Alpharius wrote:Can someone post a 100% spoiler filled review of PROMETHEAN SUN so I don't feel too bad/sad for missing out on spending $86 for a novella?

Also, please take the Thousand Sons/Blood Ravens debate to a different thread in a different section of the forum!

Thanks!

Alpharius wrote:I know I've said it a few times before, but the delivery fees for these limited editions are really out of whack.

The book is expensive enough to begin with, I'm not sure why (other than "because they can" and "it makes them a LOT more money") they set it so high...

Alpharius wrote:No doubt it would, and I think I'll take you up on it!

PROMETHEAN SUN focused on Salamanders, Death Guard and Iron Hands, I think.

I really would have liked to get it, but, you know... too late now, as the only remaining copies are on sale at 'live events only', which is great if you can get one as it will be even cheaper there, though I imagine harder to acquire...

If there's ever one on certain Legions, well, I think I will accept your generous offer of help!

Just Dave wrote:

Alpharius wrote:No doubt it would, and I think I'll take you up on it!

PROMETHEAN SUN focused on Salamanders, Death Guard and Iron Hands, I think.

I really would have liked to get it, but, you know... too late now, as the only remaining copies are on sale at 'live events only', which is great if you can get one as it will be even cheaper there, though I imagine harder to acquire...

If there's ever one on certain Legions, well, I think I will accept your generous offer of help!

That'd be absolutely fine with me Alph, the offer was genuinely sincere.

The problem for me wasn't so much the postage (clearly), but that it was £40 for a book, which whilst I love the HH is a bit much, particularly when I don't care too much for the Legions represented. Tbh, if it was Abnett, ADB or McNiell then I probably would've considered it a bit more, but even then...
As I said though, just contact me if you do want to take me up on that offer.

Kanluwen wrote:If it was Abnett or ADB I'd have bought the hell out of it and splurged my entire 'fun shenanigan'(tm) budget for two months on it.

Just Dave wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:If it was Abnett or ADB I'd have bought the hell out of it and splurged my entire 'fun shenanigan'(tm) budget for two months on it.

Wow Kan. Those are some cheap hookers!

... What?

Alpharius wrote:I know I've said it a few times before, but the delivery fees for these limited editions are really out of whack.

The book is expensive enough to begin with, I'm not sure why (other than "because they can" and "it makes them a LOT more money") they set it so high...

Kanluwen wrote:Blame Royal Mail!

reds8n wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:Blame Royal Mail!

Seeing as these books are sent via an entirely different and separate courier company that is nothing to do with the Royal Mail that would seem somewhat harsh no ?

Due to the rarity of this item orders containing Promethean Sun will only be shipped via express UPS delivery.

Due to the limited numbers of this product we will only ship copies via UPS.

Kanluwen wrote:Then they're retconning the original "the entire Legion was affected by the change".

Was the sergeant Terran? That may be where they're going with it.

Ozymandias wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:Then they're retconning the original "the entire Legion was affected by the change".

Was the sergeant Terran? That may be where they're going with it.

Are you serious Kan? There have been NUMEROUS hints that Blood Ravens come from Tk-Sons, the most incredible being the novel, A Thousand Sons that mentions Ravens of Blood.

Frankly, thinking it's any other chapter at this point is missing the huge WINK from BL authors.

Ozymandias wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:Then they're retconning the original "the entire Legion was affected by the change".

Was the sergeant Terran? That may be where they're going with it.

Are you serious Kan? There have been NUMEROUS hints that Blood Ravens come from Tk-Sons, the most incredible being the novel, A Thousand Sons that mentions Ravens of Blood.

Frankly, thinking it's any other chapter at this point is missing the huge WINK from BL authors.

Kanluwen wrote:I would, but I drank it all.

Really: I don't like the idea of Blood Ravens being a Thousand Sons 'Successor'.

It's too...obvious.

ph34r wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:I would, but I drank it all.

Really: I don't like the idea of Blood Ravens being a Thousand Sons 'Successor'.

It's too...obvious.

Too obvious? Maybe. It'd be pretty dumb if they WEREN'T by this point. It'd take more fluff dickery to make them seem like not TS successors.

Kanluwen wrote:It's too...obvious.

Death By Monkeys wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:It's too...obvious.

Kan, just remember you're talking about a universe with the primarch of the World Eaters being named "Angron" and the primarch of the Iron Hands being named "Ferrus Mannus".

Just Dave wrote:Really? I have read about half of the 1st so far, but have just stopped to do actual work (read: browse Dakka and FB ). But should I really read the last story first?

Just Dave wrote:Really? I have read about half of the 1st so far, but have just stopped to do actual work (read: browse Dakka and FB ). But should I really read the last story first?

Call in the Tech Priests
In all the excitement of getting Promethean Sun despatched as quickly as possible, it seems our system has managed to get ahead of itself. Our warehouse team printed off all the packing sheets and prepared packaging in boxes last Friday to be ready to send out the thousands of copies of Promethean Sun as soon as they arrived in our warehouse. Unfortunately, when this happened, our website was tricked into thinking your order had been despatched!

Over a thousand copies were sent out over the last 72 hours and the rest of the stock is arriving in batches this week as they are being hand finished by our printers. We expect all of them to be sent out by the end of the week, keep an eye on your order details for the tracking reference which will automatically update once your parcel has been registered with UPS.

Alpharius wrote:That $36 for shipping and handling to the US sure was money well spent...

Just Dave wrote:Hey Alph, want to join me in looking for an orkmoticon that does a smug face?

Many moons ago, I stumbled across a short story anthology, Wolf Riders, published by Games Workshop. In it, there was a story by the same name by Bill King, featuring Gotrek and Felix – a dwarf slayer and his human companion and chronicler. I was hooked, and eagerly sought out the other two GW anthologies, Red Thirst and Ignorant Armies, which also featured Gotrek & Felix stories. A few years later, Black Library published Trollslayer, the first in the continuing Gotrek & Felix series (which has now been taken on by Nathan Long). After a while away from writing fiction for Black Library, Mr King returns this year with Blood Aenarion, and I thought it was a perfect time to send him some questions about what he’s been up to and what we can expect from his return to Warhammer fiction.

This year will see your highly-anticipated return to the world of Warhammer, with the release of Blood of Aenarion in December. How would you introduce this novel to new readers? Is it the start of a projected series?

Blood of Aenarion is the start of a trilogy. The other two books are Sword of Caledor and Bane of Malekith.

Blood of Aenarion is the tale of Tyrion and Teclis’s first encounter with N’Kari, the Keeper of Secrets, a Greater Daemon of Slaanesh while they are still very young. It’s as much N’Kari’s story as the twins. The book kicks off with the daemon’s defeat at the hands of Aenarion in the Dawn Ages and climaxes with his invasion of the most holy temple of the Elves as he attempts to wipe out Aenarion’s descendants among which Tyrion and Teclis are numbered.

The second and third books deal with the great war between the Elves and the Dark Elves and chart the twins’ rise to being the two greatest heroes of the elves in the modern Warhammer age.

These books are my take on the Elves. In the dim, distant days of yore, I was one of the authors of the High Elves army book for Warhammer Fantasy Battle. Writing this trilogy allowed me to revisit the Elves and their mythology. The books dig really, really deeply into elvish history.

Blood of Aenarion opens with a prologue showing Aenarion’s last battle, the death of Caledor, the banishment of N’Kari and the creation of the Vortex. Sword of Caledor starts with Morathi about to kick off the Great Chaos invasion and brooding on her long and chequered history. Bane of Malekith kicks off from the point of view of Caledor, the creator of the Vortex, now a very troubled ghost imprisoned in the heart of his creation, watching as the end of the world slowly encroaches.

There are scenes from the point of view of Malekith as well. It was a real pleasure getting to deal with these titans of the Warhammer mythos and showing things from what, hopefully, will be some surprising perspectives.

You created the fan-favourite heroes Gotrek & Felix, before the series was taken over by Nathan Long. How did the two characters come about?

It all started something like 23 years ago if I am not mistaken. In my misspent youth I used to play a lot of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. I noticed that trollslayers were a very popular character type and I thought their image was really original and striking. When I was involved with GW’s first book line, a trollslayer seemed like an obvious and interesting hero. Felix was there to provide contrast and humanise a fairly inhuman character.

In my original version of the first published story, Geheimnisnacht, Felix was the only survivor. Gotrek died in the climactic fight and thus achieved his doom. I looked at it and thought, What the hell am I doing, there is a series in these characters! The rest is history.



The First Gotrek & Felix novel

(Collected already published and new material, 1999)

How did it feel to have another author adopt them after writing them for so long? Do you ever miss writing them?

I can’t honestly say the idea of somebody else writing Gotrek and Felix thrills me. From GW’s perspective it was an understandable commercial decision – they are very, very popular characters. I don’t particularly miss writing them at the moment since there’s a whole lot else going on in my life. I am very fond of them still.

What drew you to fantasy and genre fiction in the first place?

I grew up on a council estate in a small town on the west coast of Scotland in the ’60s and ’70s. Escapist fiction certainly had its attractions and there was plenty of it in the local library.

The period of my youth coincided with a huge boom in fantasy literature. Lots of pulp classics were being rediscovered and republished. Tolkien was very popular. Mayflower seemed to publish an endless line of Moorcock books.

Fantasy and SF also seemed to catch the spirit of the age very well. There was an odd mix of mysticism and hard science fiction in the air. The Apollo moonshots, the counter-culture, trips to Kathmandu, it was all going on. And all of that was before I discovered D&D, sometime around 1977.



Bill King’s Gotrek & Felix novels

Where do you draw your inspiration from? Who would you say are your biggest influences?

I try and write the sort of books I would like to read now and which I hope would also appeal to my younger self.

As for influences, it’s the usual suspects – Tolkien, Robert E Howard, Michael Moorcock, Fritz Leiber, Roger Zelazny. I was also hugely influenced by Karl Edward Wagner’s Kane stories.

You’ve been away from writing in the Warhammer setting for a while. What have you been up to, recently?

I’ve been playing a lot of World of Warcraft and other MMOs!

I’ve also written a few books that I’ve always wanted to write, a Lovecraft influenced military fantasy series, a book about sky pirates and a detective novel.

What’s your opinion of the fantasy/sci-fi genre of today?

I don’t read nearly as much fantasy as I used to. I got fed up with stories of innocent young swineherds who discover their secret god-like powers and their destiny to save and/or rule the world. For a while there fat-book fantasy sort of swamped the genre.

That said, there are writers working today who I really enjoy. George RR Martin, Steven Erikson, Glen Cook, the late, great David Gemmell. I enjoyed Howard Jones first novel, The Desert of Souls a great deal. Ditto, Matt Forbeck’s Vegas Knights. I suspect that if you look closely you will discover that these are all darker and more realistic than the average Fat Book Fantasy, and feature an alarming absence of innocent young swineherds.



How do you enjoy being a writer and working within the publishing industry? Do you have any specific working, writing, and researching practices?

It’s a job I can do sitting on a tropical beach, which makes me laugh and pays me even when I am not working. What’s not to love? More seriously, this is what I always wanted to do. I really, really enjoy it. I have never really understood the whole writing is torture for me school of thought. If it was torture for me I would not do it.

Normally I aim to write 1,000 words a day, every day, until the first draft of a book is done, or alternatively 2-3,000 words a day five days a week. I’ve used both methods with some success. I think the trick is just to keep moving forward. My personal revisions usually take the same amount of time as the writing of the first draft, sometimes a lot longer when there are editorial revisions. I work mostly in Scrivener. As far as I am concerned, it’s the best piece of software ever conceived for writers. Editorial revisions are done in Word.

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 wanted to be an author from my days at primary school. Every year, Nestle sponsored an essay-writing contest, and every year except one I won it and got a box of chocolates. The year I did not win it, the teachers told me they were fed up with me winning and thought somebody else deserved a chance. From earliest youth I have always associated writing with free chocolate.

What projects do you have in the pipeline?

I am currently writing a trilogy about the Macharian Crusade for Black Library. I am revising the afore-mentioned Lovecraftian military fantasy series for release on the Kindle.

What’s something fans might be surprised to learn about you?

I was a fairly hardcore battleground PvP player in World of Warcraft.

Prior to the release of Cataclysm, I had 10 level 80 characters. I’ve played every class in WoW. The only one I did not get to 80 before Cataclysm was Warrior. My original main was a Paladin, but my favourite long term is Rogue. I play predominantly on the Alliance side – always good for generating rage in PvP since they are mostly terrible at it on the servers I play on. My son plays predominantly on the Horde side. I have a couple of Horde toons so I can play alongside him.

I have drifted out of playing recently, but I will be back.

Who are you reading at the moment (fiction and/or non-fiction)?

Currently I am reading Pullman’s Northern Light’s trilogy and Robin Lane Fox’s biography of Alexander the Great.

What are you most looking forward to in 2011?

The release of Blood of Aenarion ties with the release of Guild Wars 2, if Arena.net get round to it this year.

Back in March, we launched a competition to celebrate a year of the new-look Black Library website. The prize was dinner with the mighty New York Times bestselling author, Dan Abnett.

Well, the entries are all in and a winner has been randomly selected. And the lucky victor is...

(insert drumroll here)

...Craig Coates! Congratulations to Craig, who will be enjoying a fine meal and conversation with the writer of the Gaunt’s Ghosts series in the picturesque surroundings of Bugman’s Bar some time in the near future. We look forward to seeing you, Craig.

To all the rest of you...well, better luck next time!

CadianXV wrote:Also, love that The Fat Bloke got a meal named after him.

The Fat Bloke
Double steak burger, bacon, onion rings and a
generous helping of melted cheese

CadianXV wrote:Hmm. Last time I went to Bugmans (admittably, this is nearly 10 years ago) they had something called the Space Marine Snack. Unfortunately, I can't remember what it included, except being a form of giant baguette. Can anyone enlighten me?

Xagor is on an errand for his haemonculus master, the delivery of a thoroughly unimportant package and some tremendously important news. A Dysjunction is coming, and Commorragh will be shaken to its very foundations. As Xagor travels the dangerous streets of the dark city, he is sure he is being followed.

Kharbyr has been sent to capture a package. Hunting the servant of a twisted haemonculus through the warrens of Commorragh, he is eager to slip his knife between his prey’s ribs and watch the life flee from him. But the servant is behaving oddly, and Kharbyr suspects that there is more to the other eldar’s task than a simple delivery.

A game of cat and mouse can lead to anything. Especially at midnight on the Street of Knives.

A brand new, never-before published story from author Andy Chambers.

June 2011 • eBook, digital download
• ISBN 9780857872258

Andy Chambers

AgeOfEgos wrote:Did Andy leave Blizzard----or is he working there PRN?

reds8n wrote: It's an ebook short story, cost of $2.99.

reds8n wrote:http://www.guardian.co.uk/childrens-books-site/2011/may/19/cliff-mcnish-top-10?CMP=twt_gu

..lofty company indeed.

Good to see wider recognition for BL, their banner series and a damn fine writer.

A few weeks ago I received a very surprising bit of news – Age of Darkness had made it to number 31 on the New York Times bestseller list for Mass Market Paperback Fiction. You may wonder why that came as a surprise when the previous four books in the Horus Heresy series had all made the list and the authors of all four of those had contributed stories to the anthology, but the thing is this – anthologies hardly ever make the NYT bestseller list.

The fact that it did is not only testament to the strength of the Horus Heresy series, nor the fact that Age of Darkness marks the first forays into the unexplored years of the Heresy, but also to the hard work of a group of people working away in the background who don’t receive a credit in the book itself. Because of having to find room for author bios in the back of the book, there wasn’t enough room for an acknowledgements page in Age of Darkness so I’m going to use this blog posting to thank some of the key people who made the book happen.


A huge dollop of thanks must go to the 10 people who without their contributions there wouldn’t have been a book at all. Dan Abnett, Aaron Dembski-Bowden, Graham McNeill and James Swallow were already NYT bestsellers in their own right, but John French, Nick Kyme, Rob Sanders, Gav Thorpe and Chris Wraight can now join this list. In John’s case, it was his first piece of work to see print (his previous BL contribution being a short story in the digital-only Hammer and Bolter) and for three of the other writers it was their Heresy debut.

But there were only nine names on the table of contents, how can you thank 10 contributors, I hear you cry? Neil Roberts is the unsung hero of the Horus Heresy series and raises the bar with each and every cover he delivers. I may be just a smidge biased but I think the Age of Darkness cover is the best yet, and not just because a Space Marine from a certain legion is getting his head crushed…

Each and every member of the Black Library team deserve credit for this too, from Lynne Gardner, who makes sure that the authors receive their paperwork for the short stories, George Mann, who has both hands on the rudder but somehow still has a hand free to sign the cheques and contracts, through to Neil Wylie who made sure that the book had an ISBN and that the details were uploaded to Amazon and other booksellers. Darius Hinks, Rosie Edwards and Adi Wood not only made sure that the book was typeset and looked great, but were also responsible for the adverts and catalogues that made the world aware of the book’s existence. Andy Smillie made sure the marketing ran smoothly so that Mal Green, Rik Cooper, Vince Rospond and Ragnar Karlsson could get booksellers and Games Workshop stores excited about the anthology, while Carol Sanderson and Emma Clarke were responsible for the books getting printed, being shipped all over the world and, perhaps most importantly, that the bills were paid. Caroline Pritchard-Law and Rachel Docherty did a great job with the digital editions of not only the book, but also the individual short stories and the various associated audio products. I’d also like to issue a little bit of pre-emptive thanks to Anthony Esteban and Chris Bone who will be launching the French language edition early next year.

Finally, no Black Library book would hit our consistent high standards without the efforts of the editorial team. Lindsey Priestley, Nick Kyme, Graeme Lyon and Laurie Goulding go above and beyond with every title we put out but, with the exception of Nick who pulls double-duty as a BL author, very rarely get their time in the sun.

And now that my Gwyneth Paltrow moment is over, I’m off to start commissioning stories for The Primarchs.

-Christian

Just Dave wrote:You'll create a new thread, though, right?