Will Wiles

Some of them are listicles

If there's any found family it's a deeply dysfunctional one.

Look, I got me one of those tropegram* things! You could stick "enemies to deeply uneasy friends" on that too if you wanted, that's got to appeal to some of you

* I don't know what they're called

It's a scam by Big Lightning Rod to get you to buy more lightning rods

Yes, letting people build giant windowless sheds wherever they want will definitely put the pin back in the Green grenade, masterful gambit

I'll see what I can do

A trope panel for The Dead Man's Empire by Will Wiles. The text reads: epic fantasy sequel, expansive world building, award-winning author, political intrigue, powerful female protagonists. 24th March 2026

New from @willwiles.bsky.social, author of The Last Blade Priest.

Two in the eye of the storm.

Two in touch with the end.

Syzenne. A princess on a doomed mission to a decadent court

Duna. A teenage girl who can break mountains, on the the run with a fanatical priest, from one war to another.

(Michael Herr, "Dispatches")

"Our machine was devastating. And versatile. It could do everything but stop."

Hieroglyphics with translation texts below them that reads I made my body evolve through my own effectiveness. I am the one who made me. I built myself as I wished, according to my heart.

Just reminded myself how hard the ending of Coffin Text Spell 714 goes

The machine was new, so they thought they were executing people in a new way, which was only true on a mechanical level

Sowerby Bridge Mouse Show, St John's Ambulance rooms, West Yorkshire, 1978, photo by Martin Parr.

I'm sure there are plenty of UK landlords who would gladly redefine black mold as one of you five a day, given the chance

No, he's a special case for sure, but "why do I have to pay for this, must be some kind of fraud against me, or something only chumps pay for" is a strain we can see elsewhere, in this case magnified by unique qualities into a persistent ideological grudge.

I'm glad someone else gets it

A three-course snack - apple, crisps, chocolate biscuit

It is a horrible experience, my sympathies

I wouldn't be surprised if the origin of this was a bill received by a property developer for asbestos removal

It's very annoying. Cognitive rot. A cliché from the 1990s.

And neither does Parliament

"Cost of Living" has a man in a completely pushbutton labour-saving society thinking about the suicide of his neighbour and realising he has nothing to live for ("He didn't enjoy pushing buttons.") Not quite it though ...?

I am 75% sure this is a Robert Sheckley story

Where "TLBP" was told largely from the points of view of Inar and Anton, here the focus shifts entirely to women: Duna, now swept up in the fanatical Elecy's crusade to retake the Mountain; Anzola, besieged by the insane Elves; and Syzenne, a foreign princess on a dangerous diplomatic mission.

A picture of my copy of "The Dead Man's Empire", with a copy of "The Last Blade Priest" just behind it, resting against a badly decayed Chinese screen.

"The Dead Man's Empire" is released on 26 March - this month! Available to pre-order now, or for reviewers to request on Netgalley! A vast and vivid sequel to "The Last Blade Priest", taking the action from the battlefields of the Hidden Land to decadent Miroline and cursed Monize.

I'm feeling bad about throwing a wet blanket on SS-GB, hence my qualifications! Try it. It does wonderfully evoke a semi-ruined, furtive London. ("the IPCRESS File" is great and I don't think commits you to anything. Ditto "Funeral in Berlin")

Not a big stinking no, just an on-balance no. Worth reading, I'd say, but far from my favourite Deighton.

No, IIRC, but some interesting imaginative touches

"Yet across the gulf of space, minds that are to our minds as ours are to those of the beasts that perish, intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic, regarded this earth with envious eyes, and slowly and surely drew their plans against us..."

It's just another bit of duckspeak, taking the place of "Australian points-based". Essentially magical thinking, not so much describing a set of actions but a set of desired effects.