Engineer. Storyteller. Cat staff.
About D. M. Owens
D. M. Owens has always loved stories, and their power to tell us about the world and ourselves, and has probably thought about tales and other worlds every day since he was old enough to understand.
In real life he is an engineer, and spends his days writing convincing arguments about bits of metal. He lives in the south-west of the UK with his partner and two feline editorial assistants, life coaches and dictators.
Cold Iron is his first book.
Reader questions
Questions & answers
Read about the ideas, inspirations and process behind Cold Iron, or submit a question of your own.
There’s em-dashes in this book! Did you use LLMs or Generative AI?
No, absolutely not, neither in the text nor the art, and there never will be. I’ve no interest in using the theft-machine; any mistakes or imperfections in the work are entirely human-generated (and you can prise my em-dashes from my cold, dead hands).
Is there more?! A sequel? What happens now?
There are plans. Meanwhile, if you want to see more, please consider signing up to the mailing list for a free prequel short story describing one of Alys’s earlier adventures.
Why did you write Cold Iron?
Partly to see if I could, partly because the characters wouldn’t leave my head, partly because I felt like I was searching for a specific story amongst the fantasy genre and when I couldn’t find it I realised I’d have to make it. Because stories, more than anything else, are what makes humans.
How did you write it? What tools did you use?
Slowly, over several years, learning a lot with each iteration. The basic themes have stayed consistent, but the actual story and structure has changed beyond recognition from the early drafts. The initial drafts were all written in Scrivener, and then editing was done in Proton Drive.
Why did you self-publish?
Because I wanted more precise control over the specifics of the book, including the freedom to find my own cover artist, and because I’ve no real interest in the current all-or-nothing world of traditional publishing where you’re either a smash hit or lost beneath the waves.
Who did the cover?
Clint English.
What were your main sources of inspiration for Cold Iron?
Folklore, especially English and Welsh, and doubly especially the Mabinogion. Alert readers will notice some references and parallels. Discworld in general and Ankh-Morpork in particular. Dragon Age (the first one and bits of the second one), Deus Ex, Phonogram, the Dresden Files, anything where a city is a character.
What are your favourite books?
In no particular order: The Lord of the Rings (cliché, I know), Magician by Raymond E. Feist, Feet of Clay by Terry Pratchett, High Fidelity by Nick Hornby, Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie, The Gunslinger by Stephen King, Count Zero by William Gibson, Grave Peril by Jim Butcher and Harrow the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir.
What have you read recently that has left an impact?
A Drop of Corruption (and sequel) by Robert Jackson Bennett, Daughter of Crows by Mark Lawrence and Godkiller by Hannah Kaner.
Does Alys have a mental health condition? She’s a jerk at times.
Some people would argue that, by contemporary standards, Alys might fit into one of the categories that describe someone with a mental health issue. However, the world of Cold Iron isn’t so prescriptive, or — arguably — enlightened. She wouldn’t say she did, but she’s quite adept at self-delusion and has a pathological response to being put in a box — so this is left as an exercise for the reader.
What’s Rafiq’s problem? He’s a jerk at times.
He’s trying his best within a system that is not terribly supportive of it, and has committed the sin of retaining a degree of idealism.
How does chimistry work?
Coming soon.