The final book in The Song of the Shattered Sands series closes the epic fantasy saga in a desert setting, filled with rich worldbuilding and pulse-pounding action.
We chat with author Bradley P. Beaulieu about A Desert Torn Asunder, including what he’s enjoyed exploring once more and what it was like wrapping up the series, as well as writing, book recommendations, and more!
Hi, Bradley! Tell our readers a bit about yourself!
Hello! I’m a book and gaming nerd who was born, raised, and (beyond a brief stint in Southern California) has lived in southeastern Wisconsin his whole life. I graduated from the Milwaukee School of Engineering and had a two-decade career in software programming before deciding to jump the IT ship and write for a living. It’s been a wild (and stressful) ride ever since!
Quick lightning round! Tell us the first book you ever remember reading, the one that made you want to become an author, and one that you can’t stop thinking about!
The first book I remember is How to Eat Fried Worms by Thomas Rockwell. I remember being both grossed out by all the worm eating and fascinated that the main character actually liked them by the end of the “dare.”
The Hobbit is my favorite book, but I’d have to say that The Black Company by Glen Cook is probably the first book that made me consider trying my hand at writing. It was the “in the trenches” style that Cook employed in those novels that did it. I related to that style. It didn’t feel so unattainable as Tolkien’s elegant prose.
The book I can’t stop thinking about is China Miéville’s The City and the City, a police procedural set in two cities that happen to occupy the same geographic space. I’ve rarely felt the sense of wonder we’re all searching for in sci-fi and fantasy books that I had while reading that fabulous novel.
When did you first discover your love for writing?
I tackled writing a novel for the first time during college. It was a horrible, derivative story that never became a full novel, but I found that I really enjoyed the process of creating the world, the characters, and the situation they found themselves in, and then trying to express all that in words.
I have to give a nod to being a game master in high school as well. I ran gobs of different games, from D&D to James Bond, Villains & Vigilantes, Rolemaster, and more. The act of world creation and developing a mystery or an adventure for the characters to follow absolutely fed my ability and desire to write later on.
A Desert Torn Asunder is the final installment in your Song of the Shattered Sands series and it’s out July 13th 2021! If you could only describe it in five words, what would they be?
Boy, that’s a tough one, but let’s go with: Intrigue, empire, desert, heroine, vengeance.
For those who haven’t read your Song of the Shattered Sands series, what do they have to look forward to?
The story’s main protagonist is a young woman named Çeda, a pit fighter who vows revenge against the twelve cruel kings of Sharakhai over the death of her mother. Though revenge is the main driving force of the series early on, what follows is the unfolding of a grand mystery that allows Çeda to understand how the Sharakhani kings secured their power from the desert gods and what the gods might want in return.
The story is full of adventure and mystery. There are great battles between sandships in the desert. There are freedom fighters and neighboring kingdoms who have long coveted the city of Sharakhai. There are ancient creatures who complicate the lives of the main characters, and who have agendas of their own.
What drives the story primarily, however, is Çeda’s drive to understand why her mother was killed and what it means not only for her, but for a lost desert tribe, the city of Sharakhai, and the people of the desert as a whole.
And for those that have, what’s to come in A Desert Torn Asunder?
Without getting too spoilery, the mystery I mentioned in the previous question, of how the kings secured their power, is answered in full over the course of the first five books. In the sixth book, the purpose behind the manipulations of the desert gods is finally made clear. That purpose now threatens the desert itself, and it’s up to Çeda and her allies to stop it before Sharakhai is laid to waste.
It will be far from easy, however. The powers at play in Sharakhai and beyond are far from aligned. Çeda will need to steer them carefully in order to unite them. Only then, working together, will they have a chance to stop the gods and save the desert.
Can you tell us about any challenges you faced while writing the final installment and how you were able to overcome them?
As is true with writing a single novel (where the promises one makes at the beginning of the story need to be kept by the end), there are literally dozens of threads that need to be wrapped up before a large series like this closes. It’s difficult to find satisfying resolutions for so many characters and so many plotlines. And while you want the main arc to close in a satisfying way, you don’t want it to feel too easy, pat, or neatly wrapped.
The trick was finding a way to dirty things up, to give resolutions that were satisfying but also surprising in some way. I think (hope) I managed it. I feel satisfied by it, certainly. I hope fans of the series do too.
Were there any favourite moments or characters you really enjoyed writing or exploring one last time?
King Ihsan became one of my favorite characters over the course of the tale. He starts out as a villain, a manipulator, but he morphs over the course of the series. I wouldn’t call him a hero, precisely, but he’s no longer a villain, either.
Another interesting character to write has been Frail Lemi, a brute of a man who has a simple mind (the result of an injury when he was a boy). Sometimes it’s fun to write a character who has more straightforward motives and fewer filters than the typical character. It can make for some pretty interesting play between various characters.
I also really enjoyed writing Fezek, a ghul who was brought back to life by a necromancer named Anila midway through the series. Fezek was a gay playwright while alive, and as such provides a way for me to sprinkle a bit of levity throughout the book.
As for a favorite moment, I’d have to say the finale of the final book (and the series) was special to write. I’d been envisioning it for years, and so it was rather emotional to put it down on paper, not leastwise because their was a somewhat unexpected reunion involved.
What was it like wrapping up the series?
In a word, satisfying. I’ve been working on this series for nearly a decade. It consumed my professional career during that time. I’d been inching, day by day, toward the close of the series, which was clear in my mind from the very start. So when I finally wrapped it up, it was a massive relief, a great weight lifted off my shoulders.
I’m so excited it’s finally done and ready to hit the shelves. I can’t wait to see what fans of the series think of it.
What’s the best and the worst writing advice you have received?
For worst advice, I’d say “show, don’t tell” is particularly dangerous advice. I understand the intent. It’s meant to keep writers from constantly slipping into the narrator’s head and telling the reader everything, from backstory to character motivations and more. I recognize this is a common pitfall that should be avoided, but showing all the time can lead to “cinematic” writing, where we don’t really connect with the characters. It’s distancing if you never dive into characters’ thoughts and emotions. So take this advice with a grain of salt. There are times for both showing and telling. The trick is to learn when to use each.
The best advice? Enjoy the journey. The path to becoming a writer is a long and often painful one. We begin with all sorts of hopes, dreams, and expectations. It’s simply part of the process that we don’t achieve all that we want as soon as we want or in the exact way we’d envisioned initially. Writing can be (and often is) a disheartening venture. It will often seem like you’re not making progress, or not making enough progress. But believe me, you are.
So while you’re doing it, recognize the small successes. Feel the satisfaction that comes with them. Enjoy them, in other words. Got a few hundred words down? That’s awesome! Finished a chapter? You rock! Got a rejection that included a few encouraging words? Yes, yes, the rejection’s tough, but editors don’t mince words. Words of encouragement are absolutely a win, a mark of progress. So keep going! Savor the journey itself. It will make the life of being a writer so much easier.
What’s next for you?
I have a new decopunk science-fiction mystery/thriller called Absynthe, written under my sci-fi pseudonym, Brendan P. Bellecourt, coming out this December.
Absynthe tells the story of Liam, a WWI vet who discovers that government-sanctioned killers are after him because of a military experiment he took part in during the war. The only trouble? Liam doesn’t remember any of it. He’s suffered from amnesia since the end of the war. Coming across the killers, however, jogs a few of Liam’s memories loose. What follows is a race in which Liam must remember what happened and why he’s being targeted before a secret government cabal unleashes devastating plans on the country and the world.
Lastly, do you have any book recommendations for our readers?
I recently read and really enjoyed Nicholas Eames’ Kings of the Wyld. It was a fun and funny take on the fantasy adventure novel, but it was also surprisingly tender and emotional at times. Highly recommended for those who enjoy lighter fantasy.
In non-fiction, I, ahem, absolutely devoured Anthony Bourdain’s Kitchen Confidential. As a foodie who once had dreams of becoming a restauranteur, it was both fascinating and eye-opening to see that world through the eyes of a man who lived and breathed it from his teens onward.
You can find Bradley on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest, as well as at his website.
