David Burrows Fantasy Author

  Creepy Forest. What lurks here? 1. Karen Azinger — The Steel Queen ( Silk and Steel Saga ) This is a relatively recent addition to my list, but it has quickly earned its place. Azinger creates a sweeping world of disparate nations, riddled with betrayal and deceit. At the heart of the saga is the Mordant: a truly terrifying being reincarnated once every thousand years, whose aim is to enslave mankind. His acolytes are legion and their rewards are high, but failure is not tolerated. Book one, Steel Queen , follows a princess nicknamed the Imp, who loves exploring her home: a formidable castle defended by the Octagon, a renowned order of knights whose fame has spread across the land. The Imp dreams of becoming a warrior, and her development throughout the tale is genuinely compelling. The characters across the series are tremendous, the story is easy to follow, and unlike some fantasy books, the world-building does not swamp you with bizarre names. The plot keeps you guessing,...

The Horror of a Shield Wall Regia Anglorum at the Battle of Hastings My experience comes from reenactment, not the battlefield itself, but even that controlled version was brutal enough. The command at the end of a battle for “Dead Arise” gives us second, third, and fourth chances; real warriors did not get that luxury. I have cracked finger bones four times, broken my thumb once, and broken ribs twice. A fellow Saxon was once thrown thirty or forty feet when a charging horse skidded into the shield wall. So no: even as a reenactor, fighting behind a shield was never easy, even when everyone knew it was only a display. The Seax: Tool, Weapon, Liability When I first joined Regia Anglorum, all newbies learned to fight with a scramseax: the typical Saxon knife used for everything from chopping wood and butchery to close combat. It was shorter than a sword, quick in the hand, and dangerous precisely because it felt so familiar. On one occasion a colleague asked me to take part in a sho...

  How I outran a horse — three times! As a Saxon re-enactor, I was once invited to take part in a filming opportunity. I arrived in a broad, open field to find several friends already there, along with the film crew, the cameras, and a sense that this was going to be more interesting than an ordinary day in costume. The producer explained the scene. Six Saxons, fleeing the Battle of Hastings, were to be hunted across the field by roving Norman mounted patrols. We would form a loose shield wall. Four Norman knights would charge. And because I was on the left-hand end, I had the special honour of dropping my shield and running for my life. It sounded simple enough. The camera was set low to the ground about two hundred yards away. The plan was that a mounted knight would catch me just before I reached it, swing his sword down, and kill me dramatically on film. Right. The producer shouted, “Action!” and the knights spurred their horses into a gallop. The ground seemed to tremb...

I was daydreaming , staring deep into the dying embers of the coal fire, my eyes dry from the heat as I ignored the howl of the wind on a bitter January night. I jumped when a knock at the door interrupted my reverie. It was insistent , loud , and demanding ; a knock that shattered the calm and refused to be ignored. Sighing, I went to the door, angered by the loss of solitude and made more irritable by the frigid wind that greeted me. He was an old man with an old man's frailties. His face was long, and his flesh grey and wrinkled. Dark bags beneath his eyes suggested insomnia, the curse of the old. "Yes," I said, not hiding the anger that I felt. "I need to speak with you," he snapped, seemingly equally irritable. "Do I know you?" I asked, for his tone was that of a relative making demands. I did not like his look and was already pushing the door to when, remarkably swift for an old man, an arthritic claw grabbed the door and a boot...

  How the Prophecy of the Kings began Writing a novel is rarely straightforward. I began with a single image: two stepbrothers deep within a vast cavern in the heart of a mountain. The cave is enormous, its darkness heavy and suffocating, as though unseen eyes are fixed upon them from every shadowed corner. With growing trepidation, the pair press on into the gloom. One of the brothers is a sorcerer, hungry for power, and betrayal lies at the very core of his nature. Together they discover a magical artefact suspended from the branch of a fossilised tree, an object that seems both ancient and unnaturally alive. The moment they seize it, bodiless voices erupt around them—shouting, screaming, and gibbering in a frenzy that fills the cavern. Terror-stricken, they turn to flee, but their limbs feel sluggish and unresponsive, as though they are trying to run through thick mud. The voices rise to a deafening crescendo, feeding their panic as they stumble through the darkness. At last, ...

 Hi and welcome to my Blog. I write fantasy books and I really enjoyed writing them. I was influenced by several factors, lifestyle and books that I have read. Lifestyle . I was in the Territorial Army and a re-enactment society (Regia Anglorum) My experiences in both have, I believe, added to my creative writing, making it seem real. Or at least I hope it has. In the TA I spent many weekends in the mountains of Scotland, in ice and snow. I have hiked miles in dreadful conditions so I know what it is like to be hungry, cold and exhausted.  In Regia , I have fought in a shield wall and my weapons of choice were a spear, sword and a shield. I fought at Hastings on several occasions and even stood in front of a hundred horse charge by Norman Knights. That was terrifying especially when a horse skidded on wet grass and crashed through our line, throwing a fellow Saxon only a few feet away many yards from where he was standing. I also stood under a barrage of arrows, fortunately ru...