Ghost Emperor

When ALEXANDER THE GREAT’s body began to rot, so did the world that believed in him. His empire did not fall; it dissolved—from loyalty into appetite, from divinity into rumor. Babylon became a crucible where ambition, grief, and faith melted together and could no longer be separated.

Ashes of Empire: Ghost Emperor is the first volume in a cycle that follows that dissolution. It inhabits the moment when generals became kings, widows became conspirators, and every act of devotion turned violent. The body of the god-king is both relic and weapon; the struggle to bury him is the struggle to determine what remains of humanity.

PRAISE FOR GHOST EMPEROR

“Ghost Emperor is the kind of story that reminds us why we tell stories in the   rst place —

to wrestle with ambition, mortality, and the cost of legacy. McDaniel captures the collapse

of an empire with a   lmmaker’s eye and a historian’s precision. Every scene feels lived-in,

every choice haunted by consequence. It’s a masterpiece of scope and restraint — intimate

and immense all at once.”

—JUDD PAYNE, President of Intelligent Design Agency (IDEA);

Film and Television Producer at the Hideaway Entertainment (Cherry, Bernie, Mile 22, Southland Tales)

“Ghost Emperor reads like an excavation of memory and power — a story that feels both

ancient and unnervingly modern. McDaniel doesn’t just reconstruct history; he animates

it with the precision of a   lmmaker and the soul of a philosopher.   e world and story

ecologies he builds are vivid, brutal, and beautiful — a mirror held up to every age that

rises and falls on ambition.”

— OLIVIER PRON, Award-winning Visual Futurist,

Concept Artist, and Art Director. (Doctor Strange, Jupiter Ascending, Harry Potter, Guardians of the Galaxy)

Creative Partner at Intelligent Design Agency (IDEA)