Despite the recent cancellation of one of Amazon Prime Video's most ambitious series, fantasy continues to gain ground, particularly in France, thanks to some extremely talented writers. Good news, we learned this weekend that one of our most iconic authors has finally received the recognition he deserves. We'll tell you everything!
Hoo for the Bastard of Kosigan
If you read us regularly, you undoubtedly know that at Hitek, we try to give a large place to French-language fantasy literature. And it's not even out of chauvinism! Several of us journalists in the editorial team find that many French-language science fiction and fantasy authors have nothing to envy in terms of talent from their English, American, Canadian, and Australian counterparts. On several occasions, we have had the opportunity to look back at French fantasy comics that have become staples of the genre, but also at those French fantasy novels that we dream of one day seeing adapted for film and television.
In this respect, the Imaginales - the festival of imaginary worlds held every year in Épinal - is an important event for fantasy lovers. The festival also organizes a highly anticipated award every year: the Imaginales Prize for the best French-language fantasy novel. Since 2002, several great authors have been winners of this prestigious prize, including Jean-Philippe Jaworski (Gagner la Guerre and Même pas mort), Pierre Pevel (L'élixir d'oubli), Justine Niogret (Chien du heaume), Stefan Platteau (Manesh) and Léo Henry (Thecel). This year, Fabien Cerutti was awarded the prize for Kosigan: A Spring of Blood, published in 2024 by Mnemos.
The fifth volume in the series The Bastard of Kosigan, which was one of our recommendations for readers interested in historical fantasy, A Spring of Blood is a somewhat separate volume that can be read independently of the first four volumes. As Fabien Cerutti explained in an interview with Elbakin, this is actually the first story of the Bastard of Kosigan, which he wrote in 2003 for a role-playing game, and of which the cycle of four volumes published between 2014 and 2019 is a prequel. A Spring of Blood thus begins a new cycle of three or four novels, more or less independent, according to the author's confidences. Taking place twenty years after the events of the first cycle, A Spring of Blood sees Pierre Cordwain - former captain of mercenaries, assassin, spy and bastard of the Burgundian house of Kosigan - return to the Duchy he fled, while the French and English are tearing each other apart during the Hundred Years' War. But the anti-hero lands in a real nest of vipers! At the same time, the polymorphous Italian adventurer Dùnevia Illavaëlle explores the county of Albret, while a dragon has appeared for the first time in a long time.
Agrégé d'Histoire and a formidable storyteller, Fabien Cerutti has written with A Spring of Blood a novel of formidable effectiveness, which we highly recommend. We hope that the Imaginales Prize he won will expand the number of readers of this essential series for any self-respecting fan of good fantasy!
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