Back in 2006 I heard the news the David Gemmel had passed away.  I was greatly saddened by the news, not just because I was an avid reader of all his novels, but also because his novels had come to personify everything that I love about modern fantasy writing.  Fast action, fascinating stories, outlandish worlds full of heroes and magic.  However, what separated David Gemmell from the crowd was the depth of the characters he created.  Not only were the main characters carefully thought out, every support characters life will have been carefully crafted and moulded into a believable character.  If the story required two sentries to be waiting on guard duty, he wouldn’t simply create two generic guards, ready to be bumped off when needed.  He would explain why they had joined the army, what motivated them in life, what their worries were – did they have a family?  Were they looking forward to seeing them that night?  It was this level of character development that made the worlds he created so real, so …