This is the cover for the trade hardcover release of Robert McCammon’s Leviathan, the last book in the acclaimed Matthew Corbett series! The art, of course, is by Vincent Chong. A formal announcement with pre-order information is coming from Lividian by mid-August!
Read the sales copy for Leviathan at Lividian Publications
Robert McCammon has finished writing Leviathan, the final book in the Matthew Corbett series! He’s very proud of how it turned out, and he thinks you’ll enjoy it, too.
If all goes well, the trade hardcover (Lividian Publications), ebook (Open Road Media), and audiobook (Audible) editions of Leviathan will be published before the end of 2024! He literally just finished the book a week ago, so it’s too early for any more definite dates yet. Stay tuned!
Update: the trade hardcover and ebook editions are scheduled for early December 2024!
Hello, all! Yes, it’s that time of year. Fast approaching is Halloween, and also fast approaching is the publication of the 9th Matthew Corbett volume, Seven Shades Of Evil.
But there are eight shades in the book, and I’ll explain in a bit.
Seven Shades is a departure for the series, in that it’s a collection of shorter stories drawn from earlier events in the careers of Matthew, Hudson, Katherine and Minx. A question you might have is, ‘Why did you want to do this when the end volume is really right upon us?’
Well, a good question and the answer is: The last book in the series—Leviathan—will complete Matthew’s story. It’s now or never for these shorter but I think no less involving tales to be told. As much as I’ve enjoyed writing the series, getting to know the characters and living vicariously in what I consider a fascinating period of history, after Leviathan it will be time for me to move on and do some other projects ahead.
I do promise that Leviathan will be everything you hope it will be. Promise made. My plan (and hope) is that Leviathan will be published in October of 2024, but I can’t promise that due to unforeseen circumstances of life and the publishing business. But I will say that around that time, again, is my plan and hope.
As for Seven Shades Of Evil, I had originally planned to do this after The River Of Souls but I felt it unfair to leave readers hanging for such a long stretch after that book. Therefore…now or never for these shorter pieces, but consider them as appetizers for Leviathan because one story holds a clue as to the identity of the final—and certainly worst—villains that Matthew has faced in his dangerous episodes.
The stories in Seven Shades Of Evil are:
‘The Four Lamplighters’: Matthew and Hudson sign on as bodyguards to a band of travelling musicians and wind up with mud on their faces.
‘Night Ride’: Matthew finds himself in the middle of an age-old war.
‘The House At The Edge Of The World’: Hudson learns that a cyclops is not only a creature of mythology.
‘The Scorpion’s Eye’: Minx is on the hunt for a stolen jewel with a fantastic and deadly power.
‘The Pale Pipesmoker’: Katherine and Minx come to the aid of a man who’s been challenged to a duel by a cunning killer.
‘Skeleton Crew’: Katherine helps an ex-slave being tormented by a band of marauding skeletons on horseback.
‘Wandering Mary’: A ghost trying to lure a wealthy man to his death takes Matthew to a haunted castle.
And, the eighth, because I couldn’t leave out another character who’s been through so much…
‘Incident On The Lady Barbara’: A disappearance at sea puts Berry in the position of being a problem-solver.
I’m very excited about this book and so glad to be able to show some of the other characters in action. I was particularly glad to be able to see what Katherine can do when she’s on her own. (She’s actually pretty good with a pistol!)
So, there you have it. That time of year. And speaking of the time of year, on the 28th of October I’ll be at the Alabama Booksmith in Birmingham where I’ll be reading from Seven Shades, signing books (whatever you’d like me to sign), and talking about Leviathan. I hope you can make it!
Do not despair of Matthew’s future! I can promise also that the ending of Leviathan will be a proper ‘beginning’ for Matthew…and more than that I cannot say…but I might say more on the 28th of October!
Thanks again for your readership and continued support, and I hope this time of year is one of your happiest.
Best Wishes.
Hello, all.
Well. News to tell.
I remember as a little boy being fascinated by a drawing of a man’s face that showed a smile, but it was cleverly done so that when you turned the drawing upside down the same face became a frown. You may have seen this because I’m sure it’s still floating around somewhere.
Anyway…I determined some time ago that life was very much like that drawing, or rather the “idea” behind the drawing. Smile or frown? The same face, just depending on how you looked at it. And you know some things that seem “bad” or disappointing in the short run turn out to be good things in the long run.
So…let’s get to the news, and you can decide for yourselves whether to smile or frown, or whether what is a frown today becomes a smile tomorrow as it did for me.
Supply chain problems have hit the publishing industry in the form of paper shortages. Simply put, many printers around the country can’t get enough paper to do their work, so this is throwing all schedules off by at least several months. Lividian Publications, scheduled to publish the new Matthew Corbett novel The King of Shadows in April, has not been immune to this nationwide problem. When I first heard from Lividian’s owner and publisher Brian Freeman that the book will be delayed quite some time by this unhappy circumstance you can believe I frowned Bigtime…but then I heard Brian’s alternate idea, and here it is:
The King of Shadows limited edition will be released in June of 2022, depending, I understand, on the slipcase production.
And now, the really cool stuff that made me smile:
Lividian will be publishing trade paperbacks of the Corbett novels beginning with Mister Slaughter, all the books with covers done by the award-winning, acclaimed, and extremely talented artist Vincent Chong. You can see these covers below and judge (or delight, as I did) for yourselves.
The schedule would be:
Mister Slaughter in July of 2022.
The Providence Rider in August of 2022.
The River of Souls in September of 2022.
Freedom of the Mask in October of 2022.
Cardinal Black in November of 2022.
And The King of Shadows regular hardcover edition in December of 2022.
Wow! I’m smiling right now thinking about this!
This schedule will see me finish the book of Corbett short stories I’ve wanted to do for a while, titled Seven Shades of Evil, and then finish also the last book in the series, Leviathan, so there should be no long delay as there’s been in the past. And I have to say the long delay of The King of Shadows has been primarily of my doing, since it took me awhile to saturate the idea with the bourbon of imagination and the scotch of effort. Ahem. And then it did take a long time to write, as it’s pretty involved and everything had to mesh just so.
But…there you have it! I’m really excited about this schedule! You can look at Vincent Chong’s covers and see that the trade paperback editions are getting some absolutely beautiful reasons to collect the series!
Onward and upward. As always, thank you for your readership and your patience with the current situation. Lividian and Brian Freeman have found a way to turn a frown into a smile, and in my case an absolute cross-eyed grin.
Best Wishes,
Robert McCammon
Hello, all!
I finished The King of Shadows toward the end of April. Since then I’ve been resting up because as I think you’ll understand when you read the book, it was quite a lot to put together. For one thing, it took me a while to refine what began simply as a ‘what-if?’ idea that at first seemed so outlandish and ‘out there’ it couldn’t possibly work. Well, I’m happy to say it did, but not without a lot of thrashing and gnashing. Matthew and Company came through for me once again. I’m pleased to say it’s a hefty book too, running about 560 pages.
I wanted The King of Shadows to be completely different from anything that had come before, and I wanted it to have that ‘weird’ and ‘otherworldly’ edge. Also I became very interested in the backstories of both Cardinal Black and Maccabeus DeKay…how did they become what they are? So you’ll find in The King of Shadows the stories of how the young Adam Black became the infamous Cardinal, and how “Mac” DeKay devolved from being a wealthy young man faithful to his father and involved in the sport of horse racing to being the scarred—and soul-scarred—and masked creature of the ‘present’.
Another thing I wanted to play with was the idea that instead of a human antagonist, a physical place could be antagonistic. Thus you’ll find in The King of Shadows a beautiful Mediterranean island called Golgotha that hides a multitude of secrets, and puts both Matthew and Hudson at risk like never before…but maybe not in the way you would expect!
Next up will be a book of seven short stories involving Matthew, Hudson, Minx Cutter, and Katherine Herrald titled Seven Shades of Evil. Some of these stories have previously appeared in other places, but I believe there will be at least three new ones and two of those will be “novelette” length. Seven Shades of Evil will be sort of a compendium of various “problems” Matthew and Company are called upon to solve during Matthew’s career with the Herrald Agency—these being done in the time between the spans of the regular books—and we’ll begin with one of the earliest events and end with one in his later life.
And so we are moving toward Leviathan, the last book in the Matthew Corbett series. It will be set in Italy and will involve—must involve—the worst of the worst that Matthew has yet to face. As someone from the realm of the past tells Matthew in The King of Shadows: “I have a feeling that Professor Fell will seem as a kindly old uncle bouncing baby Corbett on his knee when you meet who’s waiting for you in the future. Because take it from me, my boy…the worst is yet to be.”
You can take that as truth, because the person who tells this to Matthew is none other than Tyranthus Slaughter, returned from the dead.
So…on we go!
Publication of The King of Shadows is probably not going to be until early in 2022, but I hope you’ll feel the wait was worth it when you read the book. Until then, I’ll be working on Seven Shades of Evil and putting Leviathan together.
I hope everyone has a happy summer, and thank you again for your readership and support. I’m certain that in some other realm Matthew and his companions wholeheartedly thank you as well!
Best Wishes,
Robert McCammon
