Acts of War: Flashpoint will debut in an exclusive prerelease at Lock & Load GameFest 2016 (June 10–12), and author Aeryn Rudel has some insights into the first big book to launch the new era of the Iron Kingdoms…

1) For readers who might not be familiar with the central characters in your new book Flashpoint… How would you describe Stryker and Magnus?

For the nuts and bolts descriptions, they’re both warcasters, skilled battle leaders, and men who command respect (or fear) from those they lead. Stryker is some twenty years younger than Magnus, and at one point the older warcaster served as his mentor—you know, before Stryker joined a coup to depose the tyrannical king Magnus served . . . but that’s a different book.
As for their personalities, for brevity, you could sum up both characters in a single word. For Stryker, that word would be idealist, and for Magnus that word would be pragmatist. These words define their approaches to leadership, personal relationships, and even battle. As you can imagine, an idealist and a pragmatist are going to find a lot to disagree about.

2) And there’s a character in Flashpoint who is new to pretty much everyone–what can you tell us about Beth Maddox?

I love Maddox; she’s one of my favorite characters in the book because she’s kind of a sounding board for both Stryker and Magnus. She’s the sobering dose of reality they both need, and she stands firmly between Stryker’s noble idealism and Magnus cold pragmatism. She’s tough, a skilled warcaster and battle leader in her own right, and one of the few people in the Cygnaran Army who can be blunt—often brutally so—with Lord General Stryker. Maddox also has a difficult past—she spent some years as a POW among the Protectorate of Menoth. That experience definitely colors her personality and outlook.

3) Your combat scenes (always a favorite in Skull Island eXpeditions books) are quite detailed. Are you a fan of combat fiction?

Am I fan of combat fiction? Definitely, especially the kind that involves swordplay and such. I have some hands-on, real-world experience with that kind of thing, and it sometimes colors the way I write a fight scene. That said, some of the weapons in the Iron Kingdoms don’t exactly conform to weapons in our real world (they’re way cooler), but there’s usually a close analog to be found. For example, take Stryker’s mechanika blade Quicksilver. It’s massive, but it’s essentially a two-handed greatsword, so if I need to get detailed with how Stryker fights with it, I can refer to how a two-handed greatsword was used in the real world. Of course, I’m likely going to start with that as a foundation and then write it to fit in a world where folks are wearing steam-powered warcaster armor and wielding enchanted mechanikal blades.

4) Was it difficult to begin to write after the “time jump” between Mk II and the new editions?

Not too hard. Luckily, I had the sage of the Iron Kingdoms Douglas Seacat to help guide me through the time jump. Privateer Press Chief Creative Officer Matt Wilson also helped a great deal. We kind of had the details of what happened between the end of The Blood of Kings and the beginning of Flashpoint before I started writing in earnest, so the time jump wasn’t too difficult to navigate.

5) We know there will be a short piece of fiction that precedes the release of Flashpoint. What can you tell us about that?

Well, it’s actually an excerpt from another book I’m working on, one that takes us way back to before the Lion’s Coup, when Vinter Raelthorne IV was still on the throne and Asheth Magnus had himself a young pupil names Coleman Stryker. What you get to see in this short piece is Stryker using his warcaster talents for the first time in a real battle where his life is at stake. The experience is slightly less glorious than he had anticipated…
6) Flashpoint ‘s indicates it’s the first book in the Acts of War series. What should we expect from the next book?
You can expect the war to spread, new villains to emerge, old villains to return, new allies to help and complicate matters, and, finally, the death of a well-known character. How’s that for a teaser?