I stumbled across the talents of author Bradley Beaulieu quite by chance. My first taste of his acumen as a fantasy writer was through his enchanting trilogy
The Lays of Anuskaya. I then read his interesting novella
Strata. For my next course I decided to dive into his short story collection
Lest Our Passage Be Forgotten. This offering contained seventeen short stories most of which I had not read before as they appeared in different short story anthologies. I was blown away by he worlds and the eras that he conquered and the variety that he tapped into. No two stories were alike and each was rich, textured, and intriguing. Even through the medium of the short story, Beaulieu was able to develop worlds and character of such dimension that I never felt cheated. He has definitely cemented himself on the top shelf of my favorite authors. If you are a fan of fantasy fiction, I highly recommend this book.
Reading the acknowledgements I was interested to find that this book, self published by Beaulieu himself, saw the light of day only though a so-called "kickstarter" campaign. Enough folks had become familiar with his writing through his recent
Lays of Anuskaya trilogy that he was able to raise the necessary cash to bring this book to reality. I love that he had the confidence in his talents and such a passion for his works that he searched for a path to see them published. Beaulieu is current working on a new series called
The Song of the Shattered Sands. The first book in this planned trilogy,
Twelve Kings of Sharakhai, is now in print. I look forward to getting into this one.
