This blog is a series of fantasy novels in serial form. If you’d like to start at the beginning and work your way through, this post provides a handy list of all the chapters in sequence.

The first volume, Man Raised by Spiders, tells the story of Inglorion’s younger cousin Valentine, who was taken captive during the Xialo Massacre. After a daring and unprecedented escape from slavery in the Underdark, he’s entirely unequipped to live in a peaceful, genteel high elvish city.

1. The Sun Has Its Own Scent
2. Theates
3. The Island
4. Further Training
5. The Labyrinth
6. Tokens
7. Who Sent You?
8. Death Is Close
9. Streams of Cool Air
10. A Good Op
11. I Couldn’t Turn Back If I Wanted To
12. Matters Between Men and Women
13. Lessons in Elvish
14. Inglorion Returns
15. Epic Luck
16. The Gallery
17. The Carnival
18. We See You, Charon
19. Flashing Eyes
20. Blood for Blood
21. You Can’t Be First, But You Could Be Next
22. Valentine in the Battle for Liamelia
23. A Sense of Imminent Loss
24. Xialo
25. A Fate Worse Than Death
26. Welcome to the Company of Fugitives
27. The First Rule of Thug Life
28. Twenty Questions
29. Valentine Claudius Shelawn Was Born a Citizen of Liamelia
30. One Thousand Sunsets
31. Aramil Augustus Is Banished
32. The Road to Amakir
33. Valykria
34. Thick as Thieves
35. Cactus Always Looks Smooth from a Distance
36. Θ {target} {action} Θ
37. No Secrets
38. How to Keep the Game Going
39. It Solves the Problem
40. Charon Pallas Proioxis
41. Throat Hit
42. How Valentine Married the Gunner’s Daughter
43. There Can Be No Real Objection
44. Desire
45. This Lesson Is Free
46. The Weight of the Past
47. Eralon Amakir, Esq. Gets a Beating
48. Tereus Shelawn Was a Brute
49. Eyes As Dark As Any Shelawn Could Wish
50. Inglorion Atropos Androktasiai, Marquis Theates
51. Threats and Promises
52. I Love You. I Lost My Temper. I Made Mistakes.
53. What Did You Do to Your Hands?
54. Honor and Responsibility
55. Animals, Not Angels
56. Valentine Comes Home
57. The So-Called Visible Spectrum
58. Heaven’s Just a Block Away

The next volume, The Biography of Inglorion Atropos Androktasiai, follows Inglorion’s rise from his birth as a half-Drow bastard and servant, to being crowned Marquis Theates, heir to a dukedom in the Underdark.

1. Early Years
2. Sieia
3. Rough Trade
4. Weapons Training, Skirt Chasing and Pious Devotion
5. The Things She Overhears
6. A Thoroughly Nightmarish Evening
7. Beneath, Something Worse Is Waiting
8. I Don’t Want to Be There
9. Krysztof, Cobbler King of the Gypsies
10. The Flight from Liamelia
11. The Adventuring Life
12. A Considerable Heiress
13. Fine Dresses and Suitors; a Home and a Husband
14. The Purpose and Mainstay of His Short Life
15. Dreaming of His Fine Eyes
16. What a Blessing Widows Are!
17. The Little Drow Elf Can Kick Your Ass
18. Sentimental Matters
19. Rare, Like Violets
20. An Awkward Episode
21. That Cruel and Masterful Man
22. His Desperate Longing to Be Good
23. The Habit of Taking Beautiful Things
24. If You Knew How Much I Am Suffering, You Would Forgive Me
25. Beautiful, Brilliant, Half-Mad and Entirely Reckless
26. Already Dead
27. A Partial and Uncertain Gift
28. What He’s Been Looking for All Along
29. Why Did You Come Here?
30. Philomela Procne Arachne, Duchess Theates
31. The Gods Made Us As We Are
32. No More Than 108
33. Ajax
34. The Wild Card
35. The First Trial: Batshit Crazy
36. The Dignity and Nobility of Helpless Passion
37. The Second Trial: How He Became This Way
38. Funny and Shameful by Turns
39. Androktasiai
40. Burn the Witch
41. Sheltering the Flame
42. Proper Channels
43. The Kingdom of This World Is Become the Kingdom of Our Lord
44. I Didn’t Know Such Kindness Existed
45. Patterned Motions and Cries
46. The Third Trial: Personalized Moral Injury
47. And So You Shall
48. An Unenviable Domestic Situation
49. The Usual High Cost of Blood and Treasure
50. Ceremony, Vision, Illusion
51. A Fucking Pity and a Waste
52. The Museum of Aboveground Curiosities
53. The Full Treatment
54. Faith and Terror Shining in His Eyes
55. Zero Minus One
56. Trigger Point
57. Giant, Clanking Brass Balls
58. The Last Trial: Kicking the Hornet’s Nest
59. Not Yet Wise or Predictable
60. The Coronation of Inglorion Atropos Androktasiai, Marquis Theates

In The Magnificent Five, Inglorion grasps at the chance to earn Liamelian citizenship, accepting a letter of marque that allows — and obliges — him to stop shipments of slaves headed for the Underdark.

1. The Magnificent Five
2. Alexandra, King of the Gypsies
3. A Side-Dish for a Roman Banquet
4. Bathed in the Scent of Violets, Indulging in Reverie
5. It Seems As If Everything Must Be Forgiven
6. Like Wanting a Unicorn
7. The Magnificent Five: Ajax
8. A Charming Young Whelp and Adventurer
9. Private Joy and Common Sorrow
10. A Familiar Routine of Flirtation and Seduction
11. Rosalee, the Gypsy Princess
12. Cupid Spouts Latin to an Infant with a Soaked Diaper
13. Curiously Disengaged
14. All God and Gophers
15. Charon of the Xyrec Army
16. It Happens When She Can’t Get Things Right
17. Incidents May Occur
18. Rude and Inquisitive Elves
19. The Heir and the Penniless Adventurer
20. How to Be an Adult and a Gentleman
21. Hot Punch, a Plate of Biscuits and a Briefing
22. You’re Too Valuable to Die
23. You’ve Been Forgotten
24. You’re Just a Little Thing
25. Persephone Eats Six Seeds
26. A Grim and Unwelcome Reminder
27. The Magnificent Five: Valentine Claudius Shelawn
28. Allowing the Aftertaste of Jaded Sorrow to Fade
29. How Like Your Father You Are
30. Listening for a Miss
31. Event Horizon
32. Ignorance and Blindness
33. Shoot Me up Already
34. Even Victory is Bitter
35. Lashed to an Iron Wheel
36. The Sea Sprite Bar and Grill
37. The Magnificent Five: Aramil Augustus
38. Developing Actual Liking
39. The Spinsters’ Chaise Lounge Incident and a Masculine Demand
40. This Insupportable Loneliness
41. How It Feels to Be Handsome and Charming
42. An Unsettling Preview of a Mysterious Adult State
43. Love Is Love
44. This Is What He Does Not Want to Feel
45. The Next Chapter for the Marquis of the Underdark
46. Greta X
47. The Magnificent Five: Lucius Scaevola D’Arcy
48. A Half-Naked Warrior, Shining and Defiant
49. Lying Chastely in the Arms of a Beautiful Young Man
50. Madame Etoile
51. I Couldn’t Stay Away
52. Leaving His First Love Behind
53. More Mysterious Than the Average Elf
54. The Safety Is Removed
55. Inglorion Falls in Love with Virginia
56. An Extraordinary Woman
57. No Man of Honor
58. The Household Returns to Its Natural State
59. Princely Paris, the Outlaw, the Adulterer
60. The City Barracks
61. The Letter of Marque
62. The Others Should Follow, and Will
63. An Impulse, Visceral and Piercing
64. Effervescent, Honey-Flavored Hope
65. His Lordship Used to Model When He Was Young and Needed the Money
66. You’re the Only One Who Doesn’t See Your Scars
67. Laying Down Pipe
68. The Iliad, Naturally
69. Risk Assessment
70. Never Good or Careful
71. The Magnificent Five Continue God’s Work
72. Valentine’s Crime
73. Bonne Nuit, Mon Enfant
74. The First Mass Funeral, the Second Set of Graves
75. It Is Bad Here
76. I Couldn’t Stay Away
77. So Shitty, So Hard
78. Bad Alternatives, Unpleasant Consequences
79. The Cruel Spur of Passion and Restlessness
80. Inglorion Proposes
81. Virginia Replies
82. The 39 Articles
83. Man and the Reason for Living
84. With My Body, I Thee Worship
85. A Plea for Guidance
86. Doing God’s Work by Digging Privies
87. The Patron Saint of Bastards
88. Press on — Keep Going — Don’t Stop
89. A Close-Run Thing
90. Kneeling by the Altar
91. The Magnificent Five: Conclusion

The Last Days of Tereus Shelawn tells the story of Inglorion’s troubled and charismatic father, Tereus Shelawn, an admired military leader and, later, convicted war criminal.

1. The Last Days of Tereus Shelawn
2. The Greatest Errors of His Career
3. Of Course It’s Been Terrible
4. Unhappy and Uncertain
5. Part of the Flesh Itself
6. One Episode in Decades of Combat
7. He Will Not Submit to Boredom Tonight
8. The Smooth, Hard Surface of His Indifference
9. Particularly Brutal
10. Going Headlong to the Devil
11. Foreshocks
12. The Few Positive Duties of Fatherhood
13. Free Fall
14. Xialo
15. Nothing as Dramatic as Sieges and Plague
16. I Wish You Could Forgive Me
17. Struggling to Unite Thought and Feeling
18. The Carnal Pleasure of Work
19. The Golden Evening Rushed In
20. His Scent and the Imprint of His Lips and Palms
21. Lost Children Returning Home
22. Forgive Me, Love Me, Let Me Love You
23. Reckless Greed
24. The Furies Settle in the Rafters
25. Collateral Damage
26. Sympathy and Longing
27. Feeling His Humiliation
28. One Last Thing to Break
29. A Thoroughly Bad Man and a Reprobate
30. Stay Cool, JP
31. Let’s Roughhouse, Baby
32. This Is Not How the Story Is Supposed to End
33. Conclusion: The Great God Pain

Inglorion in the Elysian Fields finds our hero in an alien landscape after a terrible, unnamed event. His son Lucius has raised Inglorion from the dead, apparently so that he can buy chickens from a scarred and tattooed man who might be his father. Inglorion steals an iron owl, learns to grow and cure tobacco, and comes into his true inheritance.

1. Inglorion in the Elysian Fields
2. At the Foot of the Black Mountain
3. Year Nine
4. The Thousand Nights and One Night
5. To The Pure, All Things Are Pure
6. What You Fear Is True
7. The Knowledge Grows Slowly Within
8. Policing the Neighborhood
9. Another Chapter in Rake’s Progress
10. The Iron Owl
11. Inglorion’s Hare-Brained Scheme
12. Thirty Feet of Drop
13. Who’s a Motherfucking Rock Star?
14. Delighted with His Useless Gift
15. To the First Storm of Summer
16. A Bit Well to Live
17. Isolation Suits Me
18. The Fraternal Order of Civil War Veterans
19. Surrounded by the Dead
20. I Don’t Think Anything at All
21. The Gods Can Show You Whatever They Want
22. The Oldest Scars
23. The Castaway
24. Inglorion Claims His Inheritance
25. Containers for His Grief
26. He Cannot Regret It