The Work
Nicholas T. Burnett writes epic fantasy with a science-fiction spine.
His debut, The Tears of Amharic, is Book One of the Aeloria Series — the story of a boy in a feudal northern kingdom who watches a messenger fall burning from the sky, and discovers that the gods his people have prayed to for two hundred years were something else entirely.
Background
He is a California-credentialed secondary social science educator with more than five years in the classroom and a Master’s in Learning Design and Technology. In 2024 he was named District Teacher of the Year at Mountain Empire High School. He is also an outdoor educator and rock climbing coach, and the mountains in his books owe a great deal to the ones he actually climbs.
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Nicholas T. Burnett’s Aeloria Series
The Aeloria Series is the work Nicholas T. Burnett was building toward for years: an epic fantasy with a science-fiction spine, told at the pace of a serial. Book One, The Tears of Amharic, opens with a messenger falling burning from the sky and a boy who has never left his father’s forest learning that the gods his people pray to were never gods at all. From there the story widens — warriors torn between fury and mercy, a prince dead in the snow, a King who demands justice.
What makes the series different is how it’s being written. Nicholas T. Burnett publishes The Tears of Amharic live, chapter by chapter, every Friday — no finished manuscript in a drawer, no backlog to binge. Readers follow the story at the same pace the author discovers it. Learn more about the book and start with Chapter One, free.
Teaching and the outdoors
By day, Nicholas T. Burnett is a California-credentialed secondary social science educator with more than five years in the classroom — an award-winning teacher who spends his working hours helping young people make sense of history, power, and human nature. It’s not a coincidence that his fiction keeps circling the same questions: what leadership costs, what loyalty demands, and what fathers owe their sons.
The natural world runs through the work the same way. The Tears of Amharic begins in a forest and moves through snow, mountains, and war-torn kingdoms — landscapes written with the care of someone who pays attention to the physical world. The feudal northern kingdom at the story’s heart feels lived-in because every mile of it has been walked in the author’s imagination, one chapter at a time.
Why Nicholas T. Burnett writes in public
Most novels arrive finished and sealed. Nicholas T. Burnett chose the opposite: writing The Tears of Amharic in public, publishing each chapter the week it’s written. It’s a risk — the messy middle of the creative process, exposed — but it’s also the point. The story stays alive between Fridays, sharpened by readers looking over the author’s shoulder.
There’s a Red Rising x The Last Kingdom energy to the whole enterprise: rebellion at full speed, shield-walls and oaths, told the way sagas were meant to be told — one telling at a time, around the fire. Writing live means every chapter lands because the story demanded it that week.
Start reading
The best way to know Nicholas T. Burnett’s work is to read it. Start with The Tears of Amharic — Chapter One is free, and a single evening catches you up. Then subscribe free to have each new chapter delivered every Friday, or get in touch if the story moves you. The book isn’t finished yet. That’s the whole point — and you’re invited to watch it happen. Start today — the next chapter lands Friday.