It should be no surprise to any of you that I’m a bit of a Jim Butcher fan. In fact, if I don’t find anything even better in the meantime, he’s got my top vote for this year’s Hugo Awards. Skin Game was pretty awesome, as you might gather from my review.

Well, he’s been working on a new series for a while, The Cinder Spires, promised to be a steampunk fantasy. That’s a rather broad description but, knowing Butcher, we’ll get a fairly thought-out magic system with a delightful blend of brute-force and subtlety, a complex society buried under a seemingly-simplistic exterior, and a good dose of sarcastic humor.

Oh, and explosions. This book has airships, and the title of the first book is The Aeronaut’s Windlass. If we get through this novel without at least two airship crashes, I’ll be surprised. Jim Butcher tends to be rather hard on his characters’ insurance rates, and airships tend to be ever so fragile.

The release date is September 29th of this year. That’s a Tuesday, in case anyone is scheduling out their time off from work. (*cough* Novel Ninja Freelance Editing does not and will never endorse calling in sick on account of the publication of oh never mind.) 

The official release reads:

NEW YORK, NY, February 10, 2015—Roc Books, an imprint of Penguin Random House, announced today the acquisition of a new fantasy series by Jim Butcher, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Dresden Files novels. Executive Editor Anne Sowards bought World English Rights from Jennifer Jackson at Donald Maass Literary Agency. The first novel in the new series, The Cinder Spires: THE AERONAUT’S WINDLASS, will be released in hardcover on September 29, 2015.

Jim Butcher became one of the most recognized names in science fiction and fantasy with the internationally bestselling Dresden Files series featuring Harry Dresden, Chicago’s only professional wizard. The series garnered a large and devoted fan base for Butcher that continues to grow with each installment; the last five Dresden Files books skyrocketed to #1 on the New York Times bestseller list. Butcher is currently at work on Peace Talks, the sixteenth installment in the phenomenally successful urban fantasy series. In addition to The Dresden Files, Butcher is also the author of the acclaimed, New York Times bestselling Codex Alera epic fantasy series.

Sowards describes The Cinder Spires as, “Horatio Hornblower meets The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen—it’s a fantastic, creative new series of airships, privateers, warrior monks, and mad sorcerers. Honestly, it’s like Jim put all my favorite things in one book!”

The Cinder Spires is set in a fascinating new world, where an ancient evil has awoken, plunging the world into a shroud of mists filled with monstrous and fantastic creatures. The fate of humanity will rest on the loyalty and courage of a single airship’s crew. New York Times bestselling author David Weber said, “This is Jim Butcher at his best…It’s steampunk meets magic with a dose of sci-fi for seasoning.”

The Cinder Spires: THE AERONAUT’S WINDLASS is poised to be one of the fall’s biggest genre releases, and Butcher fans are anxiously awaiting news about the release. Perfect for readers of Brandon Sanderson and Naomi Novik—in addition to Butcher’s existing fans— The Cinder Spires is a grand new adventure from one of the biggest names in fantasy.

I don’t know about you, but I’m really looking forward to this. If you want to pre-order it already, you can get it from Amazon or B&N, or you can call up your local indie bookstore and ask them if they’ll be carrying it.