Orlando's dream

As a teenager growing up in Brazil in the late seventies, Orlando Paes Filho was nothing if not ambitious about his writing. He dreamt up the idea of Angus, now coming to fruition as a seven-volume epic tale spanning twelve centuries of human history. Whilst developing a career in advertising, the author continued to work on his series idea for the next 25 years. In 1994 he set up an artwork and branding agency called NW Studio but by then Angus was beginning to take over his life.

Because Filho was highly focused on historical accuracy, he brought together a research team to guide his writing and work on the historical framework for the series.

Patricia Arima, Angus World's PR and Marketing Manager says: 'Comprised of academics, historians and Benedictine monks, this team advised Orlando on every aspect of Angus's world - the culture, the customs, the weapons and the events.'

The first book, Angus: the First Warrior, was published in Brazil in 2003 and became a bestseller. Keeping the NW Studio team of artists together, Filho changed the company's name to Angus Productions and started working full-time on the series. Book 2: The Crusades and Book Three: The Warrior of God are written, and the author is currently working on the fourth title in the series. All of them will be grounded in historical accuracy and will have illustrations and historical maps produced by Angus Word's artists.

Although the series has been acquired for launch in 30 countries around the world, including Russia and China, it is only now that Angus Productions is planning a move on the big English language markets of the US and the UK, and top New York agent Al Zuckerman will be handling these rights.

There seems little doubt that Angus is about to blaze across the bookselling firmament and we'll soon be hearing much more about this ambitious project. As if the current scale of the work being done on the books was not enough to launch them to a huge international market, the series has also been given the very latest marketing accolade. It's recently been signed for the development of an X-Box 360 game based on the books.

It's safe to predict that there's about be a big fight over the English language rights to the series. That Brazilian teenager's dream is fast becoming a reality and it looks like we can expect to hear a lot more about Angus over the years to come.