What I’m writing* this week, No5: a new Robin Hood novel
It’s been a strange week so far and I’ve found myself – most unusually – without very much work to do. So I’ve started a new Outlaw Chronicles novel, with the working title Robin Hood and the Caliph’s Gold. It is going to be set in 1191/92 just after the second book in my series, Holy Warrior (see cover below) and before King’s Man, which is number three, and has my heroes back in England.
I haven’t got very far with the plot yet but I know it is going to take place in the Mediterranean, in Byzantine Crete and North Africa and Muslim Spain and that our friends – Robin, Alan, Little John and Co – are trying to get home from the Third Crusade when Robin sees an opportunity to steal a massive consignment of gold from the Almohad Empire. Typical, eh? Alan thinks it’s a very bad idea.
I don’t have a publisher for this project, and I don’t really expect to get one any time soon, so I will probably be trying to crowd-fund it. If you want to help make this happen, I will let you know in due course (a few weeks’ time) how to pledge money and what the rewards will be. I just want to put a bit more flesh on the bones of the idea first and get things sorted out in my own mind.
One draw, I hope, will be that Hanno, the leather-tough Bavarian man-at-arms and mentor to Alan, will be playing a central role in this story. I killed him off in Warlord (book 4) and I have regretted it many times since then. He is one of my all-time favourite Outlaw Chronicles characters.
Anyway, that’s what I’m writing* this week. And when I get myself sorted out, I hope you will all join in and help me make this novel a reality.
* I say “writing”, but I’ve only done a few hundred words so far. It should really be “thinking about”.
Quite surprised the publisher of the original books won’t pick it up – I’m no author though, so is that usual???
Dunno. They dumped me in 2016 when sales were declining. I haven’t been back to them to ask.
Hi Steven,
I’m about to try to crowdfund a hardback version of Robin Hood and the Caliph’s Gold. No publisher wanted to do it so I’m sorting it out all by myself. I’d really appreciate your support. Watch this space. Thanks for your email.
Angus
Robin Hood has also been claimed for the pagan witch-cult supposed by Margaret Murray to have existed in medieval Europe, and his anti-clericalism and Marianism interpreted in this light.