The Fall of Rome
The Roman Empire, riddled with corruption and staggered by barbarian onslaughts, now
faces its greatest challenge: not only to its wealth and prestige, but to its very existence.
The Sword of Attila
Only one man has the power and courage to preserve Rome from utter
destruction — but to save the Empire, he must first overcome the Sword
of Attila.
The Last King
The saga of Mithridates the Great, Rome's most dreaded adversary
and the bane of its greatest generals.
Gods and Legions
The passionate account of the doomed Roman Emperor Julian and the
early days of Christianity.
The Ten Thousand
The epic tale of Xenophon and his Greek mercenaries in their running
battle from Persia to the sea.
Italian cover for Gods and Legions
Italian cover for The Sword of Attila
Portuguese cover for Gods and Legions
News
You Know You're Famous When...
10.27.07: Reader Ian Hopkinson has very kindly started a Facebook group for fans of my books, for which I am very grateful, if somewhat bemused. Help support this merry band of admirers of fine literature and ancient mayhem, by joining the group yourself and contributing to its discussions. You might even get "poked" by a new friend! The URL is http://hs.facebook.com/group.php?gid=5673788449
"Michael Ford" is the new "John Smith!"
09.24.07: In response to multiple requests from readers regarding the subject matter of my "next book," The Fire of Ares: Spartan Quest: very sorry to disappoint, but that is not my next book! After some investigation, I have found that Fire of Ares is apparently a "young adult"-level book written by a British author with a name disconcertingly similar to my own, Michael Ford. I'm quite glad, now, that when I first began writing novels I decided to use my middle name, Curtis, even though never in my previous life had ever used that name for anything. At the time, using Curtis was an effort to distinguish myself from yet another similarly-named author, Michael Thomas Ford, whose subject matter I definitely did not want confused with my own! I offer best wishes to the "other" Michael Ford with his new book — perhaps one day we can meet and exchange war stories...
It's Here!
05.16.07: Whoops, caught me by surprise. I seem to have lost track of time, and thought The Fall of Rome would be released later this month (since I haven't even received my own courtesy copies from the publisher yet). But a reader just alerted me that he found it at his local bookstore, and upon checking, I found that as of today, it is now available online at both Amazon and Barnes & Noble. Indeed, one kind soul has already posted a reader-review on Amazon (from England, no less! Where did he get a copy?), and the formidable Harriet Klausner reviewed it on B&N. I've been writing novels for, what, seven years now, and I still can't figure out how this industry works.
In any event, I'm glad The Fall of Rome has finally emerged from the recesses of my mind and the publisher's print warehouse. May I humbly (shamelessly?) suggest that this book would be an ideal Father's Day present for that inspirational male in your life, or would make for some action-filled, yet educational, beach reading for yourself this summer. And ask your friendly bookstore owner to order copies, if they're not already stocked on the shelves. Tell him I sent you.
And thank you, thank you, for your patience during the long wait since The Sword of Attila.
More on "Becoming a Writer"
04.08.07: I just received a letter from another young fan who had a question I thought was fairly universal, so I thought I would post it, along with my response, in case it might be helpful to other aspiring authors.
Q. Hello, I am 16 years old. I am in love with history, mainly military history, especially Greek and Roman, but also medieval, and 16th-20th century warfare. I just finished one of your books, The Last King, and I loved it, I look forward to reading just about every other book I read about on your website as well, but my real reason for writing this is the following: I write stories. Rather I try, they are pretty much just large battles with heroes and such, and while I have gotten good reviews, and I myself enjoy my short works, my favorite is only 4 pages long, and my longest only 9. How do you take what you do and go and write hundreds of pages on it? I am positive I could pull my stories out to be dozens of pages longer, but I could never fill one, not to mention four hundred pages....
A. You know, your question is one I hear a lot, and I think there's an easy
answer. The fact that you are already a writer of short stories means that
you're already 90% of the way there. Most of the key lies in picking a topic
that's big enough to sustain you for 400 pages. If you notice, the topic of
"The Last King" was not just "a battle," but rather an entire life of a single man,
which comprises maybe a dozen or so battles, a couple of wives, wild
parties, hunting expeditions, political scandals, fights with relatives,
etc. Look how my book is constructed: it's very episodic, meaning that it's really a series a short stories all
strung together into a longer book, with connecting sequences in between to
make it hang consistently. Indeed, that's even how I wrote it: the battle
scenes first (my favorite), followed by other individual stories, then
arranged in chronological order, with the gaps filled in.
When you break a man's entire life up into chunks like that, or into a
series of maybe 40 short stories, it all seems much less daunting, and more
manageable.
The key is to pick a topic, like the life of Mithridates for me, that can
sustain your interest for the many months it takes to research and write all
those small stories. To me, that's the hard part. Many characters of
antiquity had one or two good battles, or an interesting political scandal,
but that's it, and there was either nothing else of interest in their life,
or the research is just too obscure.
But look, you're still very young, too young to be writing a full novel. For
now, work on your craft. Read the little essay I posted on my website, "How
to be a writer," and keep on pumping out your short stories and improving
your style and technique, and focusing on your schoolwork. The ability to
produce many pages will come later. You know, a man's physical peak comes
when he's about 18 or 20. But the winners of top endurance races (like the
Tour de France, or the Hawaii Ironman, or ultra-marathons) are rarely under
30, and are often in the 40s and 50s. Authors are the same. You have to have
a few miles under your belt before you have the patience to sustain the pace
for a long period of time.
Hope that helps, and keep on reading!
Advance Review of THE FALL OF ROME
03.24.07: The book is not due to be released for a couple more months yet, but we just received our first advance review, which has the useful effect of giving you a synopsis of the story (so I don't have to write one myself...)
From Publishers Weekly
Fans of The Sword of Attila will open this follow-up with happy anticipation. Since it begins with the unexpected death of the great Hun conqueror in A.D. 453, readers unfamiliar with the previous work will not suffer. In the chaos following Attila's death, Odoacer and Onulf, sons of a leading Hun general, flee after a greedy rival kills their father. They split up, with Odoacer traveling across Europe to Noricum, his dead mother's homeland. Although he arrives in rags, he soon learns he is the grandson of its king. A talented soldier, he reorganizes the army and wins a victory against marauding Huns, only to see a Roman invasion destroy his people six years later. He flees to Italy where he again rises to military prominence and reunites with Onulf, also serving in the Roman army. Encountering their father's murderer, now a leading figure in the crumbling empire, the brothers lead a revolt. History buffs will admire the author's research as he recounts the final bloody decades of the Roman Empire. Though Ford's heroes are more convincing on the battlefields than when negotiating the plot that leads from one clash to another, there's more than enough action to sate fans of the genre. (May)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Chapter One posted
11.14.06: We're making headway here — Doing the final touch-ups to The Fall of Rome before the manuscript heads into production (which is a surprisingly long process). For anyone who's curious, I've posted the first chapter here for you to read.
FALL OF ROME cover art
11.14.06: Work continues apace on FALL OF ROME, and my editor recently sent me a sample of the proposed cover art. You can view it here. Keep in mind that this is just a mock-up, and that at least the details (font size, background colors, etc.) are likely to change considerably between now and launch. Nevertheless, I'm really pleased with the classical painting they chose, especially as it closely reflects one of the key battle scenes in the book itself.
How to become a writer
11.14.06: I am often asked for advice on becoming a writer. I must confess that I truly
don't know — each writer's experience is unique, and if there were a
pre-set formula, then everyone would be able to follow it and achieve their
goals (and clearly this is not the case). I was most recently asked for guidance
by a young reader in Huntington, NY, who wisely narrowed the scope of his
question by specifying "tell me anything BESIDES 'keep working, and your
dreams will come true.' I'm sick of that."
I beg my young friend's indulgence in allowing me to reprint below the answer I
gave him, in the hopes it will be of use to other aspiring authors.
Thanks for writing! I'm delighted you're enjoying Sword of Attila, and
flattered that you would ask me for advice, though I'm not sure how helpful
I can be. You know, writing for a living, if that's your goal, is really
random, very much a "luck of the draw." So here's my advice:
Before becoming a writer, I was a professional translator (business documents,
contracts, etc., from various foreign languages into English. Really boring
stuff). And before that, I was a banker and business consultant. That
earlier experience in finance made me a very good translator, even though I
had no formal language qualifications, besides being able to speak what I
had basically learned "on the street" while traveling around
the world.
In fact, it made me a much better translator than people with actual
degrees and licenses in translation, because unlike them, I understood the
subject matter. I understood banking and finance, and could provide an
intelligent translation, rather than just a "dictionary" translation,
which is what translators who knew only the language could provide.
So where am I going with this? I just wanted to make the point that I think
writing a novel is much the same thing, and that you will be able to draw
into your story all the experiences and emotions you have had in your life,
and make it a much better, and more moving, story. Not that young people
without experience can't write novels--of course they can, and many have.
But the likelihood that their novels will be good is much slimmer. All too often, I
read a novel, and I realize the author is really faking it, just mouthing
experiences he has read about. The writing may be technically good, but it
rings hollow and false, like one of those translations of instruction
manuals for Japanese appliances, where the English may be more or less
correct, but it still makes no sense because the translator himself doesn't
know, and doesn't care, how to operate the darn machine.
So here's what I suggest. For now, write for yourself only--write for
enjoyment, write for catharsis (look it up), write for practice--but don't
worry about publication and "success" until much later. In the meantime, go
to college, fall in love, get a job, hitchhike around South America, get
your heart broken, take a skydiving lesson, train hard enough in some sport
that you really have to suffer, work for a terrible boss (and then,
hopefully, find a good boss), get religion, learn a foreign language, lie on
a beach for a summer, be sad because someone you knew died, own a pet, do
manual labor, get injured (not too seriously, I hope), win a lottery, get
rejected for something you really wanted, get married and start a family--in
short, collect life experiences, both good and bad. And while you're
collecting them, think about them and write them down and keep them in a
safe place.
THEN you will have the raw materials and the emotional discipline to write
an awesome, and heart-felt story. And in the meantime, you will have really
lived a life, which is infinitely more important.
I hope that helps. Best of luck to you, and feel free to keep in touch.
Mike Ford
A draught, for the draft!
11.14.06: I'm raising a glass to myself tonight for finishing the first draft of The Fall of Rome, which was due to my editor 60 days ago. Hey, it's my fifth novel, I'm entitled to be late now and then. Re-writes will start soon, then proofing and production, and I imagine it will finally be published about this time next year. In the meantime, I'm going to take a couple of weeks off and actually do some reading, for a change. I'll post Chapter One on this site as soon as I get clearance, probably within the next couple of months.
Against the Tide
11.14.06: I'm often asked what happened to my book entitled "Against the Tide." Its first chapter was excerpted in the back of the paperback version of "Gods and Legions," and many people have searched the bookstores for it, to no avail.
"Against the Tide" was actually the working title for "The Last King." That excerpt was printed at a very early stage in its editing process, and in the six months or so before final publication, the name was changed to "The Last King." Changes like this are fairly common in the industry, especially in the later stages of a book's production cycle, when the publisher's marketing people begin having input into the process. That was the second time one of my book titles was changed suddenly. The original title for "Gods and Legions" was "The Last Pagan." (I apparently underestimated how many pagans still exist!) Hope that clarifies things.
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