People like Paul Kearney

Paul Kearney (born 1967) is a Northern Irish fantasy author. He is noted for his work in the epic fantasy subgenre and his work has been compared to that of David Gemmell.

Kearney was born in Ballymena, Northern Ireland, in 1967. He studied Anglo-Saxon, Middle English, and Old Norse at Oxford University before spending several years in both the United States and Denmark before returning to Northern Ireland. He currently lives and writes in County Down.

Kearney made his name with the stand-alone novels The Way to Babylon (1992), A Different Kingdom (1993) and Riding the Unicorn (1994). All these novels had some common threads, most notably the use of a hero from our world who journeys into a fantastical one. Despite strong reviews, these books had commercially disappointing sales, and Kearney was asked to consider a more traditional fantasy epic. The outcome was the Monarchies of God, which brought him a measure of success, and ran to five volumes.