Steph Swainston - No Present Like Time

“In that case, Messenger, I believe it would be best if you keep it.”

Tern walked through the ruined square, the walls of which are now just shapes of drifts. Snow piled up ever higher by the Northwest Tower. She climbed its staircase, cased in ice. The door of my apartment closed and she let her long coat fall to the floor. I lay naked in bed and watched her. I have plenty still to fight for but also plenty to celebrate.

I had arranged Gio’s treasure around the room. Gold chains hung from the mirror, silver plates gleamed on the mantelpiece. Stacks of bar silver armored the fireplace, constellations of coins glittered on the rug. I had draped the four-poster bed entirely in jewelry. Tern came to examine the riches; she stroked them and she began to smile.

Her fingers on my skin left delicious tracks of sensation, like sparks. I told her she was beautiful. She ducked under the sheet, tented it over her shapely shoulders. I threw my head back and howled.

A little while later, someone rattled the door handle, but it was locked.

Thank you to Simon Spanton and Diana Gill. I am incredibly grateful to my agent Mic Cheetham for her help and support. Many thanks to M. John Harrison and to Richard Morgan for giving me time. Thank you to Stuart Huntley of The Schoole of Defence for some of the moves in the Chapter 1 duel. Thank you to Chris Jackson and the crew of MV Chalice for minke whales and sea eagles. Thanks to Lynn Bojtos, Cath Price and Gillian Redfearn for hanging out at the Castle. Love and thanks to Brian for everything-touché!

Steph Swainston started writing stories set in the Fourlands in 1982, when she was eight years old. Twenty-six years of development later, the Castle books are both great entertainment – with giant Insects and immortals, and literature – a source of observations about our world, the characters we meet every day and the trials we face.

/The Year of Our War /(2004), /No Present Like Time/ (2005) and /The Modern World /(2007) see the Fourlands through the eyes of Jant Shira, the Emperor’s Messenger; half Awian and half Rhydanne, the only man in the world who can fly. Steph is finishing the fourth novel in the sequence: /Above the Snowline/, to be published by Gollancz in April 2009.

Steph studied archaeology at Cambridge and the University of Wales. Her sense of wonder at the deep past and love of weird fauna and flora adds to her ‘Alice in Wonderland’ wordplay and makes her books both fascinating and fun.

Steph lives with chronic back pain from a car crash six years ago – which was, of course, her fault for driving like a speed freak – but she doesn’t let it stop her. She also loves the outdoors; a good walk followed, if at all possible, by a glass or two of whisky.