Michaelbrent Collings is a writer probably best known for his horror novels, but he’s always written outside that genre, from science fiction thrillers to young adult vampire romance to karate instruction manual.

With the Billy Saga, Michaelbrent gets into Middle Grade (or young young adult) fantasy adventure: the Harry Potter / Fablehaven / Ranger’s Apprentice space.

Young Billy Jones, new kid in school and fatherless, discovers that there is around him an unseen world of Powers: Life, Death, Fire, Water, and Air, each served by a camp of power-wielding individuals, none of of whom is, at least at the start, particularly congenial to Billy.  Billy himself seems to have some natural magical talent, but begins his experience with this world as an errand boy, shuttling between the Powers and trying not to get squashed.

As Billy’s own inheritance and the nature of his talents become clear (two words, and I apologize for the spoiler: King Arthur), Billy becomes increasingly active among the Powers.  His quest: to collect a series of fabled arms that will bring him to his full stature as his father’s true heir, and then to stand against the terrible servants of Death in their war to reduce the cosmos to a lifeless waste.

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