Just Dave wrote:Aaah, so it's a half the size of a normal novel but twice the price kind of thing?

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.

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.

iproxtaco wrote:

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.

Interview with Andy Smillie


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.

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.

Alpharius wrote:So, she's turned into a Vampire, but still wishes to protect us normals?

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.

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...

April 2012 • I

September 2011 • A5 (148mm × 210mm) 128page hardback, numbered, with marker ribbon, custom artwork and hand signed by the author • ISBN 9781849701068

Aaron Dembski-Bowden

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.

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.

* * *

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.

Have a great weekend.

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.

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.

The Black Library Q&A Session from Games Workshop's US Games Day. Donald E. Stephens Convention Center, Chicago Illinois. July 30th, 2011

Shot by: David "Commissar" Ploss for www.TheFoundingFields.com and Black Library.

SHOW NOTES:

0:00-0:10:00 - Pregame debauchery (not really debauchery...)

1:22:00 - New and Noteworthy titles. Spotlight on BL features.

4:20:00 - Author Introductions

4:35:00 - Question 1: Availability of BL Books on Kindle and other various devices.

5:20:00 - Question 2: Upcoming Print on Demand titles?

7:10:00 - Question 3: GD first-timer inquires which Books/series each author has written, then asks them to pick their favorite book!

12:20:00 - Question 4: Possible secrets revealed soon in the Horus Heresy sereis?

13:20:00 - Question 5: If you could have miniatures made of any of your characters, which would you choose?

14:30:00 - Question 6: Are there any plans for future Black Library inspired miniatures?

15:25:00 - Question 7: As BL authors, do you get to pick what you write about?

20:10:00 - Question 8: Anything you can say about continuations of the Dark Angels storyline? (Horus Heresy)

21:38:00 - Question 9: Whom do you reference based on precedence regarding writing about various factions?

24:35:00 - Question 10: Where does Deliverance Lost fit into the timeline of the Horus Heresy series?

27:11:00 - Question 11: Is there interaction between BL authors and the codex writers/game developers?

32:15:00 - Question 12: Has anyone had a plot idea get flat-out rejected?

37:21:00 - Question 13: Is there any bit from the back-catalogue you would like to revisit or expand upon?

39:25:00 - Question 14: Are there attempts to line up the releases of books with releases on the hobby side?

42: 34:00 - Question 15: Deadlines? Good or Bad?

44:50:00 - Question 16: Any hints of Clint breaking into 40k more soundly?

45:44:00 - Question 17: Any chance of a novelization of the Space Marines video game from THQ?

47:35:00 - Question 18: What sort of sources do you use as reference material/inspiration for your books?

51:00:00 thru. End Credits

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.

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.

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.

Spoiler:

.. that scene with Flint in book 3 ... hits me lie a gut punch even now

Name that Heretic


“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;

happy reading.

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.

Make sure to check back every day.

EYE OF VENGEANCE

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.

My next project is, of course, the Iron Hands. Wrath of Iron is another book in the Space Marine Battles series, this time featuring the Sons of Manus on the nightmare world of Shardenus. Unlike Fang, the established story behind this episode in the lore is fairly sparse, so I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about how the battle will play out. It’s a real opportunity to do the Iron Hands justice, so I’ll have plenty to ponder over the next few months…

I’ll be cracking on with ‘Feat of Iron’, which is the Ferrus Manus novella for The Primarchs (and, oh s!*t, you should see the cover for this book – looks awesome. I think Laurie almost did a little wee when Neil’s finished version came in).

I’m just over 10,000 words in and nearing the end of a significant act in the story. Very happy with how it’s going so far but progress is slower than usual – I wonder if that’s a characteristic of all writers as they start to hone and develop their craft? I was thinking about this only this morning and recognised similar traits in some of the other BL authors (particularly the newer guys that are starting to write for the bigger series like SMB and HH). Perhaps it’s a pressure thing or something, or maybe it’s the desire to best or at the very least equal what you’ve done previously?

I think with the last couple of short stories I’ve done, ‘City of Dead Jewels’ for Age of Legend and ‘Emperor’s Deliverance’ for the Games Day Anthology 2011/2012 ...

, I’m cracking on with ‘Feat of Iron’ today but I also have another HH project in the works and an audio drama (not HH, it’s 40K) and a Time of Legends novel that I’m currently plotting after that! Phew!

The HH piece is another novella called ‘Scorched Earth’. This idea has been bobbing around my shell-like for a while and now I’m finally going to get to realise it. This story is actually part of something bigger, which I kicked off with Promethean Sun (and, please, no more messages chocked with expletives about this; I appreciate your ire is not directed at me, for that I am thankful, but the decision is done, the book has been available at a bunch of places and will be again in its raw story form in an anthology – so, please, let it go now) and shall conclude in another project later next year (though a release isn’t likely for a year after that).

The audio drama is totally new, with brand new characters that I am going to feed into the next Salamanders trilogy. So, if you want some very early skinny on that project then check out Perfection when it comes out next year (at least that’s the plan at the time of writing this post).

We'd had the pleasure of interviewing Graham once before so when we managed to get the opportunity to have another crack at this author we couldn't resist.

This month see's the David Gemmell Legend Award Winner (2010) releasing two, yep count them two, fantasy titles. As such we couldn't resist a word in his Triangle (well its not exactly a shell is it) Like and delved a little deeper. Heres what he had to tell us...


Falcata Times: Writing is said to be something that people are afflicted with rather than gifted and that it's something you have to do rather than want. What is your opinion of this statement and how true is it to you?

Graham McNeill: I know what they mean. I’ve loved telling stories for as long as I can remember and even when I finish a book or story and think to give myself some time off, I get itchy to get back behind the keyboard within a day or so. I honestly don’t know what I’d do if I didn’t write. I can’t even imagine doing something else, so I guess that’s a good thing.


FT: When did you realise that you wanted to be a writer?

GM: From an early age, I think. Apparently when I was a kid and was being strapped into the kid seat in the back of my parent’s car, I turned to my mum and said, “Mother…when I grow up I’m either going to become a writer or a binman.” And even in primary school as a young kid, I was writing stories about a giant octopus attacking a fishing boat, so I think the love of outlandish tales has always been with me.


FT: It is often said that if you can write a short story you can write anything. How true do you think this is and what have you written that either proves or disproves this POV?

GM: A short story has to be a very disciplined affair, with only a short amount of time and space available for you to tell the story, whereas you can waffle to an extent in a novel (though you shouldn’t!), with much more room to play around in. The confines of a short story forces you to be disciplined and really focus on what the tale is about; it’s key points and its theme. It’s easy to go on too long with a novel, but a short story allows you to say what you want more directly and that means you can tell it far more efficiently than in a novel. A short story I wrote recently, called The Last Church, is an example of that. Originally commissioned at fifteen thousand words, it came in quite a bit shorter than that, but I’d said all I needed to say and any more text would have robbed it of its succinctness.

T: If someone were to enter a bookshop, how would you persuade them to try your novel over someone else's and how would you define it?

GM: Sons of Ellyrion is proper high fantasy, with princes and kings deciding the fates of nations. It’s a book about one of the core races of the Warhammer World and has some of the biggest names in Elf history taking to the field of battle, fighting for the fate of Ulthuan and the rest of the world.


FT: How would you "sell" your book in 20 words or less?

GM: An eagerly-awaited finale to a novel of high adventure, glorious battles and noble sacrifice. And it’s got dragons in it!


FT: Who is a must have on your bookshelf and whose latest release will find you on the bookshops doorstep waiting for it to open?

GM: On my shelves, it’s David Gemmell and Clive Barker. Ordinarily, I’d be camped outside the bookshop for Gemmell’s latest book, but what with him being dead, that’s not likely to happen any time soon. I have the first two of Barker’s Abarat books and have managed to restrain myself from reading them, as I want to read the whole thing in one go. And when you’re a huge fan of Clive Barker’s work like I am, that’s a lot of restraint. At the moment, I’m getting back into the old masterworks, so I’m picking up a lot of Robert E. Howard, M. John Harrison and Gene Wolf.


FT: When you sit down and write do you know how the story will end or do you just let the pen take you? ie Do you develop character profiles and outlines for your novels before writing them or do you let your idea's develop as you write?

GM: A little bit of both. The Black Library will only commission a novel if they have an idea of what you plan to do with it, but my synopses these days tend to be pretty loose, mostly dealing with what the book will address in terms of its themes, where it’s set and what sort of things you can expect from it rather than a slavish recitation of each chapter’s contents. I always have an idea of the shape of the novel I want to write in mind, but it very much forms as I go along and the ideas crystallize during the writing. The best of my ideas only form in a novel once its structure begins to take shape and things start to emerge from the random scribbles on my pad or a line of dialogue that surprises me when I write it. Many of my favourite characters are ones I didn’t know about as the novel began, but who gradually came to life around me and demanded more screen time.


FT: What do you do to relax and what have you read recently?

GM: I relax by reading, going to the gym, watching TV and hanging out with my friends. Normal stuff, really. Though since we spoke last, I now have a young son named Evan, so opportunities to relax are few and far between. I’m reading a bunch of things just now, some work by friends that I’m helping with feedback, Empire magazine and two novels. One, by Roddy Doyle is called O, play that thing, the second in a trilogy of books about an Irishman, Henry Smart, from his days as an urchin on the streets of Dublin at the turn of the century to the streets of New York and Chicago in the early years of the Twenties.


FT: What is your guiltiest pleasure that few know about?

GM: That I go to a step class on Monday mornings, and am actually getting pretty good at it.


FT: Lots of writers tend to have pets. What do you have and what are their key traits (and do they appear in your novel in certain character attributes?)

GM: I don’t have a pet (unless you count the cardboard standee of Buffy in my living room), though plenty of the neighbourhood cats are welcome in my house. One of them is a really tenacious, three-legged cat who is a pal of mine, and he has more guts than animals twice his size. He’s called Findlay, and actually has a role in Courage and Honour.


FT: Which character within your latest book was the most fun to write and why?

GM: I’d have to say Caledor – even though he only has a small part in the story. Or Death, because he gets all the best lines.


FT: How similar to your principle protagonist are you?

GM: Being that Eldain is a graceful elf and I’m, well, neither elfy or graceful, I think we’re pretty different. Having said that, he’s a person who has made mistakes in his life and is now trying to put them right. Nowadays it seems like we live in a culture where no-one takes responsibility for their actions; it’s always someone else’s fault, someone else should pay for my mistake. Eldain has accepted he did something terrible, and though he tried to live with it for a while, he now wrestles with the notion of making it right again.


FT: What hobbies do you have and how do they influence your work?

GM: I roleplay each week with friends and that’s always fun and interesting to see how the characters interact. I don’t take anything from these sessions and transplant it to my novels, but watching the dynamic of character interaction is always amusing and helps with creating naturalistic dialogue in my books. Aside from that, I like getting out into the countryside when I can, wandering through forests or rugged terrain to get a feel for the sensations of what it’s like to travel over mountains, through woodland and so on – the sights, sounds, smells and feelings of being outdoors in fantastical terrain.


FT: Where do you get your idea's from?

GM: From all around me. I watch movies and TV, I read books and talk to people. All these things collide in random fashions in my head and often completely unrelated thoughts will string together in ways that suggest a story or a character or a theme. Sometimes it’s an item on the news that stimulates a thought, other times it’s something I’ll see or hear walking down the street, but mostly it’s all the sensory input I get from the world around me spinning around in my head and combining in ways I hope will be interesting, amusing or exciting. My little moleskin notebook is never far from my side, as an idea will just evaporate if I don’t write it down when I have it.


FT: Do you ever encounter writers block and if so how do you overcome it?

GM: Thankfully, I’ve not encountered it as people traditionally imagine it, though I’ve had novels that have fought me until I’ve gone back to first principles and re-examined what it is I’m trying to say. I remind myself of my goals at the beginning of the project, whose story it is, what aspect of the story is most important and how that can be told most economically and entertainingly. I find taking a break helps when you need ideas to flow. The more you force them, the less likely they are to take shape. Though it goes against what you think you ought to be doing, sometimes walking away from your work is the best way to get it back on track.


FT: Certain authors are renowned for writing at what many would call uncivilised times. When do you write and how do the others in your household feel about it?

GM: I try and structure my working day to be like a day at the office, but since the arrival of our son, that’s taken a beating. I have an office space I rent, and I go there and work most of the day before heading to the gym at around 4pm. So I’m out of the house most days – which does wonders for my productivity. So I essentially keep traditional office hours, so I guess the rest of the household take it in their stride. I like to keep things within a structure that’s flexible enough to accommodate slow days, lazy days and times when I need to actually do stuff that’s not related to writing at all.


FT: Sometimes pieces of music seem to influence certain scenes within novels, do you have a soundtrack for your tale or is it a case of writing in silence with perhaps the odd musical break in-between scenes?

GM: I normally write with movie soundtracks on in the background, as I sometimes end up typing lyrics if I hear them too clearly. Sons of Ellyrion was largely written to the music of Hans Zimmer (Inception and Gladiator) and John Debney (Predators), though I’ll dig out specific pieces if I want to evoke a particular emotion while I write. For example, when I was writing the waking of Orion in Guardians of the Forest, I had Danny Elfman’s Sleepy Hollow soundtrack on – specifically, a piece called The Chase – that really gave that urgency to the writing.


FT: What misconceptions, if any, did you have about the writing and publishing field when you were first getting started?

GM: That it would be easy and that after my first novel, I’d be a millionaire! I’m still clinging onto that one. Even now.


FT: If music be the food of love, what do you think writing is and please explain your answer?

GM: Writing is a chance to let your imagination fly, to let the crazy, horrific, wonderful, inspirational things that knock about in your head out into the world, because if you didn’t…well, who knows what might happen.


FT: What can you tell us about the next novel?

GM: It’s called The Outcast Dead, and is my latest Horus Heresy novel. It’s set largely on Terra, and deals with the Astropaths of the City of Sight, and what happens when one of them gets a vision of something truly apocalyptic that could change the course of the Heresy. Rather than getting his brains scooped out, he tries to escape in the company of some rather…unusual allies.

FT: What are the last five internet sites that you've visited?

GM: The latest Order of the Stick cartoon, Fantasy Flight Games, Mark Newton’s blog, Zero Punctuation, and the BBC website.


FT: Did you ever take any writing classes or specific instructions to learn the craft? If so please let us know which ones.

GM: Nope, not a one. Everything I learned about writing I learned at school and from reading lots and lots and lots of books to see how the various writers had done things. I wrote a lot and when I saw it wasn’t as good as the writers I loved, I kept at it, plugging away at my words and studying the books of my favourite authors to try and unlock how they did things. When I went to work at Games Workshop, I learned how little I knew and began my real training as a writer under the tutelage of various bosses and peers, which made for a steep, but necessary, learning curve. Writing for the GW Design Studio means you have to learn fast or you don’t survive, which is exactly how it should be. Fortunately, I think I learned enough to stand me in good stead for the novels, but I know there’s always something more to learn and ways to improve. After all, any writer who thinks he can’t get any better and that he’s learned everything he needs to know is on a slippery slope.


FT: How did you get past the initial barriers of criticism and rejection?

GM: One of the first things anyone teaches you about the writing game is that you are going to get rejected more than you get accepted. Hearing that and dealing with it are often two different things and it’s never easy hearing that something you’ve put your heart and soul into is judged unworthy by someone else. Writing is so personal that it’s sometimes hard to hear that, but you have to remember that it’s just an opinion, not necessarily fact (though if you hear is a hundred times, maybe it’s time to really look at what you’re producing…). Lots of books that have gone on to do really well have been rejected many times before finally finding the right publisher for them. Taking criticism is often hard, as it can feel like an attack and you want to get defensive with your work, but you have to get past that and see that it’s nothing to do with you, but everything to do with the words. It’s an art form in itself giving and receiving criticism. Done right, it’s invaluable and the lifeblood of any author’s work. Done wrong it can crush your confidence and rob you of your impetus to carry on.


FT: In your opinion, what are the best and worst aspects of writing for a living?

GM: When a story takes flight and the characters are really responding in new and unexpected ways, that’s what makes it all worthwhile, the ‘tipping point’ when the hard work put in early on in the process pays off and the novel feels like its going downhill. I love the freedom of days I have, where I can organise my time as I see fit. I know the work I have to do and the time I have to do it. How I work within that timeframe is up to me and I love that I can take a day here and there just to relax, meet friends or whatever else I fancy without having to worry about it, since I know I’ll have days where I make up the balance of words later. As to the worst…well, I miss the company of friends I had at work and there’s obviously no such things as sick days or holiday pay…days like that are just days where money flows from your bank and doesn’t get replaced. It’s hard, hard work, but the rewards of what I do far outweigh the negative aspects. Frankly, there’s no other job in the world I’d rather have than this one.

Phalanx, the great star fort of the Imperial Fists, is playing host to Space Marines from half a dozen Chapters, alongside Inquisitors, Sisters of Battle and agents of the Adeptus Mechanicus. They have come together to witness the end of a Space Marine Chapter, as the once-noble Soul Drinkers, now Chaos-tainted renegades and heretics, are put on trial for their crimes against the Imperium. But dark forces are stirring and even this gathering of might may not be enough to guard against the evil that is about to be unleashed...

The epic Soul Drinkers series concludes in this action-packed novel from the acclaimed author of Galaxy in Flames.

As war spreads across the sector, Imperial and Chaos forces clash on the mortuary world of Kasharat. Far from the front lines, Space Marines of the Brazen Minotaurs infiltrate an ancient temple-tomb, seeking an artefact sacred to their Chapter... one that could turn the tide of battle in the Imperium’s favour. But they are not the first to enter the tomb – as the Space Marines race to seize their prize, they are watched from the shadows. Are the mysterious Raven Guard there to help the Brazen Minotaurs, or to destroy them?