November 2025

THE CELESTIAL TEARS OF DYING LIGHT is finished! I am finalising the edits now, before sending to the proofreader for the final freshen-up before I format the publication files. I can’t wait to share this lore-bomb with you, featuring a forbidden romance, a heisting gang of evil priests, and some real eldritch scary stuff.

AN EMPIRE OF DIRT & LIES will be returning to the fore of my attention as soon as the proofreads for the novella are done. I want this finished the drafting stage at the latest by July of next year.

After AN EMPIRE OF DIRT & LIES, I am undecided on what will come next. Currently, I’m debating a few different things. Firstly, I have been planning a separate book to the world of Q’ara with another author friend of mine. I can’t tell you too much about it yet, but it’s safe to say we are both excited about it, and just need our timelines to align so we can get to work on it. Could it be next? Maybe. For now, I’ve left it in the progress report along with the codename TASK FORCE HOOD. Guesses as to what it might be are welcome!

If TASK FORCE HOOD is relegated to a later time, I need to decide whether to go ahead and finish THE SONG OF THE SLEEPERS right away, or hold back. If I choose the former, I’ll be starting work on the final book, A CHORUS OF LIGHT & DEATH, with a look to releasing it sometime in 2027. However, I may decide to write one of two standalone novels set on Q’ara first, for context, because both will add some decor to the series as well as provide an alternative pathway into the main books for new readers. The first I have planned is a weasel-centric story I’m tentatively calling LOAVES & LARCENY (you might guess who this one’s about from the title alone). However, the other is currently called THE TEA-GARDENS OF TEL-KATHAN, and will be a sort of murder mystery set in Tel-Kathan. That means feudal Japanese inspirations, lots of cosy tea drinking, and some lore dumping for the continent of Q’ara too.

Anyway, that’s my progress report for now. I’ll update you as we go along!

On the continent of Q’ara, the original custodianship of the land was once shared between Aobians, a race who dwell in Great Trees, and the Hidden Ones, a race of anthropomorphic creatures not dissimilar to a real-world weasel. But humans arrived thousands of years ago, only to settle and establish ownership across the continent, reducing Aobia to a single Tree, and sending the Hidden Ones into a state of dormancy never before seen.

THE SONG OF THE SLEEPERS is a new epic fantasy series by Australian author Joshua Walker, and tells the story of perhaps the greatest turmoil to fall upon Q’ara since the Settlement of the human race: the rise of the Theradoran Empire, and their ability to wield Aobian magic, known as Luminosity. 

Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn meets Tarzan in this epic fantasy, Japanese-inspired coming of age tale.

WHAT BEGINS WITH WATER WILL FINISH IN FLAMES.

On the day the river destroyed his people, Jilo took up his father’s spear. Years later, when the heirloom is taken from him, he vows to do anything to get it back.

The river is sick and putrid.

The magic is in the wrong hands.

The spear is the answer to it all.

THE CHILD OF THE GREENWOOD is the second novella that supports The Song of the Sleepers series, an epic new fantasy from Joshua Walker.

WE WILL PUT YOU IN THE DIRT, BECAUSE THAT IS WHAT YOU DESERVE.

In the wake of the Siege of Adira, lives have changed forever. The Theradoran army has collapsed after what appeared to be an assault in their favour, and the new Adiran King, Sefil, will lead the way for the alliance.

At the cost of finding her father’s killer, the presumed-dead Queen Esme finds herself in the enemy’s hands, living with a new name and an insurmountable task: destroy the Empire of Therador from the inside out.

Aobian fighters rescue their exiled one, Drift, and reveal the weight of hundreds of years worth in secrets. Lies are more valuable than truths, and only time will tell how far the truth can really go. One book of histories may be the answer, but Drift’s search is urgent, and time is running out.

THERE EXISTS A PLANE BETWEEN THIS WORLD AND ANOTHER.

While the Four-Front War escalates across Q’ara, an Aobian Sleeper is sent to the deep north of the continent to investigate what the histories claimed to once exist: another population of tree-dwellers. Meanwhile, a zealous priest seeks the most powerful magical artefact to ever be sought out.

There’s something in the water.

The land bleeds from its lungs.

The secrets will break us all.

THE CELESTIAL TEARS OF DYING LIGHT is the third and final novella in the bestselling fantasy epic, The Song of the Sleepers.