I shamelessly threadjacked reds8n's legitimate thread and so am restarting it here while moving his original one to 40k Background where it now belongs.
reds8n wrote: We'll start off with a nice little interview with Mr. McNeill.
The first author writing for Black Library to feature on the New York Times bestseller list (with the superb A Thousand Sons), Graham McNeill is also one of their most prolific writers, penning tales of action, adventure and depth set in both the Warhammer and WH40k universes (and elsewhere, but his Black Library releases are where I know him from best).
This year sees the release of a clutch of novels by him, so I was delighted that he took the time to answer some questions about his novels, writing, synaptic Brownian motion, and more.
First, some questions about your various series for Black Library, which I’ll deal with individually if that’s OK.
Your Horus Heresy novel A Thousand Sons was Black Library’s first New York Times Bestseller. Your fifth Horus Heresy novel, The Outcast Dead, will be released in November 2011. What’s it like working on such a large, momentous project, from so many different perspectives, and what can we expect from The Outcast Dead?
It’s like getting to play with all the biggest toys in the biggest toy store. It’s something I have to remind myself every now and then what a big deal it is. You start each one in a vague state of terror, knowing the level of scrutiny each book’s going to undergo, but I find that helpful, as it drives me to make it the best I can make it. I mean, I do that for all my books, but for a Heresy novel, I need to dig deeper and find more in me to really push it to be something special. It’s always a kind of draining process, as the perfectionist in me won’t settle for anything less than the best of my best.
And given the company of authors (is that the right collective term for authors?) in the Heresy stable, no-one wants to be the weak link in the chain. We work together to make sure there’s a level of continuity between the books, and I’ll always look for the character, event or other nugget from another book to reference in mine, whether it’s from a book I’ve already written or one of my compadres’. It’s something we consciously try and achieve, weaving that connective tissue into the books that binds them more closely together, so that they read like living, breathing worlds, where events in each book matter, where events don’t happen in isolation and each is part of a larger puzzle, not jut the stepping stone to the next.
The Outcast Dead is going well, and the action has well and truly kicked off, so I think people are going to enjoy it. It’s a change of pace from the last few Astartes-themed books, taking the action back a notch to Terra and the little-understood City of Sight. This is where the Imperium’s Astropaths are based, and we gain an insight into what the life of an Astropath is like, and how the events of the Heresy are affecting them. Events of galactic magnitude have some far reaching consequences for telepaths, and there’s going to be a few upsets along the way…
Does the “New York Times Bestseller” title ever make you nervous? Do you think the success of the Horus Heresy series will have an impact on how tie-in fiction is perceived more widely?
Nervous? No, should it? I think it’s a great title, and one which I encourage everyone who meets me to greet me by! It’s a great tag to put on a book, and it’s a real achievement to have written a book that’s been so well-received, but that just means the next one’s got to be even better… I think when people see that books like this are cracking the NYT bestseller lists, they might give them more credence and appreciate that they’re great books in their own right, that they’re not just for fans of Games Workshop. It’s an attitude that’s being challenged by writers from ‘mainstream fantasy’ (if that isn’t an oxymoron, I don’t know what is…) dipping into the waters of tie in fiction. Just last week, I watched an episode of Doctor Who written by Neil Gaiman, and isn’t someone like Joss Whedon or Kevin Smith writing extended runs of Astonishing X-Men and Daredevil the same thing? If folk like that are joining the ranks of those who’re writing tie-in fiction, then I think it has to be taken seriously.
Your longest running series for Black Library focuses on Captain Uriel Ventris of the Ultramarines. The series’ sixth novel, The Chapter’s Due, will be released in paperback this June. How does it build on the series thus far, and where do you see the series going in the future?
The Chapter’s Due was the ‘series finale’ to the second arc of books, so it was always going to be a biggie. When I first started the Ultramarines books, I just kind of wrote them in isolation, one book having only minimal impact on the other, and the first three are pretty much standalone.
But with the second arc, I wanted to tell a single story broken into three parts, each of which built in scale from the last. So, with The Killing Ground, it’s just Uriel and Pasanius; in Courage and Honour, it’s them and the 4th Company at war; and in The Chapter’s Due, it’s the entire Ultramarines Chapter that gets into battle. And that was great fun to do, using the big boys from the Codex and dragging entire companies into battle. It’s a fitting capstone to the second arc of stories, and sows the seeds for a number of other storylines that are going to play out in the third arc (and possibly fourth…). Seeds of corruption, burgeoning ambition, miraculous rebirth and a revelation that might match some we’ve uncovered in the Horus Heresy series for its scale…
Moving to Warhammer... You wrote the Sigmar trilogy for Black Library’s Time of Legends series (the second of which, Empire, won the Gemmell Award). What was it like, taking on such an important character to the Warhammer mythology? Will you be revisiting any of the characters in the future?
When the Time of Legends series was first put to me, I don’t remember whether BL asked me to write Sigmar or I asked if I could take on those stories. I like to think it’s the latter, as I’ve always had a fascination with Sigmar’s story. How could an ordinary, mortal man take on such a challenge? This wasn’t a god (yet), a primarch, or a man who was in any way special… The only thing that really set him apart was that he had vision to see beyond the petty tribal rivalries that had kept humans at each other’s throats for generations. What would make a man like that, what would drive him and how would he do it without ‘super powers’? Admittedly, he has a magic hammer, but that’s not where the source of his power lies, it’s in his natural charisma and strength that makes men and women want to be better than they are and gives them a glimpse of the better future Sigmar sees for his race.
Originally, Heldenhammer was planned as a one off book, but it did very well and I had such a blast writing the story that the epilogue I had envisioned for the book that gives a brief, evocative sign off for the last part of Sigmar’s life was jettisoned. We knew there was much more life in the character and setting that we knew a trilogy would be the best way to tell the story. And two books later, we’ve still only scratched the surface of Sigmar’s story. Empire broadened and deepened the setting, and God King gave us an insight into how the Empire might run as a loosely unified nation.
The third book offered enough closure to enough of the storylines that we could have finished the series there, but the more I wrote of this age of Sigmar, the more stories suggested themselves. These were sub-plots of the books, to be sure, but ones I felt could be expanded in really interesting ways. They weren’t right to tell in the context of a Sigmar novel, but with the freedom to tell their stories in other ways, I knew we could have a fantastic playground to tell the stories of the other counts, other regions of the Empire and other kinds of stories that just wouldn’t fit within an Age of Legends novel about Sigmar. So, long story short, yeah, in one form or another, Sigmar and his companions will march again.
Defenders of Ulthuan will be re-published this September, along with a new sequel, Sons of Ellyrion. How would you introduce new readers to this series, and how does the sequel build on the first?
I’d tell them that if they wanted a tale of high fantasy with a real grounding in heroic, flawed characters who get drawn into a war that will decided the fate of the world, then they’d be onto a good thing by picking up Defenders of Ulthuan. The High Elves are a classic fantasy race, and it’s fun to write characters who are so much more than humans with pointy ears. The first book sets up the characters and the settings and kicks the action off, but it’s just the beginning, and what happens there is just the beginning of a much broader, epic battle for survival. It’s a story that loves the big, epic, world-changing storylines, but doesn’t sacrifice the smaller, character moments along the way.
I wanted to tell a story where the characters were the most important pieces of the jigsaw, the meat and muscle that drove the story on. Though events of great magnitude are playing out on the stage, they never get swallowed by the story, they’re very much front and centre. By the end of the book, you’ll be exhausted from the pummelling battle scenes and emotionally wrung out from the highs and lows experienced by the characters.
What made you decide it was time to revisit the characters, and how was it returning to them after so long?
I’d long wanted to get back to the High Elves, as it’s not fair to leave people hanging on for so long after such a monstrous cliff-hanger. But bigger stories and projects kept elbowing the High Elves out of the way for a few years until there came a point when I looked at my schedule and realised that if I didn’t get Sons of Ellyrion written now, then it wasn’t going to get written for at least another four years or so, and that was just silly, so we found some time and got it written, and I have to say I’m incredibly proud of that novel, as I think it’s got some of my best battle scenes and most poignant character moments in their midst.
I reread Defenders of Ulthuan before I came to start the sequel, and I was surprised at just how much I enjoyed it. That might sound silly, but it’s rare that I go back to reading something of my own (aside from reference-checking) and to re-read an entire novel and not pick a hundred holes in it was a real thrill. I read the novel as a novel, not as a final proof check, and it was great to find that it excited me as a reader even though I’d written the thing in the first place. And for years I’ve been sitting on the payoffs for these characters’ stories, so to finally get to write scenes I’ve had in my head for around four or five years was simply fantastic.
Now on to some a few general questions: Where do you draw your inspiration from? Who and what would you say are your biggest influences?
I get my inspiration from all around me. Every book I read, every film or TV show I watch, every overheard remark, misread sign and collaborative thought process is all grist for the mill. I like to think of my mind as a spinning collection of junk, random thoughts, half-formed ideas and trivial clutter that float about in some strange synaptic Brownian motion. These things bang into one another and form strange bonds that may make a story come to life, suggest a character or a plot twist. Sometimes it’ll be an idea in search of a story, or a story in search of characters to populate it, I never know. The secret is to keep feeding it fuel, and that’s why I’m a voracious reader, avid cinema buff and accumulator of the random book, magazine or TV show.
Dramas, comedies, documentaries, anything that looks interesting, I’ll read or watch and feed the random chaos in my mind. It might go in looking like one thing, but it won’t come out that way, it’ll have been mashed, subsumed, agglomerated and reshaped by a dozen creative impacts and come out as something shiny and bruised, but which will make for a cracking read… Okay, that went a bit surreal, so to bring it back to something approaching useful, I’d say my biggest influences outside of BL authors are, without a doubt, David Gemmell and Clive Barker. Their writing styles and stories have kept me coming back for more for decades and I’d recommend their books to everyone.
How do you enjoy being a writer and working within the publishing industry? Do you have any specific working, writing, researching practice? Specifically, how do you juggle so many different series and projects at the same time?
I love being a writer, and wouldn’t change jobs for the world. Despite what movies and TV shows tell me about the publishing industry, I’ve found it to be a fantastic place of incredible people who’ve been amazingly generous to me in terms of their time, advice and bar tabs. It’s an industry that thrives on creativity and folk getting together to throw ideas and concepts of fantastical things around, so to be part of that excitement is about the best place in the world I could imagine being.
I don’t have any particular practice I stick to rigidly, that’s kind of the point of being a freelance pirate: you can make your own rules of work and change them as you go along. Having said that, I have an office I rent so I can feel like I’ve got a proper job and be away from distractions such as the DVD collection and the X-Box. When I start a project, I’ll read lots of books and watch a few films that will either be direct research on the subject I’m writing about, or will get my head in the right thematic space. Again, it’s different for each book, so the process will be different for the next Ultramarines book as it will be for my next Arkham Horror novel.
As to how I keep it organised, I have lots of notebooks filled with assorted jumbled notes. I have a pretty good memory for this stuff, as it’s hard to forget the things you’ve worked on for so many months and into which I’ve poured my creative juices. And I have good editors who keep me on track.
When did you realise you wanted to be an author, and what was your first foray into writing? Do you still look back on it fondly?
I think I always wanted to be a writer, at least that’s my memory of it, I’m sure Fighter Pilot and Train Driver factored in there earlier. Though my mum tells me that when I was very young I told her that I wanted to either be a writer or a binman. I think I chose the right career, though when I saw how much binmen were making in overtime on the news the other day, I’m having my doubts…
My first foray into writing was a fantasy novel called Blood Magic, which I wrote when I was just starting high school. I never finished it, but I still keep all the type-written pages and look back on them now and again with great fondness. It’s very derivative and is riddled with typos and overwrought description, but there’s some good stuff there, and it’s good to look back every now and then to remind yourself that it’s taken many years and a lot of effort to come to a place where I can actually make a living from my words. I still have the print out of the first piece of writing I did in the GW Design Studio, and there’s more corrections in red ink than black ink from the printer on that page, which is another great reminder that we all need to start somewhere, and that – unless you’re very lucky – you’re not going to be an amazing writer straight out of the gate, you’re going to need to learn your craft and spend a lot of time becoming the writer you need to be. It’s also a great reminder that no matter how good you think you are, or how may people tell you that they love your books, there’s always something more to learn.
What projects do you have in the pipeline?
At the moment, I’m still finishing The Outcast Dead, and then I’m getting onto the second book in my Arkham Horror trilogy. The first book, Ghouls of the Miskatonic, is out later this year, so I’m gearing up for some watery horror in Kingsport just now… There’s rumours of a new duology of novels, some short fiction and another big Heresy novel in the new year. Looking at the schedule on my wall, I’m wondering if I can bend the laws of space-time to try and get them all done by the time my deadlines mug me.
Who are you reading at the moment (fiction and/or non-fiction)?
I’ve just finished David Simon’s Homicide, a book written after he’d spent a year with the Baltimore homicide department. It’s a book that gave rise to The Wire, and is an utterly compelling read, with characters that might have stepped straight from a hard-boiled detective novel. But that it’s real is never far from the surface and it was incredible to read of the dark underside of Baltimore, a city I’ve visited many times.
Fiction-wise, I’ve just read World War Z, which was great, though it did get a bit samey the longer it went on. As to what’s on my reading horizon, I’m going to read some Lovecraft and some Robert E. Howard to get me in a properly bonkers place for when I need to write my Arkham Horror book.
What’s something readers might be surprised to learn about you?
That I sleep with an axe under my pillow. Or maybe that I’m still in a state of shock that I’m allowed to live this life and that no-one’s made me get a proper job yet.
What are you most looking forward to in 2011?
The birth of my daughter, which will hopefully be in late July (but not too late, as I’ve an Iron Maiden gig to go to…).
Battle of the Fang rolls out soon ( next week IIRC) and its well worth picking up. I've just finished it for the 3rd time and have enjoyed it each and every time.
Flachzange wrote:Battle of the Fang was delivered today and I cant wait to get into it. Just gotta finish Caledor first, as well as Conviction, the next book in the Fate of the Jedi series.
PS: Great Interview! I got a chance to chat with Graham a bit during last years GD. He read a bit from his books, did a Q&A session and did some pictures and signings afterwards. Really nice guy and really into his stories and fluff!
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Flachzange wrote:Battle of the Fang was delivered today and I cant wait to get into it. Just gotta finish Caledor first, as well as Conviction, the next book in the Fate of the Jedi series.
PS: Great Interview! I got a chance to chat with Graham a bit during last years GD. He read a bit from his books, did a Q&A session and did some pictures and signings afterwards. Really nice guy and really into his stories and fluff!
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BrassScorpion wrote:Aaron Dembski-Bowden is signing books at the new Bowie Maryland Battle Bunker from 1-3 PM this Saturday, May 28.
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kronk wrote:His website says New York signings:
Okay, so, NYC signings:
GW Greenwich: May 27th 5pm–7pm.
Bowie Bunker: May 28th 1pm–3pm.
Edit: If I lived anywhere near there, I'd get Helsreach signed. Great book.
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skrulnik wrote:Battle of the Fang has been out a week now. I picked it up at GW on Friday.
So far, very good.
And interesting how it combines the pre-heresy and 40k characterizations together to create a link between the two.
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NELS1031 wrote:Battle of the Fang was really good. Like Red said in the last thread, one of Black Libraries finest, and definitely the best Space Marine Battles book so far. I don't even much care for Space Wolves or Thousand Sons and I found myself thoroughly engrossed with the characters that Chris Wraight created.
Highly recommend.
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Redscare wrote:Congratulations to Graham McNeil!
I may be in the minority on this, I definitely would have died a little inside if Dan Abnett won such recognition first, despite his few moments of triumph (namely Necropolis), which are few and far between.
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reds8n wrote: ..PMMV I guess.
from the BL site today..
BLACK LIBRARY AT GAMES DAY 2011
Games Day is Games Workshop’s premier annual event – a celebration of the Games Workshop hobby in all its forms, including – of course – the worlds of Black Library. This year’s UK event is on Sunday the 25th of September at the Birmingham NEC LG Arena, and Black Library will be there in force.
We’ll have loads of authors there for you to meet, eager to sign your books and chat about their work, including, very excitingly, William King, at his first Games Day for eight years, signing pre-release copies of his brand new novel, Blood of Aenarion.
Speaking of pre-releases, we’ll have plenty of fantastic books and audio dramas for you buy before their official release dates, as well as a huge array of books from across our ranges. We’ll also have samples of our online-only products, along with one hundred copies of the new – and extremely limited – Horus Heresy novella, Promethean Sun.
Our annual Games Day-exclusive book has been upgraded this year as well, and is now a handsome hardcover tome packed with six (yes, six!) awesome short stories from some of our most popular authors.
If you don’t want to miss out on all this excitement – and much more besides – then be sure to grab a Games Day ticket, available now from your local Games Workshop store or the Games Workshop website. Keep an eye on the blog, and White Dwarf magazine, for more details about the event.
Posted by The Black Library Team
from the latest WD t'would appear that Outcast Dead, Nocturne, The Red Duke and the eagerly anticipated Gildar's Rift will also be available for purchase... that sound is my wallet weeping already.
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BaronIveagh wrote:Got to read The Fang. Confused.
Spoiler:
So the Thousand sons were helping the Space Wolves *not* commit abominations of genetics while getting some revenge on?
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NELS1031 wrote:
BaronIveagh wrote:Got to read The Fang. Confused.
Spoiler:
So the Thousand sons were helping the Space Wolves *not* commit abominations of genetics while getting some revenge on?
Spoiler:
No, they were preventing the Wolves from making a "Space Wolf" without the Wolf part that makes them who they are for better or worse. From what I gather, the flaws of the Canis Helix don't take kindly to mass production. If these experiments had grown to fruition, the Wolves would have had as many "successors" as the Ultramarines . Enough successors to surround the Eye of Terror and keep all the traitors hemmed in for all time. I thought the correlation between the two legions was pretty neat too. Ahriman destroyed the heart of his legion because of the flesh change, and Magnus needed to prevent the Wolves from essentially doing the same thing, eliminating thier version of the flesh change so that they could rebuild to "legion" strength again. Thats a scenario that Magnus could not allow.
At least thats how I interpeted it.
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BaronIveagh wrote:
Spoiler:
Um, the Space Wolves are still at Legion Strength, there's no rebuilding necessary.
If that's the case, why would he not have stepped in when they did the same thing during the Cursed Founding?
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reds8n wrote:
BaronIveagh wrote:
Spoiler:
Um, the Space Wolves are still at Legion Strength, there's no rebuilding necessary.
If that's the case, why would he not have stepped in when they did the same thing during the Cursed Founding?
No, they're not quite at that strength.
Spoiler:
They lost 50% or so of their numbers when they founded their successor chapter, add in other losses and their barely over 1000 marines.
I would suggest that the lack of any other further similarly sized actions are due to the inability of the 1K sons to mount or indeed equip any such undertaking. The assault on the Fang pretty much ended them as well.
I'll second Mr. NELS1031, the new..( improved ?) Wolves were only genetic abominations in the eyes of the native Fenrisians. All that could have been eh ?
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BaronIveagh wrote:
reds8n wrote:
No, they're not quite at that strength.
Spoiler:
They lost 50% or so of their numbers when they founded their successor chapter, add in other losses and their barely over 1000 marines.
I would suggest that the lack of any other further similarly sized actions are due to the inability of the 1K sons to mount or indeed equip any such undertaking. The assault on the Fang pretty much ended them as well.
I'll second Mr. NELS1031, the new..( improved ?) Wolves were only genetic abominations in the eyes of the native Fenrisians. All that could have been eh ?
*Sigh* Yeah, forgot this was a 'small SW' edition. 7th they'll be back up to a 'large SW' again if the pattern of the numbers going up and down continues. Previous fluff has had them as large as a Great Company equaling a Codex Chapter, or as small as the entire Space Wolves as small as a single understrength Chapter. (Usually they run the inverse of how awesome the Ultramarines are in fluff)
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ChrisWraight wrote:
BaronIveagh wrote:*Sigh* Yeah, forgot this was a 'small SW' edition. 7th they'll be back up to a 'large SW' again if the pattern of the numbers going up and down continues. Previous fluff has had them as large as a Great Company equaling a Codex Chapter, or as small as the entire Space Wolves as small as a single understrength Chapter. (Usually they run the inverse of how awesome the Ultramarines are in fluff)
Have you got a reference for the Great Company=Codex Chapter size? I've seen this quoted in a few places online, but never seen it in anything official.
I asked GW about the SW Chapter size when writing Fang. I ended up using 2,500 as the rough Chapter strength, post Heresy up until M41, and as far as I know that's what they were always intended to be (roughly). That would make a Great Company anything from 100-300 Marines (assuming variable sizes, with the Great Wolf's being the biggest).
The issue of Legion sizes is slightly vexed, and you'd be better off asking a Heresy author for the numbers here. I *think* that the Wolves were around 80,000 strong in Prospero Burns, but don't quote me.
We know that the SWs only had one successor, the Wolf Brothers. If the Legion size of 80,000 is correct, and it was split into two Chapters of, say, 3,000 each, then they must have suffered huge casualties during the latter stages of the Heresy. That story, though, has yet to be told.
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BaronIveagh wrote:
ChrisWraight wrote:
BaronIveagh wrote:*Sigh* Yeah, forgot this was a 'small SW' edition. 7th they'll be back up to a 'large SW' again if the pattern of the numbers going up and down continues. Previous fluff has had them as large as a Great Company equaling a Codex Chapter, or as small as the entire Space Wolves as small as a single understrength Chapter. (Usually they run the inverse of how awesome the Ultramarines are in fluff)
Have you got a reference for the Great Company=Codex Chapter size? I've seen this quoted in a few places online, but never seen it in anything official.
I asked GW about the SW Chapter size when writing Fang. I ended up using 2,500 as the rough Chapter strength, post Heresy up until M41, and as far as I know that's what they were always intended to be (roughly). That would make a Great Company anything from 100-300 Marines (assuming variable sizes, with the Great Wolf's being the biggest).
The issue of Legion sizes is slightly vexed, and you'd be better off asking a Heresy author for the numbers here. I *think* that the Wolves were around 80,000 strong in Prospero Burns, but don't quote me.
We know that the SWs only had one successor, the Wolf Brothers. If the Legion size of 80,000 is correct, and it was split into two Chapters of, say, 3,000 each, then they must have suffered huge casualties during the latter stages of the Heresy. That story, though, has yet to be told.
IIRC it was originally from either WD or Chapter Approved, though it will take me a bit to find it. It was republished off and on since then, depending on which source the author was pulling from.
I'd point out that current fluff is contradictory as to if the Wolves even took part in the latter stages of the heresy at all. Most fluff seems ot tend toward the idea that the Wolves got sidetracked along the way, but this conflicts with Russ agonizing over the fact he was unable to reach Terra in time to aid the Emperor.
It's sort of like what tanks the Space Wolves use. Before current Edition, the Space Wolves actually had access to the Leman Russ.
Though, I grant, I had actually figured that your novel was boarderline falling into the Great Company = Chapter size spectrum, since you specifically brought up Stormbirds, which are company sized dropships. No single chapter in it's right mind would use one, since if one gets shot down, there goes 10-12% of your entire force.
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NELS1031 wrote:Loved your newest book, dude. Well done.
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Just Dave wrote:
JHall wrote:Sorry, didn't find the end of Savage Weapons to be that shocking. That accusation had been leveled at the Ultras before, so it fit right in with what some people thought. That was my take at least.
True. But this time it wasn't an accusation but 'fact'. Adds a nice bit of character to Guilliman (much needed) IMHO.
ChrisWraight wrote:I asked GW about the SW Chapter size when writing Fang. I ended up using 2,500 as the rough Chapter strength, post Heresy up until M41, and as far as I know that's what they were always intended to be (roughly). That would make a Great Company anything from 100-300 Marines (assuming variable sizes, with the Great Wolf's being the biggest).
The issue of Legion sizes is slightly vexed, and you'd be better off asking a Heresy author for the numbers here. I *think* that the Wolves were around 80,000 strong in Prospero Burns, but don't quote me.
We know that the SWs only had one successor, the Wolf Brothers. If the Legion size of 80,000 is correct, and it was split into two Chapters of, say, 3,000 each, then they must have suffered huge casualties during the latter stages of the Heresy. That story, though, has yet to be told.
Chances are Horus Heresy related, that's about the only reason the big ones gather a few times a year: to discuss who is going to tackle what and the secrets they plan to unveil with their stories.
Cadian Blood had a good ending, no need for a sequel really. I'd rather see another regiment tackled. Elysians maybe? Dare I say one featuring them and actually winning for a change?
BrookM wrote:Cadian Blood had a good ending, no need for a sequel really. I'd rather see another regiment tackled. Elysians maybe? Dare I say one featuring them and actually winning for a change?
Man, that'd be the last thing I need. I've always wanted an Elysian army since they were first introduced during the Armageddon campaign with converted SM Scouts, but I've never pulled the trigger to build the army. A book in which they win would put me over the edge and bring me on some serious debt!
Quite so, the background written by Forge World makes for a depressing motivator. Chances are project Hoth will also see them betrayed or doing an "oops" and probably freeze to death.
So, I just saw some interesting new stuff on the Black Library's "Coming Soon".
1) Andy Chambers is writing a book due out in March 2012 called "Path of the Renegade". Chambers, writing a book about the Eldar Rangers? I'll take two!
2) Dan Abnett has a book out in the same timeframe called "Know No Fear".
3)Same timeframe, Graham McNeill has the "Iron Warriors Omnibus" releasing.
4)April 2012 has two notable books in it from what I can see. Ben Counter writing "Phalanx" and Rob Sanders writing "Legion of the Damned".
5)May 2012 has several books I'm intrigued by. First is Graham McNeill and "Eye of Vengeance"(Is Sergeant Telion getting his own book? I think so), second is C.L. Werner writing "Dead Winter". There's another omnibus releasing at that timeframe, called "Architect of Fate" edited by Christian Dunn and ADB is releasing another book. Something called "Void Stalker". Who knows what that could be!
Kanluwen wrote:So, I just saw some interesting new stuff on the Black Library's "Coming Soon".
1) Andy Chambers is writing a book due out in March 2012 called "Path of the Renegade". Chambers, writing a book about the Eldar Rangers? I'll take two!
2) Dan Abnett has a book out in the same timeframe called "Know No Fear".
3)Same timeframe, Graham McNeill has the "Iron Warriors Omnibus" releasing.
4)April 2012 has two notable books in it from what I can see. Ben Counter writing "Phalanx" and Rob Sanders writing "Legion of the Damned".
5)May 2012 has several books I'm intrigued by. First is Graham McNeill and "Eye of Vengeance"(Is Sergeant Telion getting his own book? I think so), second is C.L. Werner writing "Dead Winter". There's another omnibus releasing at that timeframe, called "Architect of Fate" edited by Christian Dunn and ADB is releasing another book. Something called "Void Stalker". Who knows what that could be!
1) No clue
2) It comes up as Horus Heresy - Ultramarines or Imperial Fists perhaps?
3) Storm of Iron and all the short story compilation bits iirc from the other books that had Honsou in them.
4) Phalanx - Next Souldrinker's book?
5) Void Stalker = Night Lords - Think about it. Soul Hunter. Blood Reaver. This matches the pattern.....
If "Know No Fear" comes up as Horus Heresy--Calth!
I'd think Phalanx is an Imperial Fists book, frankly. They've yet to get one, and Counter has done some writing for the Horus Heresy. BrookM says it has something to do with Hammer & Bolter, so maybe we should look there.
So that's Project: Hot Dog you keep putting on Twitter. Clever Girl!
Project Hotdog is the first one that got a code name. Ever since, everything I'm doing for BL has gotten a code name. I plan to explain where their names come from after they're published...
I'm saying BL fethed up. Gav himself told me at the signing that he'd do three "Path of" novels regarding the Eldar. Andy is doing a Dark Eldar novel, not Craftworld.
I'm saying BL fethed up. Gav himself told me at the signing that he'd do three "Path of" novels regarding the Eldar. Andy is doing a Dark Eldar novel, not Craftworld.
I'm aware that Gav said he's doing three. I'm simply saying that BL says otherwise.
Andy's novel is supposed to release in February 2012, but I'm not seeing it on the list. The closest is "Labyrinth of Sorrows", but that's being written by George Mann.
I'm saying BL fethed up. Gav himself told me at the signing that he'd do three "Path of" novels regarding the Eldar. Andy is doing a Dark Eldar novel, not Craftworld.
*ding ding* Brook is correct it seems; as Red stated at the top of the page; Path of the Renegade is a Dark Eldar novel.
Coming soon (to my schedule if not the shelves) in no particular order: A Dark Angels novel (possibly the first of a new series); Path of the Outcast; an Eldar-themed short story for the Games Day chapbook; a Vampire Wars trilogy; a Dark Angels audiobook (again, probably the first of several); a story about a space marine tea party; a novella on Lion El’Johnson; a trilogy on the Wars of the Vampire Counts and a Vampire-related short story for the Age of Legends book. I think that covers everything so far…
not too sure what he's on about there. Could just be a somewhat oblique reference to the HH/similar event.
.. but Mr. Thorpe is known to browse the various fora and be aware of various in jokes and ideas, so one wonders if this might in fact be about the oft mocked/misrepresented Blood Angel/Necron "alliance".
.. meh, that might be a bit of a reach upon reflection.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Some snippets of info from Mr. Dembski-Bowden's blog
I recently begged one of my editors for a short story / novella / project / “anything, man…” / to get some extra money together, so I could help my cousin Lisa haul her ass over from Canada and watch me get married. While that’s good for me – and, presumably, for her – it also spawned a project that I’ve been dying to write for ages. More on that towards the end of the year. The deadline’s tight, and I literally can’t miss this one.
Yes, it involves the Night Lords. That’s all I’m saying.
I’m working on getting the New York photos uploaded soon, as well as a few other things. It’s the last few weeks before the wedding, and everything has shifted gear. We’re pretty much ready now, but there’s still jazz to be done in the countdown.
Work-wise, I’m in the second half of The Emperor’s Gift, which is still over a year away from release. Next in line is Void Stalker, the final novel in the Night Lords trilogy. I keep getting asked if there’ll be another trilogy, and it’s not something I can answer with any reliability. If there is, it’ll be years away. It’s not on my radar, as I’m busy for the next 3 or 4 years with other things, and (hopefully) those projects will carry on even longer. I do have plans to do a very long-lasting Chaos series at some point, but it wouldn’t be about First Claw. That said, the elements of the series that I really like (which are thankfully the same elements that other people have really liked) will likely feature in that series, too. It’s just a thematic thing. I’m interested in X, Y and Z, so X, Y and Z will show up if there’s room for them in a realistic narrative.
A solid chunk of 2012 will be taken up by writing my next HH novel, which I’m immensely looking forward to. There’s some other stuff that still hasn’t been announced, but I can say I should be able to show the cover for Aurelian soon. I’ll just say this: it redefines the word Cool. It’s saturated with toxic badassery to the point where it now bleeds pure liquid radness from all the ruptures in its seams. In my less-than-humble opinion, it’s easily the best cover in the Horus Heresy series, including the covers of a couple that you guys haven’t seen yet.
I usually have a short story on the go as well as a novel. Right now, it’s an audio drama for the Horus Heresy. Other, more professional writers will say something like “Audio dramas always present me with a unique set of challenges”, but I’ll break that down a little more for you. I find them fething weird. I was against the whole concept of them until I did one, and since then I’ve found them a lot of fun. Throne of Lies came out great, bar a couple of lines where I cringe and think “Oh, Holy God, that sentence wasn’t written to be spoken out loud.”
Annabelle’s Blood is slowly reaching the point where I can send it to an agent – and beyond – but I have even less time than ever to crack away at it. I’ve practically quit WoW (insert sad smiley here) because I’m so busy, and three weeks off-work with New York and Nottingham meetings really didn’t help. Time to nut up or shut up.
In regards to Gav's Dark Angel stuff, I do hope it's either a continuation of the Angels of Darkness series or dare I say, his hinted at story about post-Heresy Dark Angels meeting Fallen Angels for the first time.
Ozymandias wrote:Oh God, Gav's Lion Novella will be one of those overpriced, limited production things won't it?
I'm a DA fanatic, but I'm not paying $90 for a book (and a short book at that!).
Mr. Thorpe's Primarch novella is one of four appearing in an anthology book. Tales about and by Alpharius/Omegon by Rob Sanders, Fulgrim by Graham McNeill and Ferrus Manus by Nick Kyme and The Lion by Mr. Thorpe.
AFAIK this one will not be limited edition, I am unsure of the format currently, I suspect we might well see something different to the formats we've seen so far.
There is another limited edition HH novella, the Forthcoming "Aurelian" by Mr. Dembski- Bowden, which deals, amazingly enough, with Lorgar once again.
I am entirely confident that you will enjoy it very much.
.. and whilst we're on the topic of Battle of the Fang..
Battle of the Fang author interview
I’m sure many of you have already sunk your longfangs into our latest Space Marine Battles book, Chris Wraight’s Battle of the Fang. We sure did, and we wanted to know more about how Chris went about the process of recreating the death world of Fenris and its feral guardians. We caught up with him last month and this is what he had to say about it.
This is the first book about Space Marines that you’ve written. What was the most exciting bit of the process?
It was all fairly cool (I guess that if you don’t find writing stories about genhanced super-warriors in the grim darkness of the far future exciting, then you shouldn’t really be writing for Black Library). The highlight was probably the chance to hammer out the details of the Fang’s interior, and to really go into detail about how that legendary fortress operates and defends itself. In Battle of the Fang, we get to witness the Space Wolves and their mortal thralls fighting claw and tooth to defend the heart of their homeworld, and that was a lot of fun to write.
What did you find most challenging?
As with all Space Marine Battles books, the story outline already existed in various places, so I had to make sure that the upcoming book was faithful to the established accounts. In particular, there’s always been a starring role in the tale for Magnus the Red, the legendary primarch of the Thousand Sons. Portraying him properly gave me a lot to think about. Unlike in the Heresy series, where the primarchs are central characters, this story takes place in a different age, when primarchs are rare and their powers are even more god-like in comparison with everything else. It took me a long time, and lots of sleepless nights, before I felt that I’d got his involvement right.
Dan Abnett and Graham McNeill have both written about the Space Wolves recently. What was it like following in their footsteps?
Terrifying. I hugely enjoyed A Thousand Sons and Prospero Burns, which between them chronicled the first big encounter between the Space Wolves and the Thousand Sons. I was fortunate enough to be able to chat to both authors at length before starting, and they were massively generous with their time. Hopefully the continuation of the saga will match up to what’s gone before.
How did you go about incorporating their work?
The Space Wolves and the Thousand Sons in Battle of the Fang are recognisably the same Legions/Chapters that we saw in the Horus Heresy. So expect to see the Thousand Sons fighting in cult disciplines, and the Space Wolves making use of the concepts introduced in Prospero Burns. The passing of centuries has brought some changes too. There were no Rubric Marines in Graham’s novel, but there are in this one. The Space Wolves have evolved as well: the division between Blood Claws, Grey Hunters and Long Fangs has become formalised, and in character they’re a bit closer to their incarnation in the Codex. I saw this book, in some ways, as bridging the gap between the epic depiction of the Legions Astartes in the Heresy and the way they come across in Warhammer 40,000.
Do you have a difference in approach to writing Warhammer 40,000 over Warhammer Fantasy?
Not in any important sense. The core difference between the settings is scale: Warhammer Fantasy takes place in a single world (and, most of the time, on a single continent), whereas the Heresy/40K series spans thousands of worlds. The essentials are pretty similar, though: the gritty, hardscrabble atmosphere, the tales of desperate heroism against crushing odds, the wonderful imagery, the existence of mind-boggling monsters and eye-popping spells. And of course, as a writer, you always hope to create memorable characters and cool stories, which is the same whether the tales are set in Averheim or on Fenris.
How did you go about writing an account of a pre-existing tale as opposed to a story you created from scratch?
It was pretty difficult, as what makes sense in a few paragraphs of Codex background doesn’t necessarily translate easily to a 500-page novel! I wanted to do justice to the pre-existing story without merely turning it into a dry expansion of what was already there. So, alongside the outline of the action that many people already know about, there are other things going on too. Amid all the carnage, we discover more about the nature of the Thousand Sons and where they’re heading. And the Space Wolves have some longstanding mysteries of their own too, a few of which have never been properly explored. Until now, that is...
Not content with simply questioning Chris, at this years Black Library Live we followed him around with a camera...
Kanluwen wrote:If it is overpriced, limited production things...I'll make sure I fill you in on the contents, Ozy.
That would be most appreciated, fortunately it looks like it won't be LE.
reds8n wrote:
Mr. Thorpe's Primarch novella is one of four appearing in an anthology book. Tales about and by Alpharius/Omegon by Rob Sanders, Fulgrim by Graham McNeill and Ferrus Manus by Nick Kyme and The Lion by Mr. Thorpe.
AFAIK this one will not be limited edition, I am unsure of the format currently, I suspect we might well see something different to the formats we've seen so far.
There is another limited edition HH novella, the Forthcoming "Aurelian" by Mr. Dembski- Bowden, which deals, amazingly enough, with Lorgar once again.
Yeah I knew about Aurelian which is why I thought the Lion novella would be the same. Since it sounds like it's not, I'm pretty excited as the rest of the novellas sound pretty cool (though I am surprised not to see Dan Abnett's name next to the Alpharius/Omegon story).
Kanluwen wrote:If it is overpriced, limited production things...I'll make sure I fill you in on the contents, Ozy.
That would be most appreciated, fortunately it looks like it won't be LE.
reds8n wrote:
Mr. Thorpe's Primarch novella is one of four appearing in an anthology book. Tales about and by Alpharius/Omegon by Rob Sanders, Fulgrim by Graham McNeill and Ferrus Manus by Nick Kyme and The Lion by Mr. Thorpe.
AFAIK this one will not be limited edition, I am unsure of the format currently, I suspect we might well see something different to the formats we've seen so far.
There is another limited edition HH novella, the Forthcoming "Aurelian" by Mr. Dembski- Bowden, which deals, amazingly enough, with Lorgar once again.
Yeah I knew about Aurelian which is why I thought the Lion novella would be the same. Since it sounds like it's not, I'm pretty excited as the rest of the novellas sound pretty cool (though I am surprised not to see Dan Abnett's name next to the Alpharius/Omegon story).
Yeah, me too.
I am surprised and more than a bit worried as well... I really do not want more 'mustache twirling'.
Note they're continuing to sell individual stories from anthology books, which is handy.
And a small snippet from their blog, about GDUK
Hey Readers, there are some exciting developments to report on this year’s UK Games Day.
Our most prolific and popular author Dan Abnett writer of the fantastic Gaunt’s Ghosts series as well as three Horus Heresy books and the critically acclaimed Eisenhorn and Ravenor omnibuses, will be attending Games Day UK this September. If you want to meet the man in person, he will be signing your books and answering your questions as well as taking part in our exclusive Meet the Author sessions(more on those next week). This will also be a great chance to get your hands on Dan’s brand new Gaunt’s Ghosts book, Salvations Reach.
As if that wasn’t reason enough to go to Games Day this year, we can announce that Neil Roberts, the Artist responsible for most of the breathtaking Horus Heresy cover art, will also be in attendance. Neil will be one of the panel in a special seminar on The Art of Black Library.
We have even more announcements about the awesome events we will be running at Games Day coming soon, so keep an eye on this blog.
Assuming these seminars are similar to those from past years/the excellant BL : Live ! then they're well worth attending IMO.
Automatically Appended Next Post: In other news Mr. Darius Hinks won best newcomer at the recent Gemmell Awards for his ( very good ! ) "Warrior Priest" novel. Good to see the BL authors stock rising.
I enjoyed that book a lot, took a shine to the characters in the short story they first appeared in, got "Sigvald" sat next to my bed for consumption, once I've finished with "Atlas Infernal" which is kicking much ass indeed so far. Very old school feel to it indeed.
And an interesting snippet from Mr. McNeill's blog...http://www.graham-mcneill.com/gmblog/default.aspx
Expect to see more Knights when I get round to doing my Martian duology later this year. Note, it’s not set on Mars, but has the tentative title (ie unconfirmed and it may – probably will – change) of Priests of Mars.
Love the Dan Abnett interview; great insight into how he's created certain items in the universe (e.g. Promethium, Vox Caster), his work for the Space Wolves - whom he did great justice to - and the work within the HH series. Really good interview.
Interesting to see how GW can allow him to explore such radical things (e.g. the missing Legions).
What I find really interesting is how the advertisement methods for BL and GW differ so radically.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Also Red: love the new irony part in your sig!
It’s Friday, and that means only one thing: new books! Hurrah!
First, we have the long awaited Atlas Infernal by Rob Sanders. This Warhammer 40,000 novel tells the story of Inquisitor Bronislaw Czevak, one of the few humans ever to enter the fabled Black Library of the Eldar. Now he is on the run, hunted by the Imperium, the forces of Chaos and the Eldar themselves. That’s what you get for not returning library books...
Atlas Infernal is available Now.
Next, we return to the dark days of the Horus Heresy with the abridged audiobook of New York Times bestselling author Graham McNeill’s False Gods. This follows on from last year’s Horus Rising, and sees the beginning of the Warmaster’s fall to Chaos. It is available to order now in a 5 CD set (offering over 6 hours of action) and as an MP3 download.
We also have not one, but two offerings from the Warhammer World today, both from the pen of the newly-minted David Gemmell Morningstar award winner Darius Hinks.
Sigvald is the latest in our series of tales about great heroes and villains of Warhammer. It focuses, surprisingly enough, on the Chaos champion Sigvald the Magnificent, and his quest for perfection. The book is receiving some fantastic early reviews and I, for one, can’t wait to curl up on the sofa with a cup of tea and Sigvald this weekend!
Darius’s second book this month is the first of three tie-ins to the brand new Warhammer expansion Storm of Magic. Entitled Razumov’s Tomb, it chronicles the adventures of a group of Celestial Wizards as they struggle to end a mystical plague that is blighting the Empire. Packed with magic, monsters and general carnage, this novella is a great introduction to the insanity that ensues when the Chaos Winds blow strong.
And as if all that wasn’t enough, we also have the latest issue of Hammer & Bolter.
As well as the latest chapter of Ben Counter’s Phalanx, this issue packs in three brand new short stories, and it’s something of a themed issue this month.
‘The Arkunasha War’, by Andy Chambers, tells the tale of a group of tau fire warriors who learn the true meaning of war when a horde of orks descends on their quiet colony. The orks also feature in Steve Parker’s ‘Survivor’, a double-length story about a young boy struggling to survive in a war-torn city. Turning to the Warhammer World, we have a tale of Bretonnians struggling to deal with... yes, more greenskins (though with fewer guns), in ‘Sir Dagobert’s Last Battle’ by Jonathan Green.
Add in an interview with Sarah Cawkwell, author of the forthcoming The Gildar Rift, and it’s a bumper issue, available to download in eBook formats now.
Good news ( I guess) for some of our mainland Europe members..
Black Library books now available in Italy and Spain
Over the weekend, we at Black Library expanded our availability into the sunny climes of the Mediterranean. For the first time, Black Library books are available (in English) from selected Games Workshop Hobby Centres in both Spain and Italy. So if you live in those areas, or if you find yourself passing through this summer on holiday, pop in and pick up a copy of one of our new releases.
The hobby centres now stocking our books are listed below.
Italy
Florence
Turin
Monza
Spain
Barcelona
Madrid
Majorka
If you still live too far from a Black Library stockist, fear not, all our books are available to buy through the website, and our online eBook range grows weekly, so you needn’t even leave your house to get your daily dose of action and carnage. If you are the sort that likes to get out and about, Black Library will be attending a host of Games Days this year, from Sydney to Chicago. Check out our events page for the full list of Black Library happenings.
Little surprised those countries don't merit translated versions.. especially into Spanish. Still, easy access to books is always nice even if, for example, the water there don't like like wot it oughta.
Is there any word about Nick Kyme's third Tomoe of Fire book, Nocturne? All I know is that it's slated for November. Was hoping there would be an extract or an image I could use as desktop wallpaper on the BL site. No dice.
I have to say I listened to 4 of the audio dramas this week on my drive down to Omaha and listened to about half of Thousand Sons and I have to say:
Legion of One: Amazing!
Raven Flight: Made me wanna collect Raven Guard
Throne of Lies: Wicked cool!
Dead in the Water (Cain Audio Book): Did not like it. I enjoy the Cain books but I don't think the audio drama gets the little jokes across at all
Oh, and Thousand Sons first few chapters were a little hard to listen to but it's getting way better. I think it's just slower because there isn't much the reader can do to inflect anything into it the way it's written to start.
Throne of Lies is the best one to date for me. I still need to hear the Cain one, but seeing as it's just a spoken version of the usual format written novels, I think I'll pass.
Garro: Legion of One was descent, not great or anything I did like those moments in which Cerberus got all poetical about his dead friend, Garro's voice bugged me off. Another thing that seriously bugged me was how dumb Garro seemed, not seeing that the corpse in front of him was dead and noticing something was wrong with the survivors, as if all that experience and such he had for over two centuries (he fought on Terra during the Unification Wars) simply wasnt there.
Raven's Flight was okish, I did like the end parts in which Valerius tells Corax to get aboard, I always get weird mental pictures from it.
chaplaingrabthar wrote:Is there any word about Nick Kyme's third Tomoe of Fire book, Nocturne? All I know is that it's slated for November. Was hoping there would be an extract or an image I could use as desktop wallpaper on the BL site. No dice.
.. I have heard some talk about a possible (another) Salamander audio book this year, a reading of a tale that was previously a limited edition story from a GD/similar.
Looking forwards to that book quite a lot myself. First novel has gone through 7 print runs, and it seems we're pretty close to getting some more, expanded HH era action concerning them. http://www.nickkyme.com/?p=1571
The second Salamander novel has got to be the best Astartes novel penned by Kyme to date, period. There were some parts about two blue armoured fizzy dudes but for the most part it was about Salamanders beating seven shades of gak out of Dark Eldar while helping a Chapter hero. Still, can't wait until the third instalment hits us, it is shaping up into a nice trilogy.
BrookM wrote:The second Salamander novel has got to be the best Astartes novel penned by Kyme to date, period. There were some parts about two blue armoured fizzy dudes but for the most part it was about Salamanders beating seven shades of gak out of Dark Eldar while helping a Chapter hero. Still, can't wait until the third instalment hits us, it is shaping up into a nice trilogy.
Personally, I've been largely underwhelmed by the Salamanders novels; what the over-all storyline is getting at is interesting with the threat to the Chapter as a whole, but otherwise I've not really enjoyed the novels tbh. I think I'm partially not a fan of Kymes work for some reason or another as I haven't enjoyed his HH short stories either. I think I find the action scenes and characters fairly predictable tbh, but maybe that's just me...
I found Kyme's Heresy and Ultra stuff rather boring, but as always, opinions thankfully differ. I just hope that the pay off of the third novel will be good, he is building up to something mahoosive big and climatic, so please be good!
I've decided to ditch Atlas Infernal for the time being and instead dig into Battle of the Fang. Good stuff so far.
BrookM wrote:The second Salamander novel has got to be the best Astartes novel penned by Kyme to date, period. There were some parts about two blue armoured fizzy dudes but for the most part it was about Salamanders beating seven shades of gak out of Dark Eldar while helping a Chapter hero. Still, can't wait until the third instalment hits us, it is shaping up into a nice trilogy.
Personally, I've been largely underwhelmed by the Salamanders novels; what the over-all storyline is getting at is interesting with the threat to the Chapter as a whole, but otherwise I've not really enjoyed the novels tbh. I think I'm partially not a fan of Kymes work for some reason or another as I haven't enjoyed his HH short stories either. I think I find the action scenes and characters fairly predictable tbh, but maybe that's just me...
Same here, actually.
It might just be the overuse of names with apostrophes in them, or the nonstop pauldron thing...
Today we bring you a trailer for the final volume in Mike Lee's majestic Time of Legends: The Rise of Nagash trilogy. Nagash Immortal tells the tale of the Great Necromancer's war with the skaven and his eventual downfall and is available to preorder now.
Just finished battle of the fang was a good read, Atlas Infernal sounds like a good one too will need to get that as well Quite a few good ones coming out in the next few months, really looking forward to the outcast dead story seems good.
The Red Duke will be a must buy as well (Anything Bretonnian I must buy). The age of legend series looks interesting to.
Whats peoples opinion on Sigvlad? Not read anything by Hinks yet.
Far to much to read, banging my way through Iain Banks culture novels as well, I am just wondering if any of my models will get painted
Today we bring you a trailer for the final volume in Mike Lee's majestic Time of Legends: The Rise of Nagash trilogy. Nagash Immortal tells the tale of the Great Necromancer's war with the skaven and his eventual downfall and is available to preorder now.
Damn it hurry up already, this is the conclusion of the trilogy I'm looking forward to the most damn it damn it damn it.
Gadge wrote:
Whats peoples opinion on Sigvlad? Not read anything by Hinks yet.
I'm 228 pages into this at the moment and.... it's alright. Kind of damning with faint praise there I fear. Perfect servicable, and the odd really nice flourish thus far, but I've enjoyed other BL more of late.
That said I loved his Warrior Priest book and think it was fully deserving of its award. And I'm only about halfway, ther's a few various plots in the mix and things have, possibly, taken a turn for the better.
Spoiler:
Sigvald is about to try and win/steal/whatever a talon from Galrauch, the 2 headed chaos dragon of Tzeentch.
Personally, I've been largely underwhelmed by the Salamanders novels; what the over-all storyline is getting at is interesting with the threat to the Chapter as a whole, but otherwise I've not really enjoyed the novels tbh. I think I'm partially not a fan of Kymes work for some reason or another as I haven't enjoyed his HH short stories either. I think I find the action scenes and characters fairly predictable tbh, but maybe that's just me...
Same here, actually.
It might just be the overuse of names with apostrophes in them, or the nonstop pauldron thing...
Hey, sometimes he switches it up with a plastron in there. I'm a big fan of Salamanders in general, so while I don't think the books are especially well written (good enough by BL standards though), I am enjoying the story. And at least in the first one (still reading Firedrake) there's a general sense of foreboding and despair supplied by the writing style that fits 40K to a 'T'
It’s a Nostraman themed Blog post today, as we celebrate the impending re-launch of ‘Lord of the Night’ as a print on demand book. As with all print on demand range, Lord of the Night will be exclusively available right here at BlackLibrary.com.
Set on the sunless world of Equixus, Lord of the Night follows the bloody progress of Commander Sahaal, exiled for ten thousand years, as he plots to his vengeance against his treacherous rival Acerbus. Sahaal must recover a lost artefact that was stolen from him and take back command of his dark army.
If you can’t wait for some Night Lords action, Aaron Dembski-Bowden’s Night lords series is available to buy now, including the audio drama Throne of Lies, listen to an extract here.
Lord of night will be available from this Friday, so be sure you to swing back then and get your copy.
Which is nice.
It is a most enjoyable tome, and worth the reprint. I must confess on being much,much fonder of the more recent Night Lords novels, but this one does indeed have a fair few highlights.
I think that's more of a general comment, rather than one directed at the author concerned here.
meanwhile...
The Black Library office is a buzz of Warhammer related excitement to the moment, brought about by the magical storm clouds circling across the Old World, and parts of Nottingham. To celebrate the Impending Warhammer expansion Storm of Magic, we will be releasing 3 limited edition novellas, starting with Razumov’s Tomb by (Gemmell Award winner) Darius Hinks. We spoke to the editor Graeme Lyon, to find out more:
The Storm of Magic is here! As a Warhammer player, I’m tremendously excited about the forthcoming expansion (so many monsters!), so when I heard that we were doing tie-in books, I jumped at the chance to be involved. The idea was to tell three different stories by three different authors, all of them linked by the common threads that are to be found in the Storm of Magic game.
To this end, each of the tales revolves around the events that occur when the Winds of Magic blow out of control – arcane fulcrums erupt from the ground, monsters fill the sky and wizards find themselves imbued with incredible power. However, it was also important that each story should have its own style. The three authors for the series were carefully chosen to help achieve this.
Darius Hinks is great at extremely mad stuff, and his tale – Razumov’s Tomb – embodies the ultimate weirdness of the Warhammer World perfectly, being packed with completely mental things – a wizard with transparent skin, flocks of dark pegasi and a flying town being attacked by Tomb Kings, for example.
Chris Wraight, meanwhile, focuses on two elven heroes vying to become the next Phoenix King. And a lot of dragons. No, really, a lot of dragons. It ends with possibly the biggest and most insane battle ever to appear in a Warhammer novel. And, seriously, a lot of dragons.
C.L. Werner’s idea for a skaven necromancer fits the Storm of Magic idea perfectly. The Hour of Shadows is full of undead skaven, battle under the eaves of Athel Loren and the best use of skaven magic ever. Also, there’s a cockatrice fighting flocks of warhawks and a treeman, and if that’s not awesome, I don’t know what is.
I’m really proud of these books. I think that they embody everything that’s great about Warhammer. Each one is worth reading, and I think you’ll get a lot out of them if you read all three. I can’t wait to see what people think of them.
Graeme
Thanks, Graeme! Razumov’s Tomb is out now, Dragonmage is available to preorder Here, and The Hour of Shadows is coming in August, so remember to set your reminder.
That said I loved his Warrior Priest book and think it was fully deserving of its award. And I'm only about halfway, ther's a few various plots in the mix and things have, possibly, taken a turn for the better.
Yeah, warrior priest was really an excellent read.
We’ve got a great little exclusive for you today. Following on from the exciting re-release of Lord of the Night last Friday, we can reveal the artwork for Aaron Dembski-Bowden’s next Night Lords novel, Void Stalker:
This piece, by Jon Sullivan, has to rate as one of the most impressive pictures of a Chaos Space Marine to date.
Aaron’s book will be out next year (it would be out sooner, but he’s busy getting married; sorry, ladies). In the meantime, If you’ve yet to read the first two books in the Night Lords series, you’ve got plenty of time to catch up. Both Soul Hunter and Blood Reaver are available here.
Later this week, we’ll have even more new artwork for upcoming books, so be sure to check back on this blog on Wednesday for that. And tomorrow we’ll have an exclusive extract from a forthcoming novel...
IIRC said author actually gets married tomorrow, here's hoping him and his charming bride-to-be are very happy together.
of former WD editor Guy Haley having some GW related work published. Good for him, personally I think his "Champion of Mars" book looks like it'll be be pretty sweet as well.
Oh, sadly it seems that the Eisenhorn audio drama " The Keeler Image" has been delayed/put back. I'm sure Bl will find something to fill that hole.
There was some excitement in the office yesterday when the first printed copies of Salvation’s Reach, Dan Abnett’s eagerly anticipated new Gaunt’s Ghosts novel, arrived.
To whet your appetites a little more, here is a brand new extract, introducing some new characters to the series:
"To the left of them, a row of tall windows looked out onto the Anzimar Landing Fields. Lighters and transports hove in through the morning smog towards the main rockcrete aprons. Vendetta gunships roosted like hawks on the sky shield platforms that sprouted around the defence work of the field perimeter like a wreath. Gaunt saw the ship, the armoured ship, out on its own at one corner of the apron, re-entry heat still fuming off its hull in the damp air. The field crews were keeping a respectful distance. It was an Imperial machine, but it wasn’t a pattern used by the Guard or the Navy.
Another set of doors smashed open. Ahead of them lay the entrance to the audience hall. Gilded doors, four times the height of a man, wrought with bas relief lions and carnodons, eagles and angels. Angels of death.
Appropriate, thought Ibram Gaunt.
It was the first set of doors they had come to that Cybon hadn’t smashed open as if he was conducting an insertion raid. He and Mercure simply halted. After a half-second for the cue to sink in, Hark and Edur stepped around them, and opened the doors.
The room beyond the doors was vast, stone flagged and dressed with tall, stained-glass windows that turned the light into autumnal colours. High, clerestory levels stole more daylight from above the morning smog, and shed it down in silver beams between dark vault arches. A giant brass aquila had been inlaid into the centre of the floor.
Three figures awaited them under the chamber’s largest window, a vast roundel rendering the Golden Throne in multicoloured glass.
One sat on a wooden bench seat, brooding. The second had his back to the door, gazing up at the stained glass vision. The third loitered nearby, examining some food and drink that had been presented on a small table. It was hard to tell whether the third figure was debating if he was in need of refreshment, or simply puzzling as to what food was for.
All three were male, but none of them were men. None of them were even slightly men.
‘Holy Terra,’ whispered Ludd.
‘That’s the general idea,’ muttered Hark."
Sorry, we’re being terrible teases and leaving it there for now. Who are Gaunt and his fellow commissars rushing to meet? Find out when Salvation’s Reach goes on sale in September. If you’re new to the series, you can catch up with handy omnibus editions, available here, or eBooks of the entire series to date, available to read on your mobile device of choice. See you tomorrow for more exclusive peeks at new artwork
Eh, I stopped reading his Gaunt series after Traitor General, which was a smashing read by the way, but I kinda got tired of this puppy. I might finish it as they release more and more omnibuses of him.
I'd rather see him work on the Lizzy Bequin trilogy and more of that great Heresy stuff.
BrookM wrote:Eh, I stopped reading his Gaunt series after Traitor General, which was a smashing read by the way, but I kinda got tired of this puppy. I might finish it as they release more and more omnibuses of him.
I'd rather see him work on the Lizzy Bequin trilogy and more of that great Heresy stuff.
I've read the 1st Ghosts omnibus and whilst it's good, I've been fairly disappointed so far tbh. Being Dan Abnett I was obviously expecting good things and whilst the 1st and 3rd books have been pretty good, I've still been underwhelmed as I'm tending to find the characters a bit predictable and stereotypical, not helped by how you know that certain named characters can't/won't die (so far at least)...
Yeah, that's a thing of his. But when he does something it usually hits like a ton of bricks. When the first proper big name died I was sad about it. Not so much a spoiler for future novels but just to play it safe..
Spoiler:
when he introduces a new Tanith character or brings back a character from one of the earlier novels for a cameo you can bet your ass that he dies
Abnett writes good stuff, but it is pretty annoying that EVERY book ends with all major plotlines tied up in a neat bow in the last 6 pages or whatever. It is like he is writing for a set number of pages, and then rushes to cram in his ending into the last few.
And yes, drop Gaunt's for a while and go back to Bequin!
I've been reading the Gaunt's Ghosts novels for the first time, pretty much back to back for the last couple of months. I started with the first book and I'm currently mid way through the Sabbat Worlds Crusade Anthology. I never imagined that I would take to them, since military fiction holds less interest than for me than stuff like Eisenhorn and the Horus Heresy series, but the fact that I've slogged through almost thirteen books without that many pauses for other books means they must be doing something right. I think it's mostly because I feel very attached to the characters. The anthology has been a bit underwhelming, but then that's not really a Gaunt's Ghosts novel because the Tanith barely feature in it.
Temujin wrote:I've been reading the Gaunt's Ghosts novels for the first time, pretty much back to back for the last couple of months. I started with the first book and I'm currently mid way through the Sabbat Worlds Crusade Anthology. I never imagined that I would take to them, since military fiction holds less interest than for me than stuff like Eisenhorn and the Horus Heresy series, but the fact that I've slogged through almost thirteen books without that many pauses for other books means they must be doing something right. I think it's mostly because I feel very attached to the characters. The anthology has been a bit underwhelming, but then that's not really a Gaunt's Ghosts novel because the Tanith barely feature in it.
That's kind of the point of the anthology. It's not done to be about the Ghosts exclusively. It's about, like the title suggests, the Sabbat Worlds.
As promised, today we start to unveil some of the awesome new artwork for next year’s titles.
Shown here is Shadow Captain Koryn by Hardy Fowler, illustrated for the upcoming Raven Guard audio drama Labyrinth of Sorrows by George Mann.
This mean looking gentleman is Luthor Huss, illustrated by Cheoljoo Lee.
Luthor Huss is the next novel by the acclaimed Battle for the Fang author Chris Wraight.
Clint Langley has once again outdone himself with this ominous portrait of a tactical Space Marine for the upcoming Blood Angels Second Omnibus by James Swallow.
You have a bit of a wait to get your hands on these titles, but to keep you satisfied until then we have the first Raven Guard audio drama Helion Rain available now, or the Blood Angels First Omnibus so you can be up to date.
This time next week we can show you even more new artwork, and this Friday we have some great new eBook titles, so be sure to keep your eyes on this blog.
The sons of Nocturne return
The eBook revolution continues today with Issue 10 of Hammer and Bolter. It’s a great issue this month with a new Time of Legends short story by Andy Hoare, the Alpha Legion up to their old tricks again, from the pen of John French, the tenth instalment in Phalanx, our serialised novel by Ben Counter, and new author Andy Smillie making his debut with Hammer and Bolter’s first Ogre Kingdoms short story.
This issue also has an exclusive extract from the upcoming Horus Heresy novella by Aaron Dembski-Bowden. Aurelian is our second Horus Heresy limited edition novella, following the sell out Promethean Sun, and Hammer and Bolter readers will be the first to read the opening 3 chapters.
Speaking of the Salamanders, the sons of Nocturne return in Vulkans Shield. In this brand-new audio drama from fiery author Nick Kyme, the Salamanders must rescue a band of beleaguered civilians from the ruins of a burning Imperial city.
And if that’s not enough Adeptus Astartes action for you, Legends of the Space Marines is now available as an eBook or as individual short stories.
Next week we’ll be back with more news, more new art and more new eBooks for you (but probably no weddings).
bhsman wrote:He liked the book, but hated the character of Sahaal.
To be 100% clear, I really like the author; the novel is one of my fave BL books; but I wasn't a huge fan of Sahaal - and more specifically, what he claimed his role was in the Legion, or how a lot of readers now assume his perspective is true, despite it going against all established canon. it's frustrating to see a vocal minority cling to it as the truth, despite the unreliable narrator's perspective being disproved forming the emotional climax to the novel. It was, in short, The Point.
Besides, there are 100,000 Night Lords, after all. They have tales to tell, too.
"Aaron hates Simon Spurrier/Lord of the Night/Sahaal" is something I see a lot of, and it has next to nothing based in reality. I even contacted him about Sahaal possibly showing up in the Heresy, but never got a reply.
Civilian Reader did a nice interview with Mr. Wraight.. might contain some (minor) spoilers ...
Chris Wraight is one of Black Library’s up-and-coming authors who has been penning some pretty great Warhammer fiction over the past few years (he has four novels now published). Most recently, he’s been handling some of the Warhammer Heroes series writing the stories of some of the Empires most celebrated warriors. He also wrote about the continuation of the Space Wolves-Thousand Sons feud in Battle of the Fang. As a fan of his work, I decided to contact him to see if he could tell us a little more about upcoming projects, writing and more…
You’ve had two novels published this year, so I thought I’d address the books separately, if I may.
First up, your latest release, Battle of the Fang, which continues the story of the Thousand Sons-Space Wolves enmity. What can readers expect from this novel, and what was it like, continuing the story that began in A Thousand Sons and Prospero Burns?
Readers of Fang can expect a continuation of some themes in the two earlier books, but in a slightly different style. The Space Marine Battles series is all about action, whereas the Horus Heresy books have a licence to go a bit deeper into the background. The story of the siege of Fenris is one of almost unrelenting fighting – the classic desperate last stand against overwhelming odds. I hope people who read and enjoyed A Thousand Sons and Prospero Burns will appreciate the sense of continuity in the latest book, but I also hope they’ll realise it’s not quite the same sort of story.
As for what it was like following up on the earlier books, it was just as daunting as you’d expect. Graham McNeill and Dan Abnett were, however, more gracious and helpful than anyone could reasonably have hoped for, which helped matters considerably.
Battle of the Fang is set in between (sort of) the Horus Heresy age and the ‘current’ 40k age, which hasn’t been covered in Black Library fiction before. How did you go about preparing to write the novel? Was it freeing to write in a different time period?
The one great advantage I had in researching the book is that the action takes place almost entirely on Fenris, which is an isolated planet in the Imperium anyway and doesn’t really reflect its core culture. As a result, I made the decision fairly early on to ignore what the wider galaxy of the thirty-second millennium was like and concentrate on the characters of the Space Wolves and Thousand Sons. I had a lot of fun creating what – I hope – look like evolved versions of the warriors who appear in the Heresy series. In the case of the Space Wolves, for example, the Fang itself is a lot more elaborate than it was in Prospero Burns (in which it’s only half-constructed) and the Wolves fight in the formations that they use in the 40K Codex. In addition, both Legions/Chapters have suffered from the curse that afflicts virtually everyone in the setting: the slow process of attrition and corruption following the events of the Heresy.
Moving to your Warhammer fiction, for which you may be better known. Sword of Vengeance, the second in your Empire novels as part of the Warhammer Heroes series, was released this year. What can readers expect from this novel, and where do you see the series going in the future?
The second Sword book is a direct sequel to the first one. Matters were left at something of a cliffhanger at the end of Sword of Justice, so the second book finishes off the story. Just as in the first book, there’s a nominal lead character (Kurt Helborg, the master of the Reiksguard), but it’s really an ensemble piece in which a cluster of rivals vie for control of Averland. As well as Schwarzhelm, Verstohlen, Grosslich and the rest, there’s an appearance by the Imperial Grand Theogonist Volkmar at the head of a forty thousand-strong army, which was huge fun to write.
As for the future of the series, all I know is that there will be more of them! At the moment I’m writing a book on Luthor Huss, a Warrior Priest, which is due out in February next year. I seem to end up writing for the good guys – there are exciting titles from Gemmell Award-winning™ Darius Hinks and the nefariously talented C.L. Werner covering the forces of darkness. There are plenty of stories to tell when those are done, though. One day, I’ll persuade the editors to write that epic trilogy about Magnus the Pious…
What’s it like to write stories of such iconic characters? Is it ever daunting?
Yes, it is. No writer wants to ruin anyone’s cherished view of a character from the setting, and I’m sure all genre fiction authors feel the weight of doing justice to the backgrounds in which they work. Thankfully, the reception for the Heroes books has been pretty positive, which is always something of a relief. Aside from the nervousness it provokes, it is, of course, massively enjoyable fleshing out characters from the game setting and turning them into actors in a novel-length tale. In the case of someone like Ludwig Schwarzhelm, who hadn’t been much written about before in detail, it’s nice to feel that Sword of Justice has made a minor, possibly lasting, contribution to a small corner of the Warhammer world.
Where do you draw your inspiration from, generally, and who or what would you say are your biggest influences?
The author of Fantasy fiction I most admire is Ursula Le Guin, whose Earthsea books gave me the writing bug in the first place. If I could ever write a book half as good as The Farthest Shore I’d consider retiring straightaway. Other than that, the authors I’ve taken inspiration from are pretty familiar: Tolkien, Frank Herbert, Iain M. Banks, David Gemmell, etc. I enjoy the work of a number of fellow BL authors too and have learned a lot from many of them.
How do you enjoy being a writer and working within the publishing industry? Do you have any specific working, writing, researching practice?
I don’t really know why anyone who didn’t enjoy it would do it! In some ways, it’s a very hard way to make a living – the hours are long, there’s enormous pressure, and the critics are always ready to pounce on your mistakes. But for all that it’s a marvellous privilege to tell stories and get paid for it. I love the creative process when it’s working well. Being told by a reader that they’ve enjoyed one of your books is such an enormous buzz. As for writing habits, I try to work a 9-5 day where possible, though when a deadline looms that tends to break down a bit. Whisky, I find, helps.
When did you realise you wanted to be an author, and what was your first foray into writing? Do you still look back on it fondly?
I’ve wanted to write ever since I started to read properly, and was penning stories while still at school. My first break into publishing was a short story in a Black Library anthology called Invasion, and after that I was commissioned to write Masters of Magic. Looking back, I’ve got mixed feelings about that one. As my first book I’ll always regard it fondly, but it’s very much a first-timer’s novel – there’s a lot of clunky writing in there and it gets some aspects of the background lore a bit wrong. But you’ve got to start somewhere, right? Hopefully I’ve got a bit better since then, though there’s still a long way to go.
Chris’s debut Black Library novel
What’s your opinion of the genre today, and where do you see your work fitting into it?
I don’t really have an informed opinion about the genre. I wish I had more time to read more widely and get a greater sense of what’s going on, but I’m afraid I’m pretty ignorant about the current trends. Of course, tie-in fiction specifically has a bit of a patchy reputation, though I’m never sure people look down on it quite as much as we’re told they do. There are good and bad Warhammer books out there, just as there are good and bad books in mainstream fantasy and SF. I reckon most readers are discerning enough to make their own minds up about which ones are which and don’t take the label on the cover too seriously.
What projects do you have in the pipeline?
Aside from the Luthor Huss novel, I’m currently planning a book featuring the Iron Hands, a Space Marine Chapter which hasn’t received a lot of attention in recent years. I’ve just finished another short piece on the Space Wolves. If the chance comes up I’m hoping to write more about the Sons of Russ in the future, but nothing’s firmed up quite yet.
Who are you reading at the moment (fiction and/or non-fiction)?
I’ve just finished Look to Windward by Iain M. Banks and am about to start Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel.
What are you most looking forward to in 2011?
Getting Luthor Huss finished in July, starting the Iron Hands in August, going to Games Day in September, handing in Iron Hands in October, reading The Outcast Dead in November, collapsing in December.
Nice interview, sounds like a genuine & good chap, which is always good. Look forward to Iron Hands getting some lovin' too, even though I'm not exactly their greatest fan...
Recently finished Battle of the Fang and found it pretty damn good actually; not amazing like some were saying IMHO, but I think he did a sterling job. The ideas about the intentions for the gene-seed, revealing what happened to the Wolf Brothers, showing the Thousand Sons & Magnus in action, a better idea regarding the Wulfen, continuing on from the themes in the HH books; all really good stuff. Cracking novel.
Just wondering, do we have any idea what the colours at the top of the spine of the HH books are about?
Once again, we’ve managed to prise an extract from a forthcoming novel out of the editors’ hands.
This time it’s Graham McNeill’s next Horus Heresy novel, The Outcast Dead, going to print this week for its November release.
“Six figures filled the vestibule beyond the chamber in which he’d spent an unknown amount of time, six warriors of enormous bulk and distinct character that was immediately apparent even if they hadn’t sported tattoos and Legion markings on engorged biceps, mountain-ridge shoulders and forearms larger than Kai’s thighs. Instantly, he knew who had rescued him from his cell.
‘You are the Crusader Host,’ he said.
‘What is left of it,’ said a warrior with hair that was a dirty mix of pale white and dark roots. ‘You do not see us at our best.’
‘That name is meaningless to us now,’ said another with a bare chest that rippled with muscles and crudely-inked tattoos of weapons and teeth. ‘We are dead to the Imperium.’
‘We are outcast,’ spat the warrior next to him, and Kai saw a resemblance between the two that went beyond their shared genhancements.
‘The Outcast Dead,’ said Atharva, with a sly twist of a grin.
If you really can’t wait until November, The Outcast Dead will available at UK Games Day in September.
Roll on GDUk then ! Between this, The Red Duke, Gildar Rift -- ( cash, cheque or postal order is fine BTW ! ) and the rumours about an announcement about some other changes coming to aspects of GW it's sounding like it will be good indeed.
..that should be alright, again once we're closer yadda yadda etc etc.
meanwhile...
The Games Day excitement in the office stepped up a notch today, when we received the first copy (of only 3000) of the 2011/12 Games Day Anthology. This is the first time we’ve ever done an anthology specially for Games Workshop's premier event, and as you’d expect, its chock a block with short stories from our best authors. Not only that but Clint Langley has again produced a stunning cover, displaying a particularly sinister looking Eldar Farseer.
So what’s in it? I hear you cry. Well here’s a shot of the back cover showing all the titles, including a story by Graham McNeil answering the age old question of “Who would win in a fight between a Space Marine and a silversmith”. (It’s the Space Marine)
The Games Day Anthology will be available at every Games Day Worldwide starting with Games Day UK on September 25th. Get your ticket Here.It’s the perfect souvenir of your Games day experience.
But what about you readers across the pond, attending GamesDay USA at the end of this month? Well we thought of you to, and we will have advance copies of loads of new titles including Salvations’ Reach a whole two months early! Don’t say we never give you anything.
Make sure you visit the blog tomorrow because we’ll have some brand new cover art for you to gawp at! See you then.
I can kind of understand the 3000 limit thing considering, but I'm just glad it's not for something I'd actually care about such as HH or whatnot, but instead it appears just to be a collection of short stories...
I do understand peoples disliking the 300 limit too however; I don't exactly approve of it.
Uh, yeah, thats why I said it was hilarious. Ill use the sarcasm tags next time
Its just as expected. Most of the limited releases come with either ridiculous shipping (20 quid for a book? seriously?) or they dont make it here at all ... anyone surprised? nope, not at all
They are the Defenders of humanity, they are the Space Marines and they shall:
Just as we promised, here is some brand new artwork for you eager blog readers, and it’s something special. Neil Roberts’ cover for Dan Abnett’s next Horus Heresy novel Know No Fear, proves once again that everything, even Space Marine on Space Marine close combat action, is better when it’s set in space!
Neil’s action packed depiction of void war has to rank among the most visceral cover art for any Black Library book yet! There are loads of great little details hidden away in the carnage; here are a couple of our favourites.
If Know No Fear is half as awesome as the cover (and with Dan Abnett writing it, the odds are good) then this is going to be a great addition to the Horus Heresy series.
If you want to be the first to see Neil Roberts’ next Horus Heresy cover art, sign up to the Black Library newsletter now and you’ll be the first to glimpse the majesty of Aurelian.
BrookM wrote:Helmetless Astartes in Space (tm) aside, feeeeeeeeeeth that's a nice piece of art.
I gotta agree with MajorTom on this one. The helmetless marine totally ruins it for me. I mean, shouldn't his eyes at least be bulging from decompression or something?
BrookM wrote:Helmetless Astartes in Space (tm) aside, feeeeeeeeeeth that's a nice piece of art.
I gotta agree with MajorTom on this one. The helmetless marine totally ruins it for me. I mean, shouldn't his eyes at least be bulging from decompression or something?
Nope.
Astartes can survive for a limited period of time in vacuum before decompressing, and the 'eyes bulging' thing is always mentioned by scientists/astronauts as being a bit of a misnomer anyways.
If you look at the row of windows to the side, it's pretty clear the area was just vented to space so it should be within the timeframe before an Astartes becomes a meatpimple.
That's a surprisingly gory cover for a BL book. Most of their covers show various characters sword raised/mid-strike/posing heroically, but rarely do we see any heads exploding.
It's Gulliman (look at his size, and the facts he has the gauntlets of ultramar, as was pointed out above me) hence the reason that he is able to fight at all - The Mucranoid allows the marine to survive in vacuum for a limited time if their armour's pressure is lost (until they can be rescued by a brother marine and taken to a sealed environment), but think of the nature of physics for a moment to realise that any kind of fighting or sustained action would be impossible - the water in their eyes would freeze for a start, making them blind, not withstanding the havoc the pressure would play with them.
Only something like a Primarch, created using forbidden technologies and from the Emp. dabbling with the warp, might be immune to such considerations.
And for all me know, there could be some kind of field/atmosphere where they are fighting.
perhaps, but the corpses floating away, with globules of blood (so no gravity) makes you think they are just on the outside of a space craft.
Would you mess with an alien-ninja-pirate who’s wearing a dead guy’s skin as a belt? No, me neither.
Fortunately, they only exist in the furtive imagination of Neil Roberts and he’s illustrated one for Andy Chamber’s upcoming Path of the Renegade novel.
As we’ve come to expect from Neil’s artwork, this depiction of a Dark Eldar is packed with hidden little details. Check out the collection of Craftworld runes, wicked looking weapons and ominous glowing armour plates.
Andy Chambers’ novel Path of the Renegade will be available early next year, and features Asdrubael Vect, everybody’s favourite maniacal tyrant.
If you can’t wait that long for Dark Eldar action, Andy’s short story Midnight on the Street of Knives, contains death, war and murder aplenty. Download it today.
Unaware of the wider Heresy and following the Warmaster’s increasingly cryptic orders, Roboute Guilliman returns to Ultramar to muster his Legion for war against the orks massing in the Veridian system. Without warning, their supposed allies in the Word Bearers Legion launch a devastating invasion of Calth, scattering the Ultramarines fleet and slaughtering all who stand in their way. This confirms the worst scenario Guilliman can imagine – Lorgar means to settle their bitter rivalry once and for all. As the traitors summon foul daemonic hosts and all the forces of Chaos, the Ultramarines are drawn into a grim and deadly struggle in which neither side can prevail.
IRON WITHIN! IRON WITHOUT!
I know you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, but check out the cover of the new Iron Warriors Omnibus and tell me you don’t want to read it:
Stef Kopinski has done a great job capturing the brutality of the Iron Warriors techno-barbarism, with great little touches like the daemonic axehead and rusted chevrons.
The new omnibus contains Graham McNeill’s seminal Storm of Iron along with the novella Iron Warrior – previously only available as a limited edition hardback – and a collection of short stories featuring Warsmith Honsou. It will be available early next year.
If you can’t wait that long for Iron Warrior action, the original Storm of Iron is available as an eBook. Alternatively, see the bitter struggle from the perspective of (the misguided Imperial fools) the Ultramarines, in Dead Sky, Black Sun and The Chapter's Due, where Uriel Ventris of Fourth Company faces the might of Warsmith Honsou.
Here's hoping they'll do the same with that Times of Legend Dark Elf hardback novella they did two years ago. I really want to read that one and its a shame they destroyed the last 400-ish copies.
Aurelian, the next Horus Heresy limited edition Novella is coming soon, really soon.
We can’t reveal too much more about it just yet (Alpha Legion spies are everywhere) but if you download Hammer and Bolter issue 10, You’ll be able to read the opening three chapters.
If you’re subscribed to the newsletter, you’ll be among the first to see the breathtaking cover art for this new novella. Believe me when I say that the art for Aurelian is one of the most iconic and impressive covers in the Horus Heresy series (and considering the series artwork consists of demigods fighting for the future of the galaxy, that’s saying something ).
If you haven’t already signed up for the newsletter, you can do it here.
All 3,000 copies of our last limited edition novella, Promethean Sun, sold out in a day. Make sure you don’t miss out on Aurelian - keep checking back here for regular updates.
Tomorrow we have an Interview with Andy Smillie, Black Library’s newest author, whose first short story you’ll also find in Hammer and Bolter issue 10, See you then.
It's an instant sell for me, forgive me my better half, but this is another one I cannot pass up on. Then again, she likes his stuff, so this one should be easier to sell to her.
What is the difference between a novella and your average novel, btw? Maybe a dumb question I know, but hey...
Either way, I really look forward to this; First Heretic was one of the best HH books easily so I really look forward to this, depending on price. *grumble*
BrookM wrote:It's a crime I know, but some of us just have to do it.
I did get a green light from my fair and honest lady to go for it when it pops up.
If this comes to pass, it would be very much appreciated if youd contact me, so that I may hop onto the ordering waggon here?? Im sure shipping from NL is quite a bit cheaper than BLs oh-so special delivery services
On the subject of the Black Library, Mr. Sanders was good enough to post the full, uncropped, piece of art for his ( very good) latest tome. So we can see exactly what foul daemon world denizen he is getting to grips with.
Mr. William King makes his return to the warhammer world shortly, on his blog he posted the following
What does the future smell like?
I spend a significant chunk of my working life thinking about this. To write fiction set in the 40K universe (or any other) you need to know how things look, sound, feel and smell. You need to convince your readers of the reality of the world your characters are moving through. You need to stimulate their imaginations with small, telling details that help them to believe in the place. You need to be able to describe how things feel, how they smell, how they sound if you are going to conjure up vivid images in their minds.
Games Workshop’s artists and sculptors have given us a very good idea of what the 41st Millennium looks like, but for the rest of it, you have some work to do.
Right now I am writing a story set in the Hive city of Irongrad; a vast, multi-layered urban mountain with the population of a modern country. I need, at least in my imagination, to walk its streets, and come back with a description that convinces. It’s a form of intellectual time and space travel. Once that’s done I need to be able to relate what I find to physical stimuli that readers can grasp.
How do I do that? By relating my descriptions to things that already work for me.
Let’s think about a Hive – what is it? Irongrad is a huge multi-level urban sprawl, a skyscraper the size of London that has grown organically over thousands of years. So there we have our first image; London but a London with another London stacked on top of it, and then another and then another and so on.
What does that suggest to you?
To me, it suggests something overpopulated and claustrophobic. The rich live literally on the top, in the spires. The class structure is reflected by the structure of the Hive itself. At the top, things are newer, there is more space, more light, more freedom.
Outside the world is a deadly volcanic hell. Inside there are hundreds of millions of people packed too close together. The life-support systems are over-loaded. Many of the people are armed and desperate. Most of them are over-worked and downtrodden. It’s the Middle Ages meets the Industrial Revolution — both very useful things to keep in mind when describing the 41st Millennium.
Think of being on the bottom of that Hive and feeling all of that weight pressing down on you. What if the ceiling collapses? Given what we know about the rickety systems of the 40K universe, it almost certainly happens.
Actually, in a horrible way, for a writer’s purposes, that’s kind of cool. There’s a unique sort of natural disaster implied there – a sort of Hive quake, where things collapse and whole sectors of the city are destroyed. That’s something for our characters to witness. Morbid I know—but, hey, we’re talking about writing Science Fantasy set in one of the darkest universes ever created here.
It also gives some interesting imagery. Think of areas which have already collapsed or are under repair, or are full of warning signs, and support trestles and huge hydraulic presses that hold up overloaded ceilings. Think of areas with broken treatment pipes in the roofs where sewage falls on those below like rain, literal shitstorms. Let’s make that sound a bit more 40K, let’s call them cloacal tempests. OK—I think we have seen too much evidence of my fetid imagination in action here. Let’s move on.
So we have a huge city with a lot of people. It is a controlled environment. The vast majority live in tiny apartments, stacked one on top of each other. Many don’t have kitchens. (This was the case in Victorian London. It is the case in many densely populated cities now.) People eat out in massive communal kitchens at their work-places or at vast open air food courts as people do in the tropics.
The air smells of too many people and too many overloaded systems, of sewage and trash and cooking food. What do people eat? We need to know that so we can describe how it smells. Mostly synthetic foods, I think, so there is a chemical tang.
How about fresh meat? What sort of meat are you likely to get in a Hive? Let’s leave aside the obvious answer. No. Wait a minute. Let’s not! The rich eat fresh meat. They can afford it after all. That makes meat a status symbol of sorts. There are those who might acquire a taste for human flesh. There are those in the lower hive, who, Sweeney Todd like, acquire meat for their luxury pies in nasty ways. At very least there will be urban myths about this stuff. At worst, our heroes will be encountering cannibal cultists soon.
Let’s file this stuff away for future use. Back to meat—how about rats or other vermin? This is 40K so these can be big. Maybe they are kept like pigs in pens in the streets. Maybe they are left to shuffle through the streets eating garbage as once they did in cities like London and New York. Why not? It’s an interesting detail. We have skewers of rat-meat barbecued in the street. It’s a luxury because it’s fresh meat. There is a telling detail. Eating rat is a luxury. A bit of cliché but what of it. I can spice it up by describing various dishes involving tails and paws and choice cuts of prime Grubb Street rat.
In Bangkok once I saw a cockroach that looked almost the size of my foot, scuttling up a dark alley. Maybe my imagination made it bigger than it was, it was dark and I was drunk, but hey, not here. In the 41st Millennium cockroaches are whatever size I want them to be. In goes cockroach stew. What does it taste like? I am guessing crunchy. (Before you go ew gross, there are apparently condiments that use extracts from roach glands—who said reading about Warhammer could not be educational?) Anyway, there’s a couple of smells to describe as our heroes move through those giant street markets.
There’s an implied ecology here —scavengers that live on refuse and which in turn are eaten themselves. They might even have been engineered for such things in the Dark Age of Technology. And all of this implies an ecology of trash.
Think about all those people, all consuming stuff, all tossing it out. The systems cannot deal with it. It builds up. There’s a smell for you. There’s also another implied economy—in Victorian London there were people who made a living picking through the trash. In modern Cairo they are still there. In this world, this is why they call some skavvies skavvies. Again, it’s 40K and everything is on a huge scale. Let’s have mountains of trash, piling up along the sides of buildings. More rich, pungent aromas to be described.
What about diseases? Surely this must be very unsanitary. Indeed. This fits right in with the medieval, plague-ridden feel of the 41st Millennium. We can make these diseases spectacular and horrible. Our beggars might look like mutants, their diseases look so bad. And there will be beggars, it’s the Middle Ages meets the Industrial Revolution, remember. Ramp this up to eleven, armies of beggars, swarming outside the temples, hobbling through the streets in endless processions.
Anyway, you can see the sort of thought experiment that gets us to the smell of the future.
So far we’ve been talking about a sort of generic Hive. I need a specific one, the one in my story. This is a city that has been under the control of a nasty heretical cult for thousands of years. The 41st Millennium is a religious age and the heretics are a very religious people. There is sacred imagery everywhere. The heretics worship the Angel of Fire. There are images of it all over the place —on public buildings, in public places. These statues are very striking. They have wings of fire—literally. Flaming gas jets emerge from the statues in the shape of wings. Is this technical possible? I have no idea. It is in the 41st Millennium. The people all wear holy symbols depicting the Angel. They have little statues of it in their homes. Somewhere in almost every work of art, there is a picture of the Angel. Wherever you go, it is there. There is no escape. It is as omnipresent as Big Brother.
I want another image—something bad is happening is this city. An evil is about to erupt. The shape of a generic Hive has always reminded me of a volcano. I want this Hive to suggest that specifically. How to do it? Well the core of the Hive is hollow, it has a caldera, a huge gaping mouth at the peak. Seen from above, from a distance this suggests a volcano about to erupt.
Why is the core hollow? The empty space is for an enormous Cathedral dedicated to the Angel of Fire. Symbolically the Cathedral rises from the very base of the Hive and emerges from the mouth of the volcano. The Cathedral is tipped by a statue of the fire-winged Angel the size of the Empire State Building. Seen from the distance it looks like a fire-winged god is emerging from the mouth of a volcano. It’s an image I like.
Back to the smell, to something specific. There is a gassy smell everywhere, small leaks bring it. This is something I remember very vividly from the gas cookers of my childhood and from living in bedsits with gas-fires in my youth. I remember the way it used to make the back of my throat tighten and dry out my sinuses. There’s a couple of physical symptoms right there I can describe. They happen when our heroes take off their rebreather masks. It’s a small but telling piece of physical description to tantalise the reader with.
This also gives me another detail of the architecture. There are huge gas-pipes everywhere. This is 40K, so they have to be on a monstrous scale and they have to a gothic religious feel to them. Lets have monster pipes climbing up the sides of buildings like metal ivy clinging to the sides of an ancient church. Lets have huge pipeways running between buildings. Hell, let’s put some buildings on top of them like there used to be on London Bridge and there still are on the Ponte Vecchio in Florence. We can have technical adepts crawling along their underside doing repairs with sacred power-mallets. And there’s another thing from my youth, gasometers, the tanks that held reservoirs of gas. They were huge metal things and looked as if they would be right at home in the 41st Millennium. They also occasionally exploded—the sort of disaster that fits right into a 40K story. Let’s dot them about the city. Gasometers and high powered military weapons will make for some interesting explosions at some point, I am sure.
This leads us to other stuff—giant pipes that run to the Cathedral and power the huge wings of the main statue and the literally tens of thousands of statues that perch on its side like an army of fallen angels.
Anyway, I think you get the picture. Good question to ask at the start of a new project; what does the future smell like? What are the telling details? Back to the 41st Millennium for me now.
in a previous post he mentioned the following
The Angel of Fire is a story of the Imperial Guard during the Macharian Crusade. It follows three friends, Leo, Anton and Ivan, part of the crew of a Baneblade, who by a series of strange accidents and the occasional bit of heroism end up saving the life of Macharius himself. It also involves huge armoured battles, urban combat in the streets of a Hive and a particularly nasty bunch of pyromaniac Tzeentch cultists.
Aurelian, the next Horus Heresy limited edition Novella is coming soon, really soon.
We can’t reveal too much more about it just yet (Alpha Legion spies are everywhere) but if you download Hammer and Bolter issue 10, You’ll be able to read the opening three chapters.
If you’re subscribed to the newsletter, you’ll be among the first to see the breathtaking cover art for this new novella. Believe me when I say that the art for Aurelian is one of the most iconic and impressive covers in the Horus Heresy series (and considering the series artwork consists of demigods fighting for the future of the galaxy, that’s saying something ).
If you haven’t already signed up for the newsletter, you can do it here.
All 3,000 copies of our last limited edition novella, Promethean Sun, sold out in a day. Make sure you don’t miss out on Aurelian - keep checking back here for regular updates.
Tomorrow we have an Interview with Andy Smillie, Black Library’s newest author, whose first short story you’ll also find in Hammer and Bolter issue 10, See you then.
Why, oh why? Cruel world, you are too harsh! I bet this is a follow up which shows Lorgar kicking the gak out of Kor Phaeron and not being manipulated, or the book I've most wanted in the HH series. And it's a damn limited edition novella.
If it is of any comfort, the novellas won't contain anything world shattering in terms of secrets and unveils. Yes, there will be a secret or unveil, but nothing too severely upsetting.
I suppose, but The First Heretic is my favorite HH book so far, and ADB set up a fantastic narrative for Lorgar and the Word Bearers. I would gamble that this is a semi-continuation of that story, so I'm frustrated at the fact that they've chosen to do it in a damn novella.
Why, oh why? Cruel world, you are too harsh! I bet this is a follow up which shows Lorgar kicking the gak out of Kor Phaeron and not being manipulated, or the book I've most wanted in the HH series. And it's a damn limited edition novella.
I believe it mainly concerns what Lorgar saw/did/experienced when he went into the EoT.
Then that's not so bad, makes sense kind of from the sub title. Still, I'll grab anything about the Word Bearers. Good news though, just got Promethean Sun .
InquisitorMack wrote:Man, I wish there was a real Black Library where I could get a Black Library Card and take out Black Library Books without having to buy them.
Andy Smillie is a first time Black Library author, making his debut in this month’s issue of Hammer and Bolter. We interviewed Andy for Hammer and Bolter, but the issue was so jam packed with content, we couldn’t squeeze it in.
We didn’t want you to miss out though (and Andy kept pestering us to include his interview) so here it is now:
What are you working on at the moment?
I’ve just finished a short story about a Dark Angel fighting as a gladiator on a Dark Eldar arena world. It’s called ‘Reparation’, is packed with visceral close-combat scenes and should be appearing in Hammer and Bolter later this year. I’m about midway through a Gotrek and Felix short story called ‘Last Orders’ for inclusion in the anthology that’s out in April next year. I’m really excited about the project, as not only to I get to pen a tale about Warhammer’s most notorious duo but I get to share pages with Black Library fantasy-heavy weights CL Werner and Nathan Long. Josh Reynolds and John Brunner are also contributing to the anthology, and although they’re fairly new to Black Library, they’re both established writers with some great pieces of work behind them. Let’s just hope I manage to keep my end up!
What will you be working on next?
I don’t have anything confirmed yet, but I’ve just pitched a Flesh Tearers novel, so fingers crossed I’ll get the green light. The Flesh Tearers are a Blood Angel successor Chapter and like them their afflicted by a blood-rage and madness. Thematically, the Flesh Tearers are an interesting bunch to write about. They’re addicted to violence in a way that mirrors drug addiction, and must constantly battle with their inner selves to preserve a measure of restraint that allows them to fit within the rest of the Imperium. It’s powerful stuff, and it’s what makes them far more than superhuman killing machines. After that, I’d love to write another Warhammer story, perhaps about Galrauch the dragon – who wouldn’t want to write about a daemon possessed dragon? Having said that, I’ve also got an idea for an Imperial Guard story that takes its cue from Die Hard, and a story about a Tau sniper. I guess it’ll depend on how well my work’s received in the meantime.
Are there any areas of Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000 that you haven’t yet explored that you’d like to in the future?
Loads! Both the Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000 universes are so dense and full of cool characters, that there’s really no end to the interesting stories you can tell. My main problem at the moment is staying focused on the stuff I’m working on.
What are you reading at the moment? Who are your favourite authors?
I’m re-reading Bill King’s original Gotrek and Felix shorts. They were some of the first Black Library stories I ever read and I want to make sure that my own Gotrek and Felix story pays homage to Bill. There’s definitely a different tone to Gotrek and Felix stories compared to other Warhammer fantasy tales, and hopefully immersing myself in Bill’s work will make sure my own story upholds that tradition.
Which book (either BL or non-BL) do you wish you’d written and why?
That’s a tricky one. I tend to like the books I’ve read because of the way another author has written them. If I’d written them they’d be different books, with different characters, themes and tone. Mainly I’m just glad to be writing, and hope that my own book (whenever it appears) will be well received.
Thanks Andy, If you want to read Andy new story Mountain Eater, download Issue 10 of Hammer and Bolter now. This month’s issue also contains an exclusive extract from Aurelian, a Dark Elf army besieging a Bretonnian castle, insidious Alpha Legionnaires and a new chapter in the soul drinkers Phalanx series. Download it today.
As well as Hammer and Bolter there are some great new products up for order today. Nagash Immortal, the latest in our time of legends range is available to buy, as is Imperial Glory, an Imperial guard novel. The Audio drama The Madness Within is available to buy as a Cd or to download and the web exclusive audio short, Vulkan’s Shield, is availabe to downlad. Finally we have the second Storm of Magic Novella Dragonmage, following on from the sell out Razumov’s Tomb.
That should be enough to keep you occupied until next weekor so, Happy reading!
It's been a while since we had a new video to show, and even longer since we had a new book about the Eldar. Today we mean to set both those right - with a trailer for Gav Thorpe's upcoming novel Path of the Seer. Gav's done a great job with the book, which follows the story of Thirianna as she seeks to harness her destructive psychic potential in defence of her ancient Craftworld and continues the theme of identity started in Path of the Warrior (book1 in Gav's series - check it out here). While the guys over at shroud have done an equally great job on the trailer. See for yourself:
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If you prefer your children of Asuryan wielding swords instead of shuriken catapults, then you’ll be pleased to hear that Graham McNeill’s classic high elves novel Defenders of Ulthuan is being re-released along with the highly anticipated sequel Sons of Ellyrion. You’ll find them both in the coming soon section of the BL website right now.
Some more good news from the recent San Diego comic con
The awards just keep on coming here at Black Library. Scarcely a month after Darius Hinks won the coveted Gemmell Morningstar Award for his novel, Warrior Priest, Nathan Long’s Bloodborn has earned him a Scribe Award at this year’s Comic-Con in San Diego, California.
Congratulations, Nathan! The Ulrika novels have proven to be very popular with literary critics and Black Library fans alike, so we asked Nathan what he thought it was that made the series such a hit:
I think the Blood series has been well received because Ulrika was already a compelling character before being turned into a vampire - a proud woman warrior with strong passions - and becoming a vampire has only added another layer of fascination, giving her a dramatic internal conflict that seems almost impossible to resolve. How does a woman who has dedicated her life to fighting monsters deal with becoming a monster herself? Discovering how Ulrika works out this conflict is what has made the books so fun and exciting to write, and I believe it is what makes them fun and exciting to read.
If you’ve not read it already, you can get your hands on a copy of (the award-winning) Bloodborn here. The sequel, Bloodforged, is also available and follows Ulrika as she journeys to the Chaos-tainted city of Praag, shunned by her Lahmian sisters and hated by the humans she wishes to protect.
Make sure you visit us here on the blog tomorrow, when we’ll be showcasing some brand new cover art, and on Thursday when we’ll be announcing some exiting new titles for the year ahead. See you then.
Which is well deserved, both his Ulrika novels are cracking reads, real page turners indeed.
Just finished with Atlas Infernal. Loved it from start to finish. The descriptions of the Harlequins and their all around bad assery make me want to paint some up.
My favorite part of the novel:
Spoiler:
A Grey Knight running away from Czevak and his crew after the rest of his squad gets handled.
Alpharius wrote:So, she's turned into a Vampire, but still wishes to protect us normals?
GW's had vampires of the non-homicidal maniac variety for decades now. It's just that they tend not to gather huge armies of zombies and try to take over large chunks of the Empire, so there's not much point in sticking them in an army book.
Alpharius wrote:So, she's turned into a Vampire, but still wishes to protect us normals?
Kind of.
She still thinks or hopes that she can "resist" what she now is and hold onto her humanity, but as the story goes along of course she finds this increasingly difficult to do. Plus there's the added fun of Vampire politics and assorted shenanigans.
Jon Sullivan has once again supplied us with another wonderfully atmospheric and visceral front cover for a Space Marine Battles novel. It looks like those bloodletters’ warp-spawned jaws have bitten off more than they can chew – check out this unfortunate daemon, getting blasted in half by righteous boltgun fire.
The legionnaires themselves look no less intimidating than their Chaotic foes. Jon has emblazoned each legionnaire in iconography of flames and death, the close up detail is quite ominous.
Check out the full product page for Legion of the Damned, and set your reminder today.
If you voted for Architect of Fate, don’t worry, we’ll show that cover soon enough. Make sure you pop back tomorrow as we’ll be announcing the titles for the coming year.
Nice !
THE STORY
Following the trajectory of a blood-red comet, the berserk World Eaters blaze a path of destruction across the galaxy in its wake. The small cemetery world of Certus Minor appeals to the Space Marines of the Excoriators Chapter for protection, but the force dispatched to deal with this grim threat is far too small and their losses against the renegades are high. Just as all seems lost, salvation is borne out of legend itself as sinister spectral warriors descend upon this planet of the dead, and the enemies of the Imperium come face to face with those who have already travelled beyond the realm of the living...
Sweet, that should mean I'll have birthday money I can set aside for it. I just hope they've sorted out the servers in time, else they're gonna actually catch fire when the ordering frenzy hits.
BL have updated the list of what's incoming.. now including titles up until September 2012 !
..which is nice.
Next seasons books announced
Head over to the Coming Soon section of our website, and you‘ll see that a host of new books have been added. Because a lot of these new products are a long way into the future, we can’t reveal too much detail right now, but the what there is should be enough to whet your appetite for the year ahead, and there are some tantalising titles in there:
Graham McNeill takes a trip to the red planet in the 41st Millennium in Priests of Mars
Darius Hinks explores the wild forest of Athel Loren in Orion: The Vaults of Winter
And what could Aaron Dembski-Bowden’s first hardback The Emperors Gift be about?
You’re going to have to wait a while for the answers, but there’s plenty Black Library action to keep you busy in the meantime, starting tomorrow with some new ebooks, and closely followed on Monday by a new print on demand graphic novel.
sees The 2nd Ultramarine Omnibus, the 3rd Ulrika -ka-ka-ka -ka ! book ( can't wait !), The Emperor's Gift in hardback by Mr. Dembski-Bowden and he also also Butcher's Nails, which appears to me to be a HH audio book perhaps ? Bit of luck this might be the World Eater he threatened hoped to do ?
sees Wrath of Iron by Mr. Wraight, which sounds like it could be the Iron Hands book he's mentioned before.
Angel of Fire, Mr. King's Macharius Crusade tome.
"Valkia the Bloody " by Mamzel Cawkwell... yes ! A character from the WoC book who has almost screamed for a book since she..it.. ? .. first appeared. Who knows, we might even have a model for her by then too !
and "Best of Hammer and Bolter : Volume One" which is handy.
Mr. McNeill's Priests of Mars -- 40k not HH note. I believe this might be a duology.. not sure.
The Great Betrayal, by Mr. Kyme. This is a WFB Time of Legends book, so this is one can assume a book about the Dwarf Elf war.. maybe only the first one ? There was talk of a trilogy.
And what looks like an omnibus edition of the Sigmar trilogy, which would tie in nicely with the dwarf theme. Perhaps.
reds8n wrote:BL have updated the list of what's incoming.. now including titles up until September 2012 !
ARGH! But advertisement and businesses are so much better when you don't know what's coming until the week before!
Graham McNeill takes a trip to the red planet in the 41st Millennium in Priests of Mars
After Mechanicum, this can only be good.
sees The 2nd Ultramarine Omnibus, the 3rd Ulrika -ka-ka-ka -ka ! book ( can't wait !), The Emperor's Gift in hardback by Mr. Dembski-Bowden and he also also Butcher's Nails, which appears to me to be a HH audio book perhaps ? Bit of luck this might be the World Eater he threatened hoped to do ?
I can't imagine many will get the Ulrika-ka-ka-ka reference man. I also suspect Butchers Nails will be the World Eaters novel (well I guess its not a novel now) he's been hoping for. Any confirmation Mr Bowden?
See's Mr. Swallow's "Fear to tread" which should be his BA vs Daemons HH novel. Really looking forwards to this one.
Whilst I really look forward to the setting/theme of the book, I admit I'm not a particular fan of Mr Swallow's work...
Mr. Thorpe's "Path of the Outcast" which is the Ranger book of his great Eldar series --
-- it's also his birthday today, which he's spending flying to the USA for GD, have a good one Mr. Thorpe !
Now this I do look forward too. Should be great. Happy Birthday too Gav!
Any news on what Chris Wraight is doing next after his WHFB novel btw?
Collection of old stuff from what I saw, eg some of the art work was from the Inquisitor rulebook. Not had a proper look at the catalogue yet though, just a quick flick through when they arrived at work. Only thing I looked at in detail was the extract from The Gildar Rift
It's not just Inquisition stuff either. The brief blurb spoke of Inquisitors, navigators, astropaths etc. Sounded interesting. Also coming is The Compelte Inferno: Vol 1
Right, just got into work, where I stupidly left my preview catalogue yesterday. So here's the info:
The Emperor's Will - Inquisitors, assassins, astropaths, navigators - these and many other agents of the Imperium are celebrated in this glorious full-colour art book
The Complete Inferno!: Volume One - Inferno! Magazine was the launching point for many of Black Library's finest writers. Collected here are the action-packed short stories and comics from the first six issues.
Features the Black Library debuts of Dan Abnett, Gordon Rennie, Gav Thorpe and Ben Counter.
Includes classic stories and the opening episodes of the Obvious Tactics comic strip.
I'm assuming this might replace/cover the MIA "Keeler Image "..?
Anyway.
A nice interview with Mr. Hinks..
An Interview with DARIUS HINKS
It should come as no surprise that I am a big fan of Black Library fiction, which has been improving consistently over the past decade. The publisher has been putting out increasingly-good-quality fantasy and science fiction novels from a string of new and established authors.
Darius Hinks is a relatively new addition to their stable, but one who has made a clear mark on fans of Warhammer fiction with his distinct and engaging writing style, not to mention his interesting characters. His debut novel, Warrior Priest recently won the Gemmell Morningstar Award for best fantasy newcomer, and Razumov’s Tomb and Sigvald are now available. To get a little more about his novels, upcoming projects and writing, I contacted him for an interview.
It’s been a pretty good year for you, so I’ll mention each of your novels individually, if I may.
First up, congratulations on winning the Gemmell Morningstar Award for best newcomer! The novel that won it for you was Warrior Priest. Could you tell us a little bit about the novel, what people can expect from it, and whether or not you might re-visit any of the characters in the future?
Thank you! It has been a really exciting year.
My main focus with Warrior Priest was to write something really dynamic, fast-moving and action-packed. This is a book based on a war game, after all, and I didn’t want to lose sight of that. More than anything, I wanted it to be a rollicking good adventure story. The priests of the Warhammer world aren’t there to promote harmony and peace, they’re the last hope of a kingdom on its knees, overwhelmed by legions of unholy, unnatural foes. I thought it would be interesting to show what happens when one of those priests finds out that his whole life is founded on a lie – even Jakob Wolff’s reasons for becoming a priest stem from a terrible misunderstanding. I wondered how he would cope with this discovery and what effect it would have on those who rely on his unwavering faith.
The other side of the novel revolves around a young acolyte called Ratboy. He starts the novel wanting nothing more than to become a warrior priest and emulate the career of his master, Wolff, but as they face horror after horror, Ratboy begins to see just how much he would have to sacrifice to be a beacon of faith in such dark times. In terms of revisiting the characters, it’s hard to say. The book was well received, and there’s lots more I could do with the characters, but I have a really big project lined up (see below!) that’s going to take up a lot of my time over the next couple of years.
Sigvald, your latest novel, is your contribution to the Warhammer Heroes series. What can readers expect from this novel? And what’s the main attraction of writing for this series, in particular about the “darker” side?
There were lots of things about Sigvald that appealed to me, but what I found really exciting was how gloriously epic and technicolor his life would be. The small amount of information that already existed suggested a deranged, self-obsessed, rapacious demigod, blessed with immortality and legions of adoring followers but very little grasp on reality. That’s just my kind of protagonist! He’s the doomed, beautiful, terrifying Caligula of the Warhammer world – a man so lusty and enamoured with his own myth that his empire is collapsing around his ears and he doesn’t even care. I loved the idea of setting a character like that off on an insane quest and then just sitting back to see where he took me.
Your new Warhammer novella, Razumov’s Tomb, was released recently. It’s a different kind of Warhammer story, what with all the crazy magic going on. Was it fun to write this style of fantasy? It seems like you had a lot of fun with it. Also, what’s with all the cuttlefish?
There is a peculiarly English form of lunacy to the Warhammer setting. A cursory glance might reveal shades of Tolkien and Moorcock, but if you scratch a little deeper you’ll find that thirty years of deranged creativity has resulted in something very odd and quite unique. It’s like a Hieronymus Bosch painting filtered through the prism of dark, European folktales and then pumped full of weird, steampunk gyrocopters, mechanical pigeons, ships carved from the carcasses of enormous fish, drifting demonic cities, and colossal steam-powered tanks. When I was asked to write the Razumov’s Tomb novella my brief was to focus on all this madness that, as you say, I found very enjoyable.
In terms of the cuttlefish, I live in Nottingham, a city that is regularly plagued by vast migrations of wild, land-going cuttlefish, so I thought it would be nice to include some local fauna in the story.
Where do you draw your inspiration from, generally, and who or what would you say are your biggest influences?
I have a stock answer for this, so apologies to anyone who’s heard it before. Rather than other authors, I get most of my inspiration from listening to music. Lyricists like Stuart Lupton, Joanna Newsom, Bob Dylan and Hamilton Leithhauser always make me want to lock myself in a room and write something with a tiny fraction of their brilliance.
How do you enjoy being a writer and working within the publishing industry? Do you have any specific working, writing, researching practices?
I don’t accept that writing is work. Things I would put in the category of work are: discussing boilers, going to a supermarket, any interaction with cars beyond driving, using power tools, carrying heavy things and anything else that means you have to leave your armchair or put proper shoes on.
By a cruel twist of fate, I can only write successfully very early in the morning, so with every book I finish, the bags under my eyes get slightly larger. At the current rate of facial sag, I will end my literary career looking like one of those rubber finger masks you get at the zoo. Or a pizza designed to look like a bearded face that has been left on its side in a bag of shopping.
What’s it like writing within the established Warhammer setting? What are the challenges, difficulties and advantages of writing in a shared-universe/fantasy setting?
See my earlier comment! It’s great fun. Having such a fully realised world to play in enables an author to focus all their attention on developing interesting characters and plot devices.
When did you realise you wanted to be an author, and what was your first foray into writing? Do you still look back on it fondly?
When I was a teenager, rather than send my girlfriend, Kathryn, love letters, I used to send her envelopes full of gruesome horror stories. They usually revolved around people injuring their eyes in a variety of entertaining ways and generally had no beginning, end, plot or middle bit. After several years and thousands of words of directionless pupil-related fiction my girlfriend was starting to feel quite nauseous, so I had the idea of writing something that other people might want to read.
In those days (back when everything was sepia and people still spoke without turning every sentence into a question) Games Workshop had a short fiction magazine called Inferno! After four or five rejections, I managed to get a story accepted and eventually one of the Black Library’s editors asked me if I’d be able to write a novel for them. I lied cheerfully through my teeth and said I’d definitely be able to write 100,000 words of readable prose, and that I absolutely knew what I was doing when it came to writing novels. I then spent an evening hiding under my bed, wondering if I should employ a ghost writer or just change my name and move to Mexico. However, by this point my girlfriend had become my wife and, terrified that I might start sending her eyeball stories again, she padlocked me to a laptop and told me I couldn’t have the key until I’d written a proper book.
I’m an incurable romantic, though, and in memory of our courting years, I always include at least one major eye injury in everything I write.
What’s your opinion of the genre today, and where do you see your work fitting into it?
I’m not sure I should admit to this, but I don’t read a lot of current fiction. I spent my school years listening to ’80s metal, sulking, imagining I was a hobbit and not paying any attention to my teachers, so since then I’ve been making a desperate attempt to educate myself by working through all the classics.
In terms of where I fit into the SF/Fantasy genre, I think that’s more a question of where Warhammer fiction fits (as that’s all I’ve had published so far). The Black Library novels have decades of world-building behind them and some of the best writers in the industry (Dan Abnett, Graham McNeill, Chris Wraight, etc.), so I think they are equal, and in many cases, superior to a lot of the other genre fiction that’s out there.
What projects do you have in the pipeline?
I’m just finishing off a Warhammer 40,000 novella called Sanctus that revolves around a Space Marine Chapter called the Relictors, and will be released as part of a collection called Architect of Fate. After that I’m going to start planning a really huge epic fantasy story. I’ve spoken to the BL editors about tackling something on a larger scale, spread over several books. The protagonist would be a character from the Warhammer setting called Orion. He’s a mysterious, inhuman avatar of a god and the ruler of a realm inhabited by a bizarre collection of sylvan horrors, sprites, dryads, daemons and an elven race known as the Asrai. It’s a long-cherished dream of mine to embark on a really involved, sustained piece of writing that gives me time to really develop a large cast of characters and follow them through a rambling, labyrinthine plot (sorry editors, I meant to say: a really logical, sensible plot).
Who are you reading at the moment (fiction and/or non-fiction)?
I’m rereading my favourite novel – The Sea, the Sea by Iris Murdoch. I read it on an almost yearly basis and would recommend it to anyone, but for those who don’t have time to wade through it, here’s my detailed synopsis:
An unpleasant old man moves to a lonely coastal spot to escape his weird friends.
He is tormented by a fantastical sea creature.
His weird friends discover his hideaway.
Some people die.
What’s something readers might be surprised to learn about you?
One of my Brummie ancestors, James Hinks, bred and named the English Bull Terrier (Bill Sykes’ dog Bullseye in Oliver Twist). It was originally called the Hinks Breed. I think this is why my cats are so wary of me. James sounds like quite a character. I found this great description online:
“James Hinks was no goody-goody; several times in his life he came into conflict with the law. We know that around 1855 he served a few months in prison for selling rabbits stolen from the vicar’s garden. Another conviction followed when a policeman asked him to remove a crate of chickens from a walkway and Hinks punched the man.”
Also, I have unnaturally large feet and they once tripped up Bruce Dickinson (lead singer of Iron Maiden) while he was wearing a wizard suit. Bruce then apologised to me for disturbing my canoe-like shoes.
What are you most looking forward to in the next year?
Turning 40. My life so far has been one long dress rehearsal for retirement. Mooching around tea rooms and book shops and having long afternoon naps seems to come quite naturally to me, so I am excited about edging slightly closer to getting a free bus pass and investing in some really high quality slippers.
I am happy that BL is cranking out quality writing that is getting them prestigious awards and thus helping establish an even firmer foothold outside of the hobby circles.
However, I don't like them gushing over the (really nice) cover art all the time. Covers shouldn't sell books damn it.
How many Eisenhorn and Eisenhorn related stories are there? There's the Eisenhorn trilogy, the Ravenor trilogy, presumably there are short (2?) stories in each of those books, another trilogy coming, that Titus Endor thing from the other day - how many more are there?
reds8n wrote:BL have updated the list of what's incoming.. now including titles up until September 2012!
Wait, wait, wait. So GW is afraid of us knowing anything until a week in advance, yet BL is fine to put up release dates and even previews of products over a year away?
We need to organise an intervention and introduce GW's left hand to GW's right hand, because I don't think the left hand knows the right hand exists.
I'd go more by the website than the printed a wee while ago previews booklet.
.. although that doe slist Aurelian as going on pre order on the 5th of September , so now we know and half the battle is etc etc.
What’s the best thing about Fridays?
Why it’s new eBooks of course!
This week we have four new eBooks for you:
Sons of Dorn: an Imperial Fists novel by Chris Roberson, following a newly recruited squad of scouts as they battle against the Roaring Blades Traitor Guard on the Chaos-blighted planet of Vernalis.
Grimblades: by Nick Kyme, a brave regiment in the army of the Empire fight a desperate war against an orc invasion while attempting to foil an assassination attempt on a royal prince.
Redemption Corps: Rob Sanders tells the tale of Major Mortensen and his elite squad of Storm Troopers as they fight off traitorous guardsmen, an ork invasion and the less-than-benevolent attentions of the Imperial Ecclesiarchy church.
Cadian Blood: by Aaron Dembski-Bowden. It’s zombies vs lasguns as Imperial Guardsmen battle an army of living dead animated by the foul power of Chaos across a ruined Imperial shrine world, sounds pretty awesome, eh? We thought so too, so we asked Aaron how he went about writing it.
Cadian Blood was your first Black Library novel, how did you approach the unique setting of the forty-first millennium?
No one really sees the 40K universe the same way, largely because the primary source of lore (the rulebooks and codex books) is designed to be so loose and open to interpretation. It's a setting made for fans to fill in a lot of the gaps themselves, so novelists need to be careful (or, at least, respectful) when trying to flesh out their storylines. I approached my first 40K novel the way I've approached all of them since: take a dose of blind faith, add a little naive hope. It comes down to hoping that your presentation of the 40K milieu appeals to others, and trusting that your perceptions are interesting enough to hook readers.
I still go by the old ‘Codex: Imperialis’ (from 2nd Edition) as my bible. It's a treasure trove for 40K's tone, scraps of lore, and the universe's general theme. My office is wallpapered with photocopies from the archives, too. They're from a spread of editions - new to old, from fresh way back to stuff released when I was about 6 years old. I have an insane amount of reading material to fall back on, and a little research never hurt anyone.
Cadian Blood is about the ‘average Joe’ Imperial foot trooper, but your newer books look to be developing a certain power armoured theme. What is it that attracts you to writing about Space Marines?
It's not intentional in the sense of actively avoiding the Imperial Guard, or having a massive man-crush on Space Marines. I think the average Adeptus Astartes rocks on toast, but I always have a significant human element in every narrative. It's the clash of perception, ideology and lifestyle between humans and Space Marines that makes them interesting, rather than just how many aliens they can kill. I've always been less interested in the way bolters sound, and more interested in the way Space Marines interact with humans, with the other Adeptus institutions in the Imperium of Man, and with each other. It's their mindset and drives that fascinate me. Besides, when they go to battle, it's for a reason. How much of a motivator is hate? How pure does it feel? What are the repercussions of it?
It's the same thing in any story - a fight just for the sake of a fight is bad writing, plain and simple. A fight that furthers the narrative, showcases characterisation, or because the characters have no choice but to commit... now those are interesting. Fights are fun, they're awesome, but they're also a spice to be added, rather than something to be considered as the full flavour.
That said, I really enjoy exploring the relationships between loyalist Marines and their fallen counterparts - or even just their attitudes to Chaos itself. I find it just as interesting to detail the mindset of fiercely loyal Space Marine as I do to delve into the reasons for a Chaos Marine committing the ultimate betrayal. I've written more about the Traitor Legions, but it's not a matter of preference. I'm an equal-opportunities kind of fan
Have you got any plans to revisit the humble guardsmen in future books?
Hell yes. The Emperor's Gift, my Grey Knights novel, has a few significant Imperial Guard presences, and I've got plans to seed the Guard in a few future novels beyond that. Obviously, I can't talk about them right now – it's way too early. In a novel like Helsreach, where the Black Templars are defending a whole city, it was no hardship at all to spend a lot of time focusing on the Guard characters. They offered a brutal comparison to the Space Marines, after all. Ideally, I'd like to maintain that kind of crossover and division between to two factions, as I've got nothing but love for the Guard.
Thanks, Aaron. You can download your copy of Cadian Blood today.
That should keep you busy until Monday, when we will have a new Print on Demand web exclusive for you – a reprint of an award winning graphic novel.
Dan Abnett Interview, plus prizes!
Sabbat Worlds Cluster: One Ghost and Two Sheep Meet
Today we get to sit down and talk with author Dan Abnett, a highly esteemed Warhammer 40,000 fiction author. Among his works are the incredibly awesome Gaunt's Ghosts series, novels about the Horus Heresy, and the screenplay for the Ultramarines movie. He also has written numerous comics for Marvel and DC and comes with a list of credentials longer than your arm and twice as impressive. Unless you have like a robot arm or something, oh sorry, I forget myself at times. Anyway, Richard and I are fething thrilled to be interviewing Dan today who is a living legend in the field. It's good to have you here today, Dan.
Dan: Thank you for having me.
BAK: Now the first question that I like to ask is how did you become an author, however I want to add to that how did you get involved in writing for Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000?
Dan: I’ve been writing stories since I was a kid. I used to love drawing too, so when I discovered what comics were, I used to write and draw my own comics. Eventually, I couldn’t draw them fast enough for the stories I wanted to write. Jump forward about ten years, after taking a degree in English at University, my interest in comics led to me taking an editorial job at Marvel Comics in London, which is where I first started writing freelance - comic scripts for Thundercats, Ghostbusters, GI Joe etc. Eventually, I went freelance full time. After about a decade of doing that, I was contacted by Black Library, who were looking for comic writers to handle their proposed new Warhammer comic line (they’d seen some recent Conan stuff I’d written for Marvel). What they found was a guy who had also been a HUGE RPG player in his youth, who knew all about GW, and who ‘got’ the Warhammer Universes. They got me writing comics, short stories and, eventually, novels and.... forty novels later....
Richard: Have you ever played the table top game Warhammer 40k? If so, what influence, if any, does the experience have on the stories you write?
Dan: yeah, I have. I don’t get as much time to play as I’d like, but I’ve played pretty much every variation to get the ‘feel’ of it, and it greatly informs what I write. I get to see the different things players like to get out of a game, and try to put those things into stories.
BAK: A lot of Imperial Guard units draw some sort of inspiration from historical armies. Catachans look like soldiers in Vietnam, the Death Korps of Krieg could easily step into a World War I trench, so on and so forth. Was there any such inspiration for the Tanith?
Dan: To an extent, but more particularly historical settings inform the missions and adventures I send them on. I do a lot of ‘real world’ research: I think SF and Fantasy both work well if you research the closest real world analog to whatever you’re writing (I.e. you research something as though you’re writing a historical novel), then blend in the fantastical elements. So.. Straight Silver was WWI trench action, Guns of Tanith was Arnhem, Necropolis was Stalingrad, Only in Death was Rourke’s Drift, etc.
Richard: Do you find it challenging to write for a universe with such a specific look, feel and depth of history? Do you spend a lot of time reconciling what you want to write with existing canon?
Dan: Writing in a shared universe is always a challenge, and you have to respect the ‘core’ as much as possible. I hope I do that. And creative visions are very singular, so - yes - reconciliation does go on to make things work. I love the universe of Warhammer 40K, though, so that helps.
BAK: Among the fandom we like to joke that commissars are a trigger-happy bunch executing fleeing troopers right and left. However the commissars of the Tanith First-and-Only, Gaunt and later Hark, act in a far more reasonable manner. Did anything in specific motivate how you characterized these commissars?
Dan: I don’t think you could empathise much with a real trigger-happy bastard. Not over a long series of novels where character development and interaction drives the stories. You’ve got to care about the characters, and if the main heroes are as bleak and relentless as the Universe, that could get trying. I often feel that their effort to cling onto humanity in the face of such overwhelming horror is part of the power of the stories in 40K.
BAK: I think one of the main appeals of the Imperial Guard is that they're ordinary men and women with human emotions. To see even a commissar like Gaunt struggle and eventually triumph makes for a really great story.
Dan: Yes, there’s a very direct, visceral identification with Imperial Guard, more than any other army.
Richard: Are there any particular moth-to-a-flame topics in the Warhammer 40k universe that you'd love to explore, but have not yet made it into your body of work?
Dan: Some of the alien races I’d love to do more with: Orks, Necron, Eldar, Tyranids. Big fleet action too, though there’s a decent chunk of that in my next Gaunt, Salvation’s Reach.
BAK: In the handful of other Guard books I've read, if the Navy shows up at all they're just a means to get protagonists from point A to point B in the plot. In your books we see the Navy fight and die and sometimes come in conflict with Guard command. Have you ever thought about writing a book about the Imperial Navy?
Dan: I have many times. It’s tempting. It would be BIG.
BAK: In the introduction to The Saint omnibus you mention that Trooper Cuu was a last minute addition to Honour Guard. I'm going to be honest I hated Cuu so much, if nothing else than because he was messing with my favorite Tanith, Mad Larkin. How did you come up with such a character?
Dan: He came out of nowhere. He just appeared as a fully formed character and inserted himself into the book like he was alive. It was scary. Cuu may be despicable, but it’s antagonist characters like that that really fuel the success of a book by keeping the drama churning along.
BAK: Among your credits is writing the sceenplay for the Ultramarines movie. Did you have to get into a different mindset writing for Marines than you normally do for Guard?
Dan: Yeah, they’re tough. They have far less overt personality, due to their very nature. There is less to distinguish them. They are, in effect, less human. That makes them really hard to write - they don't even talk in contractions. I think I really began to get the hang of them in Brothers of the Snake and the Heresy books.
BAK: Yeah, I read once that Space Marines only vaguely remember feeling cold or afraid or tired, so their mindset is very hard for normal humans or even humans in the 41st millennium to understand.
Dan: You have to humanize them a little to make them work in a narrative, but you also have to remember that they’re super-men.
BAK: You've created a wonderful cast of characters with the Tanith First-and-Only, but obviously they're at war and people die. Is it hard for you to say goodbye to your characters when their time comes?
Dan; Of course. I need to care about the characters so that the reader does, otherwise the books are pointless. It also comes as a surprise sometimes - some deaths are unexpected!
BAK: Unexpected? I mean you're the author so I would figure if anyone saw a death coming it would be you. Do characters just have a time where they die?
Dan: Sometimes. Sometimes it’s planned. Sometimes they just die and it shocks me. Once in a while, I plan to kill a particular character and someone else takes the bullet for them.
BAK: Now here at I Smell Sheep we are famous for our Rapid Round questions. Basically we'll give you an either-or and you just pick the first one that comes to mind.
BAK: To please our slavedriver, Katie, Coke or Pepsi?
Dan: Neither Due to my recent ‘adventures in epilepsy’, I can’t drink caffeine. Can I get a ginger ale?
BAK: Well, Katie won't be happy, but I'll accept it.
Richard: Jimmi Hendrix or Billy Joel?
Dan: Hendrix. Unless it’s karaoke night, in which case Billy rules.
BAK: Commander Adama or Captain Picard?
Dan: Picard.
BAK: T-rex or Velociraptor?
Dan: T-Rex.
BAK: Turtles or elephants?
Dan: Uh, elephants?
BAK: It's all right, both are cool.
Richard: Converse or Doc Martens?
Dan: Converse.
BAK: Elves or dwarves?
Dan: Elves.
Richard: Shotgun or Chainsaw?
Dan: Shotgun *rrr-chakk!*
BAK: Plasma or meltagun?
Dan: Plasma.
BAK: Thank you so much for taking time to talk with us, Dan. Do you have any final things to say before we leave?
Dan: Thanks for having me along! See you all in the funny pages!
And a big thank-you to Dan for being so cooperative and patient with us. Now as you probably noticed there is in fact a prize giveaway. Dan has been gracious enough to donate a signed copy of his latest book, Embedded, as a prize for this interview. Now it may not be 40k material, but it's a science fiction story about soldiers in the near future so if you're a fan of Gaunt and his Ghosts, you'll probably like this book too. Now to be eligible for this prize you must do the following.
Leave a comment on this interview with the following two pieces of information:
1. A valid e-mail address.
2. Your favorite character from any of Abnett's books. (And preferably a little as to why.)
The polls will close on Thursday, 4th of August, 2011 at 11:59 PM Eastern Standard time. Double your chances to win by following our blog. Winner will be randomly selected and announced the next day, or Saturday at the latest if work gets in the way. Again a big thank you to Dan and I encourage everyone to pick up one of his books. Except for maybe Katie. They've got no smut in them so she'd just get bored. Everyone else should read them, though.
Ephrael Stern – Sister of Battle – Daemonifuge! Tainted soul or living weapon against the dark forces of Chaos?Under investigation by the Inquisition, Ephrael Stern and the Inquisitor Silas Hand must place their trust in each other as they embark on a dangerous quest to discover the origins of her power.
An interesting story, way better than the bright gak Boom Studios crapped out when they took over comics.
First mentioned back around the time of Black Library Live ! :
Zombies Vs Lasguns
We do like to keep you excited, so with the complete Daemonifuge now available, it’s time for a sneak peek at the next release in our Print on Demand line, Hive of the Dead.
This is the first of a new range of Warhammer 40,000 gamebooks, interactive novels where you take the role of the main character and decide where they go, what they do and whether they live or die. You fight the many enemies you meet in your adventure with a simple dice-based rules system where you roll to hit, wound and save, just like in Warhammer 40,000. In Hive of the Dead, you are an Imperial Guardsman who wakes in a cell, surrounded by the walking dead. Your mission: to escape, preferably without itchiness and a craving for brains… We thought we’d give you a brief extract from this exciting new book, taken from a journey through the zombie-haunted depths of Hive Septus:
16
As you move through the centre section of the hallway, the faulty lume strip cuts out, and as you stand there in the sudden darkness, you can make out the sound of growling coming from somewhere. Suddenly, the light flicks back into life and the round window in the wall next to you explodes out in a shower of glass, ejecting something dark and furry into the hallway. As you back away, the dark shape lifts itself up off the floor and growls at you through its bared, sharp fangs, blood and saliva dripping from its jaws. An emaciated zombie dog stands before you, taut and ready to pounce.
To run down the corridor towards the next bend, turn to 185
To stand and fight, turn to 226
To find out if you can escape the attentions of this corrupted cadaverous canine, you’ll have to return on the 5th of September to buy your copy.
If you can’t wait that long for lasgun vs zombie action, downloading Aaron Dembski-Bowden’s new eBook Cadian Blood should satiate your thirst for post-apocalyptic action horror.
WHAT’S 20 FEET HIGH, HAS TWO HEADS AND SHOOTS LIGHTNING FROM ITS HANDS?
Kairos Fatewaever, of course, and who better to depict the Master of sorcery than Jon Sullivan, who has captured the warped and twisted natureof the daemons of Chaos in his new artworkfor the cover of Architect of Fate.
The unfortunate Space Marines caught up in the mutating wake of the greater daemon lie sprawled across the battlefield, helpless against the power of Tzeentch.
Architect of Fate is an anthology of Space Marine short stories by some of Black Library’s finest authors, compiled by New YorkTimes bestselling editor Christian Dunn. It will be available in May next year; you can set your reminder now.
In the meantime, you have the rest of the Space Marine Battles novels to enjoy.
As you’ve probably deduced from my previous posts, I am currently writing a trilogy about Lord High Commander Solar Macharius and the great crusade he led at the start of the 41st Millenium. It’s something of a daunting task portraying the conqueror of a thousand worlds so how do I propose going about doing it?
Well, not by telling the story from his point of view, that’s for sure. Macharius is a military genius and I am not, despite what I may occasionally claim across the gaming table and when leading another doomed defence of Iceblood Tower in Alterac Valley. As a rule, it’s pretty easy to write about characters who are tougher than you, better looking than you, stronger than you, more confident than you and more attractive to women. All you are doing is putting a lot of male wish fulfilment fantasy down on paper. It’s actually pretty hard to write about characters who are smarter than you, at least from the internalised points of view that I prefer. Being a man who believes in taking the easy route in everything, I ruled out showing the story from Macharius’s point of view pretty early on. This meant finding a Doctor Watson character to relate the tale.
Oh yeah, I decided to do the story in first person because, well, I could. I liked the idea of taking a close look at the 41st Millenium from the point of view of an ordinary man, and I am a big fan of Glenn Cook’s Black Company series which struck me as being an excellent model for what I would be attempting here. It has an ordinary soldier’s view of world-shatteringly epic events told with humour and cynicism.
(If you’ve ever fancied reading a military fantasy about hard-boiled mercenaries in a world ruled by what is essentially a collection of Dark Lords, I recommend you rush out and buy Cook’s books immediately. If I recall correctly, the first three books of the series are available in a collected omnibus. But I digress…)
My initial idea, to be honest, was to tell the tale of the Crusade through the eyes of an ordinary Imperial Guard soldier, and skip having Macharius in it at all. Eventually the sheer stupidity of setting a story in a milieu dominated by the epoch’s greatest general and hero and not using him as a character became evident even to me.
So I had to sit down and think about Macharius and how was I going to fit him in. I mean what is a conqueror of worlds like? Ruthless, charismatic, used to getting his own way? That all goes without saying. In general, our more recent historical examples have not been admirable or likeable men, and I find at least one of those to be a necessary quality in my central characters in longer works. I have to live with these guys in my head for a year and a half while I am writing the books so it’s a good idea to, at least, not be actively nauseated whenever I come to describe them. (I make an exception for Grey Seer Thanquol because I find him funny and he’d probably send Boneripper around to tear my head off if I said anything different. And did I say funny? I meant brain-blastingly awesome and possessed of god-like charisma.)
I tore through the Imperial Guard Codex to see what it said about Macharius (and to make sure nothing had changed since the last edition I had read…hey, it happens, I’ve been caught out that way before).
What does it say? A visionary. A brilliant and callous strategist. A brutal conqueror and ruthless soldier. So far, so good. What’s this? He split the Iron Wall of Kallistan with a word?
That strikes me as being a somewhat unbalanced power for a character who potentially might take to the tabletop in a 40K battle. I mean splitting the walls of a Hive with a word would probably cost a lot of points. I decided the more over the top bits of description in the Codex were hyperbole. There would be no splitting walls with words in these books unless the words spoken were “Detonate that thermonuclear destruction charge, sergeant”.
Surely this sort of thing must be part of the legend that sprung up after Macharius’s death, tales that clustered round his name in the way that they clustered around Alexander’s. So in some shrine on a backwater world in Segmentum Pacificus there is a cult of Macharius. Its members really believe Macharius split the walls of Kallistan with a word, and they write complaints on Warhammer 40K forums when somebody suggests anything different. Sorry, I meant they burn all unbelievers. Or maybe both. My remarks here will probably have people with pitchforks and torches crowding around me at Gamesday so I will find out.
There is obviously a core of truth to the stories, some seed that could grow into this mighty myth as pointed out in my reference to demolition charges above. It’s an idea I may be able to work into the story so it gets filed away for future reference. For purposes of my story, Macharius is a man. He may be stronger, tougher, more attractive to women and smarter than me, but he is a man. How could I make him anything else? He is a great hero of the Imperial Guard and the Imperial Guard are the very epitome of ordinary human courage facing the cosmic horrors of the 41st Millennium. Macharius needs to exemplify that, not undercut it. This is the real reason for ditching the wall-splitting.
Well, we know something about Macharius now. We know what he did. We know what some of the people around him wrote about him in their histories. But what was he like? In these books, he is going to be an actual living, breathing character who walks on and says things and does something more than shoot people. The Biblical language of the Codex does not tell us too much about him. I mean we need to be able to believe in him, be surprised by him, taken off-guard by some sudden, unexpected thing, the way we are with real people.
Fortunately, as was immediately obvious to a classically educated man like myself, Macharius is based on Alexander the Great, one of the more appealing great conquerors in history. That was a good starting point. So it was time to renew my acquaintance with Alexander. Out came the military histories and Robin Lane Fox’s excellent biography. (Yes, it’s part of my job to read books that I would read for my own amusement anyway. Cool, isn’t it?)
Let’s see– he inherited his kingdom from his father Philip– not strictly necessary for my purposes. Macharius is an Imperial General, he will come by his army in a somewhat different way. On the other hand, a strict and powerful father who had died young leaving a legacy of achievement for the son to compete with and eventually surpass. We’ve seen similar things in our own time with the likes of Rupert Murdoch and Ted Turner. There might be something there to work with. Hell, the Imperium has the most powerful father figure of all-time in the Emperor, I can certainly do something with that. So the fleshly father died young and Macharius transferred his filial loyalty to the Imperium. It would certainly explain his powerful feelings about the Imperium and re-uniting it. Anyway, this is all getting a bit Freudian so we will draw a discrete veil over it and move on…
What was Alexander like? Good-looking, fit, extraordinarily tough, a general who led from the front and cared for his soldiers. This can all be lifted straight but its not really all that surprising. The habit of a general leading from the front seems hyper-unrealistic to anyone familiar with modern warfare but it was still happening as late as the Victorian era. I can live with it and it gives me another insight into Macharius’s personality. He likes to fight. I don’t mean he likes moving troops around on a map either. I mean he physically likes to fight, he enjoys it in the same way Tyrion does in Blood of Aenarion. He takes real pleasure in it. That tells you something about the man.
Alexander also had a habit of talking to ordinary soldiers and asking them how they felt, how things were going, what the state of the army was like etc. That’s a quirk that I can definitely use. It’s a point of contact between him and the narrator as well.
Alexander had a very dark side. He killed a friend and officer in his army by throwing a spear through him after a drunken argument. He regretted it afterwards but he still did it. He apparently burned down a palace in a fit of drunken rage at least according to some stories. That can go in as well. He has a temper and he likes to drink and can drink too much at times. There is a weakness that has an almost Slaaneshi ring to it. Doubtless there will be rumours…Alexander’s mobile court was full of constant intrigue. The bureaucratic and military hierarchy of the Imperium is just the same. The rumours can be spread by Macharius’s enemies to discredit him but there is a core of truth to them as well. It’s the same as the tale of wall but used for darker purposes. And there were many assassination attempts on Alexander– all good dramatic stuff for a history of the crusade.
So we have a picture of the man starting to emerge: powerful, ruthless, driven by forces he does not quite understand, a bit of a drunkard with a murderous temper. He comes to power in an age of Chaos with the Imperium in turmoil and sets about to restore it for the glory of the Emperor and grab some for himself. He is a product of his times in some ways, being born into a fractured Imperium with a dream to renew it. So far, so good, but I am going to need more.
At this point in my quest for role-models to use when describing a Great Conqueror I came across a very unusual one by a strange coincidence, but this post has already reached 1800 words and I have work to do so I’ll describe that another day…
So in some shrine on a backwater world in Segmentum Pacificus there is a cult of Macharius. Its members really believe Macharius split the walls of Kallistan with a word, and they write complaints on Warhammer 40K forums when somebody suggests anything different. Sorry, I meant they burn all unbelievers. Or maybe both. My remarks here will probably have people with pitchforks and torches crowding around me at Gamesday so I will find out.
I always enjoy learning a bit more about the actual crafting, the R & D so-to-speak, of how the stories are shaped and formed.
I think this series is sounding very promising indeed.
I thought perhaps some folks in this thread might be interested to know that NPR has opened up voting for their list of the top 100 sci-fi and fantasy novels, and the Eisenhorn Omnibus is included therein.
As did I, Mr. Abnett is in good company there, good for him.
Vermintide
With the release of Nagash Immortal marking the conclusion of the Rise of Nagash trilogy, this momentous chronicle of one of the darkest times in Warhammer history draws to a close. But the Warhammer World is seldom at peace and as of May next year, the Old World is plunged into one of the most chaotic and bloody ages in its history, as the very forces that opposed the necromancer Nagash seek to destroy the land of men.
As with the first three trilogies in our Time of Legends range, Jon Sullivan has produced another breathtaking cover, encapsulating the Empire in a desperate struggle against plague and invasion.
The rats themselves look particularly malevolent(it’s the glowing eyes, never trust an animal with glowing eyes) . Take a look at these cuddly critters.
The novel , Dead Winter will be written by CL Werner, whose experience writing the Thanquol and Boneripper series makes him Black Library’s leading expert on the verminious multitudes of the under empire. Not one to miss if you’re a fan of the skaven or the Time of Legends novels, set your reminder today.
Looks good indeed. I like Mr. Werner's writing a lot, especially his Brunner and Thulman stuff. I'm looking forwards to his Storm of Magic novella as well, having especially enjoyed the first two in this series. Both enjoyable and fantastical enough, and Mr. Wraight ( excuse the pun) strosm trhough with another corker that teases with an idea si cool and interesting that you'll kick yourself that you, or someone else, didn't see it before.
Also read, and enjoyed " Imperial Glory", a guard novel, which is suitably bleak and one for fans of old British war films especially.
Currently reading "Nagash the Immortal" and "Crown of the Conqueror", with Guy Haley's "Reality 36" next in the pile.
A short synopsis of the upcoming HH Raven Guard novel: "Corax and the few remaining Raven Guard escaped the massacre at Isstvan V but must now tend their wounds and replenish their numbers ... the primarch returns to Terra to seek the Emperor’s counsel and is guided to the ancient genetech used to create the first Space Marines ... unaware that the shadowy agents of the Alpha Legion move among the Raven Guard..."
This is Gav's comment from Facebook on this all: Mwahahaha!
First time I've ever had an issue with BL, but I figured Id let people know anyways.
BL announced, on their blog, that they would bring 30 copies of promethean sun to GD Germany. I bought a megaticket so that I could be first in line and have a realistic chance of picking one of these up. I get to the BL stand and there is exactly 0 copies. I was told they were sold at other conventions, despite the announcement on the blog. I mailed BL about that, because I was rather disappointed. The reply said, that it was a misunderstanding with the team attending the GD. Okay, I guess I can understand that. But that must mean that the copies are still around? Seems they are, so I asked about that again. The answer: Copies left will be sold at GDUK exclusively.
Influences & Inspirations: SARAH CAWKWELL
Continuing our series of guest posts about influences and inspirations (read the open invitation), I present you with our second author!
Sarah Cawkwell has written several short stories set in Games Workshop’s grim-dark 41st millennium. Her first full-length novel for the Black Library, The Gildar Rift, is due out in December 2011 (and is much anticipated here at Civilian-Reader – it features Huron Blackheart, one of the most colourful Chaos characters in Warhammer 40,000 lore).
You can catch up with the slightly obscure adventures of what it’s like to be a genre fiction writer at Sarah’s great blog, “Pyroriffic” (which is also her Twitter handle). So, without further ado, let me pass things over to Sarah…
Which author, series, or novel was the most influential to you as a writer, publisher, or agent (or whoever)?
Ever since I was knee-high to a grasshopper (which given I only come up to its shoulder now wasn’t so long ago), I've wanted to write stories. I've wanted to write stories because one of my earliest memories was of making somebody laugh with something I had written. Quite a clear memory. I was in the first year of school, so can't have been older than five, and we had to write a story that the teacher – Mrs Chapman, I remember her well – would then read out. Mine was about one of the Mister Men who had stayed determinedly by an acorn waiting for it to grow into a tree and about how his attention wandered to look at all the other things around.
My teacher laughed at the story and that was what I was going for. Even then, I got a buzz out of seeing someone enjoy something I had created. Creative writing was always my favourite part of school and that's something I want to come back to at the end.
But to answer the question... what has been most influential to me as a writer... well, there are so many that it’s hard in some ways to whittle it down to one. The Dragonlance series, for example, was one of the first series of books that hooked me in and made me actually care about the characters within. I moved onto many other fantasy series and found inspiration in them all. Robin Hobb established herself firmly as one of my favourite authors for much the same reason – her characters are to die for.
If I look to the left and right, at my hugely over-populated bookcases, the story tells itself. It’s rich with a variety of well-known and less well-known authors. Robin Hobb, Robert Jordan, Terry Pratchett, Douglas Adams, Terry Goodkind, Bernard Cornwell, Chris Wooding, James Barclay, Piers Anthony, Jane Yolen. And yes, J.K. Rowling. Don’t judge me. [No judgment from here; I enjoy them, too. - Stef]
On top of the over-populated shelves there are all the Black Library books that have yet to receive their very own bookcase, and look at the inspiration there: Jim Swallow, Dan Abnett, Graham McNeill, Aaron Dembski-Bowden, Mike Lee... Look! They’re not alone up there! They’re joined by Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files series and Mike Carey’s Felix Castor books. Right in the middle of the pile is a Star Wars tie-in novel called The Courtship of Princess Leia. Oh, and my copy of Sims 3. I wondered where that had gone...
There’s another three sets of shelves upstairs bulging with books. Everywhere in this house, there are books. If there’s a flat surface, there’s a book of some sort. There is a point to this. Honestly. Bear with me. And my point is this.
If you sit down with a book and you take something away from it, then it has inspired you. For me, I cannot honestly say that I have been inspired to write by any single author. I have been inspired to write by every book that I have read. Inspired by good books, because “I want to be like that” and also by bad books, because “I want to do it better than that”.
Every book, be it Enid Blyton’s Magical Faraway Tree series or Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings has impacted on me in some way. It’s not quite reached the stage where I’m sitting wondering what would happen if the children from Blyton’s books went up the ladder and found the World of 40K (other than thinking that would make a staggeringly cool story... the Saucepan Man in power armour, or Dame Washalot in Sororitas gear... heh...).
Oops, I digressed.
If the measure of a truly inspirational book or series of books is one that you return to over and over again, then I would narrow it down to Robin Hobb’s Liveship trilogy. It’s a story that pulls me in and keeps me guessing every time, even though I know the outcomes. Beautifully written, expertly delivered... everything I want to read. And if the measure of a truly inspirational book is one that you remember with more fondness than anything else, it would be Noel Langley’s The Land of Green Ginger which our teacher read to us every day before home time.
Take inspiration from everything you read that’s around you. Because books, no matter their creed, colour or other word beginning with ‘c’, are inspirational. And that’s all you need.
And the creative writing? If I had to name a single big inspiration, it would be my secondary school English teacher, Mr. Nye. Because he encouraged my quirky, slightly off-the-wall stories and, just like my mother, always told me that I could write a book.
I agree fully about how books can and do inspire one in may ways. Be it tow rite, model, paint or even bitch about on the internet.
... And the Dragonlance books.. or at least the first 12 or so... how many are there now ? .. were a big influence on me too.
Spoiler:
.. that scene with Flint in book 3 ... hits me lie a gut punch even now
... got bored on book..2 ... of the Liveship traders however. I keep meaning to pick the series up again at some point, but keep getting new stuff instead.
BrookM wrote:A short synopsis of the upcoming HH Raven Guard novel: "Corax and the few remaining Raven Guard escaped the massacre at Isstvan V but must now tend their wounds and replenish their numbers ... the primarch returns to Terra to seek the Emperor’s counsel and is guided to the ancient genetech used to create the first Space Marines ... unaware that the shadowy agents of the Alpha Legion move among the Raven Guard..."
This is Gav's comment from Facebook on this all: Mwahahaha!
This will not end well...
Flachzange wrote:First time I've ever had an issue with BL, but I figured Id let people know anyways.
BL announced, on their blog, that they would bring 30 copies of promethean sun to GD Germany. I bought a megaticket so that I could be first in line and have a realistic chance of picking one of these up. I get to the BL stand and there is exactly 0 copies. I was told they were sold at other conventions, despite the announcement on the blog. I mailed BL about that, because I was rather disappointed. The reply said, that it was a misunderstanding with the team attending the GD. Okay, I guess I can understand that. But that must mean that the copies are still around? Seems they are, so I asked about that again. The answer: Copies left will be sold at GDUK exclusively.
What a surprise.
Not only nothing new there ( except the GD entries ), now we are left out too. Zero game design attendance just makes it a complete waste of time and effort. They should scrap that gamesday and join a fanbased event. Send FW and BL, have a contest like GD and get your 3rd party licensed companies to attend too. /
reds8n wrote:
The RGHH novel seems most promising indeed.. no surprise really one supposes.
Could be as different as his take on DA is.
Without much background given, the risk of missing the expectations is high. People surely made their own images where GW didin't supply a theme.
Looks like GD Germany is just a step away from the same situation as us Dutch. We don't have GD's, we've got, if we're lucky, once every few years a country wide event dubbed "the Frenzy", which is an okay event with attendance of FW and BL, but that's it. AD-B was there, yay.
“Cower mortal, I have come to relive you from your tragic lives in pathetic service to a false god.”
Is how this guy almost certainly introduces himself.
This is the new artwork for the cover of Treacheries of the Space Marines by the inestimable Hardy Fowler.
This will be a new Space Marine anthology, Edited by Christian Dunn, and will join Heroes of the Space Marines, Legends of the Space Marines and Victories of the Space Marines as a compilation of short stories by a selection of Black Library authors.
But who is the traitorous terminator in the picture above? Well, we thought it would be fun to let you, the people decide. Head over to our Facebook page now and vote for your favourite name for a list of five possible options. To help you out, he’s a follower of Tzeentch and part of the Oracles of Change warband.
But wait, there’s more! We will also be re opening the submissions window in September for short stories, based on this character, to be published in Treacheries of the Space Marines, alongside established Black Library authors.Submit your short stories following the submission guidelines here, so grab those quills and get writing.
Since its Friday, you might be wondering “what am I going to read this weekend?” how about four classic Warhammer novels, now available in eBook format, including three titles by Graham McNeill: Guardians of the Forest, The Ambassador and Ursun's Teeth, as well as the chris Wraigt novel Dark Storm Gathering.
Speaking of Graham McNeill, next week at blacklibrary.com is Graham McNeill week. We’ve got exclusive extracts, a guest blog and new cover art revealed. Be sure to check back next week;
This week is Graham McNeill week at blacklibrary.com, celebrating Graham’s novels from Ulthuan to Ultramar. We start the week with a guest blog from the man, nay, the legend himself:
‘Can you loosen this chain a little?’
‘No, you’ve too much work to do.’
‘Not even a little?’
‘No, now get to work. Those books aren’t going to write themselves.’
Okay, so that’s not how my dealings with the Black Library go, but when you’re a freelance pirate on the seas of genre fiction, you need to think it is. Three novels a year (with associated short stories and novellas) is a hectic twelve months by anyone’s reckoning. Add in moving house and having a second bambino join the clan, and it becomes even more hectic. Though it’s always good to pause and take stock of what’s coming up to get a little perspective.
With The Outcast Dead away to the printers, I’ve just finished a Horus Heresy novella featuring the Primarch Fulgrim. Writing his descent into madness was such worryingly enjoyable fun that I always knew I’d come back to him – this time to address the fundamental change wrought upon him at the end of the novel. Oh, and it features Lucius as the main character. Yeah, I thought you’d like that.
Then it’s a return to the murderous hi-jinks of a certain Iron Warrior who was last seen in the depths of Calth. With Iron Warriors: The Omnibus out next year, it’s the perfect time to get back into Honsou’s business and see what happened in the wake of the Ultramar campaign. I’ve a couple of stories planned, and I can assure you that there will be blood.
Hot on the heels of that work is a return to the Imperium of the 41st Millennium with Priests of Mars, a novel that’s been gestating ever since I put the finishing touches on Mechanicum. This new novel isn’t a sequel, and it’s not set on Mars, but it does feature a Mechanicus Explorator fleet as they hunt for lost STCs in uncharted regions of space that represent the high water mark of humanity’s first expansion to the edges of the galaxy.
‘That’s enough for now, get back to the keyboard!’
‘But wait, I haven’t even mentioned my Ultramarines audio drama, Eye of Vengeance or The Legend of–’
‘Right that’s enough of your jabbering, McNeill.’
‘And what about Angel Ex– arrrrghh!’
‘Don’t worry, Supreme Editor, the taser effect will wear off in a few hours.’
(No writers were harmed in the making of this blog)
If your a Graham McNeill fan there is more to come. The blog this week will be packed full of Graham McNeill related content, from Exclusive extracts from upcoming novels, new cover art revealed and culminating in the release of the highly anticipated second book in Graham’s High Elf series, Sons of Ellyrion this Friday.
ARGH! Stop with the fething Novellas! Fantastic that McNeil is continuing with a bit of Fulgrim, but this, and Aurelian is simply annoying.
Who wants to bet the cover of this Emperor's Children book will be covered in some curious stains?
gilljoy wrote:Anymore Garro audio dramas coming out? Really enjoyed the previous two
James Swallow confirmed at the GD Germany that there would be 2 more Garro audiobooks.
He's now putting the last touches on his second sisters book. Afterwards he will be writing the HH-Blood Angels book called fear to tread.
Graham McNeill Week continues, and as promised, here is a previously unseen front cover from Graham’s upcoming audio drama, Eye of Vengeance. I think you’ll agree that Hardy Fowler’s dynamic illustration has captured the grizzled Ultramarines scout sergeant perfectly.
Eye of Vengeance will be out next May, you can set your reminder today.
But if you don’t have the patience of a grizzled gene enhanced sniper, you can buy the rest of Graham’s Ultramarines series now and read them while you wait.
gilljoy wrote:Anymore Garro audio dramas coming out? Really enjoyed the previous two
James Swallow confirmed at the GD Germany that there would be 2 more Garro audiobooks.
He's now putting the last touches on his second sisters book. Afterwards he will be writing the HH-Blood Angels book called fear to tread.
Slowly working my way through Nagash Immortal, which has got to be the biggest Time of Legends novel so far. Almost at 500 now and it's a good read so far.
BL has some more info on the Thorn and Talon audio novel: "Inquisitor Eisenhorn returns investigating mysterious murders and bizarre crimes in three audio adventures"
A million humble pardons if this has been mentioned before.
Speaking of Aaron Dembski-Bowden, I heard that he had a Black Crusade book at Gencon. I can't find info on this anywhere, or in the last couple pages. Any insight?
Certainly is a nice cover, but I loath that it's another avatar-smiting it seems; isn't Lorgar supposedly one of the 'weaker' primarchs, whilst Fulgrim was really against the ropes vs. an avatar...
Still, it's a very nice cover and I don't doubt ADB's ability.
Begel Dverl wrote:Black Library has a contest on Facebook for his name.
So far, it is Xaphan the Faceless.
If I'm not mistaken though, Xaphon was a Word Bearer... not an Oracle of Change. He might have red armor but not all red armored marines can call themselves Word Bearers
- Think about it. Soul Hunter. Blood Reaver. This matches the pattern.....
