Mortal Coils is out for pre-order now (visit linktr.ee/chrisdurston for links to multiple places from which you can get it!), and I thought I ought to share some gratitude for those who helped create this book and get it out into the world.
Not only that, but I’ve got a whole list of things you might vibe with if you’re into the whole “necromancer asking whether she’s truly evil in a somewhat metal dead world” aesthetic!
This book is the product of a string of chance meetings for which I’ll always be grateful.
I met Reed Reimer when I messaged him to let him know that I thought one of his multimedia storytelling projects was pretty cool, and somehow we became friends. Through him, I met Jaron Johnson and the rest of the folks at Action Fiction, and to my great surprise was asked to contribute some writing to Cthulhu Dreamt, an eldritch horror RPG with additional comics, tie-in novel, and soundtrack.
As part of being involved with that, I was interviewed by Rob Southgate for his TTRPG Insider podcast. Rob then introduced me to Rick Heinz, who was at the time looking for writers to contribute novels to the Black Ballad universe.
And now we’re here.
Each of those people extended kindness to me when they barely knew me, and went out of their way to give me opportunities I’d never expect to have. So thank you to all of you.
Anyway, that’s just how it came to be that I got to do this book in the first place, but that’s not the whole picture!
Rick, Pat, and Courteney at Storytellers Forge have been fantastic throughout the process of ideating, developing, drafting, editing, and publishing Mortal Coils. Particular thanks to Court for answering a lot of nitty-gritty questions about exactly how the Sunless Crossing works and how to make Mara’s story fit within the sprawling, wonderful world of The Black Ballad.
My fellow authors in this process: C.D. Corrigan, Crystal Wood, Brian Fitzpatrick – thank you for being there on the journey with me. (Read their books, by the way. They’re all totally different and all totally great.)
And C.D. was the one who made the fantastic cover! He got the vibe, and he understood what I meant when I said I didn’t want Mara to be too hot, and I’m very happy with what we ended up with.
[MILD SPOILER HERE!!!]
Clara Ward, E.M. Harding, and J.B. Garner were extremely obliging and insightful in helping me do all I could to make Iona a respectful representation of a trans person, for which I’m very grateful. It wouldn’t be my place to tell a story about being trans, but I think it’s part of who Iona is and I deeply hope it’s something people will like about her.
[SPOILER ENDS]
Lauren, Tom, Paula, Rhiannon, and Gabe are the real Rainbow Rangers (Void, Jumper, Arhiel, Wrenn, and Oren respectively), and Jono is their DM. Thanks for letting me borrow your D&D characters for a bit, friends! I’ve been lucky enough to join them for a couple of games and I couldn’t think of a better group to show Mara that maybe being a close party of people who care for each other isn’t such a bad thing.
Tom from that group also helped me create Chirripeek a while back so I would have a little mouse boy to use as my player character through a few solo RPG modules. And Jono has been an invaluable consultant for a long time when it comes to widening my RPG (and other media!) horizons and digging into obscure bits of fun and strange lore from various franchises; for this book, he was kind enough to talk me through some of his own experiences with death in RPGs. Although most of it didn’t make it in directly, it’s helped shape my thoughts on the whole thing (and I fully expect some of his gaming exploits might become canonised in sequels to this book!).
A brief note of thanks to Garth Nix, whose Abhorsen trilogy was one of my favourites when I was younger. I think it had more of an impact on my view of death (and the manipulation thereof) than I’d realised until I discovered my old copies when I was halfway through drafting Mortal Coils.
Speaking of things I’ve read and whatnot, a few recommendations for things I think you might enjoy if you’re into this book and The Black Ballad more widely. Some are in the list because their themes are similar, others because I took inspiration from them for character designs and skills (people from all kinds of worlds end up in the Crossing, after all!), and others just because I experienced and enjoyed them at some point in the process of making this book.
Video games:
GRIS (Nomada Studios & Devolver Digital, 2018)
Spiritfarer (Thunder Lotus Games, 2020)
Hades (Supergiant Games, 2020)
Guild Wars (ArenaNet & NCSoft, 2005)
NieR: Automata (PlatinumGames & Square Enix, 2017)
Celeste (Maddy Makes Games, 2018)
Books:
Sabriel (Garth Nix, 1995)
The Shadow of the Torturer (Gene Wolfe, 1980)
Perception Check (Astrid Knight, 2022)
Tattered Pawns (C.D. Corrigan, 2022)
Lord of Light (Roger Zelazny, 1967)
Existentialism is a Humanism (Jean-Paul Sartre, 1946)
Labours of Stone (E.M. Harding, 2021)
RPGs:
Midnight Melodies (Cezar Capacle, 2024)
Blades in the Dark (Evil Hat Productions / John Harper, 2017)
Dungeons & Dragons (Wizards of the Coast, 1974 and several times again since)
Bilge (NeonRot, 2023)
Invisible Sun (Monte Cook Games, 2018)
Ironsworn (Shawn Tomkin, 2018)
Manga:
Bleach (Tite Kubo, 2001)
Chainsaw Man (Tatsuki Fujimoto, 2018)
Berserk (Kentaro Miura, 1989)
Gantz (Hiroya Oku, 2000)
Comics:
DIE (Kieron Gillen & Stephanie Hans, 2018)
The Wicked & The Divine (Kieron Gillen & Jamie McKelvie, 2014)
Mister Miracle (Tom King, 2019)
Albums:
Immutable (Meshuggah, 2022)
Re:member (Ólafur Arnalds, 2018)
You’re A Woman, I’m A Machine (Death From Above 1979, 2004)
By The Deep Sea (Federico Albanese, 2018)
Sordid Pink (Sordid Pink, 2020)
Liminality (Cthulhu Dreamt, 2022)
Frances The Mute (The Mars Volta, 2005)
Broken Machine (Nothing But Thieves, 2017)
Tuur mang Welten (Niklas Paschburg, 2016)
Holy Diver (Dio, 1983)
Duality (Two Lanes, 2020)
Alien (Northlane, 2019)
Magma (Gojira, 2016)
Absolution (Muse, 2003)
Everywhere at the End of Time (The Caretaker, 2016)
Chris Durston 