World Without End ...

Ever since The Pillars of the Earth was published in 1989, readers have been asking me to write a sequel. The book is so popular that I’ve been nervous about trying to repeat its success. But at last I screwed up my courage, and wrote World Without End.

I couldn’t write another book about building a cathedral, because that would be the same book. And I couldn’t write another story about the same characters, because by the end of 'Pillars' they are all very old or dead. 'World Without End' takes place in the same town, Kingsbridge, and features the descendants of the 'Pillars' characters two centuries later.

The cathedral and the priory are again at the centre of a web of love and hate, greed and pride, ambition and revenge. But at the heart of the story is the greatest natural disaster ever to strike the human race: the plague known as the Black Death, which killed something like half the population of Europe in the fourteenth century. The people of the Middle Ages battled this lethal pestilence and survived – and, in doing so, laid the foundations of modern medicine.
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Fall of Giants to be published in September 2010

Fall of Giants, the first novel in my 'Century' trilogy, will be published in more than six countries simultaneously on September 28, 2010. In Fall of Giants, I follow the destinies of five interrelated families – one American, one Russian, one German, one English and one Welsh – through the earth-shaking events of the First World War and the Russian Revolution.

The second book in the ' Century' series, set to be published in 2012, will feature the children of the characters in Fall of Giants as they live through the Depression and the Second World War. The third book, due out in 2014, will be about the next generation during the Cold War.

Fall of Giants will be published in hardcover by Penguin in the U.S., Pan Macmillan in the U.K., Random House Mondadori in Spain and Latin America, Editions Laffont in France, Verlagsgruppe Lubbe in Germany and Mondadori Editore-Mondadori VE in Italy.

News & views

Filming of The Pillars of the Earth…

Filming of the eight-hour limited series of The Pillars of the Earth on location in Hungary and Austria started in June 2009. Ian McShane, Donald Sutherland, Rufus Sewell, Matthew Macfadyen, Sarah Parish, Hayley Atwell (as Aliena, pictured), Eddie Redmayne and Gordon Pinsent headline the star-studded cast for the US$40-million adaptation.

Follow the link below for more information on the cast, the director and crew, the production, out-takes from the movie ... and Ken's thoughts on the film interpretation.
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The Art of Suspense – a talk on the history of the thriller

I've been reading thrillers for longer than I've been writing them. I've put my ideas on how thrillers work and why we love to read them into a lecture – The Art of Suspense.

I delivered The Art of Suspense at the famous 92nd St Y in New York in 2008 (on Halloween!), and it was filmed and published on DVD. If you would like to watch a streaming video version or order a copy on DVD, please see 'The Art of Suspense' page.

On my site you'll also find…

Information on my novels – including audio and text excerpts – movie versions and links to publishers worldwide.
My biography, also avaIlable in PDF format in Dutch, French, German, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish.
Questions you have asked, letters you have written to me over the years, and (whoops!) errors in my novels.
Masterclass: advice and tips on how to plan and write a novel – and how to find a publisher
My talk on the history of the thriller – 'The Art of Suspense'
Information about my archives, held at the Saginaw Valley State University in Michigan, United States
My music, information and artwork for the media, and more…

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