Miles Cameron's "Bright Steel"

Miles Cameron is a full time writer who lives in Canada with his family. He also writes historical fiction under the name Christian Cameron.

Here he dreamcasts an adaptation of the newly released Bright Steel and the other books of the Masters and Mages series:

Perhaps I’m an outlier, but I don’t usually imagine movie actors in the roles of my books; I usually picture people I know. For the Masters and Mages series, however, I’m delighted to start casting, the more so as I tried to write the books to be movies in terms of plot movement and action…

The first character I cast (because I saw him in my head as soon as I started writing) is a minor character known only as Harlequin in the first novel. Later, this mercurial, imposing mage turns out to be one of the pivotal characters in the whole over plot. As the character is one of the most powerful mages in my world and hales from my Africa-analog, I always imagined that Lira-Qna as Idris Elba.

Dahlia Tarkos is one of the protagonists; she’s an aristocrat, a swordsperson of exceptional skill, and a potent magos, a woman with natural authority and charisma. My choice for the role is Jade Eshete; if she had blonde hair and a sword she’d be the very image (Byzas aristocrats often have dark complexions and light hair.)

Myr Alicia Benvenutu is the Master of Arts, the most powerful mage and the head of an Academia of magick in a city that combines ancient Constantinople with Venice and Istanbul. My choice to play her is Shohreh Aghdashloo who I encountered in the brilliant TV adventure, The Expanse.

Aranthur Timos is the main character, the farmboy turned hero in a time of immense change. My choice to play him (a 19 year old) is Andrew Rotilio, another actor from the Sci-Fi hit The Expanse.

Aranthur’s eventual partner, who is a thousand-year-old alien entity trapped in a dead woman’s body by the supposedly good necromancers who are Aranthur’s allies, should be played by Frankie Adams.

Prince Ansu is an ally from distant Zhou, another expert swordsman and magos. To play Prince Ansu, I’d really like the Canadian actor Simu Liu.

General Tremaine is the Emperor’s cousin; another potent swordswoman, she is a middle-aged military commander trying to deal with insurmountable odds. For that role I’d like to see Lena Headey (Circe Lannister from Game of Thrones).

And finally, the master spy of my very complex plot is Tiy Drako, a swashbuckling rogue who is also a patient hunter, and for that role, I’d like to have Timothy Olyphant from Deadwood and Justified.

Hope you enjoyed my visualizations; someone please sell it to Hollywood, or at least Netflix. Oh, by the way, all the actors need some serious fight coaching. Can I be my own fight master?

Visit Miles Cameron's website.

--Marshal Zeringue