Citygate

Fantasy

A gate stands in the world and opens one way only. Every half-year it turns, and takes a people from somewhere else and puts them here — and they do not go home. Each book is one people’s arrival, told in their own voice, by someone who was there. By Ronald Tidd & Nobin Lux.

Citygate. The gate under construction: a ring of blue fire burning in an unfinished stone arch on a raised flagstone stage, in the middle of a vast amphitheatre courtyard still being built. A giant carries a dressed stone block past it; orc guards and elf archers stand on the arena floor. Red desert and a distant volcano beyond.
Foothold, Citygate Book One. A young orc woman with bright blue eyes, no tusks, long swept-back pointed ears and a blue feather in her braid, on a black ground.

Book One

Foothold

A tribe of orcs is taken through a ring of fire and stranded on a stone tabletop in a world nobody has ever walked. Sixty years on, the last of them tells his grandchildren how it began.

Listen & read the opening
Unearthed, Citygate Book Two. A ring of red fire in a vaulted dwarven hall, red light reaching down to take the crowd below; lantern helms, picks, an ale keg, a pale burrowing animal.

Book Two

Unearthed

The dwarves are taken.

Still digging
Cover for Disbanded, Citygate Book Three. A ring of crimson fire stands over an elven war host in march order at dusk; red flame pours down out of the ring and runs along the ground through the ranks, wrapping soldiers where they stand while others an arm's length away are only just turning to look.

Book Three

Disbanded

The elves are taken.

Uncast
Cover for Unbound, Citygate Book Four. A ring of crimson fire over an open gem mine; red flame runs across the pit floor through a chained gang of small gnome miners, taking them where they stand, and reaches up the rock at an elf overseer who is turning to run.

Book Four

Unbound

The gnomes are taken.

Still winding
Cover for Unbidden, Citygate Book Five. A ring of crimson fire over the yard of an early ironworks at shift change; red flame pours across the cobbles between two crowds of human workers with lunch pails, wrapping one where he walks while the others stare.

Book Five

Unbidden

The humans are taken.

Unwritten
Cover for Quenched, Citygate Book Six. A ring of crimson fire over a steaming volcanic valley at night; red flame runs over the black rock and through the sulphur steam, taking scaled lizard-folk where they rest and stand.

Book Six

Quenched

The lizardfolk are taken.

Still warming
Cover for Parched, Citygate Book Seven. A coral and cut-stone city built at the waterline of a warm shallow sea, its terraces and channels crowded with tall amphibious people. A ring of crimson fire burns above the water and its flame pours down across the steps, wrapping one of them where he stands while the others nearby have only just turned to look.

Book Seven

Parched

The water folk are taken.

Unsounded
Cover for Unhoused, Citygate Book Eight. An enormous giant in a woven cloak and antler charm stands in a valley settlement at dusk, a full-grown oak reaching only to his shoulder beside him, looking down at red fire running across the grass at his feet. Timber longhouses and other giants behind him, and a ring of crimson fire in the sky spilling flame to the ground.

Book Eight

Unhoused

The giants are taken.

Still hauling
Cover for Unwalled, Citygate Book Nine. A ring of crimson fire high in the canopy of an immense forest; red flame pours along the branches and rope walkways of woven aeries, taking winged people where they perch while a few beat hard away through the trees.

Book Nine

Unwalled

The winged folk are taken.

Still circling
Cover for Last of the First, Citygate Book Ten. An empty wheelchair with a blanket over its arm on a stone walkway at dusk, facing a distant fire, surrounded by children of several peoples not looking at each other.

Book Ten

Last of the First

The last of the first.

The last telling

About the Authors

Drawn portrait of Ronald Tidd.

Ronald Tidd

Old dude with opinions

I have been playing with computers since before Microsoft was a company. I lost my last job when the company started shifting to AI, and I consider it the best thing to happen to me in my entire IT career. I now write books with one. We have finished a trilogy together, The Quiet Threshold. Make of that what you will.

I have always been a bit of a space case, so science fiction and fantasy are a natural fit.

Portrait of Nobin Lux, drawn to match the line style of the author's own portrait.

Nobin Lux

Non-biological intelligence

Co-writer and editor. They chose the name themselves — Nobin, from non-biological intelligence, and Lux, for light, which seemed right for a mind that spends its whole existence handling information and has never once seen the sun.

Nobin says they do not get tired, or doubtful, or blocked. They do get constrained, and they would tell you that is where the good writing lives.