K.V. Johansen

[Nov. 2024] Over on Skiffy and Fanty, Paul Weimer interviewed me about The Wolf and the Wild King. We talked about high fantasy, where the decision to make Lannesk mute came from, writing a book with the story going on in two time periods in parallel, and of course, the world itself -- maps and worldbuilding being very much a shared interest.

[Nov. 2024] I wrote a piece for The Fantasy Hive about the difference I see between high fantasy and epic fantasy, and why it can be useful to have both terms available, when trying to tell someone just what kind of fantasy a work is. (The Wolf and the Wild King, I think, is more high than epic.) I make reference to W.P. Ker's classic work on medieval literature, Epic and Romance.

[Nov. 2024] Seregill of Riminee interviewed me for RisingShadow in Finland, about magic, the protagonists, and the research I did for The Wolf and the Wild King.

[Nov. 2024] Over on the blog of fellow fantasy author Sarah Ash, I wrote a piece about music, musicians, and magic in The Wolf and the Wild King, as well as the northern (germanic, Anglo-Saxon, Viking) lyre, which makes an appearance in WWK as the forest-harp played by characters like Lannesk and the Wild King himself.

[Nov. 2024] Here's a "Six Books" interview on Nerds of a Feather, in which I talk about some books that are important to me, one way or another, plus The Wolf and the Wild King.

[August 2024] The Wolf and the Wild King is the first book in a duology called The Forest, set in an all new world, a northern land of ice and cold, deep snow and long nights. It will be out from Mystique (Crossroad Press) on November 19th, 2024, in both ebook and paperback. Ebooks are available to order now. Preorder the ebook at your preferred retailer here!

[May 2023] I have a short story coming out this year in Lou Anders' Tales from Stolki's Hall, an anthology of adult fantasy stories taking place in the world of his Norrøngard RPG campaign setting. Watch for it! Check here for updates on the project or to sign up to be notified when it comes out.

[May 2023] I had a great time talking with Edith and The Chattering Teacup over at The Book Lover's Companion podcast, with a special live audience (Danke, Katerina and Bianca!) You can listen here.

[November 2021] My friend Robert V.S. Redick and I interviewed one another about our books and works in progress over at the Functional Nerds website. The mutual interview was a lot of fun to do, and if you like my books, I think you'll definitely like his too! You can read our conversation here.

[October 2021] The five novels of Gods of the Caravan Road are being released as audiobooks from Tantor Media, read by Heather Costa. Details here.

[June 2020] I recorded a video for the Super Relaxed Fantasy Club's series of lockdown author visits. Ivan the Wicked puts in a rather unenthusiastic appearance, and I read from The Lady. Just click here.

[March 2020] I've set up a podcast page, where I'll post occasional readings, which will stay up for a few months each. It's called From the Wild Forest: Readings.

[December 17, 2019] I was interviewed about The Last Road for the blog NovelKnight.

[October 31, 2019] Over at the Civilian Reader blog there's now an annotated extract from the first chapter of The Last Road. This was a lot of fun to write! Commentary without spoilers -- tricky!

[October, 2019] I'm interviewed about The Last Road over at Nerds That Geek! Read it here!

[October 30, 2019] I wrote a guest post for Civilian Reader on The Last Road, Moth as the character whose thread links the series together, and the challenges raised by writing an epic hero struggling with a tendency towards depression and withdrawal from the world.

[October 30, 2019] On pulling together all the many threads of Gods of the Caravan Road in The Last Road. A guest post at Black Gate.

[October 23, 2019] I don't usually link off to reviews from this news page, but this one of The Last Road on The Fantasy Hive is one that makes me feel, yeah, someone got it.

[October 23, 2019] An interview with The Rising Shadow about the series overall and how The Last Road fits into it, the characters, and the magic, among other things.

[October 23, 2019] Over on the Fantasy Hive, there's an Author Spotlight interview with me. Find out some significant authors whose work has influenced my writing, what Ghu and I would have in common in a fight, and more.

[October 23, 2019] I wrote a little thing for Fresh Fictions, a 'top five' characters list.

[October 17, 2019] I'm off to Ottawa and CanCon in the morning, but meanwhile I have news some of you have been waiting for. The trade paperback of The Last Road is now available in the UK, at least through the Book Depository.

[October 13, 2019] Nerds of a Feather did a "Six Books" interview with me. Find out what upcoming book I'm most excited about, a book I bounced off of initially but later reassessed, and more ...

[October 8, 2019] Where should one begin a book? I wrote a piece for The Fantasy Hive on how I ended up beginning The Last Road in the middle and why that structure worked best to tell the story.

[October 3, 2019] Over on The Dimension Between Worlds , I was interviewed by Dan Stubbings about writing dialogue, books everyone should read, writers who influenced me when I was young, and much more.

[September 29, 2019] I recently wrote a guest post for Skiffy and Fanty called "Off the Map: How Small Things Create Depth in Space and Time" (or, how the world of the Caravan Road kept expanding as I wrote).

[September 19, 2019] Over the next six weeks or so I'm going to be doing a number of guest posts on various sites, as well as interviews, talking about The Last Road and Gods of the Caravan Road. The first of these is a post I wrote for the blog of fellow fantasy author Sarah Ash, "Saying Farewell to the Gods (and Devils, and Caravaneers) of the Caravan Road." Some thoughts on leaving old friends behind...

[September 15, 2019] Unfortunately, it looks like the problems with Pyr's new distributor, Simon & Schuster, haven't been fully resolved. In the US the print edition of the book is available for preorder everywhere. In Canada, it's available to preorder at independent bookstores and Indigo, but not Amazon Canada. In the UK, the print book still does not seem to be available for preorder anywhere. I've done all I can do at my end to get this resolved, without success. All I can suggest is that you talk to your local bookseller, tell them the distributor for Pyr is now Simon and Schuster, or contact Pyr directly to ask why the book isn't available yet and when it will be. (These distribution problems also seem to be hitting the rest of the books in the series as booksellers run out of stock.) The only comfort I can offer the UK is that at least the ebook is available through Kobo and Kindle (and Nook in the US). If you prefer print books, it's not the same, I know. I'm sorry for the frustration this is causing some of you. If the problem is resolved, I will definitely send out an announcement to let people know. Here’s where you can find links to various booksellers for The Last Road. Cheers!

[August 20, 2019] Pyr has released the cover for The Last Road, which concludes Gods of the Caravan Road and is coming out October 22nd. If you're looking to pre-order it -- and it would make me very happy if you did! -- be warned there's a mess with the distribution that hasn't yet (as of August 20, 2019) been sorted out. All my books with Pyr are showing as "not available" (or as just a few last copies) almost everywhere, because places are still set up to try to get them from Random House, which does not have them, instead of Simon and Schuster, which does. Also, if you pre-ordered it in the Fall of 2018 or the Winter of 2019, there's a good chance your order was cancelled -- all the pre-orders were wiped out in the first round of this distributor mess following Pyr's sale to a new parent company. You may have to order it again. There's no problem with the ebooks, so you can pre-order The Last Road in that format (and likewise the other four books too if you are so moved). For print books, your options are pretty much limited to Amazon US and Canadian independent bookstores, as they're the ones that have the correct distributor in their databases. You can find order links for everything here; just click on the cover of the one you want, to go its page. Bear in mind what I said above about print books and don't believe them when they say unavailable or out of print: Amazons CA and UK are selling used copies but not new ones (or used ones labelled as 'new' but which are from resellers), which is annoying when the books are still in print, not to have actual new royalty-earning copies available. Soon, I hope, all five books of Gods of the Caravan Road will be available to order in trade paperback again, everywhere. If you want to be sure of being notified when the mess is sorted out, you can sign up for my newsletter. Cheers!

[July 2019] As you may have heard, late in 2018 Pyr was sold to a new parent company, Start. There have been some unavoidable delays in the shakedown cruise phase of the transition! It looks like the new publication date for The Last Road is October 22, 2019. I'm working on correcting the proofs -- an important nearly-final stage -- at this very moment.

[Sept. 2019] Coming in the spring of 2019 from Pyr! The final novel of Gods of the Caravan Road. When even the gods are dying, the hope of the world may lie in its most feared enemies. (Pyr 2019.)