When I began writing the first Vampyricon novel in the early 1990s, I had no idea that it would take more than ten years to finish it up and complete the trilogy. Even then, I wasn't sure anyone would want a novel from me that wasn't solidly a horror novel, nor one set in the medieval world. And dark fantasy? Was I mad?
 
Yet, something about the hero of this tale, Aleric the Falconer, kept me working on this epic dark fantasy. Then, when Shocklines did its very limited edition of the first book, The Priest of Blood, I figured that would be as far as publication would go...until the book went to auction in NY and other countries, and ended up on the bestseller lists. All of this surprised me. This was a story I didn't even want to show to publishers for years.
 
Now, with this announcement, I am thrilled that Lonely Road Books is doing a deluxe and very limited edition of all three books in one beautiful volume.
 
When I was a boy, my family traveled to archaeological sites in Mexico, including Teotihuacan. When I stood on the steps of the Pyramid of the Sun and looked back along the valley floor at the newly unearthed temples and structures around it, I realized for the first time that we live in a world full of buried kingdoms. Years later, both at the Alhambra in Spain when I was sixteen, and then in Brittany in France in my early 20s, I grew to love the cultures and civilizations that had been driven out or conquered in various areas. All of this brewed in my mind for years until one day I had an idea of a boy who grew up so brutalized and downtrodden that even death seemed welcome -- but what if there were a race of vampires that took him instead?
 
My vampires in The Vampyricon are more kin to harpies and gorgons from ancient mythologies than to European noblemen or walking corpses. They are the way I would want vampires to be -- amoral but also human, and with some wisdom for the long years of their existence. But like the human beings they once were, they're also war-like and cruel, jealous and unyielding. And I wanted to explore -- and create -- great lost cities as well as a mysterious and dangerous priesthood, a gladiatorial death-fight that pits vampyres against wolves and men, shapeshifting necromantic nuns called Chymers, a mysterious figure known as the Plague Maiden, lamprey-mermaids called the Alkemars, as well as other evolutionary throwbacks of the vampyric world. I drew on mythology and my imagination to build this lost century of history.
 
The Vampyricon is, ultimately, a tale of love and war, gods and monsters, and the lost kingdoms known only to the race of the Vampyre. I hope you enjoy this new, complete edition.
 
Best,

Douglas Clegg