In this latest look at what’s going on in the world of Unseen Shadows we take a walk down a darker path with Virgil Yendell as he takes us through his work on the recently completed story ‘Knights of Cademus’ which will feature in the third Unseen Shadows trilogy.

Writing the Knights of Cademus

Finding Barry Nugent’s Unseen Shadows project at Thought Bubble one year, I was immediately intrigued by the modern take on the fantasy/pulp themes, and the different ways of accessing the story gave so much potential. After making my way through all the Unseen Shadows material I began to get a view of the mixed angles and characters from which to approach the Unseen Shadows world. In amongst the main and supporting characters that were already central to the novel and associated graphic novels I saw a chance to chase and expand on an idea I’d seen other writers touch on before. I pitched it to Barry and he gave me the green light to start work on the Knights of Cademus story.

There’s more to it but essentially the Knight of Cademus are Star Trek red shirts for the bad guys (as Barry would say) or are the Putties from Power Rangers (as my partner would say). They are the cannon fodder, the anonymous henchmen of the big bad. The red shirts have been the focus of their own novel by John Scalzi looking at how they view their cannon fodder status etc Grant Morrison paid his dues to his anonymous henchmen in The Invisibles series with a swan song story about the life that would lead someone into such a role. I loved Grant Morrison’s take and we have a few nods to it in our story but I also wanted to do more. I wanted to know how an army deals with the losses these henchmen always face in such stories. How do they deal with it personally and as strategic force? How is such a force developed?

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