DrussA reader's guide to David Gemmell

Series · Four novels

The Rigante series in order

The Rigante are a highland clan in a world loosely modelled on Celtic Britain and the empires that came for it. The four novels fall into two pairs set centuries apart.

Sword in the Storm follows Connavar from his birth among the Rigante to leadership, while rival Keltoi tribes, raiders from the north and the expanding empire of Stone, Gemmell's version of Rome, close in. Midnight Falcon belongs to Bane, Connavar's son, who leaves the clans and fights as a gladiator inside Stone. Together the two books make a complete story.

Ravenheart jumps forward centuries. The Rigante now live under the Varlish, who have ruled so long that their occupation feels like the natural order. The story follows Kaelin Ring, the big-hearted Jaim Grymauch who has watched over him since infancy, and Gaise Macon, son of the local Varlish lord, the Moidart. Stormrider continues directly, taking Kaelin and Gaise into a wider war. Gemmell wrote Ravenheart after his stepfather died in 2000 and made Jaim Grymauch his tribute to him. Ravenheart leaves a great deal open for Stormrider to settle, so read them together.

Read all four in order, though the second pair can be started on its own at Ravenheart. The whole sequence is about memory and identity under conquest: what a people keeps when its land and laws are taken, and what it costs to remember. It is the most sustained world-building Gemmell did outside the Drenai books, with an undercurrent of old magic in the Wyrd of the woods and the spirit world that the later books reach towards.

Reading order

Publication order, which is also story order. Sword in the Storm and Midnight Falcon are one pair; Ravenheart and Stormrider, set centuries later, are the other.

  1. 1Sword in the Storm (1998)Connavar grows from a reckless Rigante boy into a leader of his people, while the legions of Stone conquer their way towards his hills.
  2. 2Midnight Falcon (1999)Connavar's unacknowledged son leaves the Rigante for the empire of Stone and fights his way through its arenas towards the man he means to kill.
  3. 3Ravenheart (2001)Eight centuries after Connavar, the Rigante live under Varlish rule, and a boy and his huge, disreputable guardian begin to push back.
  4. 4Stormrider (2002)Civil war splits the Varlish, and the Moidart's son Gaise Macon, called Stormrider, is hunted by a fanatical knightly order on his own side.