Brian Niemeier Books in Order

Brian Niemeier grew up in Peoria, Illinois, where an early appetite for science fiction, fantasy, comics, games, animation, and movies helped shape the kind of stories he wanted to tell. His fiction often keeps that wide-ranging sense of play, even when the stakes involve ruined worlds, empires, or things best left sealed away.

He studied at Bradley University in his hometown before earning a master's degree from Franciscan University of Steubenville. His formal background includes history and theology, subjects that later fed into stories concerned with belief, power, fate, and the ways institutions can steer ordinary lives.

Writing arrived through a long stretch of worldbuilding and game-minded storytelling. Niemeier has said that his gaming group helped push him toward writing fiction, pointing out that he seemed to enjoy telling stories more than running the games.

His first novel, Nethereal, appeared in 2015. It introduced the Soul Cycle, a science-fantasy setting of airships, guilds, strange cosmic rules, and travelers caught between earthly conflicts and darker realms.

A year later, Souldancer moved the series forward into a changed and harsher world. The book won the inaugural Dragon Award for Best Horror Novel in 2016, and Niemeier was also a finalist for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer that year.

The Soul Cycle continued with The Secret Kings and The Ophian Rising. These books widen the cast and the conflict, following mercenaries, exiles, rulers, rebels, and religious figures as old disasters keep shaping the present. Readers who like science fiction mixed freely with fantasy and horror will find that blend at the center of the series.

He took a different route with Combat Frame XSeed, a military science-fiction saga set after Earth's collapse. Giant piloted combat frames, rival space colonies, resistance movements, and political pressure drive the action, while later books such as Coalition Year 40 show how the conflict changes across generations.

Niemeier has also written standalones and shorter works. The Hymn of the Pearl is a fantasy novella about war and attempts to change fate. Strange Matter collects stories that range from apocalyptic mysteries to unsettling speculative horror. More recently, The Burned Book began the Arkwright Cycle, a dark-fantasy prelude connected to the larger history behind the Soul Cycle.

Alongside his fiction, Niemeier works as an editor and writes about the practical side of writing and revision. Across his books, he returns to people under pressure, complicated loyalties, strange systems of power, and the hard choices that arrive when a world is already coming apart.