Diablo Archive On Sale Today

Demonsbane was the first book published set in the Diablo world. It was published on Halloween 2000, and it was part of the first e-book “revolution.” Unfortunately, as history has shown, the market for e-books was quite small at the time, and so while Demonsbane was advertised for some months on Battle.net, the sales were in the hundreds, rather than the thousands, and it ended up being more or less a “lost gem.” I am delighted beyond words that Demonsbane can now be enjoyed by the public as I had always hoped it would be.

Demonsbane is, of the entire collection, the story that is set earliest in the Diablo story line – it’s set right after the defeat of the Warlord of Blood in the Sin War, and tells in part the story of Sarnakyle, the Vizjerei Lord who brought his people back to elemental magic. It also introduces Siggard, a character I am very, very fond of, and one of the little known but vital battles that kept the demonic powers from taking Sanctuary and using it as a base against the Angelic hosts.

Because it was the first piece of Diablo professional fiction (and my first book sale, for that matter), and because we really did expect e-books to be a lot bigger than they turned out to be, it felt like I had to set the tone for the series, and help establish Sanctuary not only as a living and breathing game world, but also as a living and breathing world in literature. So, I did a lot of world building using flavour quotes at the beginning of each chapter – in effect, I built up a body of literature written by people from the world of Sanctuary like Godfrey of Westmarch, Gesinius of Kehjistan, and even King Leoric himself. This was a bit of a necessity, as since Demonsbane was an e-book, it was limited to being only about a quarter of the size of one of the print books, and there wasn’t a really good way to do massive world building otherwise. In the here and now, I hope those quotes are something that Diablo fans will be able to sink their teeth into, and imagine how the rest of the Lay of Arkaine might have gone, or what else King Leoric would have written about the art of war.

(Personally, I knew that I had gotten the story, characters, and world building right when Chris Metzen read the finished draft and replied with “I fu—-ng love it!”)

So it is my greatest pleasure that the story that began the Diablo fiction line is now available in this way to Diablo fans – I hope that they have as much fun reading it as I had writing it. Writing Demonsbane was an absolute blast, and while I am not lined up at this point in time to write another Diablo book, if I was offered one I would do it in a heartbeat.”

Today at Robert B. Marks blog he said: “Well, the author’s copies of Diablo Archive have arrived, and they made my day.  The book looks lovely, and the neat things I had put into Demonsbane, like a quote from an epic poem about Arkaine in Beowulf-style verse, came out just as I had hoped they would.

My story is the last in the book, starting at page 681 and ending on page 738 (it’s a novella- it’s going to be shorter than the full length books).

The second of my novels brings together the necromancer, Zayl, the mercenary Kentril Dumon, the sorcerer Quov Tsin, and others as their destinies lead them to the lost city of Ureh—- once called the Gateway to the High Heavens, so pious was it.  But there is a shadow over the city that stretches into evil and what is a ruin is not necessarily empty, for Ureh is said in legend to come back to life…

In addition, the archive also includes not only Mel Odom’s BLACK ROAD, but also, as a special bonus, Robert B. Marks’ tale, DEMONSBANE!  The DIABLO ARCHIVE is the largest of the Blizzard collections yet, and I’m excited to be a part of it…and a part of the shadowy world of Sanctuary itself.  From the beginning, I’ve enjoyed delving into it and adding to its history, even when many wondered if there would ever be another game in the series.

I’d like to thank many people for their part in this, also, including Chris Metzen at Blizzard, Marco Palmieri at Pocket Books, Medievaldragon at Blizzplanet, Tanith at Gamersvault, and all those who believed that we had not seen the last of Sanctuary!  I hope that those of you who try the archive enjoy these first tales!”

Best