the delivery.
Of course, what matters is that the book itself is good. And, in my humble and totally unbiased opinion, Wolfskin is a damn good book. I expect it will garner some . . . strong reactions when it releases. Perhaps even some tears.
I would be lying if I said I didn’t shed a tears myself, when finishing off this book. Especially in the final chapter. But that’s a good thing – if it doesn’t move me, I cannot expect it to move anyone else.
Besides, I started writing Stormblood nine years ago, when I was only twenty-three years old. These books have stretched across a third of my life, and so they will always be a part of me. Writing them was not always easy, as you lot all know, but it’s a story I needed to tell, and I’m incredibly proud of what I’m managed to achieve with them.
I expect to be doing a slew of signings, events, and interviews, once the release date slides closer into view. More news when I have it.
In the Works:
This is going to sound frustratingly coy, but there’s a few exciting things coming up that I cannot talk about yet. Does this pertain to special hardback editions? Adaptations? Translations?
I’d love to tell you . . . but the Powers That Be would be very unhappy. Two of these exciting things have been confirmed, however, and I hope to announce them soon. Ooh, the suspense is killing me!
Conventions:
I’ve been lucky enough to attend three Worldcons in a row; Chengdu in 2023, Glasgow in 2024, and Seattle in 2025. All were excellent, for very different reasons, and no event I do is ever going to top being flown out to China by my Chinese publisher, but Seattle was a blast.
It was my first American con, first time seeing my books in a US bookstore. It was a joy and a pleasure, thanks to the wonderful cadre of people who made my time there special.
I’ll let the pictures do the talking.
The Barnes and Nobles signing!
Pictured: Evan Leikam, Jeremy Szal, Ryan Cahill, M.J. Kuhn, Shauna Lawless, Michael Michel, Zac Argyle, Andy Peloquin,
Pictured: way too many to name.
I left a trail of signed copies everywhere I went, so if you ask Barnes and Nobles Northgate or Bellevue, Arundel Books or Elliott Bay Book Company, they should still have copies left. Good if you’re in the States and want a defaced copy of one of my books, because due to the recent announcement about the mandatory submission of fingerprints and social media for travellers entering the US, I don’t know if I’ll be heading over there again in a hurry.
Like in 2023, Adrian Tchaikovsky gave me the honour of being his acceptor at the Hugo Awards, for Best Series and Best Novel (he did not win, but even being nominated is cool). That meant dressing up in formal wear, attending the Hugo gala, the pre-show and the after party.
Oh, and taking photos with all of your (his!) fellow nominees in the category.
Pictured: (L to R) Seanan McGuire, Rebecca Roanhorse, Jeremy Szal, and the little-known, up and coming author Brandon Sanderson.
I continue to sneak a day or two of learning Japanese when I can. It’s not easy. For English speakers, Japanese may be the most difficult language to learn. I’m not kidding.
But I’ve never let a little thing like that stop me, and I continue to go through the motions. I’m good enough that I can say pretty much anything basic, and I’ll understand most casual conversations (depending on the speed). I don’t use English when I travel to Japan, and I’m hoping to reach fluency within the next two years.
Best of 2025:
Because no yearly wrap up is complete without one of these, here’s the various bits of media that I enjoyed the most in 2025. As ever, I’ll try to stick with the good rather than the bad, especially in the book category, considering my profession.
Music:
I was lucky enough to attend three kickass concerts this year: Sigur Ros, Metallica, and Oasis. I’ve got pretty broad tastes. Sigur Ros was heavenly, Metallica was epic, but Oasis was otherworldly. The concert vibes were immaculate, the brothers performed at their peak, and hearing Champagne Supernova live made my soul transcend to another realm. All was good.
As you were.
Film:
One Battle After Another. A powerhouse of a film. A near-perfect bouquet of tension, character drama, humour and action, with some truly piercing commentary on top. This is PTA’s best film, and I hope it’s the one that gives him the recognition he so richly deserves.
The Long Walk. This one hurt. I read the novel, so I knew what I was getting into, but I wasn’t prepared for how gruelling and emotional it ended up being. Distressing film making at it’s finest. And, it must be said, it had some real solid pacing. I will see myself out.
Weapons. It’s impossible to discuss this without spoiling the experience. Just see it. With a packed audience.
Sinners: A Southern gothic vampire, horror-musical, action film. Only a madman or a genius can pull something like that off, and thankfully Ryan Coogler is both. It’s the sort of film you have to see to believe.
Mickey 17: I don’t think I loved this one as much as Bong Joon Ho’s previous offering: Parasite, but I don’t think we were meant to. It’s great to see directors of his calibre taking a dip in interstellar science-fiction, and I think he did a stand up job of bringing Edward’s book to the big screen.
Mad Max: Furiosa: I loved this one. It’s definitely more vile and nasty than the crowd-pleasing Fury Road, and this time you get a true sense of how dementedly unpleasant life is in the wasteland, at all times, for everyone. Still, I’m hardly one to shy away from the darker side of spec-fic, so I had a great time here. Plus, as an Australian, I’m obliged to sing its praises.
TV:
Andor, Season 2: Goddamn. This show, in it’s entirety, is on par with the original Star Wars trilogy. Blasphemous, perhaps, but I stand by it. Andor is one of the greatest TV shows of all time and it must be seen to be believed.
Daredevil: Born Again: Felt like the original season of Daredevil was back in it’s gory glory. There were some . . . interesting creative choices made, but the tension, storytelling, character work and brutally fun fight scenes are back in full force, and I can’t wait to see how things unfold.
Severance, Season 2: The pacing here unfolds at a glacial pace, but it hardly takes two episodes before that glacier becomes an embodiment of pure dread and isolation, striking with surgical precision. Worth a watch for the final episode alone.
Games:
Black WuKong: China’s answer to Dark Souls, with the rich texture of local mythology.
Hollow Knight: Silksong: Profoundly entertaining. I’m delighted to see a small Australian studio make its place on the world stage, gaming wise, especially when it deserves it. And this one does.
Baldur’s Gate 3: Yes, I know it came out in 2024. But I’m just starting to dig my teeth into it now. And what a feast it is. It’s hard to fathom the amount of painstaking effort that went into the writing and designing of this narrative. Ooh, just talking about it makes me want to do another playthrough!
Books:
The Devils by Joe Abercrombie. I technically read this one in 2024, since I blurbed the book (mic-drop), but it’s a 2025 release. I adored this one. Structurally, it’s very different from Joe’s usual fare, but the pages flow by and the story fires on all cylinders. There’s a single scene in here (you’ll know the one) that contains what is possibly my favourite character-introduction scene of all time. It’s that good.
The Bone Raiders by Jackson Ford. Loved this. A Mongolian-inspired fantasy, worked in with Jackson’s usual irreverent humour and sass. The combination shouldn’t work, but in his hands, it does. Gloriously.
Casthen Gain, by Essa Hassen: A feisty little novella that is both taut and deeply rich. No one does weird, alien, mind-bending space opera like Essa does, and this one ticked several boxes for me.
Anji Kills a King by Evan Liekam: A stellar debut. I saw the ending coming, but perhaps that only made it hurt even more.
The Strength of the Few by James Islington: A monumental, monster of a book, that still maintains its tension and emotion throughout. I haven’t finished it yet (no spoilers!), but I am loving/dreading where it is headed.
That’s all from me, folks. Thanks so much for letting me barge into your inboxes each week, and thank you for reading my work. I appreciate you all a lot. Yes, even you.
Have a wonderful holiday, drink tons of expensive booze, eat way too much good food, and have an awesome time, and I’ll see you in early to mid January. Best, Jeremy
So. After about three thousand years, the Wolfskin finally has an official release date:
March 3, 2026.
And yes, it is available for pre-order.
(The copy description has massive spoilers in it, so unless you’ve finished Blindspace, I do not recommend reading it!)
I do not exaggerate when I say that Wolfskin is the best thing I’ve ever written. The character arcs, the storylines, the set-pieces, even the prose, just works. Never before have I written something so epic, so brutal, so heart-wrenching. It is, in my humble and totally unbiased opinion, a damn good book.
Yes, it’s taken a long time to come out. But that’s given me the time to make sure that what I’ve put down is my absolute best, and my exact vision for the story. Again, it is my best book.
However, because of various reasons, including things that are totally beyond my control, my career is not the best place at the moment. Wolfskin is still coming out, but after that? I don’t know. Things are unclear. I’ve suffered a lot of sleepless nights because of it, and there have been days where I’ve contemplated giving up this gig for good.
I’m not giving up. But that also means that I cannot afford to hold back, either.
So. I am going to ask you all to please pre-order Wolfskin.
Pre-orders are disproportionately helpful for authors. It helps the book trade to gauge the interest on a book, or a series. The more pre-orders there are, the more copies get printed. The more copies get printed, the more the publisher has to work to sell said copies, and the greater likelihood of those copies selling.
I kinda hate that I have to weigh all these things up instead of, you know, writing. But that’s the business we’re in.
So, any and all pre-orders and support is much, much appreciated.
If you cannot pre-order it, then there’s a lot of other things you can do for Wolfskin and for the Common series. You can buy them. Ask your local library to purchase them. Tell others about them. Review them on Amazon and Goodreads. Sacrifice goats on an altar of black stone in their name.
Not sure about the last one, but you can always give it a go.
If you are a reviewer with a blog/review channel/BookTube/Instagram account, please get in touch with me and I’ll get my publisher to send out a review copy to you.
It’s been a hell of a long journey, for me and Vakov both. But we’re nearly at the end of his story. I hope that you’ll all stand by my side and see it through to the end.
I’ve never done an author event in the United States before. Next week, that changes!
I’ll be joining this group of mega talented folk at Barnes and Nobles (Ryan Cahill, Shauna Lawless, MJ Kuhn, Zack Argyle and others) to sign books and talk with readers and possibly drink copious amounts of beer. If you can’t make it, feel free to place an order with the store and I’ll happily sign a copy of one of my books over to you.
So, for the first time, I’m giving away my novella “Scream in Blue” for free on Amazon for the next five days.
Which means it is about as cheap as it’s ever gonna be.
So if you like morally-grey heroes, gothic-cyberpunk and alien drugs (who doesn’t?), you can get it for….pretty much nothing!
The novella is set in the same world as the Common Saga (Stormblood, etc), but can be read as a standalone. So it’s a good entry point if you’re looking for a gateway drug.
It’s been a little while since I’ve done one of these so I thought I’d just provide a mid-year update.
I’ve been thinking a lot about my career and my brand as an author. I’ve published. 40 short stories over 10 years across all genres of speculative fiction. But I’m mostly known as a writer of science-fiction. More specifically, novels in the military SF/space opera region. And while I’ve enjoyed my time immensely in with the Common Saga, it is no accident that the books became progressively more space opera as they went along. I don’t particularly want to be known as the guy who writes science fiction. I want to be a Jack of all trades, someone who branches out, who is versatile, who’s able to write in a variety of styles and genres and voices, a la Adrian Tchaikovsky.
It is no secret that some publishers are generally wary of this. I have some strong feelings about that, but the point is that I feel that writers should be able to write whatever they like, at whatever stage they are in their careers, regardless of what’s “expected” of them.
My tastes have always been broad, and I want those tastes to reflect in the books that I write: science fantasy, epic fantasy, space opera, secondary world fantasy, whatever. Limiting myself to one genre limits my readership and my growth as a writer.
So you are unlikely to see a book from me anytime soon that’s in the same style of Stormblood: straight SF, noirish, cyberpunk-adjacent, with a thriller/mystery element. I’m being beckoned to write things that are epic and sweeping and grandiose, and I feel like I’m much more comfortable in such a space.
Does that mean I’m leaving SF behind? No. Not at all. But I am expanding my horizons. And I’m excited about what’s to come.
So. Book updates.
First up, Wolfskin. I do not yet have a release date for the book. I delivered the full edited version to my publisher in mid January and I have since been waiting to receive my line edits. Publishing being what it is, things are moving at a glacial rate. I wish that I had news for you, but I don’t yet, since my publisher wants to hold off on pining anything down until they give me my line edits for Wolfskin. But the story is 99% locked-in, and I’m confident that once the edits do come in, it’ll be smooth sailing. By then I will hopefully be able to start sending out proof copies to reviewers – cue the mix of exhilaration and anxiety that comes from releasing a new baby out into the big wide world.
But I have not been idle. Oh no.
The past year I’ve been chipping away at my new book, tentatively entitled “Rage”. I got a first draft nailed down about a month and a half ago, but I’ve since run into, shall we say, some existential crisises about the book (see the first half of this post). Where it sits in the genre. What readership it will appeal to. I don’t really want to be more specific than that, but I will say that my comparisons to it include The Red Rising Saga, House of the Dragon, The First Law, and Sun Eater.
Why I love all my books equally. I do think that there’s something truly special about this one, and I’m hoping to make it the next book that I traditionally publish.
Here is the tiniest of sneak peeks:
Part 1
“The Wolves have no King”
– The Cinder Knight, before his execution
However this book comes out, I think it will mark a turning point in my career, and will hopefully be exciting for readers, both old and new.
But because there ain’t no rest for the wicked, that’s not all I’ve been working on.
I’ve been chipping away at a straig-up secondary world fantasy with a female protagonist. This book, I’d say, sits firmly at the intersection between Scott Lynch, Baldur’s Gate 3 and Adrian Tchaikovsky. I’m definitely playing a lot faster and loose with the structure, and the freedom of it is both exhilarating and a little scary, but I am enjoying the process of seeing this world unfurl before my eyes.
I don’t know what I’m gonna do with it when it is done, but I’m gravitating towards self-publishing it. We’ll see.
As I’ve already mentioned, in late 2023 I suffered a nailgun injury to my left hand. This, of course, is a big deal for a writer, especially as my career, and my life, has been greatly impacted as a result.
I’m not totally ready to discuss what’s transpire over the past 19 months. But I will say that I recently had several surgeries on my left hand. Things have been dark for a long time, and I’ve feared that my writing career has been in jeopardy. But things should be looking up for me soon. Hopefully.
And on that note, I would greatly appreciate it if you could grab one of my books. If you’ve already done so (and honestly, you’re unlikely to be reading this unless you’re already one of my readers!), then you can always convince one of your friends to buy my books, or spread the word in some other way.
And not just because it would cheer me up immensely after several surgeries. But also because May happens to be the month of my birth! So you’d be getting me a gift for me and you. How is that not a bargain?
Thanks again for everything, guys. I know it’s been a long gap since books, but I’ve been busy cooking and marinating, and soon there will be a literary feast!
JEREMY SZAL 