Brian McClellan

2 universes Last reviewed 2026-08-06

Brian McClellan was born on January 25, 1986, in Cleveland, Ohio, and earned a degree in English, with an emphasis in creative writing, from Brigham Young University, where he studied under fellow fantasy author Brandon Sanderson and attended Orson Scott Card's Literary Bootcamp in 2006. He began writing as a teenager on Wheel of Time role-playing websites before moving on to short fiction. His debut novel, Promise of Blood (2013), launched the Powder Mage trilogy, a flintlock fantasy series completed in 2015, which he followed with the sequel trilogy Gods of Blood and Powder (2017-2019) and the novels In the Shadow of Lightning (2022) and Montego (2023), along with numerous novellas set in the same world. Promise of Blood won the Morningstar Award for Best Fantasy Newcomer in 2014, and McClellan received an honorable mention in the Writers of the Future contest in 2008.

Universe(s)

Books

• Ghosts of the Tristan Basin (2013) · The Powder Mage Expanded Canon
• Promise of Blood (2013) · The Powder Mage Core Canon
• Forsworn (2014) · The Powder Mage Expanded Canon
• Murder at the Kinnen Hotel (2014) · The Powder Mage Expanded Canon
• Servant of the Crown (2014) · The Powder Mage Expanded Canon
• The Crimson Campaign (2014) · The Powder Mage Core Canon
• In the Field Marshal's Shadow (2015) · The Powder Mage Expanded Canon
• Siege of Tilpur (2015) · The Powder Mage Expanded Canon
• The Autumn Republic (2015) · The Powder Mage Core Canon
• Sins of Empire (2017) · The Powder Mage Core Canon
• The Mad Lancers (2017) · The Powder Mage Expanded Canon
• Wrath of Empire (2018) · The Powder Mage Core Canon
• Blood of Empire (2019) · The Powder Mage Core Canon
• In the Shadow of Lightning (2022) · Glass Immortals Core Canon
• Montego (2023) · Glass Immortals Expanded Canon
• Swords, Cider, and Other Distractions (2025) · Glass Immortals Expanded Canon

Aggregate across all universes

These are separate, unrelated universes; the totals below are plain sums of already-published per-universe facts, never a blended or averaged score across them. See each universe's own figures above.

• Total Core Canon books across all universes: 7 books
• Award recognitions across all universes: 1 (1 won)

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