Steel Gods

Steel Gods is the second book in Richard Swan's The Great Silence trilogy, published by Orbit in 2026. A dark, industrial-era flintlock fantasy, it continues the story begun in the first Great Silence novel with a blend of epic scope, arcane horror and grimdark tension.

As a supernatural mind-plague spreads, the Sovan Empire is forced to seek help from old enemies. The novel follows multiple viewpoints — the diplomat Renata Rainer, the soldier Peter Kleist, and the menacing Count Lamprecht von Oldenburg — as investigations into the Great Silence reach across mortal and spiritual realms toward a grim convergence.

Swan, known for the Empire of the Wolf series, brings the same shrewd worldbuilding and creeping dread here. Fans of grimdark and dark epic fantasy — Joe Abercrombie, Adrian Tchaikovsky, and Swan's own earlier work — will find a bleak, intricate and atmospheric middle volume.