"This isn't your usual type of fantasy book. It's got sprinting chickens, horses sculpted from light, portals, six-foot magic staff-wands, a bit of politics, bribery, corruption and the world's tallest prison."

"The pace was generally ace, like a thriller. I genuinely looked forward to getting on the train home to read the next bit."

"Has an 'ahhhh, wow' moment that I didn't see coming and is something I rarely find in fantasy books. Made me smile at length, thank you!"

One man wants to save an Empire, the other wants to bring it crashing down...
Oconic Gates make the Empire tick. Thanks to this portal network, journeys across the Mulai Empire are instantaneous. The Gates allow citizens to travel two miles or two hundred miles in the blink of an eye, with no more effort than stepping through a doorway.

Celebrated Caster-Colonel Lokke de Calvas, commander of a legion known as the Old Hundredth, uses the Gates to keep the Empire safe. But when a murder thrusts him into a battle he’s unprepared and ill-equipped for, the Oconic Gates could be his salvation.

Ember Cobb, ex-caster and grouchy merc, uses the Gates to hide from his past in the Ocosconan Wilds, fighting alongside a band of Empire-hating separatists. There, he discovers a world he never knew existed and enemies he never imagined. The Oconic Gates could kill him.

In an age powered by Oca — a force that men once called magic — what Lokke and Ember find through the Oconic Gates will change everything.

Once Called Magic is the beginning of an epic, fantasy thriller, where swords are museum pieces, the old wizards are dead and performing magic is as easy as cracking open a can...

Q&A with the author
Q - How would you describe Once Called Magic?

A - It started with a simple idea: what if everybody had access to magic? That gave me oca, which is the power source for everything in the world -- lights, weapons, transportation, heating, and so on. There's been a lot of focus on 'grimdark' novels recently, which don't tend to focus on magical elements. I wanted to write something that embraced magic and used it as the base for society rather than the preserve of a select few mysterious 'wizards'.

Q - What's different about this book?

A - The book is set in a Victorian-inspired world with Stargate-esque portals, mighty legions, bio-magical creatures and the threat of war. It's a fast-paced story that has some definite thriller elements to it. It's not so much steampunk, but magicpunk.