Dan Abnett

Year Out, Year In

2012-01-09T08:39:00.006Z

Happy New Zing!

I hope Santa found you all on the right side of the Naughty/Nice event horizon. Any interesting resolutions out there?

All of us here at the haunted Fortress of Abnett had a good time, thanks for asking, but Nik and I are now plunging headlong back into work. I'll blog about what I'm doing in coming days. But yes, Duke Leto, Matthew et al, it does include Pariah.

Today, I mainly wanted to do a quick update of the competition, which is still running... so hurry and enter! More of that in a second. First, matters arising from the last post:

I've tried Tortoise - not bad at all. The Field's working out for me very nicely, as is Autechre, and Trent Reznor's soundtrack to the new Fincher 'Dragon Tattoo' movie. Thanks for all the suggestions for work soundtracks posted, or mailed to the site. Much apprecated. I'm open to others.

azizibnsaud asked if I could show a shot of the plush Inquisitorial rosette. The answer is - of course. That's mine, and Jim's. The pictures are courtesy of Vivian Lee and Triska Tsang, who got in touch after the last post to tell me their names (and submit them for future redshirt use in books). Triska is also, I'm told by Vivian, too shy to tell me she is a big Sinister Dexter fan too. Thank you again, both.

Shadowheim - Jerusalem is set in Pewsey. Very cool. This is actually the very VERY last week of the London run. It's undoubtedly sold out, but I'm so tempted to get a stand-by and see it again, it was that good.

Two pieces of fun I'd like to share that have popped up in the last couple of weeks:

Some fun fan-art.

And this, which is frankly insane/genius.

I'll be at the SFX Weekender early next month, so maybe see you there.

In the meantime, let's run over that competition again. Some good entries so far, but you've got until the end of the month.

What's the prize, Dan? I've said this once, imaginary narrator, but I'll say it again. The prize is my Games Day 2011 goodie bag.

Dan's 2011 Games Day Goodie Bag, as seen prevously.

When you go to Games Day, you get a goodie bag. Well, the prize is mine. The one I was given this year, with my name badge and parking permit and everything else in it. Including my miniatures, a tee-shirt, my (unsullied) digestive biscuits and polo mints! This isn't just A goodie bag, it's MY goodie bag. I will send it to the competition winner to do with as he or she sees fit.

To make it actually, you know, WORTH something, I'll throw in a signed book, and the following:

It might not look like much, but I found it when I was moving offices. It's the actual, original sketched map (with notes on the reverse) made by me, in my fair hand, of Vervunhive. I used this when I was writing Necropolis and the map in the book was based on it. Little bit of awesome Gaunt's Ghosts history for you to own and keep on owning.

How do I win it? HOW DO I WIN IT!?!?

Calm down, imaginary narrator! You can't even enter the competition, because you're... well... imaginary. But other, real people can enter like this: when I sign books, I like to have a stock phrase or two that works for the book in question, like "The Emperor Protects" or "Remember Tanith" for the Gaunt books, or "Repent, heretic" for Inquisitor novels, or "Blood For The Blood God" for Darkblade. My new book Embedded came out from Angry Robot this year. The winner of the comp will be the person who comes up with the best 'signing tag phrase' for use in Embedded.

You've got until the end of January. My decision will be final. Post your entries here on the comments section, AND email them (with your name and postal address) to the website email AS WELL (and that address is: info@danabnett.com). If I don't have an email with a name and address, I won't award the prize, no matter how good the entry. You can submit as many entries as you like. Atomic thinking caps to power, honorary clones.

Can I really not enter? Shhhh, imaginary narrator.

Xmas (only the names have been changed)

2011-12-23T19:10:00.011Z

Or, to be fair, forgotten.

Ah, Christmas (or whatever you want to call this time of year). You've been a long time coming. I knew this year was going to be busy, but... you know. It's been REALLY busy. It's put the 'complete and utter dick' into really, RI-COMPLETE-AND-UTTER-DICK-ULOUSLY busy. Gah.

It's been so busy, I'm not even going to start this blog post with the requisite, "Sorry it's been ages since I last posted but blah deadlines blah blah lazy asshat blah blah..." I'm mean, I'm not going to even. It's so long since my last proper blog post, my last proper blog post is a dot to me (though I liked Will Wright's comment on the last mini post to the effect that it was good when I ran silent, because that meant I was furiously a-writing of stuff).

I've finished Know No Fear, so that's the main thing. There'll be more on that in future posts, but my new Horus Heresy novel (about the Battle of Calth, Word Bearers twatting Ultramarines, in case you were wondering) is done and finally dusted, much to the breathless relief of an increasingly panicking BL editorial staff. It was a monster to wrangle into words-in-the-correct-order form, but that's little excuse, as getting words in the order write is what I'm supposed to be able to do for a living. On the plus side, the actually in-house reaction to the book (ie: un-adjectivable projectile excitement) marginally outweighed the panic over the tardy delivery. I particularly enjoyed Laurie's Facebooked response where he said he had to get up and go for a little walk in the middle because he was getting too worked up.

KNF was just the busy-as-feth icing on a busy year-long cake of alternating busy and busier layers. With ganache. This time a year ago, I knew I was embarking on a year of foolhardy busy-ness, but - gosh! - I went and done it anyway. New Mutants. Resurrection Man. Doctor Who. Sinister Dexter. Grey Area. The Annihilators. Heroes AND Villains For Hire. Wonder Woman. Soldier Zero. Embedded. Salvation's Reach. Lois Lane. Other stuff. Now Christmas, the incentive carrot on the end of my schedule stick, finally hoves into view like a very, very, VERY late 155 bus home, and I'm jolly glad to see it. Take me home, Christmas bus, so that I can have a long lie down and make a premature New Year's Resolution not to be so stupid again next year.

I was oblivious of the busy-ness dangers that 2011 would hold. Now I am blivious. Fully blivious. So 2012 is going to be a bit more selective in terms of work and events. Don't fret: on January 1st, I will still be starting on the long awaited new Inquisitor trilogy ("The Bequin Trilogy" aka Eisenhorn vs Ravenor aka "Pariah"). I'm going to have to turn down a few things I would otherwise love to do in 2012, but them's the breaks. I don't want to feel quite so Know No Big Hand From The Little Hand again.

Anyway, let's talk about some of the things I never got the chance to blog about during the year. I went to a lot of places, and met some lovely people, and then lost the bits of paper I wrote their names down on. And I have the audacity to lecture on the importance of notebooks. Honestly. So I can't, for example, thank by name the two girls in Greenwich Village who brought me a home-made plush Inquisitorial rosette (now on my desk). Or the guy in the same place who made me (nay, wrought me!) a chainmail bracelet (also on my desk). I'm still very grateful , but I wish I could have printed your names here.

I can namecheck Dave Ploss for being such a great guy in Chicago, and I can thank Matthew Churchill for the lovely Christmas pressie (with my new Egon, I can do all the symmetrical book stacking I like). I can also mention Brian McGackin, who gave me a dedicated copy of his book Broetry at the New York Comic Con. I'd met Brian the year before, and signed some stuff for him, so this was his thank-you. Broetry is brilliant - poetry for guys, often in the form of parodies of famous verse. The William Carlos Williams riff on the cover is worth buying it for alone. Broetry funny, but it's also touching, and it's also real poetry. Get it here. Now.

Some places I visited this year went by so fast.

Hey, Seattle! Why you go by so fast? (Also, what was I doing there? When will I be able to tell people about it?)

Then I was in New York-- Oh. Hang on. My daughter's just given me a mini Snickers (or, "Marathon" as I still call them). Mmmnnh.

Anyway, I was in New York, and this is a photo of the full moon over New York, a photo that, I feel, doesn't do much justice to either the full moon or New York.

This does, but it's just flash-reflection-off-the-hotel-window over New York. So what have we learned? Less successful photography = more successful image.

Here's a guy at the New York Con dressed as a Ghost. Very cool. Did I lose the bit of paper with his name on? Of course I did. Of course I did.

Here's the crew from my Warhammer pirate novel Fell Cargo, all hand modeled. Very very cool. Did I lose etc? Of course I etc.

I DO however remember the name Jake Moore. I think. I think he was the guy I met at the opening of No Man's Land, the new indie gaming shop in Maidstone (a very nice place to go and game or paint, so get yourself over there). We were chatting about music to work to (I can't work to anything with significant lyrics, so it's a lot of Brian Eno and Robert Fripp for me), I recommended the fab soundtrack to the movie Monsters, which has been one of my mainstays this year. He recommended Daft Punk's soundtrack to Tron: Legacy. Thank you, Jake (if that really was your name). Most of Know No Fear should be read with Daft Punk's sound track to Tron: Legacy pumping in the background, 'cause that's how it was written.

I'm beginning to realise that this post might take some time. So take a pew.

You see what I did, there?

Here's another photo taken on the same trip Nik and I took to that same tiny old church on that same tiny bit of the windswept White Cliffs near Dover. Is that strange green blob hovering over the graveyard the return of lens flare, direct from New York? Of course. Of course it is.

Or is it something more spooky?

No, it's lens flare.

Or IS it?

No, it is.

Or IS it?

Anyway, we're now in Lille, for the comic festival. Everyone wave to Boo Cook!

I finally moved offices this year (because, you know, I didn't feel I was quite cramming things in to capacity). I now have a great new workspace, with daylight and a view. The above is a sad, view-from-the-desk farewell to my workspace of the last ten years, taken a few minutes before I started to pack it away.

Along with Broetry and my new office, there are a few other things I've really appreciated this year. The patience of Black Library editors, for a start. The latest thriller ("Truth") from Peter Temple. The first issue of the new Brian Azzarello Wonder Woman. The brilliant low budget British SF movie Monsters (soundtrack mentioned above), which I adored. Really adored. The thriller The Town. Good job, that Mr Affleck. The sublime music of Laura Marling (like this, for example). The album I, A Moon by North Sea Radio Orchestra. The charming fun of Warehouse 13. The ridiculously good pop (in the pure sense of the word) of Nicola Robert's solo album. Yes, that Nicola Roberts. The redhead from Girls Aloud. Okay, shut up. It's good. The sudden friendliness of my (sadly now only) cat. Chuck, for having Yvonne Strahovski in it. Aoenid Thiel (you'll find out why in the spring). Anna Calvi. Downton (which will no doubt return in 2013 renamed Downturn Abbey). Kent Barbers on Gabriel's Hill. Having a real fire. Luther (who is TV cop like a boss). Vicki, my bastard silly New Mini (also known as being able to drive again after my adventures in Epilepsy). The brilliant Scott and Bailey, and also Suranne Jones of the same parish for being the TARDIS too. Richard Dugher painting my shit up good. Seeing Jerusalem in the West End with Lils (the most awesome theatrical sauce ever). The limitless patience and support of Nik.

And next year? Well, the aforementioned Pariah. New New Mutants. More Gilead from me and Nik. And The New Deadwardians from me and Ian Culbard (coming from Vertigo). Just for starters...

Back to New York. Here's me and DC senior editor Eddie Berganza looking sweet in a bank vault-turned-restaurant. This private dining room was actually INSIDE the safe.

Then Todd Nauck tried to eat us.

And here's the gang: (from left) me, Brad Walker, Eddie, Fiona Meng, Andy Lanning, Todd, Tony Bedard, DC's Larry Ganem, Francis Manapul and... the girl who's name I am ashamed to admit I forgot because I lost the bit of paper...

Now, I don't like to delegate (I have people to do that for me), but it's time to get YOU involved. Yes, YOU. You there, with the mince pie crumbs in your beard/cleavage (delete as applicable - or not). It's time for my end of the year competition.

What's the prize, Dan? Good question, imaginary narrator. The prize is my Games Day 2011 goodie bag.

Dan's 2011 Games Day Goodie Bag, earlier.

To make it's actually, you know, WORTH something, I'll throw in a signed book, and the following:

So what's the competition? Well, when I sign books, I like to have a stock phrase or two that works for the book in question, like "The Emperor Protects" or "Remember Tanith" for the Gaunt books, or "Repent, heretic" for Inquisitor novels, or "Blood For The Blood God" for Darkblade. My new book Embedded came out from Angry Robot this year. The winner of the comp will be the person who comes up with the best 'signing tag phrase' for use in Embedded.

You've got until the end of January. My decision will be final. Post your entries here on the comments section, AND email them (with your name and postal address) to the email AS WELL. If I don't have an email with a name and address, I won't award the prize, no matter how good the entry. You can submit as many entries as you like. Thinking caps on, honorary clones.

Before I go off to play with my Christmas Drashig (like you do), I'll leave you with this:

At the last Horus Heresy planning meeting, us High Lords of Terra realised we were referring to future and forthcoming books in the series by odd, euphemistic nicknames and placeholders. I thought you'd enjoy the list (and they are all, genuinely, going to be HH books... probably... just not with these names):

The Motorway into Bristol.

Twatted By A Bloodthirster.

[rude word I really can't write here on a public blog] Attack.

C*ckblocked

Hammer In The Face.

Bastards Of Evil.

Fungus And Poo.

Traitor To The Traitors.

Wobbly Rum Baba In A Big Pond Of Chaos.

Khorne Worshipping Asshats.

Big Crystal B*ner.

Make of them what you will. Happy Christmas, have fun with the competition, and may 2012 see you, like me, a LOT less ridiculously busy than the head tosser in a crap salad factory.

Peace and love!

No Man's Land

2011-12-08T10:34:00.003Z

Yes, I know it's been a very, very long time since I updated the blog. Forgive me, but I've been a little busy with "Know No Fear", the story of the Battle of Calth. You'll get to read it in the spring.

This is just to say that a new gaming shop is opening in my home town of Maidstone, and, since I know Justin, the owner, I said I'd pop in for a couple of hours on opening day, Saturday 10th December. I hope to see lots of you there. I'm sure I can be persuaded to sign a book or two between 1-3pm.

As an enticement, there will be a raffle, and I'll be drawing the winning tickets. Various games will be running, there's a painting area, and a roleplay room.

Sunday 11th there will be a Talisman participation game, and chaos in the old world, so it all sounds like a great big heap of fun.

No Man's Land is at unit 3, the Corn Exchange (Market Buildings). For those not familiar, the Market Buildings run between High Street and Earl Street.

Look forward to seeing you all.

Oh, and just for good measure, here's an anticipatory 'ho ho ho'.

Due to a technical error...

2011-10-29T09:25:00.002+01:00

... there are revised times for Games Workshop store signings at Bluewater and Thurrock Lakeside today. I will be at BLUEWATER in the morning from 11 til 1pm, and at THURROCK LAKESIDE in the afternoon from 3 til 5. I look forward to seeing you there.

Event update

2011-10-25T09:54:00.006+01:00

Reports on the New York ComicCon (with pics) plus that competition I was talking about - all coming soon.

For now, details of the most pressing signings:

This Saturday (29th), I'll be at Games Workshop Lakeside from 11 - 1, and then Games Workshop Bluewater from 3 - 5 for some serious Salvation's Reach and other BL goodies signing action. Official details here.

The following weekend (November 5/6), I'll be a guest at the Lille Comic Festival along with some very illustrious company. See you there!

Another Games Day Bulletin - plus New York news!

2011-10-10T11:26:00.010+01:00

The day began with some nice, informal seminar-type-things, where we sat and chatted with the first folks to fill the available seats. Good fun, with a very engaged and enthusiastic response. Here you see one of my groups trying to figure out how I made the guy in the front row vanish without leaving my chair.

Behold, the assembled writist might of Black Library and friends! Across the back row from left: Chris Wraight, Ben Cawkwell, Graham McNeill, Bill King, some clone dude, Jim Swallow and Neil Roberts. Front row from left: Sandy Mitchell, Sarah Cawkwell, and a child version of Jim Swallow sent back from the future to save humanity. Or something (actually, it's Small Son. Hi, Small Son!).

And here are some other friendly and familiar faces being enthusiastic! And daemonic!

Just wanted to publically thank GW staffers Claudia Cole and Jenny Northeast who, with Chris Bone, so brilliantly steered, managed and otherwise looked after me and my queue all day long. Thank you so much!

So tell me, Mr Abnett. how does it feel to be the older, less-hip version of Aaron Dembski-Bowden? Well, having stolen his shades, I can tell you... it feels like this:

I'll be back soon with a special competition - won't that be fun?

In the meantime, I just wanted to remind folks in the USA, espescially New York, that I'll be attending the New York ComicCon this week, and also doing a special signing at games Workshop in Greenwich village. To bring the details up to date, let me recap:

Games Workshop Greenwich Village is where you will be able to find me and Jim Swallow next Saturday afternoon (the 15th) between 1 and 3.

As for the New York Comic Con itself, I'll be signing at the DC booth with Andy on Friday between 1 and 2, and Saturday between 11 and 12. Then we'll be signing at the Marvel booth (#654) on Sunday between 2 and 3, and then participating in the X-Men: Regenesis panel in room 1A10 between 3.30and 4.30. You will also be able to find Andy and me during the Con in Artist Alley, where we will be sharing a table with the estimable Mr Todd Nauck and running a flamable dwarf juggling workshop (one of these facts is, yet again, a lie - can you spot which?). I'm told our table number is M20, and that still seems to be the case at time of going to press.

See you there!

Signings... incoming!

2011-10-06T10:51:00.002+01:00

Just interrupting your Games Day 2011 bulletin-viewing pleasure today to bring you a public information announcement about upcoming signings:

Most immediately upon us is this Saturday's event, which involves me being at Games Workshop Maidstone between 12 and 2. This is my local store, and I'm always happy to visit. Official details can be found here, along with advance notice of the next few events.

One of which will be... Games Workshop Greenwich Village (that's New York, folks! You know, the concrete jungle where dreams are made?) where you will be able to find me and Jim Swallow next Saturday afternoon (the 15th) between 1 and 3.

I'll be in New York for the New York Comic Con. There will probably be more things to announce with regards to this, but for now I can say that I'll be signing at the DC booth with Andy on Friday between 1 and 2, and Saturday between 11 and 12. You will also be able to find Andy and me during the Con in Artist Alley, where we will be sharing a table with the estimable Mr Todd Nauck and doing ice sculpture performances (one of these facts is a lie, can you spot which?). I'm told our table number is M20, but these things change. You know how they change. They are willful and mercurial.

Hope to see you somewhere very soon!

You can't get the staff

2011-10-03T08:11:00.007+01:00

For the second quick Games Day 2011 bulletin, I'm posting some pics of the Black Library crew members who worked tirelessly during the day to keep things running smoothly. The BL stand was a particularly fun place this year, divided into corners of activity. First up, Mr Laurie Goulding in Pitch Corner:

Though it sounds like something off Countdown, Pitch Corner was an inspired opportunity for people to come and try story ideas out. There were pencils and write-up sheets, and Laurie with his open ears and open-er mind. Ideas went up on the wall with contact details. Who knows if any will be good enough for BL to come a-knocking? Well, Laurie does. It must have been quite a gruelling day for Mr G, because the corner was very busy indeed. Here we see him early on, striking an action pose just as the enormity of what he has undertaken starts to sink in. Either that, or this is the moment I hit him with my idea, 'The House At Pitch Corner'.

Two thumbs up from the lovely Rachel Docherty, here accompanied by the equally lovely Mrs ADB, who has brought thumbs of her own. You see how I went for the "two thumbs up" newsreel commentary-style link there, rather than the more obvious "in the red corner", right? I'm not here to objectify. Anyway... Raye-Raye's job was to run a painting corner where people could ALSO listen to audio books (through the uber-cool new Black Library MP3 players - I have a Prospero Burns MP3 player! I'm living in the freakin' future!). The super-text of this corner of the stand was to demonstrate the fact that audio books are the BL treat you can enjoy between paper books without ruining your other activities, such as figure painting. Listen to a chapter while you paint a chapter. You see what I did there?

Master of Hammer and Bolter and all-round High Lord Christian Dunn takes ceremonial command of his post in the - yes, that's right, Hammer and Bolter corner. You could come and chat to him about BL's awesome on-line mag. More significantly, he had cake. He had twelve of them, actually, one for each month of H&B's existence so far, each one decorated with a cover print! In the grim darkness of the far future, there is CAKE!

Unjustly not represented here by pict, but equally deserving of praise, was Caroline Pritchard-Law, who was running the audio corner, and also BL staffers George, Nick, Rik, Chris, Lindsey, Eddie, Graeme... well, look, it's quite clear I am going to forget someone on this without-whom list, and then it'll be all awkward and tense and embarrassing next time I'm up at BL Towers, so BL was there, okay? BL. All of it. All of them. And they were great. Fething great. Take a bow, BL staffers!

Finally, Mr Goulding again, looking very happy with BL promotions maestro Andy Smillie. Why are they looking so happy, you ask? Could it have anything to do with where they're standing?

Ghosts of Games Day!

2011-10-01T15:01:00.009+01:00

Can it be that Games Day 2011 was a whole week ago already? On the plus side, that means it's only fifty-one weeks until the next one. And I say that as a good thing.

Anyhoo, I always like to do a little post-match blog of events like Games Day, but due to the fact that deadlines are baying outside my office window like giant, baying deadline-y things, I'm going to break it down into a few bulletins this time.

First up today - where would a Games Day be without Ghosts reporting for duty? Let's take a look at some of the Tanith Finest I managed to snap this year...

Nice cape-work, sir, and I like your body armour.

In almost any 'Best Tanith Costume' competition, Connor McElligot here's gonna win by dint of his boyish cheek, and his dad's frightening attention to uniform detail. The AWESOME long las prop helps, too, because it's AWESOME. Also, did I mention it was AWESOME? Is it wrong to covet the possessions of a minor? Is it REALLY?

Do these guys want to live forever? Presenting two members of my very own answer to the 501st. Synchronised present and salute. Full fething marks!

Now, with added Commissar! This was at the seminar, first thing. Picture it - you're talking to a group of readers, and the meeting is attended by one of your fictional creations, and one of his fictional men...

The Emperor protects. The Emperor also makes those guys in the background think "crap on a stick, I wish I'd dressed up like a Tanith Ghost..." Well, that's what next year's for, fellahs!

No Con Do

2011-09-30T14:59:00.003+01:00

A word of apology - Nik and I won't be at Fantasy Con in Brighton tomorrow after all. She fell down stairs and fethed up her ankle. Don't worry, she's okay, but it's put paid to the trip.

Sorry to anyone we may have inconvenienced as a result.

On the plus side, news of London, Bluewater, Lakeside and Greenwich Village signings soon!

For those of you who...

2011-09-23T12:18:00.003+01:00

haven't seen the vlogs, yet, here's the full line-up of the latest batch of interviews with Addy... Don't let that put you off looking at some of the older videos too; hindsight is a magical thing.

Dan Abnett on the Horus Heresy and the Battle of Calth

Dan Abnett on the Horus Heresy and the Battle of Calth part ii

Dan Abnett on Gaunt's Ghosts and Salvation's Reach

Dan Abnett on 40K and the Sabbat Worlds

Dan Abnett on 40K Inquisition

Dan Abnett on Angry Robot and Doctor Who

Dan Abnett on Comic Books at home and abroad

Dan Abnett On the Writing Process

Outtakes, or, the stuff no one meant for you to see

Off to pack for GamesDay UK 2011. Hope to see lots of you there!

It's like a vlog-athon!

2011-09-16T14:52:00.003+01:00

Here is the latest vlog. This one is about Gaunt's Ghosts and "Salvation's Reach". Huzzah!

More VLOGS... as promised

2011-09-15T09:43:00.004+01:00

Adelie's doing a stirling job cutting the hours of film she recorded of me blathering on.

So, here are the first two again, just in case:

On Horus and the Battle of Calth part i

and part ii

And here is today's upload:

On the Process of Writing

More as they're posted.

VLOGS! As promised!

2011-09-13T17:43:00.002+01:00

Here's me answering some questions, courtesy of Adelie. Yes, I be vlogging.

The first one's on the Battle of Calth.

And so's the second one.

More to come. She couldn't shut me up.

Where the hell am I?

2011-09-11T14:21:00.005+01:00

Good question, because I haven't blogged much of late. My apologies for that - I've had a bad attack of Being Very Busy. Which is no excuse, I know.

This post doesn't really remedy that problem, though I do intend to publish a nice Q&A video blog soon (watch this space). But I did want to mention that my Doctor Who novel (the Christmas Doctor Who novel!) The Silent Stars Go By is out pretty much no, as is the new Gaunt's Ghosts book, Salvation's Reach. So, you know what to do. Oh, and the paperback edition of the Sabbat Worlds Anthology is out too. Oh, and the trade paperback collection of my Judge Dredd-verse series Insurrection (with art by the astonishing Colin McNeil).

Me, I'm currently hard at work on Know No Fear, the story of the Battle of Calth, for the Horus Heresy series. Comics-wise, I'm busy with New Mutants, Villains For Hire, Annihilators: Earthfall (Annihilators vs Avengers!), and - of course - Resurrection Man, reborn as part of DC's New 52. Resurrection Man #1 is out this week!

Anyway, to try to make up for my lack of bloggage, I'm making myself available in person. You can come and find me, you really can, at any or all of the following events:

On the evening of Thursday 22nd of September, Mr Lanning and I will be at Forbidden Planet in London, signing the new hardback collection of Legion Lost (and anything else you'd care to have us sign (like the first issue of Resurrection Man?). Details here.

Two days later, Nik and I will be at Games Day UK. Can't wait for that - it's the biggest GW day of the year. Hope to see you and your copy of Salvation's Reach :) Details for those that need them here.

A week later (October 1st), all being well, I'll be attending the FantasyCon 2011, though just for the Saturday. FantasyCon is in Brighton and looks like it's going to be packed to the rafters with fabulous people to meet and listen to. Details here. I think they've roped me into some panels. Looks like fun.

A week after that, I'll be signing at my hometown GW store, Games Workshop Maidstone. Details to follow.

In mid-October, Andy and I will be attending Comic Con in New York, which is an awesome event by anyone's standards. We will also be hitting the Lille Comic Festival as guests at the start of November.

On the 12th of November, I'll be at the Fortean Times UnCon in London, and then on the 26th, I'll be signing at Waterstones in Plymouth.

So, that's where the hell I'm going to be... for starters, because I'll get more details up when I know them, and there are other signings planned. A busy winter.

See you somewhere soon.

Salvation Reached and other Exciting Stuff

2011-07-10T11:57:00.010+01:00

Look! Look what arrived in the post the other day!

Yup, that's my first advance comp of the new Gaunt novel that is, which is due out very soon. God, I'm proud of this book, and if it doesn't delight Gaunt's Ghosts readers out there, I'll sulk, or eat my hat, or... what the funt... both. There's a LOT of character stuff in it, plus the usual shooty death kill in space, plus ACTUAL shooty death kill IN SPACE (ship to ship action). Out soon. I said that, right?

Also out around about now is this:

Legion Lost is a hardback collection of a Legion of Superheroes run Andy and I did a while back, collected for the first time. It features the first major US work of artist and genius Olivier Coipel. I'm delighted to report that not only has this series inspired the name of the new Legion book being released this September as part of DC's new universe, it also got into the New York Times Best sellers list. Go us!

Also out now and recommended (by me at least, but then, I would, wouldn't I?) is the first trade compilation of Heroes For Hire:

Many worlds away from the cosmic craziness prevailing in our other books, Andy and I get down to street level in H4H for some old-school vigilante superhero fun. I like this series a lot, and other people seem to like it too. Are you for hire. hero?

Can I also remind US readers that the 2000AD series I did with Richard Elson - Kingdom - is now available in the States in handy trade form? Richard's a great artist, so that's reason enough to buy it, but it also rocks in a post-apocalyptic way. Get whet with Kingdom: The Promised Land.... and click here for the promo.

Finally, would you like to know what the opening of Propsero Burns looks like in Maltese? You would? Well, thanks to Mark-Anthony Fenech, you can!

Mark says:

"I am translating the first chapter of Prospero Burns into Maltese for my MA thesis. It's a joy to translate :) Of all the 40K books I chose, this will be the most challenging by far, but the translation is going on well. I had to make certain changes: for instance "The cutting of threads" can't be literally translated, so I tweaked it to "Taħsad l-għeruq" (The reaping of roots).

Death had them surrounded.
It had come to cut threads, and today, it wore four faces.
A burning death for those too hurt or too afraid to flee the settlement as the firestorm swept through it. A freezing death for those who ran away up the scarp to escape the murder-make: even in spring, the wind came in off the ice flats with a death-edge that sucked an exposed man’s life-heat out through his lungs, and rotted his hands and feet into black twigs, and left him as a stiff, stone-hard bundle covered in rime.
For others, a drowning death, if they attempted to flee across the blue-ice around the spit. Spring’s touch was already working the sea ice loose against the shore, like a tooth in a gum. The ice would no longer take a man’s weight, not reliably. If the ice broke under you, down you went: fast and straight if you plunged through, slow and screaming if an ice plate tipped and slid you in. Either way, the water was oil black, and so cold it would freeze the thoughts in your brain before your lungs were even empty.
For the rest, for those who had remained to fight, a bloody death, the death of the murder-make. This was the death that knocked you down hard onto the ice with an axe or a maul, so you felt nothing except the cold burn of the ice, and the hot burn of your own blood, and the pain-scream of your crippling wound. This was the death that stood over you and knocked you again, and again, and as many times as necessary until you would not rise again, or until you were so disfigured that death could no longer bear to look at you, and moved off in disgust to find another soul to knock.

Any of those four faces would cut your thread as soon as look at you. And those were the faces the Balt were wearing.

~

"Il-mewt kienet daret magħhom dawra mejt.

Kienet ġiet biex taħsad l-għeruq, u llum kienet xhieda ta’ erbgħa uċuħ.

Mewta ta’ ħruq għal dawk wisq midruba jew wisq beżgħana biex jaħarbu l-villaġġ hekk kif it-tempesta tan-nar kinset kull ma sabet. Mewta ta’ kesħa kbira għal dawk li ħarbu lejn l-għaram lil hinn mill-Qatla. Anke fir-rebbiegħa, ir-riħ kien jiġi minn fuq l-uċuħ tas-silġ b’xafra li kienet terdgħa s-sħana ta’ bniedem espost minn ġol-pulmun, u timmufalu jdejh u ssaqajh, iġġibhomlu bħal zkuk suwed, u tħallih bħala gozz iebes ġebla miksi kisja silġ.

Għall-oħrajn, mewt permezz t’għarqa, li kieku ppruvaw jaħarbu tul is-silġ kaħlani madwar il-peniżola. Ir-rebbiegħa kienet diġa qed tħoll is-silġa tal-baħar, tħaddmu u tagħġnu bil-mod max-xatt, bħal sinna fil-ħanek. Is-silġ ma jkunx jiflaħ il-piż ta’ xi ħadd fuqu. Jekk tkun fuq is-silġ u jċedi bik, l-isfel kont tinżel: dritt u ħesrem jekk kont taqa mal-ewwel, bil-mod u tgħajjat u tnewwaħ jekk xi biċċa silġa kienet tirbula u kont tiżżerżaq. Jiġri x’jiġri, l-ilma kien iswed żift, u tant kiesaħ, li ħsibijietek jinġazzaw saħansitra qabel mal-pulmun ikun żvojta min-nifs.

Għall-bqija, għal dawk li jkunu baqgħu lura biex jiġġieldu, mewta mdemmija, il-mewt tal-Qatla. Din kienet il-mewta li kienet issabtek għal tulek fuq is-silġ b’mannara jew mazza, għalhekk ma kont tħoss xejn ħlief il-ħarqa kiesħa tas-silġ, u l-ħarqa sħuna ta’ demmek stess, and l-uġigħ mwerżaq tal-ferita tiegħek. Din kienet il-mewt li kienet toqgħod fuqek u terġa ssabtek, u terġa, għal kemm il-darba hemm bżonn sakemm ma tqumx aktar, jew sakemm tant tkun sfigurat li l-mewt ma tkunx tiflaħ tħares lejn il-bixra tiegħek, u mqalla, kienet tfittex lil xi ħadd ieħor biex ittih tisbita.

Kull wieħed minn dawn l-uċuħ kien jaħsdulek għeruqek hekk kif jilmħuk. U dawn kienu l-uċuħ li l-Balt kien jixhdu."

See? Now you know. Thanks, Mark! That's a little bit awesome.

Ice, Ice Baby!

2011-07-10T11:42:00.006+01:00

I'm posting this picture to explain why I haven't been blogging as much as usual of late (sorry 'bout that). I've been busy with this little project. A few advance notices have appeared on Amazon and similar sites, but I thought it was time I blogged an official word here as well. It's due out for Christmas - it's a Christmassy kinda story, as you can tell by the, uh, Ice Warriors - so it's on a helluva tight turn around. But it's also a helluva big honour to write this year's major hardback (last year's Christmas book was by Mr Moorcock, if you recall). I'm loving every minute of it, and I think it's going to be a cracker.

OMG, I didn't just make the 'Christmas cracker' joke in public, did I?

Anyway - Amy, Rory, Matt Smith's Doctor and some Ice Warriors. Did I mention the Ice Warriors? I got chills, baby! Chills!

Salvation's Reach - an exclusive extract!

2011-06-20T06:07:00.003+01:00

Because you demanded it, and I was crazy enough to promise it....

Here's an exclusive chunk of the next Gaunt's Ghosts novel, out this Autumn. I hope it entertains. Pausing just long enough to remind you that I'm appearing at Alt-Fiction in Derby this coming weekend (details in the previous post), I'll leave you to get on with Salvation's Reach....

At midnight, local time, a new star woke in the skies above Anzimar. The city’s population was hurrying to attend the day’s Sabbat Libera Nos service, which had been held in the temples of the Beati every midnight since the Crusade began, in the hope of vouchsafing a brighter tomorrow. Some of the hundreds of thousands of citizens bustling from their homes, or even their beds, or suspending their labour, at that time may have turned their eyes skywards, for since the very origin of the species, mankind has entertained the notion that some ineffable source of providence may look down upon us. The upward glances were vain, involuntary wishes to glimpse the face of salvation.
No one saw the star light up. The smog that night was as thick as rockcrete.

Ship bells rang. At high anchor at the edge of the mesopause, the Imperial Tempest Class frigate Highness Ser Armaduke lit its plasma engines. The drives ignited with a pulsing fibrilation, and then calmed into a less intense, steady glow.
Below the ship lay the troposphere and the stratosphere. The shadow of the terminator lay heavily across Menazoid Sigma, and the smog atmospherics were so dense there were no visible light concentrations from the night-side hives. Part of the world was in sunlight. The fetid clouds, brown and cream, looked like infected brain tissue.
Small ships buzzed around the Armaduke, like flies around a carcass. Fleet tenders nestled in close to its flanks. Launches, lighters, cargo boats and shuttles zipped in and out. The Armaduke’s hatches were all wide open, like the beaks of impatient hatchlings. Entire sections of the frigate’s densely armoured hull plate had been peeled back or retracted to permit access. The old ship, ancient and weathered, looked undignified, like a grandam mamzel caught with her skirts hoisted.
Above the ship lay the exosphere. The vacuum was like a clear but imperfect crystal, a window onto the hard blackness of out-system space and the distant glimmer of tiny, malicious stars.
The Highness Ser Armaduke was an old ship. It was an artifact of considerable size. All ships of the fleet are large. The Armaduke measured a kilometre and a half from prow to stern, and a third of that dimension abeam across the fins. Its realspace displacement was six point two megatonnes, and it carried thirty-two thousand four hundred and eleven lives, including the entire Tanith First and its regimental retinue. It was like a slice cut from a hive, formed into a spear-head shape, and mounted on engines.
It was built for close war. Its hull armour was pitted and scorched, and triple-thickness along the flanks and the prow. The prow cone was rutted with deep scars and healed damage. The Armaduke was of a dogged breed of Imperial ship that liked to get in tight with its foe, and was prepared to get hurt while it hurt and killed an enemy.
To Ibram Gaunt, closing towards it about one of the last inbound launches, the ship had the character of a pit-fighter, or a fighting dog. Its scar-tissue was proud and deliberate.
Like the ritual marks of a bloody-pacted soldier, he reflected.
The plasma engines pulsed again. Hold doors began to seal, and cantilevered armour sections extended back into position. Gaunt’s craft was one of the last to enter the central landing bay before the main space doors shut. The swarm of small ships dispersed, either into the Armaduke to share its voyage, or away to planetside or the nearest orbital fortress. Formations of Fury and Faustus Class attack craft had been circling the ship at a radius of five hundred kilometres to provide protection while she was exposed and vulnerable. Now they formed up to provide escort. Buoy lights blinked. Lines detached. Fleet tenders disengaged and rolled lazily away, like spent suitors or weary concubines. The Armaduke began to move.
Initial acceleration was painfully slow, even at maximum plasma power. It was as though an attempt was being made to slide a building - a basilica, a temple hall - by getting an army of slaves to push it. The ship protested. Its hull plates groaned. Its decks settled and creaked. Its superstructure twitched under the application of vast motive power.
The other ships at high anchor unhooded their lamps to salute the departing ship. Some were true giants of the fleet, grand cruisers and battleships six or seven kilometres long. Their vast shadows fell across the Armaduke as it accelerated along the line of anchorage. To them, it was a battered old relic, an orphan of the fleet they would most likely never see again.
The Fury flight dropped in around the ship in escort formation. The plasma drives grew brighter, their flare reflecting off the noctilucent clouds below, creating a shimmering airglow. Mesospheric ionisation caused bowsprite lightning to dance and flicker along the Armaduke’s crenelated topside until the advancing ship passed into the exosphere and the wash of the magnetosphere’s currents swept the lightshow away.
Stepping out of the launch into the excursion hold as the ship ran out, Gaunt sampled the odour of the vessel’s atmosphere. Every ship had its own flavour. He’d traveled on enough of them to know that. Hundreds or sometimes thousands of years of recirculation and atmospheric processing had allowed things to accumulate in a ship’s lungs. Some smelled oddly sweet, others metallic, others rancid. You always got used to it. A ten or twelve week haul on a shiftship could get you used to anything. The Armaduke smelled of scorched fat, like grease in a kitchen’s chimney.
He would get used to that. You could get used to the smell, the chemical tang of the recycled water, the oddly bland taste of shipboard food. You got used to the constant background grumble of the drives, to the odd noises from a vast superstructure constantly in tension. Once the drives were lit, the hull flexed; once the Gellar Field was up and the ship had translated into the Warp, the hull locked tight, like a well-muscled arm pumped and tensed. You got used to the acceleration sickness, the pervading cold, the odd, slippery displacement where the artificial gravity fields fluctuated and settled.
Once translation had been achieved, you got used to the ports being shuttered. You got used to ignoring whatever was outside. You got used to the baleful screams of the Empyrean, the sounds of hail on the hull, or burning firestorms, or typhoon winds, of fingernails scratching at the port shutters. You got used to the whispers, the shudders and rattles, the inexplicable periods of half-power lighting, the distant subterranean banging, the dreams, the footsteps in empty corridors, the sense that you were plunging further and further into your own subconscious and burning up your sanity to fuel the trip.
The one thing you never got used to was the scale. At high orbit, even with the vast extent of a planet close by for contrast, a starship seemed big. But as the planet dropped away to stern, first the size of an office globe, then a ball, until even the local star was just a fleck of light no bigger than any other star, the embrace of the void became total. The void was endless and eternal, and the few suns no bigger than grains of salt. Alone in the bewildering emptiness, a starship was dwarfed, diminished until it was just a fragile metal casket alone in the monstrous prospect of night.
The Armaduke was accelerating so robustly now, the fighter escort was struggling to match it. Course was locked for the system’s mandeville point, where the warp engines would be started up to make an incision in the the interstitial fabric of space. The Warp awaited them.
The crew and control spaces of a starship tended to be kept separate from the areas used for transported material and passengers, even on a military operation. The transporters and those they were transporting needed very little contact during a voyage.
But the Armaduke was still twenty-six minutes from the translation point when Gaunt presented himself at the shipmaster’s quarters. He did not come alone.
“No entry at this time,” said the midshipman manning the valve hatch. He had six armsmen with him, all with combat shotweapons for shipboard use.
Gaunt showed the midshipman his documentation, documentation that clearly showed he was the commanding officer of the troop units under conveyance.
“That’s all very well,” said the midshipman, displaying that unerring knack of Navy types to avoid using Guard rank formalities, “but the shipmaster is preparing for commitment to translation. He can’t be interrupted. Perhaps in a week or so, he might find some time to–”
“Perhaps he’s done it a thousand times before,” said Gaunt’s companion, stepping out of the bulkhead shadows, “and doesn’t need to do more than authorize the bridge crew to execute. Perhaps he ought to bear in mind that his ship is a vital component of this action and not just a means of transportation. Perhaps you should open this hatch.”
The midshipman went pale.
“Yes, sir,” he said, his voice as small as a shiftship in the open void.

“I hate that,” said Larkin. He froze and refused to continue walking until the ship lights returned to their original brilliance. There was an underdeck tremor. A distant exhalation.
“Worst part of any trip,” he added. The lights came back up, a frosty glare in the low deck companionway. He started walking again.
“The worst?” asked Domor.
“Yeah,” said Larkin. “Apart from getting there.”
“All true,” said Domor.
They had reached the armoured hatchway of a hold space originally designed as a magazine for explosive ordnance. Rawne and Brostin were waiting for them.
“I want a badge like that,” said Larkin.
“Well, you can’t have one,” said Brostin. “It’s only for the kings.”
“The kings can actually kiss my arse,” said Larkin.
Domor looked at Rawne.
“This could continue all day, major,” he said.
“And it still wouldn’t become amusing,” Rawne agreed.
“Gaunt wants us to see him,” said Domor. “Is that all right?”
“Yes,” said Rawne. “Provided you’re who you say you are.”
Larkin winked at Rawne.
“Come on, Eli, these’d be pretty shit disguises, wouldn’t they?”
“What are you suggesting?” asked Domor, a smile forming. “We forced our own faces to change shape?”
“I’ve seen more fethed up things,” said Rawne.
“Nobody here is surprised,” said Larkin.
Rawne nodded to Brostin. The big man banged on the door, and then opened the outer hatch.
“Coming in, two visitors,” said Rawne over his microbead.
“Read that.”
A peephole slot in the inner door opened, and Rawne stood where the viewer could see his face.
The inner hatch opened. Rawne took Domor and Larkin through.
“Got anything he could use as a weapon?” asked Rawne.
“My fething rapier wit?” suggested Larkin.
Mabbon Etogaur was sitting on a folding bunk in one corner of the dank magazine compartment. The walls, deck and ceiling were reinforced ceramite, and the slot hatch for the loader mechanism had been welded shut. The prisoner was reading a trancemissionary pamphlet, one of a stack on his mattress. His right wrist was cuffed to a chain that was bolted to a floor pin.
Varl was sitting on a stool in the opposite corner, his las rifle across his knees. Cant was standing in another corner, nibbling at the quick of his thumbnail.
Larkin and Domor came in and approached the Etogaur.
He looked up.
“I don’t know you,” he said.
“No, but I had you in my crosshairs once,” said Larkin.
“Where?”
“Balhaut.”
“Why didn’t you take the shot?” asked Mabbon.
“And miss a touching moment like this?”
“That’s Domor, that’s Larkin,” said Rawne, pointing.
“Don’t tell him our fething names!” Larkin hissed. “He might do all sorts of fethed-up magic shit with them!”
“I won’t,” said Mabbon.
“He won’t,” Rawne agreed.
“He can’t,” said Varl.
“Why not?” asked Larkin.
“Because how else would I be the punchline for another of Varl’s jokes?” asked Cant wearily.
Larkin snorted.
“He won’t because he’s cooperating,” said Rawne, ignoring the others.
“And if I did,” said Mabbon, “Rawne would gut me.”
“He does do that,” Larkin nodded.
“What did you need from me?” asked Mabbon.
“A consult,” said Domor. He had a sheaf of rolled papers under his arm, and a dataslate in his hand.
“Go on,” said Mabbon.
Larkin took the pamphlet out of Mabbon’s hand and glanced at it.
“Good read?” he asked.
“I enjoy the subject matter,” said Mabbon.
“A doctrine of conversion to the Imperial Creed?” asked Larkin.
“Fantasy,” replied Mabbon.
“He’d be a fething funny man if he didn’t scare the shit out of me,” Larkin said to Rawne.
“We’re leading the insertion effort,” said Domor. “There’s training to be done, planning. We want to use transit time to get as ready as possible.”
“Are you combat engineering?” asked Mabbon.
“Yes,” said Domor. “Larks... Larkin, he’s marksman squad.”
“I saw the lanyard.”
“We want to go over the deck plans and schematics you’ve supplied so far. It may mean several hours work over a period of days.”
“I’ll try to build time into my schedule.”
“Some of the plans are vague,” said Larkin.
“So are some of my memories. It’s all from memory.”
“If you go through them a few times,” said Rawne, “maybe you can firm things up.”
The Etogaur nodded.
“If you go through them so many times you’re sick of them, maybe we’ll actually do this right,” Rawne added.
“I’ve no problem with that,” said Mabbon. “I offered this to you. I want it to happen.”
Domor showed him the dataslate.
“We want to talk about this too,” he said. “This firing mechanism. We need to mock some up for practice purposes. You say this is fairly standard?”
“It’s representative of the sort of firing mechanisms and trigger systems you’re going to find,” said Mabbon, studying the slate image.
“It’s just mechanical,” said Larkin.
“It has to be. They can’t risk anything more... more complicated. They can’t risk using anything that might interfere with, or be interfered with by, the devices under development at the target location. It’s delicate. Any conflict in arcane processes or conjurations could be disastrous.”
“So just mechanical?” said Larkin.
“Complex and very delicate. Very sensitive. But, yes. Just mechanical.”
Larkin took the slate back.
“It looks very... It looks very much like the sort of thing we use,” he said. “It looks pretty standard.”
“It’s the sort of trigger mech I would rig,” Domor said.
“Of course,” said Mabbon. “Tried and tested Guard practice. This is the sort of thing I taught them how to do. And I learned it the same place you did.”
Larkin looked at Domor. There was distaste on his face.
“Go get the folding table,” Rawne said to Varl. “Let’s look over these plans.”

Alt.Fiction 2011

2011-06-14T11:46:00.003+01:00

A timely reminder, now it's a little less than two weeks away, of the splendid Alt.Fiction weekend in Derby. This is the fifth year, and the guests of honour are myself and Alastair Reynolds. The event's packed to the rafters with famous names - authors, editors, agents, and other movers and shakers in the genre. Some will be moving, some will be shaking, and some will be doing both. For a taster, check out the main Alt.Fiction link here.

There's also a very full programme over the two days, with some great panels, discussions, interviews, workshops and readings, an overview of which you can get from the schedule here.

It should be a fantastic weekend, and I look forward to seeing as many of you there as possible. If you're a Facebook, Twitter or blog person, make sure you come and introduce yourself in person.

Paris in the meantime...

2011-05-23T16:37:00.034+01:00

And so to Paris by Eurostar for Games Day France 2011.

Ah, Paris. We'll always have you.

Armed only with a stout pair of walking legs, I covered a fair bit of ground in the free time available before the event itself began. I was keen to get a few snaps that I could post here, because I have, I'm painfully aware, been somewhat twap in the blogatory department of late. We can lay the blame squarely at the door of Salvation's Reach (Gaunt #13), which I'm working very hard to finish. It's a corker, I'm telling you. A fething corker. As promised, I will post a taster extract soon.

So, in a hasty tea-break between the final bombshell chapters, here's a quick overview of the GD France weekend.

(nb: in common with the picture above, my blog regularly involves a significant quantity of professional cobblers)

Paris is, of course, full of very familiar sights.

I also encountered some fairly familiar faces.

On Saturday, due to the crowds of people trying to get into them, we skipped the Catacombs and headed straight for the Les Invalides and the army museum. A side note, but you'd have thought that the alleged day of the Rapture would have been the one time everybody would be trying to get out of the Catacombs. Alors.

Les Invalides is pretty spiffy. There's a whole Palace of Terra riff going on, both outside...

...and in.

Along with the museum - a fabulous collection of militaria - we visited Napoleon's Tomb. The sheer mind-futzing irony of being here in the company of a man who is known to all and sundry as "Boney" is not immediately evident from this photo, I grant you. Trust me on this. There was more irony going on than in the whole of President Reagan's autobiography.

Lots and lots of cool stuff in the museum, including plenty of things that were very 40K. Notes were made. Ideas fermented. The unnecessary and malevolent deaths of favourite characters were planned. Don't you just love the rampart guns in the first pic here?

Of course, when processing inspiration like this, you always have to think "is it canon"?

And you know what? It was.

Anyway, Games Day France. At the start of the day, the French GW staff got themselves suitably psyched up for the show with the Gallic equivalent of a hakka. Une, deux, t--WAAAAGGHHH!

Not to be outdone, the Black Librarians got pretty revved up and out of hand too.

I was pleased to see, however, that France was clearly expecting me.

There were some great costumes around: take a collective bow, the fair ladies of Atomic Bamboo.

There was also some less successful cosplay. Here, we attempt a rustic recreation of the painting American Gothic.

The place was certainly heaving all day. BL did good business. In fact, Forge World and BL got cleaned out like they'd been hit by locusts.

Back to Corbec. He won the costume prize, you know. A great effort.

Distracting him by mentioning which Ghosts were going to bite it in the next book, I managed to wrest his straight silver off him for a moment.

He didn't take too kindly to that.

I tried to post comments on and off through the afternoon whenever I could, until I started to put the 'a' into Twitter. Then it was time for a rest and breath of fresh air in the Parc Floral.

It was a weekend of contrasts. For example, a cape in the museum on Saturday, worthy of a God-Emperor...

...and a rather more functional but no less heroic one on Sunday.

Anyway, I had a splendid time. I want to thank everybody involved for making me so welcome, especially the staff of GW France, and BL's Boney, Lindsey, George, Anthony and Julien.

Tourists often complain they visit somewhere and all they come home with is a lousy tee-shirt. I bet this guy wishes he had.

Thanks for coming and queuing, folks! See you next year!

The Emperor protects!

Get Your Demon Grinning

2011-04-28T19:53:00.005+01:00

This Sunday, May 1st, my local comic store in Maidstone, the Grinning Demon, is staging its first small-but-perfectly-formed Con of comics and gaming and all things fun. Scroll down to see the poster image I ran a couple of posts back, or click here to see the Demoncon image.

Naturally, I aim to support my local comic store, so I'm going to be there in the morning between about 11 and Midday, and then I'll be back again after lunch with the other half of DnA, Mr Andy Lanning. Expect us both from around about 2 for a couple of hours. Andy may bring some artwork. I may bring some freebies. We'll sign stuff and chat. As you can see from the poster, there are plenty of other, much better reasons for attending.

It promises to be a great event, so come along and spend your May Day, demon-style!

Illustrious in Birmingham!

2011-04-17T14:44:00.004+01:00

If you're going to be at Eastercon this coming (Easter) weekend, in Birmingham, then you can catch me – along with many of Angry Robot's finest – there. Known as Illustrious, this is the 62nd National Science Fiction Eastercon, and you can find out more about it here.

I'm going to be there on Friday and Saturday, and I believe the mighty James Swallow will be attending over the weekend too. This year, the theme is military SF, so it seemed like an ideal time to officially launch the UK paperback edition of "Embedded". I'll be doing a reading, and then joining with the other Angry Robots – including Lauren Beukes, Lavie Tidhar, Aliette de Bodard, John Meaney, Colin Harvey and Andy Remic – in a mass AR signing/robotfest at 4.00pm.

If you're not actually attending the Con, you can nevertheless catch all of us between 12.30 and 2.00 that same day at Waterstones, Birmingham High Street. You can find the official details of these events at the Angry Robot site here.

For those of you at Illustrious, there's also the NewCon Press event on Friday afternoon at 4.30pm. This is to launch their latest anthology – Further Conflicts – which I've contributed a story to. This is a collection of all-new military SF and I'm in some pretty – pardon the pun – Illustrious – company. The book is an exclusive, limited edition signed by all the authors. Details here.

Your Prose Is My Crack

2011-04-05T19:50:00.022+01:00

...or how I went to Adepticon and lived.

So I went to Lombard, which is in Chicagoland, and attended Adepticon. Adepticon is the Iron Man endurance version of Games Day. I was left feeling nothing but slack-jawed respect for the players and the organisers. In all seriousness, the sheer, determined fortitude on display was alarming. For three straight days, the crowd got up at silly o’clock in the morning, played their asses off, and went to bed at half past insane (if they went to bed at all). In the meantime, they came to get things signed, to talk, and to listen to two guys in suits yack on about being writists. Oh, and to give Forge World a gazillionty eleven thousandish bucks. True story.

Yes, Mr Nathan Long and I did suit up for our seminars. Both of them. This was due to a conversation we’d had in Baltimore last year which had gone something like this:

Nathan: Dude, we should do a signing like this totally wearing suits!

Me: Yeah, that would be, like, well rad. Let’s do it next time!

Nathan: Yeah. Lol!

Me: Lol!

I paraphrase a little. Anyway, so we did. Twice. And once in swimwear. Okay, not the last bit.

"It's 106 light years to Chicago, we've got a full tank of prometheum, half a pack of lho-sticks, it's grim dark and we're wearing blast visors. Hit it!"

(alt. caption courtesy Matthew Farrer: "The tall one wants white bread, toasted, dry, nothin' on it. And the English one wants four whole fried grox and an amasec!")

An awesome show, anyway, and my thanks to Hank and the team for having us; Super Dooper Rik Cooper and Vince Rospond for handling us; Dave “silly heretic” Ploss for being such a stalwart pilgrim; all the podcasters and crews that interviewed us (I’ll post up links as they come to me, but here’s the first from the Eternal Warriors crew, and one from Dave); all the great guys at Geek Nation Tours; the Forge World crew of Kenton, Steve and Jon; and you. Yes, you. All of you who came and chatted and asked questions. There were way too many friendly faces for me to be able to name check here, because I’ll end up forgetting someone and feeling bad about it, but you know who you are. If you shook my hand, or gave me a painted Iron Snake, or a purity seal, or a badge, or a ten Euro note, or a copy of your comic (stand up Dave Pauwels), or brought enthusiasm, friendship or a great idea (Bruce and Michelle Euans, I’m looking at you) or any of a thousand other things, thanks. Thank you. The game-play mindset of Adepticon was extra intense, so the questions and engagement levels were too. It was amazing, and entirely filled past the fill to here line with purest win.

And someone told me “Your prose is my crack”, which was nice. And could have been worse. It could have been the other way around. Also, check out Dave’s link above to see someone swear I'm better than Dickens.

I would also like to celebrate the motto supplied by Commissar Mel of Dicehead, who announced that “In battle, you don’t always get a clean fork.” That's just one of life's great truths, along with ADB's "Prose before hoes".

Ah yes, ADB. I’d wanted to go to Adepticon ever since Aaron Dembski-Bowden (who went last year) told me “man, it was the best weekend of my life!”. Again, I paraphrase. He was more emphatic. For his sake, I trust that the estimation will be revised following his forthcoming nuptials though, to be fair, that will be a Tuesday. However, once I’d been HI DAN ABNETTed whilst at the urinals five minutes into the show, my warm feeling towards ADB ebbed slightly. I got HI DAN ABNETTed a lot. At the end of the show, I even got BYE DAN ABNETTed.

Anyway, this is sunny Lombard, gateway to the West.

It is important to remember there are no sidewalks in Lombard. Or, you know, Chicago. So on no account ever try to walk anywhere, like me, Steve and Kenton did. Unless you want to get tasered, shot, or complete the I-Spy book of People In Cars Who Do Not Want To Make Eye-Contact With The Three Weird Fucking Guys On The Roadside.

This was one of the more amazing things: a gift from the crew of a Canadian Leopard tank somewhere in Afghanistan (still covered in Afghan dust). The crew physically divides copies of my books so they can all read them at once, like a relay. This was presented to me at the Geek Nation dinner, and in front of actual people, which made it extra hard not to well up at their sheer awesomeness.

There were actually more people around than this photo suggests.

Let's go to work. Let's suit up and go to work. It'll be time-of-legend... wait for it.... dary! Time-of-legendary!

On the left, a normal-size Nathan Long. On the right, the extended remix Dave Ploss. Tall, is what I'm saying.

And here's Nathan with the weather.

L to r: Super Dooper Rik, Hank, and Vincent 'hands off the merchandise, bozo' Rospond.

Another moment of awesome sauce. A photographic record of the first copy of Embedded I have ever signed (avert your gaze, BL).

The candidate's debate was televised nationally for the first time.

Nathan Long: tough on questions and tough on the causes of questions.

The pitch meeting with Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce was going well. It was just about then that Nathan realised Dan had forgotten his pants.

This is what happens directly after you explain your "Chaos Culture And Stapling Babies To Your Hat" Theory.

Finally, it was time to go, but not before Dave had shown us the napcave (ie the car he had been sleeping in during the Con weekend). I told you Adepticon was hardcore. By the way, Dave is really tall and does a fine John Wayne impersonation. We invented a new game, which was to think of the least likely film roles that ought to have gone to John Wayne, and then get Dave to perform a line or two (highlights: John Wayne as Obi Wan, John Wayne as Rick Deckard, John Wayne as Ferris Bueller, John Wayne in Casablanca... in the Ingrid Bergman role). To understand how tall Dave is, bear in mind those are giant cars, and he's holding the Eiffel Tower.

On my way out through O'Hare, I was browsing in the gift shop. On one rack of general interest books, The Bible's Good Words For Every Day and The Lord's Promises For You had been placed next to Laugh Out Loud Jokes, which can't have been the intention of either publisher.

Anyway, good times. I hope to be invited back. A final observation: at the airport foodcourt, I was greeted with the words "Chicago tastes of the World". Hmm. Don't expect me to lick it, then.

Before I forget, a reminder that the rescheduled Embedded Forbidden Planet Exclusive Edition signing is this Thursday at 6pm. Here's the Guardian's review to help persuade you to read it.

New Date For Forbidden Planet Launch Announced!

2011-03-29T13:30:00.001+01:00

Thursday April 7th between 6pm and 7pm - that's for the exclusive FP hardback limited edition! Details here! See you there!

Ninjabread? Check

2011-03-29T09:45:00.001+01:00

Dr Danhattan found this very amusing.

Thank you, Ninjabread.

IMPORTANT! FORBIDDEN PLANET SIGNING!

2011-03-25T18:32:00.002Z

Very sorry to report that we've been obliged to postpone tomorrow's Forbidden Signing event - see the link here if you need to. A REVISED DATE will be put up as soon as we've got it! This WILL happen - just not tomorrow!

Exclusive Embedded signing at Forbidden Planet

2011-03-21T06:56:00.003Z

This Saturday, the 26th of March, I'll be at Forbidden Planet's London Megastore signing an exclusive Forbidden Planet Limited Edition of my new Angry Robot novel Embedded. Details here! This is in advance of general publication, so don't miss out! See you there, between 1 and 2 pm!

Demoncon

2011-03-16T16:44:00.003Z

Advance warning! It's going to be compact, local and perfectly formed!

Embedded (a taster!)

2011-03-07T11:18:00.002Z

I got the first printed copy of Embedded in my hands this weekend, and very gorgeous it is too. Now the lovely.... uh... robots at Angry Robot have posted up some sample chapters to really whet your appetite.

Make my robot angry!

The Arvus has landed

2011-03-02T09:22:00.005Z

My new paperweight/desk reference. I needed one to look at "hands on" for Salvation's Reach. I don't want to give the plot away, but you need to imagine three of them, battered and stripped out for a disposable ram-raid, and painted up like the Minis in the Italian Job. Okay, not literally...

God, this book is so much fun.

Anyway, I wanted it spruced up with a paint job so it wasn't bare resin, so I turned to my friend and model-maker Richard Dugher (remember his Titan?). Just a basic assemble and paint job, I said. Of course, with Rich, even his basic makes most people cry. And yes, just for fun, there is a joke colour scheme reference in the pilot's kit. He appears to have switched off his targeting computer. If you're suitably impressed, check out Rich's link (Custom Fish) opposite and tell him I sent you.

Back to work. This book is putting several pieces of Forge World kit through the wringer. And several beloved characters. Don't hate me.

See you at Black Library Live! on Saturday or Waterstone's Nottingham on Thursday night.

Getting out and about

2011-02-26T16:35:00.006Z

Time to remind you that Nik and I will be out and about this week, meeting and greeting, and generally having fun with people. So, if you're in Nottingham... so are we. Come and find us here on Thursday and, of course, it's Black Library Live on Saturday. The house sitter is booked, the kids and cats have been reassured, and Nik has been persuaded to put down her paintbrush for a couple of days. Frankly, I can't wait. See you there!

Time Well Spent

2011-02-18T12:26:00.000Z

I didn’t set out to think; it happened all by itself.

Some of you might know that Dan and I just bought a house. In fact, we bought the tiny little house next door to ours in the row of terraced houses where we’ve been living for more than a decade. We’ve been waiting for the chance for a while, and it happened, and here we are.

I love messing about in houses. I love decorating. I love stripping out rooms, and I’m not hugely keen on paying some kid eight quid an hour to labour at half the speed I can manage. I know, I know, an honest day’s work is worth an honest day’s pay, and I agree, but I do like to do it myself.

I have been doing it myself for exactly three weeks. Every day that I work on the house, I put on my overalls, cap, gloves and mask, and I toddle off next door with my keys in one pocket and my phone in the other, and I set to work. I set to work stripping out laminate floors and lifting carpets; I set to work dismantling a kitchen, taking tiles off walls and stripping dodgy plaster. I set to work with the strength of my back and the dexterity of my hands, and with the sweat of my brow. It is very satisfying.

As satisfying as this work is, though, it isn’t terribly cerebral. You do have to keep an eye on your thumbs when wielding a hammer, and you do have to turn the electrics off at the fuse box before uncoupling cookers and whatnot, but, on the whole, the work is vastly more physical than it is mental.

I did not set out to think.

When I say that I take my keys in one pocket and my phone in the other, that is precisely what I mean. I haven’t taken anything else into the house: no television, no radio, no mp3 player, nothing. I close the door of this empty house, I shut out the world, and I set to work.

I had not given a moment’s thought to what I might do with my mind while my body was working on the house, and I cannot begin to tell you what an extraordinary experience this has been.

My everyday life consists of reading and writing, researching, watching, listening and talking. My life revolves around communication and ideas, and, when I escape from work and do something for pleasure it invariably involves the same elements. I read a book, watch the television, chat with family and friends, and when I have to hoover, dust, cook or iron a pile of clean clothes, I invariably turn on a radio or choose a podcast to listen to, or switch on the television or watch a dvd. Like most people, I surround myself with noise, with distractions, with company.

I don’t know why I decided to work alone in the house, in the quiet; what I do know is that I will make it my practice to complete mundane, physical tasks in this manner in the future.

I didn’t have any earth-shattering ideas about the meaning of life, or the universe, or everything (we all know the answer to that particular conundrum); I didn’t come up with an amazing idea for a novel or a painting; I didn’t come to some sudden, inexplicable understanding of some problem or issue. I did not have a “Eureka” moment.

I did not direct my thoughts. I did not think about them. I did not channel my intellectual energies.

In the beginning, my thoughts were very like background noise. I’m not at all sure I was terribly conscious of them, and I don’t remember them, but I believe they were like shopping lists written on scraps of paper to be pulled out of pockets in some moment of exasperation. They were mundane, fleeting and even a little bit cross. They were the very essence of the every-day. I don’t know how long it took for this stuff to clear, and for the chatter that, after all, I wasn’t even heeding, to peter away to nothing; it might have been days.

I also spent some time wondering. I wondered what Dan was doing and how he was getting on; I wondered whether he was on-track, and when he’d want me to look at a piece of work. I wondered whether Lily would be in for tea, and what we’d have for tea, and whether I could get away with using lamb in the chilli, even though I know someone doesn’t like lamb, and how long I could leave it before popping next door to put the tea on. Then I wondered when I’d last made a cup of tea, and whether Dan would pop in with a cup for me if I just kept going for another half an hour. I wondered how far I’d get with the job I’d undertaken, and whether that rash on my face would come back if I stopped wearing the mask, and whether I’d get the first bath, and how grey my bath water would be, and how much I’d ache. I wondered whether Jess would be home for the weekend and whether she’d notice what I’d done, and if she did whether she’d be impressed, and whether Lily would need a lift to that thing on Saturday night, and where Dan and I would eat supper if I didn’t move the stuff that was delivered for Lily’s new room. I wondered whether panelling the door myself was a good idea, and whether Lily would like it, and just how many coats of paint I’d need to get the colour to look clean on the new bedroom’s walls, and how long it would be before Lily could move in, and just how much space her clothes would need in the new dressing room. And, Oh My God, we have a DRESSING ROOM! I wondered whether anyone had fed the cats, as I didn’t remember doing it myself, and where I’d find the energy to empty the cat tray, even though I knew I’d do it, because, let’s face it, you can’t leave a litter tray too long before sorting it out. I wondered why I was the only one who ever did the cat tray, and whether the cats actually cared as much as I did, and why the girls didn’t seem to care at all.

Eventually, within the last few days, I began to realise that I was contemplating things in new ways. I found myself enjoying thoughts and remembrances of my family, of my brothers and sisters, and of my parents. I wasn’t suddenly overwhelmed with nostalgia or gripped by filial love, but, somehow, my thoughts led me to an unusual level of contentment. The people and their circumstances are not different; I clearly understood them in the same way prior to this odd bout of thinking. But now? Now I find that I’m entirely at ease, completely comfortable with any feelings I have relating to them and their various woes. Old things, long forgotten, come easily, almost unbidden, to mind. I thought about favourite teachers for the first time in a long time, of the things they did and said that made a difference to me, but now I cast my mentors in the light of equals, and see them more easily as people. I thought about the things I have done or seen, or thought about doing or seeing, but with less trepidation, with fewer provisos. I thought about politics and religion, and sex and death without feeling like I had to explain or justify my thoughts, or stand my corner or blaze any sort of trail. I changed my mind about things, and then changed it back again, and found that I was content with either possibility.

I did not set out to think, but when it happened, all on its own, I enjoyed it so very much that I plan to allow it to happen again... probably when I get back to work on the house tomorrow.

If it's Saturday, it must be the Oxford Street Plaza...

2011-02-11T08:37:00.008Z

Together again, for one night only, because you demanded it, those towering giants of 40K... Magnus and Russ.

Okay, not actually, but Graham and I will be at the GW Oxford Street Plaza tomorrow (February 12), between 11 and 2, to jointly damage your copies of Thousand Sons and Prospero Burns (amongst others, I'm sure). A unique opportunity to get the head-to-head books in a head-to-head signing. If you don't believe me, check out this link.

It's probably also a good time to remind you about two good friends of this page. First, Nic Giacondino, who has supplied us with many great images of Eisenhorn and his merry band. Let me just point you again in the direction of his Free Mars webcomic.

Second, Richard Dugher, or "Custom Fish", as we shall now call him. It is one of my great regrets that I simply don’t have enough time to build and paint (I’d never get any novels written). When I get hold of a figure or a vehicle, I turn to Richard, and commission him to do the honours for me. The quality of his work speaks for itself. Rich did a particularly fine job on my Reaver, which is spectacular in every way, but the smaller, character pieces like Eisenhorn are also superb. I recommend him without reservation. Find him here or over in the links list.

I've been asked by a number of people if I have a snail mail address that they can send things to. The answer is yes: Dan Abnett, PO Box 1293, Maidstone, Kent ME14 9PN

Finally, here's Aaron, blogging on the lure of 40K.

Ultramarines movie news

2011-02-05T06:26:00.001Z

Hot off the press release, the following info...

ULTRAMARINES™: A WARHAMMER® 40,000® MOVIE
Special free fan screenings in US theaters
Starring the voices of Terence Stamp, John Hurt, and Sean Pertwee

London, UK, February 4, 2011. ULTRAMARINES: A WARHAMMER 40,000 MOVIE, produced by Codex Pictures, will be screened in select theaters in the U.S. on Saturday and Sunday, February 26th and 27th 2011 especially for the huge following of dedicated Warhammer 40,000 fans. The limited series of free screenings of ULTRAMARINES will take place in New York, Los Angeles, Seattle, Baltimore, Dallas and Chicago, with a special press event hosted by Tribeca Flashpoint Academy in Chicago.
ULTRAMARINES will show in the following theatres:
Chicago - 11 AM, Saturday February 26 at the Classic Cinemas Charlestowne 18 - 3740 East Main Street, St Charles, Illinois 60174 (followed by a Q&A with producer Bob Thompson)

Dallas, TX - 11 AM, Saturday February 26 at the Lewisville Cinemark Movies 8 - 1600 S Stemmons Freeway @ Corp Drive, Lewisville, Texas 75067
Seattle, WA - 11 AM, Saturday February 26 at the Metro Cinemas - 4500 9th Avenue, N.E., Seattle, Washington 98105
New York, NY - 11 AM, Sunday February 27 at the Village East Cinema - 181-189 Second Avenue, New York 10012 (followed by a Q&A with producer Bob Thompson)
Los Angeles, CA - 11 AM, Sunday February 27 at the Mann 10 Glendale Exchange - 128 North Maryland Avenue, Glendale, California 91206
Baltimore, MD – 11AM, Sunday February 27 at the Landmark's Harbor East Cinema - 645 S President St, Baltimore, Maryland 21202
Go to http://ultramarinesthemovie.com/ for more details and to reserve the free passes.
Saturn Award winning producer, Bob Thompson will attend a series of Chicago area events, including a special presentation and press event at the Tribeca Flashpoint Academy on February 25th, as well as Q&A session after the Saturday, February 26th screening at the Classic Cinemas Charlestowne 18 in St. Charles, IL and after the New York City screening at the Village East Cinema.

In the post bag

2011-01-24T08:03:00.003Z

Please keep going with the fascinating and often surprising casting suggestions. I just wanted to pop in for a moment and share some correspondence wherein people bring up various interesting points.

First of all, this, which came directly to the site here:

"So after a semester's when-I-could-snatch-the-time grinding through
the Ravenor omnibus, I've finally plowed through the thing. Love it,
course. That's pry a given. Do people bother emailing you to tell you
you suck? But--and forgive me if you hear this one on a weekly basis,
cause I wouldn't be surprised--I was one hundred percent firework
display birthday breakfast in bed gratified at the couple of nods to
non-straight behaviour in the books. I think it amounted to a grand total of two
or three casual mentions across all three novels, depending on how you
interpret some of Thonius' comments, but it's hard to express how much
even that affected me. It takes an awful lot of balls to mention
anything remotely non-straight in the, uh, slightly Asperger's context
of mass market science fiction, specially when it's t'do with male
characters, and even the simple head-nod of having Kys ask if a mark
is hetero and the mention of a pair of young men on a roof together in
Basteen was deeply meaningful for me.

"Warhammer's hardly tryina be gender lit, of course, and I'm real glad
that's the case. It's probably for the best that sex and sexuality are
mostly absent from its storytelling. But it does ache a little
sometimes, being even a sidelines participant in a great creative work
like 40K and feeling unacknowledged to the point of deliberate
alienation. In a conceit that already feels at times laughably
over-the-top and unconcerned with anything remotely relevant to real
human experience, it can be a vague but real detractor from suspension
of disbelief and love of franchise. But even pawing oilily through
Eisenhorn back in high school, I felt like it was the wild variety and
complexity of the Abnettverse that really glowed in a sea of samey
space marines. Without Eisenhorn and Ravenor, 40K would probably
always have stayed an indifferent fantasy universe lurking in the back
of my head. "That one where they made up that cool word for psychics
and wire dead godmen to chairs," probably. It's the reality you've
managed to instill in the components of the setting, the sense of
place and purpose and individuality in the face of the teeming
faceless billions and the ONLY WAR, that have drawn me in and kept me
there. I'm not concerned with complex ideas, social messages,
progress, all that dead air. I just love the knowledge that an author
and a publisher were brave enough to say, "Yeah. This is a world we're
crafting here. And you and yours, well, you're part of it, too."

"So yeah. I felt like some kind of an acknowledgment was in order, on
the slim chance nobody'd ever said it before. Thanks, Mista D. If a
vote's ever called, I'll be sure to put you down as one of the good
guys. "

Over at this link, you can find a review of Prospero Burns that touches on something I take quite a lot of time pondering. When you're working up and developing a strand of 40K culture - such as the pseudo "Viking" lives of the Fenrisians - is there a danger that in making it sound convincing to English-speaking readers (by the use of researched Scandanavian and Icelandic words), you end up with something corny and far too on the nose for readers from those parts of the world? This is a positive and encouraging view of such efforts.

Finally, I'd like to say thanks to everyone who came out to see me at GW Lakeside and GW Bluewater this weekend, and direct you to this opportunity to win a signed copy of Prospero Burns.

Wait! Before I forget...

2011-01-14T09:01:00.008Z

"For me, ideas have never been the thing that stalls me. I don't mean to sound arrogant about that—I'm not even saying necessarily that these are good ideas. They may be ridiculous and stupid ideas—that's up to the reader. But that's not the axis on which I have difficulty, and I am convinced that the vast majority of us have many many more ideas than we think we do, all the time... Sit down and talk to a 5-year-old for 20 minutes, and you will have a barrage of ideas, just crazy ideas—what happens is that at a later stage, we get trained into filtering out a lot of our own ideas. And I think for some of us the issue is not that we have more ideas than anyone else, it's that either we have less of a filter, or we've learned to ignore our filter, that little voice that says, "Oh, you're being silly." We don't hear it or we don't care about it or whatever."
- China Mieville.

Nik came across that comment from China, and we both remarked upon how much we identified with it. So I thought I'd share it with you here.

Other stuff: I've been really busy this last week or so, with a battery-recharging visit to Black Library towers, from which I returned bursting with more ideas than... Something So Very Full Of Ideas It's Going To Burst. Just for now, I must make time to mention four things:

This Saturday, the 22nd, I will be making two more appearances as part of the "Prospero Burns Tour". You can find me at Games Workshop Thurrock (Lakeside) from 11 until 1, and then at Games Workshop Bluewater from 3 until 5. Be there or... I'll be lonely.

On Saturday the 29th, I'll be popping up at the Kent Adventure Gaming Society's GameCon, details of which you can find here. I'll be there from 12 until 2, waxing lyrical and defacing books.

Then, on Saturday 5th February, I will be at the SFX Weekender, talking, signing, and then attending a screening of Ultramarines with producer Bob Thompson. Details of the Weekender here, but please be aware I am NOT a weekender. I am only going to be there for the Saturday.

Finally, Saturday 12th February, I will be signing the hnaftafls off Prospero Burns at the Games Workshop Oxford Street Plaza store. Details from all good Black Libraries. I believe Graham will be there too, so it will surely suck for him, because I am Russ and he is Magnus, and I will therefore be obliged to poke him in the eye with my cock-spankingly giant axe.

Couple of pleasing reviews came my way, so I'm sharing them below. Here's a nice one from CBR.com...

"In some ways, "Heroes for Hire" seems to be Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning's version of "Marvel Team-Up" where they can throw together any sort of character they want. What's that? Silver Sable and Paladin meet Satana and Ghost Rider? Hey, why not? As long as it works—and trust me, it works.

"Part of Abnett and Lanning's trick in making it work is that the book never feels like it's slowing down, not even for an instant. The pace is steady and quick, and every time you think the book is going to resolve itself, Abnett and Lanning throw in another obstacle that needs to be overcome.

"They're also not afraid to slightly buck reader expectations. Books where the controller is sending out heroes on missions (in this case Misty Knight taking that central role) and one hero needs the cash, well, you can predict some of what's to come. At some point the cash is going to come back up again, but Abnett and Lanning turn it on its head with Silver Sable being told to leave but still get paid and being told not to. It's a good turning point, that moment where you start to realize things are going wrong, and it keeps the interest up.

"Abnett and Lanning are also already starting to explore the overarching plot of Misty Knight and her captor, something which I figured we wouldn't see for a while. It's nice to know there's going to be that common thread knitting the issues together, and it makes me that much more eager to see next month's issue. Never mind the random heroes getting tossed into the mix, I want to know what's going to happen to Misty.

"I'm also pleased to see Abnett and Lanning reunited with Brad Walker and Andrew Hennessy after their time together on "Guardians of the Galaxy." Walker and Hennessy's art looks even better than ever, from the thick locks of hair on Silver Sable, to the rumpled and bunched up clothing we get whenever people are leaping through the air. They get the big moments just right too, from that demonic grin on Silver Sable's face as she starts firing one of the cursed weapons, to the dramatic reveal of Ghost Rider. Ghost Rider's on the cover of the book, but his appearance looks so larger than life and powerful that I ended up being startled in spite of my previous knowledge.

"This is a fun comic that's already picking up steam. When do we get #3? "Heroes for Hire," I'm sold"

And here's one from Ain't It Cool News:

“Y’know, it is a really rare thing for me to “fanboy out” I guess would be the term for getting all wound up about certain characters getting having a huge moment – Spider-Man taking down Morlun, Batman taking down a handful of White Martians with some gas and a match, etc. I would wager it stems back to honestly being more or less jaded at this point; I’ve simply read too many comics and seen most my favorite characters have countless moments. Taking that into consideration, what happens for me anymore these days in my superhero reading is I find myself getting my jollies when I see second or third tier characters getting their time in the spotlight. It’s why I have adored what Abnett & Lanning have been pulling off in the cosmic sector of the Marvel Universe and now that they are working with the Marvel Knights section of it as well, I could not be happier.

"Well, okay, I lied. There are some places I would like this book to go. But for now I am highly entertained. I like the build up that is going on here involving, for those who have not tried this yet, a rotating cast of anyone Misty Knight can call upon for a little butt kicking, which there has been a plethora of. There’s a pretty interesting and disturbing master plot going on to, where Misty has been calling on these heroes while in the thrall of the Puppet Master, a twist that was very unexpected at the end of the first issue but is an intriguing hook. At the least it is a means to a hopeful end, which I will get to now.

"While I do dig on this rotating crew thing for now, especially in the early going, I do hope this turns into something a little more stable. I know it is not right to judge a book on what it might be until it happens, but I think a rotisserie of a couple characters a month will get old fast, given that I felt a little momentum lost already with just one more issue. So I’m hoping this turns into at least a semblance of a team book, like a GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY, with several characters you can count on to be mostly there but a nice drop-in/drop-out esthetic with a couple new MK-based faces every so often. But who am I to argue with these two gents given their handling of the Marvel Cosmic material?

"I guess “fun” is an easy word to throw around when it comes to any well produced superhero book, but HFH is excelling at it so far and with some rather dark overtones to boot. Lots of stylish action with a creepy missing persons arc to get things rolling. Digging Brad Walker’s work on this as well, in the wake of his material in the aforementioned cosmic books. It has the hyperkinetic tendencies this book needs and looks fantastic all the while shit is being blow up oh so good (even if Puppet Master looks like a pedophile caught in a wind tunnel). This book has it going on from both ends and is helping me channel that inner fanboy that I usually keep locked away, not unlike Ms. Knight in her current peril…okay, too far. Just buy it already…”

So that was nice. Anyway, like I said I'm very busy and I'm teetering on ideas overload, so I can't stay here gassing. I haven't had time to prepare a full response to the Gaunt casting ideas yet, but I have been enjoying them. Some in a "what the hell..?" kind of way, and others in a "Oooh, never thought of that one..." style (in the latter camp... Radha Mitchell as Criid, James Purefoy as Bask etc). I will make some picks of my own soon (though you won't like them). In the meantime, please feel free to keep coming up with ideas.

If you want a new task to focus on... Eisenhorn. Casting for him, Ravenor and the crew, if you like, but what I'm REALLY interested in is what he sounds like. Who would you pick to give Gregor Eisenhorn a voice?

Can't imagine why I'd be asking that...

It's My Trumpet And I'm Going To Blow It

2011-01-12T09:37:00.007Z

Thanks to everyone who came out to meet me at Nottingham, Sheffield and Leeds last weekend. It was nice chatting to you all. Looking forward to Lakeside and Bluewater a week on saturday, 22nd January.

Some great comic feedback came in while I was away, so I thought I'd link it here:

Let's start with this.

Then this.

Then this.

Then this.

Then this.

Then this.

And finally but not least....this.

Mmmh. Nice warm glow. And at the risk of becoming so fething pleased with myself you all hurl and never talk to me again, may I just thank all the readers out there for making Prospero Burns the number one SF book in the UK and the US this week, and popping it straight in to the New York Times Mass Market Fiction Bestseller's List.

Okay, now I'd like to point you all in the direction of the blog by Viktor and Magnus Nystrom, which you can find here. Just scroll down and enjoy. The guys have been involved in this awesome project for a while now, and the blog recounts the whole history and development of it.

They're coming to an end now. I think they deserve a large number of hearty pats on the back - I've tried to give them a little feedback as they've gone along, but it really is all down to them. here's a little taster image:

I bestow upon them the first Awesome Sauce Award for 2011, and invite you all to go tell them how splendidly they've done.

FINALLY finally, I was thinking that maybe it was time we started doing a little casting. Haven't done that for a while. Let's see how ideas have changed. And we'll begin with Gaunt's Ghosts. If the books became a movie, who would you cast? And it can be a fantasy cast of all time fave actors and actresses, too!

Prospero Burns Signings!

2011-01-04T15:43:00.004Z

Afternoon. Just doing my civic duty and reminding you of these fast approaching signings.

This Saturday, 8th January, I will be at Games Workshop Nottingham from 10am to noon.

In the afternoon, I will be at Games Workshop Meadowhall (Sheffield) from 2pm until 4pm.

On Sunday, 9th January, I will be at Games Workshop Leeds from 11 am to 1pm.

Check out the Black Library website for further details.

Hope to see you there!

Slightly more advanced warning - on Saturday 22nd of January, I will be at Games Workshop Lakeside, Thurrock, from 11 am to 1pm, and then at Games Workshop Bluewater from 3pm to 5pm.

Fenris hjolda!

Blowing in the wind...

2011-01-02T08:28:00.007Z

... is NOT where you'll find the answers today. You'll find them lower down in this post.

I trust you all had a splendid Christmas and a dandy New Year, and that Santa brought you everything you'd hoped for. Nice to see you back. It's a brand new year, already up and running, and it's going to be a big one. Any year that starts 1/1/11 has got auspicious written all over it. I'm raring to go. There are some things happening this year (or potentially happening) that I can't wait to get my teeth into and my hands on.

My New Year's Resolution? Well, thanks for asking. It's to write a thousand words every day. EVERY day, for 365 days. No matter what else I do. So days when I'm working it's going to be a thousand words PLUS whatever I'm working on. On days when I'm not working, it's going to be a thousand words anyway. We'll see how that goes. I think it's going to be an interesting experiment for a year.

What are your New Year's resolutions? Any interesting ones? Anyone got any good resolutions you think I should adopt? And did anyone hear or read any truly great cracker jokes over the season?

Odd things happen at this time of year. I suppose it's because the Christmas season is so full of traditions and superstitions. I was reading a book about seasonal traditions and I noticed a piece about Bible dipping, which was to take a copy of the Bible (either just before or just after midnight on the 31st) and literally dip into it. Whatever your right index finger ended up on, that word or passage would tell you something about the future in the year ahead. Apparently, in the 'Olden Days' (not to be confused with the 'Days of Yore', as I understand it), staunch Christians would get around the superstitious, fortune-telling-ish aspects of this practice by reassuring themselves the Bible was A Good Book and therefore could not lie.

So I tried it early on New Year's Day. I got something about "peacefully settling things" which was nice. But I got it from Judges (and my name means "the Lord is Judge"), and the passage was from a long chapter about Gilead.

Go, as they say, figure.

Let's do those answers, shall we?

The Primary Clone's Reasonably Difficult 12 Days of Christmas Quiz

1. The Major who looked after Cadet Gaunt was called Tanhause (First and Only etc)

2. Finnigan Rapunzel Sinister and Ramone Algonquin Winnebago Dexter (his middle names commemorate, respectively, the site of his conception and the place of his birth).

3. The Spheres of Longing. It's Ibram Gaunt's favourite book.

4. Previous Mournival members include: Keyshen, Minos, Berabaddon, Litus, Syrakul, Deradaeddon, Karaddon, Janipur and Hastur Sejanus.

5. Quasar is Wendall Vaughn, Silver Surfer is Norrin Radd, Gladiator is Kallark, Beta Ray Bill is Simon Walters and Ronan the Accuser is... Ronan the Accuser.

6. Feth is from Tanith (Gaunt), funt is from Downlode (Sinister Dexter), sprock is from the future DC Universe (Legion of Superheroes), hjolda is from Fenris (Prospero Burns etc), gak is from Verghast (Gaunt), and flark is from Marvel Cosmic.

7. Hex.

8. Kingdom's hero is Gene the Hackman. He, and all the other aux, were named after 'stars'.

9. [spoiler alert!] Misty Knight... and the Puppet master.

10. Pythol.

11. "Santa baby, put a sabre under the tree..."

12. This year's Ditmar award was won by the wonderful Slights, by Kaaron Warren. I heartily recommend it to everyone.The 2010 Best Novel Hugo was shared between China Mieville's The City & The City and Paolo Bacigalupi's The Windup Girl.

There. How did you do?

Some very splendid entries for the Thirteenth Question. Several made me laugh out loud. I think I've picked three winners, and provided you've followed the rules and sent me an email to the site with your name, address and the suggestion you posted (not too late to do that if you've already posted an answer, BTW), then I will be in touch with you very soon to send you something suitably wonderful.

Happy New Year!

Huzzah! It's the Primary Clone's Fiendish Christmas Quiz!

2010-12-23T09:21:00.004Z

Or HUSSAR! as we say in this house.

Pausing first to wish Nik the happiest of happy birthdays on this, the 24th of December, 2010 - HAPPY BIRTHDAY, NIK! - let us proceed directly to the awesome sauce that is The Primary Clone’s Reasonably Difficult 12 Days of Christmas Quiz.

First, the rules. There are no rules! I laugh and throw small bits of rolled-up toilet paper at rules! Rules? Hah! Bother me not with rules!

Okay, here’s the way it works. It’s just for fun, see? Fun? Yeah? Remember that? They used to sell it by the ounce back in the nineteen seventies (ready-rubbed or shag). So this quiz is all about a bit of mind-probing fun. I’ll post the questions today, and the answers on New Year’s Day, so you can find out how clever you’ve been. BUT...there is a thirteenth question. Post your answers to that on the blog here during the course of this week (ie before midnight on the 31st of December, 2010), and I will choose three winners who will receive special prizes. Prizes! Prizes, I tell you!

Now, what that means is anyone can enter, as many times as they like, but if you sign in anonymously, I’ll never be able to identify you and send you that prize. So...when you post your answer, IDENTIFY yourself, and email the answer to the site with your name and address so I can get back to you if you’ve won.

That’s got all that out of the way. Let’s have some Christmas Inquisitorial fun! Warm yourself a nice Santa hat, put your Yule log in the upright position, pull up a mince pie and, if you’re sitting comfortably, I’ll begin.

On the First and Only day of Christmas, my true love sent to me... a Colonel-Commissar Gaunt. What was the name of the no-nonsense Major in the Hyrkan regiment who used to keep an avuncular eye on Gaunt when he was still Oktar’s cadet?

On the second day of Christmas, my true love sent to me... two Downlode sharks. 2000AD’s hitman gunsharks Sinister Dexter, of course, who are Finnigan Sinister and Ramone Dexter. But what are their middle names (hint: Ray has got two)?

On the third day of Christmas, my true love sent to me... three Ordo works. Looming on the creative horizon is the Bequin Trilogy, which will complete the cycle begun in Eisenhorn and Ravenor to form a trilogy of Inquisition trilogies (threes, geddit?). Anyway, what’s the name of Ravenor’s most famous work, and for an extra point, who’s favourite book is it?

On the fourth day of Christmas, my true love sent to me... four Mournivals. According to the Horus Heresy series, the “Mournival” of the Luna Wolves has had many different members over the years. Discounting the four that were serving during Horus Rising (Loken, Abaddon, Aximand and Torgaddon), name four previous members of the confraternity.

On the fifth day of Christmas, my true love sent to me... five War Of Kings! Well, Marvel Cosmic anyway. Springing out of the big War of Kings and Thanos Imperative events, we’ve just announced a new cosmic superteam, The Annihilators, made up of Quasar, the Silver Surfer, Ronan the Accuser, Beta Ray Bill and Gladiator. What are the alter-egos of all five members... and, therefore, which one doesn’t use a ‘stage name’?

On the sixth day of Christmas, my true love sent to me... six saucy swear words. Where do the following cuss-words come from (you may be geographically specific, or simply refer to the series or franchise): feth, funt, sprock, hjolda, gak, flark?

On the seventh day of Christmas, my true love sent to me... seven Doctors Who-ing. I have a particular soft spot for the Seventh Doctor, Sylvester McCoy, because he was the TARDIS resident when I was writing strips for Doctor Who Magazine. That early work lodged in the memories of good folk like Gary Russell fondly enough to get me an invite back to write audios and novels for Who and Torchwood in the noughties. My two Big Finish audios actually starred Sylvester and Sophie. But what was the name of the new assistant I introduced to the series in them?

On the eight day of Christmas, my true love sent to me... eight legs of badness. In Kingdom, for 2000AD, drawn by the fabulous Richard Elson, the big bad is Them, hyper-evolved insectoid horrors that have conquered the Earth. Who’s the hero standing in Them’s way, and what is he (and the others of his kind) named after?

On the ninth day of Christmas, my true love sent to me... nine
Heroes Hiring. Marvel’s Heroes For Hire has a huge guest list and rotating cast of classic Marvel “street level” characters. Heroes are brought in - “hired” - for missions specific to their skill sets. In the first four issues alone we’ll have Falcon, Black Widow, Paladin, Misty Knight, Electra, Moon Knight, Silver Sable, Ghost Rider and... well, who will the ninth be? Actually, that’s not the question, because that would just be a guess, really, wouldn’t it? So try this: who is Control, and who’s REALLY in control?

On the tenth day of Christmas, my true love sent to me... ten battle brothers. Ultramarines The Movie is out there now, in all its glorious shooty-death-kill-in-space wonder. So, Astartes, what’s the name of the mission team’s cynical apothecary? And, for the record, “Astartes” is pronounced Az-tar-tease. Not ‘arse-tarts’. I mean, come on.

On the eleventh day of Christmas, my true love sent to me... eleven mangled lyrics. We like a mangled lyric in this house, we really do. From “Bring me an iron lung”, to “It’s all right, babies come in bags”, to “Don’t stand so colostomy”. But which Hussar-inspired jazzy Christmas lyric do we traditionally mangle in this household at this time of year (hint: Nik mentioned it on our Twitter feed this week).

On the twelfth day of Christmas, my true love sent to me twelve Angry Robots, eleven mangled lyrics, ten battle brothers, nine Heroes Hiring, eight legs of badness, seven Doctors Who-ing, six saucy swear words, five War of Kings! Four Mournivals, three Ordo works, two Downlode sharks, and a Colonel-Commissar Gaunt! Those splendid, if slightly irate, mechanoids at Angry Robot published my novel “Triumff: Her Majesty’s Hero” this year, and I’ve recently finished my second book for them, the combat SF thriller “Embedded”. For a brand new publishing venture, AR have enjoyed considerable success. Which (excellent) book won them a well-deserved Ditmar award in September? And, while we’re at it, which two books split the 2010 Best Novel Hugo award?

And the crucial, prize-winning thirteenth question...

Complete the following sentence: “I wouldn’t say that Magister Anakwanar Sek, whose voice drowns out all others, was fat, but...”

There you have it. I hope it titivates your brain-cells for a short while over the Christmas break. If you’re not breaking for Christmas, for whatever reason (and I know that at least one reader is a policeman rostered on over the weekend, another is a doctor on-call, and at least half-a-dozen are serving in Iraq or Afganistan), be well and be safe. To everyone, wherever you are, a very Merry Christmas, and a peaceful and prosperous New Year.

Thanks for reading.

Dan

Hjolda! It's Big Steve!

2010-12-21T17:14:00.005Z

Today was the shortest day of the year, we were snowed up the ying-yang, and the winter solstice's full moon was marked by the first total eclipse since 1638. No better time, then, to spare a thought for the Sixth Legion Astartes.

There was probably no one waiting more eagerly for the publication of Prospero Burns than Buff (formally “Big”) Steve Bissett, friend of this parish. Earlier this week, Steve very kindly sent me a review of the book, which I would like to publish here in its entirety. If you are easily alarmed by such phrases as “cock-spankingly great”, look away now.

“Lets have this out straight now this is an excellent book. This book goes above and beyond the call of duty. It would be wrong of you to assume that this Account of events leading to the Fall of Prospero is an exact and opposite retelling of Graham McNeill’s Thousand Sons..it’s not. The telling of this saga starts out with roots like a great Fenrisian oak and ends up blossoming into full on 30k warfare, brought to you as only Dan Abnett and the Sixth Legion Astartes can. When I heard Dan was going to cast his lot with The Wolves I thought HELL YES! It would be fair to say that Dan had some concerns when approaching this subject matter: the Space Wolves of 40K can seem extraordinarily larger than life, sometimes more comic characters than Astartes. Dan’s worries about “Vikings in Space” were wholly justified, even the name “Space Wolves” in my eyes has always seemed a little jovial. With this in mind, and the added weight of responsibility to the dedicated and very loud and verbal Space Wolf fans, Dan sunk his Fangs into this challenge.
But trust in Dan! He has taken the Wolves and grounded them in his own particular way. He has rebuilt this legion from the ground up, his research has been impeccable. They are the Wolves we know but different, professional but different, darker, more sinister, cunning and, dare I say it... Scary! Yes, they are scary, all right, the kind of scary that worries even the Custodes and other Astartes. He has taken them and turned them ...well, Gothic. Even the Fang and its architecture is darker and more foreboding more like a Wolf’s lair, beautiful still, a miracle of engineering yes...just darker, we are talking.
The plot is intense. This book should come with a warning: many threads are sown in this book, and many are cut (LOL). Do not expect it to give you all its answers straight away. Like Dan said, stand with it and all will unfold to you in time. Dan has played to one of his greatest strengths: he has taken a story which could have been basically a 350 page book of drinking and bloodletting, and turned it into a story of conspiracy, intelligence, counter-intelligence, what you see you can’t see, what you know you don’t know. You would be just at home reading Eisenhorn or Ravenor when reading this account. Still it is an Account of the Wolves so there is still plenty of warfare: battle, stealth, vicious violence and slaughter in the way only the Wolves can do it and Dan Abnett can write it.
Of Primarchs and Legions, the Sixth, have now officially been given their place in the game. Questions have been asked and answered, and more have arisen. Leman Russ is ferocity and aggression personified. All Primarch’s are strategical and tactical geniuses: Russ’s place in the rankings has now been given and it is exceptional. He is lethal, loyal and he is FEARED! This is a curse as much as it is a blessing and there is a certain sadness about it, as he and his brothers know his place in the pantheon of Primarchs. Dan has really put himself into the mindset of the Wolves and things have now changed forever. So to all my Wolf Brothers (and Sisters) out there it’s time to take our place in the Hunt and, though it may alienate us, The Rout never wavers! We are sanction, and sanction must come to PROSPERO! HHHOOOWWWWWWWLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL”

It is my understanding that Steve liked it a lot. Thanks, Steve.

I’d like to leave you today in the embrace of Gideon Ravenor, with this picture of the ”The Chair” by the peerless Nic Giacondino. Merry Winter Solstice, one and all.

It's beginning to feel a lot like...

2010-12-18T19:58:00.014Z

... Fenris. It's snowed all day. Very festive, unless you're out in it. I've spent the afternoon sitting under the tree signing a consignment of Prospero Burns that will be despatched to the four corners of the kingdom. I'm very excited that PB is out there at last, and I'm delighted by the great notices it's getting. I'm also delighted that Ultramarines is shipping, and the response is terrific. I'm also chuffed to pieces by this (thanks, IGN readers!), and by this announcement.

It's been quite a week, all round. Quite a year. I've now finished Embedded, and it's something I've very proud of. I'm knee deep in Salvation's Reach, the next Gaunt (though I'm pausing for a few days to write a cock-spankingly great*, Mournival-oriented Horus Heresy short story). Heroes for Hire and The Annihilators are keeping my comic hand in, as are Kingdom and Sinister Dexter for 2000AD, and Insurrection for the Megazine.

And now it's a busy final week, with the last few pre-Christmas deadlines to hit, and the last bits of preparation to do (on top of Christmas, it's my father-in-law's birthday, and then Nik's on Christmas Eve).

Anyway, the girls went out and got a tree...

Naturally, putting up the tree and decorations required some considerable 'help' from Pilgrim. The boxes to the right are the consignment of PB I mentioned earlier.

But it was worth it in the end.

Everybody may now say aaaahhhh.

Watch out for the mistletoe ;)

If you want to post this week (and please do), why don't you tell us all what's on your Christmas list? Or what your favourite Christmas song or carol is? Or which Primarch you'd most like to spend Christmas with, and why? Or what your favourite movie for Christmas Eve is? Something festive, okay?

Finally, the by now traditional Saturday peek in the notebook:

Idea for a one panel cartoon #568
A traditional nativity scene. Everything is normal scale except for the wise men, who are the size of action figures.
Caption: Wee three kings.

Idea for a one panel cartoon #39
A ventriloquist act, performing on stage. The vent's puppet is a large seagull.
Caption: Speaking out of tern.

Idea for a one panel cartoon #261
Several Ultramarines, in full armour, are enthusiastically grooving to a kicking bass drum and cutting edge synth in a eurodance club.
Caption: "We march for Macragge, and we shall know no no no no no no no no no no no there's no limit!"

I'll be here all week. Don't forget your waitress.

* copyright 2010 Buff Steve.

From the Sublime to the...Differently Sublime

2010-12-10T17:33:00.007Z

Friday afternoon, Marvel announced The Annihilators, which is a project Andy and I have had to force ourselves to remain schtum about for, like, ages. Four issues of mega-level Cosmic goodness, which is also being printed double-header with the to-die-for Rocket and Groot mini.

Who says we don't treat you right?

Read this link right here to get the full lowdown in the form of mighty blurbation from Marvel.com's friendly neighbourhood Ben Morse, but suffice to say this is... well, some might call it the Cosmic Avengers. If Guardians of the Galaxy was a team of misfits and mavericks desperately trying to save space and time from dangers that always fundamentally outclassed them, this is the other end of the scale: the most powerful Cosmic heroes in the Marvel cannon in one premier division team standing ready to protect and serve... the Universe. Safe to say this is probably the single most powerful team ever assembled. Okay, various Avengers or JLA line-ups might give them a tough time, but, seriously dudes, can you think of a superteam that could take them, no question about it?

So just imagine the threats Andy and I are dreaming up to make this star cast worthwhile.

Quite fun to be going from the sublime of The Annihilators to the... other end of the scale with Rocket and Groot. Very, very awesome compared to very, very silly. Also, for us, imagine the creative luxury and delight of being able to move from the super-cosmic, star-snuffing huge-osity (actual word) of Surfer and the Annihilators to the nitty, gritty, human vigilante street action of Heroes for Hire. Contrast: it exercises all sides of the imagination without ruining your appetite.

Speaking of the sublime to the something else, I want to thank Nik for her blog last time. I'm delighted that so many people loved her inside view of my passive aggressive, diva-like antics and--- kidding, I have no idea how it made you revise your estimations of me, but it was a great piece of writing and I'm glad you all dug it. If you haven't dug it yet, go dig it.

The deadline? Oh, that was for Embedded, which I am seriously pleased with. I am now eyeballs deep in Salvation's Reach, the next Gaunt, which should delight some of you (though I have a rather tasty Horus Heresy short story to finish first).

Speaking of the Heresy, a few dates have been announced for Prospero Burns signings in January. See the BL site here. PB is now shipping (as is Ultramarines, hooray!), so I look forward to defacing your copy in a store near you in the New Year.

Enough of my yakkin'. I know why you're really here. You can't hide it. I can see it in your eyes. God, you're so transparent! It's the weekend. It's "take a peak in the notebook" time.

Idea for a one panel cartoon #27
A wise and rather beautiful young carpenter's son from Galilee lathers up in front of the bathroom mirror.
Caption: Jesus shaves.

Idea for a one panel cartoon #631
A TV cooking show co-hosted by Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet. In the lavish kitchen, they are just adding chipolata funnels to a ship-shaped cut of beef that's sitting in a casserole full of stock.
Caption: Braise the Titanic.

Idea for a one panel cartoon #88
Young padawan Obi Wan and his Jedi master Qui-Gon Jinn glare dismissively in the direction of the eternally irritating Gungan Binks, who is staggering around, knocking things over, and generally talking shit.
Caption: "There's whiskey in the Jar Jar."

Idea for a one panel cartoon #191
Several Chaos Anarchs, whose voices drown out all others, are partying down so much the club can't even handle them right now.
Caption: The Joy of Seks.

Idea for a one panel cartoon #42
A giant Cthulhoid lolcat with tentacled mouth studies his cook book.
Caption: The Necronomnomnomicon.

A matter of life and deadlines (by Nik)

2010-12-08T09:06:00.000Z

Today is the day that Dan is due to finish writing a book. Yes, it’s deadline day. These crop up at regular intervals, but I don’t have very much to do with many of them. For comic book and short fiction deadlines, there’s really nothing much for me to do, in fact, I’m rarely even aware of them; they simply fit into the normal ebb and flow of office life. Today is different. Today sees the final sentence added to the latest novel, a book that might have been in the system for years, from the first ideas to the title, from the first pitch to the contract being signed, from the delivery of the first chapters to the receipt of the first advance payment.

Day zero, the day a book begins, generally gets lost in the mists of time. Who remembers when that idea first got jotted down in a notebook? Who remembers when it bubbled to the surface as the possible basis of a possible plot for a possible novel that no one had commissioned, yet? Day zero doesn’t go down in the annals of history, not in this house, anyway. Day eleven-hundred-and-forty-seven, (or whatever it is), deadline day: the day on which the last sentence is given its full-stop, and the first draft of the manuscript is delivered up to the publisher is a day that most certainly goes down in the record books.

We are approaching our fortieth deadline day, and we have evolved coping strategies for making sure they pass smoothly... Well, I have, at least.

Dan sleeps less well the last few days before a book is due. He rolls about and snorts and gets up in the night. So, on the eve of deadline day, I try to be totally relaxed, and let him fall asleep next to me while we’re sitting in bed watching some rubbish on DVD. He wouldn’t be terribly good company if he were awake, so why should I stop him sleeping? He wakes up on deadline day early, certainly as early as any other day. I roll over in bed to ask if he’s okay, and then he’s gone.

A couple of hours after Dan gets up, I make a random noise down the stairs to let him know that I’m about. Something along the lines of “Coo-oo”. Then I wait. It’s winter, so I sit in bed with a laptop and go through my in-box, which will invariably contain several e-mails from Dan. Some of them will have little paperclip doohickeys where he’s sent chunks of the work in progress. Others will include instructions, like, “haven’t finished, read don’t edit”, or “read part two first”, or “look out for compound words”, or “can you find out who carried out the first successful blood transfusion”, or whatever it might be.

Then he appears with a cup of tea, Earl Grey, thank you very much. To be fair, Dan brings me a cup of tea every morning, but some mornings, I meet him in the kitchen when I hear him moving about. Not on deadline day. On deadline day, I let him get on with it. I don’t deviate from the routine at all on deadline day. He brings my tea and hands it to me from his side of the bed, and he stands there for a minute. He isn’t really in the mood to talk, so I say thank you and ask how it’s going in an airy sort of way. He mumbles something, and off he goes again.

And that’s it. I stay where I am. I begin to go through the chunks of manuscript he’s sent, doing a simple line edit, and following his basic instructions. There are lots of reasons for staying upstairs. Our bedroom is big with a reading corner and a table and chairs, so there’s plenty of room for me to find somewhere comfortable to work. If I go downstairs, I have to go through the kitchen, and that’s Dan’s space when his head is full. I could go through it into the wendy house where I usually work, but he’d hear me, and I don’t want to disturb him. The stairs to his office are also in the kitchen, (and yes it is a weird house).

Less than an hour passes, and Dan’s back with a cup of coffee. This is very early for him, it’s usually me that makes the second cup some time around ten. I take the cup from him and say thank you. He slopes off again.

He’s not miserable you understand, or difficult, or moody, he’s just in the zone and there isn’t room for two.

The door bell rings, and I realise that’s it’s Tuesday. Groceries get delivered on Tuesdays, and Dan always has a chat with the delivery dude. He’s got his Christmas list handy, as well, so there’ll be no interference from me on that front. I hear happy talking noises, but no actual words, and then the sound of the front door closing, and he’s off again, into the bowels of the house, to get on with things.

For the next little while, I check Twitter and Facebook. Dan has updated his status on FB, but hasn’t done anything on Twitter, so I do something. Something always comes up, and, today, it’s reviews of “Prospero Burns” and “Heroes for Hire”, the two most recent projects to come out of the office. I sort out some links and Twitter some, and send some to Dan via e-mail to enjoy when he gets a chance. I flag a couple of other things for him, and get back to reading the latest bits of manuscript.

Dan appears about an hour after the last time with the central heating thermostat in his hand. He gives it to me, without a word, and reaches for the cardigan he keeps draped over the footrail at the end of the bed. I’m not sure why he doesn’t know how to work the thermostat, but it doesn’t matter. I adjust it and give it back to him, and he puts it on top of the wardrobe nearest the window, the coolest part of the room. Clearly he’s cold. He asks if I want a cup of tea; it’ll be my third and it’s barely ten in the morning, but that’s what happens with displacement activity. I tell him to put the kettle on and I’ll see to it. He goes away. A few minutes later he’s back with a cup of tea for me.

“I was there,” he says, handing it over.

The kettle is a ‘thing’ in our house. Due to a condition that is too boring to talk about, albeit it’s rare, and a bit weird, my hearing is now pretty crap. There’s nothing wrong with my ears, per se, it’s just that other things prevent them from functioning. That doesn’t sound like it has anything at all to do with our choice of kettle, but you’d be wrong. We have an old-fashioned kettle that stands on the gas ring, back right, of our cooker. It has a flip down lid in the spout that whistles. It has a glorious sound, one that I can actually hear. I use it! I can be on the other side of the kitchen with the kettle boiling like buggery and not hear it if the whistle isn’t in the correct position.

The whistle is shrill, which is why I can hear it. It is also why no one else uses the whistle. They can all hear the kettle boiling without it, and, to a man, and woman, they find the noise the whistle makes excruciatingly unpleasant.

Clearly, this morning, Dan really didn’t want to listen to that whistle. I’m glad that I made the decision to stay upstairs, it was clearly the wisest course of action. Again, let me reiterate that Dan is not fussy or moody or difficult in these situations, he’s just... Well, he’s just Dan, only to a greater degree than normal: Dan squared if you will, or Dan to the power of deadline.

I hear a very satisfactory thud as the mail hits the bare boards downstairs. If I can hear it, it’s got to be heavy, so, probably that book I ordered for a friend’s birthday. I stay where I am. Dan appears a few minutes later with a cardboard parcel from Amazon, which he drops on the bed.

“It’s for thingy?’ he asks. “E-mail me a note for her and I’ll print it off and find an envelope.”
“Her address is in the rolodex,” I say, without thinking, and then cover, quickly, “so don’t bring it back up. I’ll sort it out later.” This is not the time to go thrashing about in Dan’s office, or on Dan’s desk, where the rolodex lives; there could be anything on there: scads of strategically positioned post-it notes, books cracked open at very important places, a carefully positioned action figure or two. In fact, the rolodex might be doubling as a piece of heavy artillery or a small vehicle, or the entrance to a bunker, or something.

Dan’s back a few minutes later. Clearly, he’s looking for displacement activity. The note is printed, folded and inserted into the book, which is in a manila envelope, addressed with the correct information to get to my friend. What’s more, the book is a second hand copy of “Fell Cargo” that I’ve tracked down, and he’s signed it and put a nice message in it. He doesn’t say “Ta-dah!” but I know he’s thinking it.

Eventually we sit down to lunch. I don’t eat much in the middle of the day, so it’s mostly about Dan eating and us catching up. He’s very quiet, so I pick up my laptop and continue with the line-edit. It’s deadline day, and I hate to get behind, so I do what arrives in my in-tray as soon as I possibly can.

“That’s an odd choice,” he says, reading my tracked changes to his manuscript over my shoulder. I explain why I made the choice, but it’s deadline day, and he’s not sure. I remind him that’s why I track changes and make suggestions, to give him the thinking room to make final choices. The truth is, when push comes to shove, he invariably goes with my suggestions, but that doesn’t make me right; it only makes me very used to his ways and his work, and useful to him as a first reader and editor... some of the time.

I follow him downstairs after lunch and there is the evidence, if ever I needed it, that this isn’t just deadline day, it’s ‘crunch day’. Dan has left the door to the dishwasher open.

It’s not much, is it, an open dishwasher door? Dan is master of the dishwasher. I didn’t want it, and I’ve never learned to stack it properly. I’d rather wash-up in the sink, and on the rare occasions when I do need to use it, I can’t get nearly as much in it as I’d like. Dan has taken to the bloody thing with gusto, it’s as if it belongs to him, somehow. I leave it to him. It seems fair enough. Today, Dan has left the dishwasher door open. The dishwasher has clean dishes in it. Dan has loaded and run the dishwasher. Dan doesn’t usually do this during the day. This is his evening job.

I take my cue, and I unload the dishwasher.

That sounds like it’s passive aggressive on his part. It isn’t. It’s just deadline day.

Are we for hire, or what?

2010-12-04T19:13:00.004Z

Hello, heroes everywhere! Are you for hire?

With Heroes For Hire #1 hitting the shops this week, the interweb has been a-buzz with lovely feedback. I thought we might share some.

“Dan Abnett, Andy Lanning and Brad Walker's Heroes for Hire #1 does a fine job introducing its central premise and cast in an energetic, stylized manner, rolling along at a fast clip before arriving at a powerful and very unexpected cliffhanger. In this first installment, the team accomplishes a lot, but more importantly hints at even more exciting surprises to come. In other words, it's a wholly successful debut from a talented creative team that has already proven an ability to revitalize stagnant properties with their work on Marvel's cosmic line.

This being DnA's most significant venture into the grounded, Earth-based Marvel Universe since catapulting the cosmic properties to phenomenal heights, it's not at all surprising to see the pair take such a measured, meticulous approach to introducing this relaunch's new direction and cast of characters. The issue follows the new lineup's first adventure as Misty Knight, under her new guise as an Oracle-esque tactical leader codenamed Controller, passes the first mission from one operative to the next like a baton. Falcon and Black Widow start things off with an assault on a drug-running tractor trailer, Moon Knight follows the drugs to their distributor, and then Elektra carries out the mission's endgame in a way the others wouldn't. All the while, more operatives are hinted at and a familiar face makes his presence felt.

DnA and Walker inject enough personality and style into the mix to keep things lively, and it's plenty entertaining just to watch this new team in action. The writers have clearly put thought behind the inclusion of each cast member, allowing Misty to tailor "payment" to each individual. Like many aspects of this relaunch, there's a lot of great potential to the way Misty's new team operates.

Walker is arguably sharper and more impressive here than he's ever been, with panels that pop off the page and barrel along with a kinetic energy. Between the animated sense of movement between each shot, a palpable noir atmosphere appropriate to the book's street-level scope, and some fantastic figure-work, Walker outdoes his past work with DnA and proves himself the right choice for this title.

And then there's the issue's killer cliffhanger, which definitely had me clamoring to read issue #2. If that wasn't enough, the book also includes an eight-page prose Heroes for Hire saga identical to the ones Marvel usually publishes before one of these relaunches. Coupled with the book's high quality main story, this back-up makes this issue well worth the $3.99 price page, especially to those new to the property. Overall review: Great!” – IGN.com

“Sure, it’s a crime story, but it’s a flashy crime story with superheroic snippets and super powered subplots…Abnett and Lanning caught lightning in a bottle with Guardians of the Galaxy, providing the comic-reading public with a critically-acclaimed darling of a comic that starred a whole bunch of nobodies who evolved into fan favorites. It would only make sense, then, to have the prolific duo try to ply their craft at Marvel’s collection of former Knights and some other street level heroes…Collectively, this combination of heroes should draw in a large number of comic buyers. After all, it got a Falcon fan to pick this book up…Joining his writers from Guardians, Brad Walker draws a tangible, impressive real world…Quite simply, Walker’s art is great, and this book really gives him a chance to show what he can do with characters that are more grounded in reality…Abnett and Lanning close out this debut issue with a stunning final page surprise. The way this book ends calls the entire story into question. That, moreso than the characters or the art, is the major reason I’ll be checking out the second issue of this series. It’s rare that such an enticing book erupts from seeming mediocrity, but this is definitely a fun read, the type of read that comic books were invented for.” – ComicBookResources.com

“The cast is awesome and contains some of the best of Marvel's non-powered or street level characters…With DnA behind the wheel, and their Guardians of the Galaxy buddy Brad Walker on art, I'm expecting big things.” – ComicsAlliance.com

“This I can get…this very subject of well-networked folks hits the Marvel Universe a la the new incarnation of the Heroes for Hire, and what once felt like overactive extroversion becomes a force of justice…Getting paid for vigilantism may seem a little less noble than usual, especially for proven heroes like Elektra, Falcon and Black Widow, but even the most heroic can benefit from trade, even if it isn’t from currency. In short, for some passion is a reward, for others, intel. What’s going to surprise a lot of readers, including myself, is Heroes for Hire introduces not a new team (especially not the one on the cover, the majority of heroes totally absent from the issue inside) but a new system, and a seemingly effective one at that. Instead of having heroes standing about a myriad of tables discussing a myriad of directions, the first issue focuses instead on the problem, the crime, and the web of heroes who punch it into oblivion…Jay David Ramos is doing a very nice job on colors, letting things in the nightglow much like how you'd see in a city refusing to sleep…Also, there's a constant visual allusion to The Warriors strung throughout, and that's easy brownie points from me…The end of the issue reveals a bit of a shocker, something that could rip this concept wide open.” – Newsarama.com’s Best Shots

“I love that Abnett and Lanning are doing a monthly book that is set on Earth for a change (though I do continue to miss Guardians of the Galaxy). I also love the fact that this isn’t going to be a “team” book but rather individuals whose powers are needed for that particular mission will be used…That the entire issue is woven into a story using several different characters in this way is fun, refreshing and well down right expertly told…this is genius in itself as now I am hooked on that little mystery as well…Joining the dynamic writing duo on pencils is the incomparable Brad Walker (the three of them make a terrific trio!) he in turn is assisted by Andrew Hennessey on inks and Jay David Ramos on colors. This team does a fantastic job on the visuals and giving it that special feel to the book that I am at a loss for words to explain but fits perfectly…Overall, folks, this was a grand slam first issue and if it’s on the bubble for you, then let me pop it ‘cause everyone should be giving this a go.” – Reading With A Flight Ring

“The issue ends with a fine cliffhanger, one beyond the bounds of fair-play spoilerage. All I'll say is that it guarantees I'll be around for awhile…Abnett & Lanning shake off the space dust and remind us that they can cut the mustard in any corner of the universe. The interaction between Misty and her colleagues is a joy. The lads give their characters distinctive voices, with Black Widow especially benefiting, gaining speech patterns straight out of James Bond…Brad Walker's pencils are excellent. Superbly drawn characters move fluidly through action packed scenes, with plenty of variety in compositions. He tells a story very well, and inker Andrew Hennessy makes the most of Walker's layouts, resulting in some sharp storytelling. Colorist Jay David Ramos and letterer Joe Caramagna also turn in sterling work, helping to give Heroes For Hire an all-round accomplished debut…There's a smashing wee bonus, too - a recap of the Heroes For Hire concept since Luke Cage came up with it as an ongoing business…So, issue #1 of a book that didn't sound like my cup of tea, and I'm in for the duration. Methinks Marvel has good hires in Abnett, Lanning, Walker and Co.” – Too Dangerous For A Girl

Thank you, all.

Also, in the midst of all this snow and ice, let us think of Fenris for a moment, and enjoy this link from Black Library

It's the weekend, so let's close with the now traditional peek in the note book.

Idea for a one panel cartoon #103
A giant gorilla dressed in a Santa Claus costume sits on top of the Empire State Building and waves cheerily at the looping fighter jets.
Caption: King Kong Merrily On High.

Idea for a one panel cartoon #4
In a faded, sepia tint image, two aviation pioneers in jodphurs, goggles and flying jackets innocently sidle up to a double winged airplane.
Caption: The Wrong brothers were biplane curious.

Idea for a one panel cartoon #211
A giant advertising hoarding displays a Budweiser advert. It is evening, and stars gleam in the night sky. Beneath the hoarding, we can see a traditional nativity scene: Mary, Joseph, the baby in the manger, the shepherds, the donkey, the wise men.
Caption: Born under a bud sign.

More weblogs are go

2010-11-26T18:28:00.003Z

Adelie has been as busy as a busy thing, cutting and posting more sections of my recent weblog question-and-answer session. Along with the two listed in my previous post, you can now also enjoy the following:

Me discussing movies.

Me discussing the outcome of certain match ups.

Me on writing for the Black Library.

Me on the subject of writing generally.

Me on the Horus Heresy.

Me on the Inquisition trilogy of trilogies.

Me on comics.

Phew!!!

It's the weekend, so let's finish by taking a peek in the note book.

Idea for a one panel cartoon #322
We are looking out of the wings onto the stage of an old time music hall theatre. A stage hand is looking very surprised as a drop hatch opens underneath him and he plummets from sight. In the foreground, Admiral Ackbar turns to us and cries out in alarm.
Caption: "It's a trap!”

Idea for a one panel cartoon #323
A plumber clambers out from under a sink, holding the U-shaped pipe he has finally disconnected. In the foreground, Admiral Ackbar turns to us and cries out in alarm.
Caption: "It's a trap!”

Idea for a one panel cartoon #324
Liesl comes running across the Bavarian Alps towards us, about to break into song. In the foreground, Admiral Ackbar turns to us and cries out in alarm.
Caption: "It's a Von Trapp!”

Weblogs are Go!

2010-11-20T16:54:00.008Z

The first of the promised weblogs are now up, thanks to Adelie High (thanks, Adelie!). If you'd like to hear me talking about Prospero Burns, click here, and if you'd like to hear me talking about the Ghosts, click here.

Adelie recorded about two hours of me rabbiting away, so there will be more to come, and I honestly did work through every question that appeared here or on Facebook (though my answers to some queries may have been so incomprehensible that they ended up on the cutting room floor).

In case it does get snipped, I'll just go on record here and say IN A LOUD VOICE how much I recommend The First Heretic by New York Times Bestselling Author Aaron Dembski-Bowden. See the man himself talk here. I knew him when he was all fields, you know.

Also of gigantic excitement is the unabridged (yes, una-fething-bridged) audio book of Graham's Thousand Sons. Can we contain ourselves? No, I don't believe we flippin' well can, actually.

Thanks to Nathan Long, I discovered the following four pieces of genius. Enjoy.

Xhalax - a prize was awarded for the most compelling question, and the asker knows who they are. Your questions were splendid, and much appreciated, however. And the knitted Ghostie has indeed got a name. You know what it is, don't you? It's Ban. Of course it is.

Our Hussar ghostie is very active right now, BTW. Maybe Halloween shook him up. I'm not sure what he's up to, but the cats are really bothered by something. Maybe it's because they're building a new library across the road where the original barracks was sited in 1797. Maybe they've dug up something they shouldn't have. Maybe there's a spooky story in that. Maybe it's a real life spooky story, and I'm in it.

It's Saturday, so let's finish by taking a peek in the note book.

Idea for a one panel cartoon #12
A very inebriated wine maker is showing some guests around his winery, gesturing towards the vast wooden vats.
Caption: "But it was when we fell into the vat of red wine that we started to see things with greater clarety.”

Idea for a one panel cartoon #23
In the dark and claustrophobic confines of a U-boat, a chiseled commander in a white polo-neck retracts the periscope and looks at his smartphone.
Caption: Subtext.

Idea for a one panel cartoon #641
We are looking in through the cockpit windows of the Millennium Falcon as it accelerates into hyperdrive and the stars go stripy. Han glances casually across at Chewbacca.
Caption: “I like what you've done with your hair.”

Mentioned in Despatches

2010-11-11T19:18:00.005Z

Forgot to add yesterday what a great time I'd had on my visit to Folkestone Library last Saturday. They made me feel very welcome, and I didn't appear to bore anybody too much. I'll also be doing a little comics workshop at Faversham Library on the 27th.

Now, to be a little shameless, the frankly cataclysmic final part of The Thanos Imperative came out from Marvel yesterday (Wednesday, in the US) and, to paraphrase Tess, the scores are in:

“Architects Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning have made Marvel’s space-faring heroes the cream of the publishing crop.” –WeeklyCrisis.com

“The Marvel Cosmic Universe is the most entertaining portion of Marvel's U, and DnA have outdone themselves this time in creating a story so epic that it dwarfs their previous efforts. Kudos, guys.” –IGN.com

“The Thanos Imperative has made a name for itself as being one of the most epic and thrilling books on the stands. Thanos comes out of this story receiving exactly what he deserves…DnA have made the most of their storytelling potential…DnA pay off on years of buildup and deliver a satisfying conclusion to various character arcs. Fans of the Guardians of the Galaxy will find this issue to be extremely bittersweet, doing justice to the quirky…Miguel Sepulveda's art is impressive once again…this series has seen Sepulveda rise to a new artistic level…we could be looking at the end of a long, memorable saga that began humbly with Keith Giffen's Drax the Destroyer mini-series. And while The Thanos Imperative is a fitting end to that saga, how many readers won't still be craving more after this issue? Let's hope next month's epilogue paves the way for more cosmic goodness.” –IGN.com

“The heroic catharsis this band of galactic adventurers reach made for a very satisfying, even moving, conclusion…a sweeping saga.” –ComicVine.com

Just to prove this isn't all me, me, me (or DnA, DnA, DnA), I'd like to recommend once again Matt Forbeck's novel Amortals. Go git it!

Stuff, some of, various.

2010-11-11T17:06:00.012Z

Thanks for all the questions that have been pouring in via this blog and the Facebook and Twitter feeds. Lots of juicy things to answer there. Keep them coming, but be advised that if I can get Adelie to set up, I'll try to record the weblog this weekend. Seems like ages since I did one.

I also need to take a quick moment here to mention Thought Bubble. This is taking place in Leeds on the 21st of the month, and I was due to be attending as a guest. I'm sorry to say I'm going to have to miss it after all. Please accept my sincere apologies for this. It's simply that I've got a lot of deadlines to meet right now. I should, however, be coming to Leeds in the new year to promote Prospero Burns, so it's not like I've got anything against the place. I urge you to head along to Thought Bubble whether I'm there or not: it's going to be a great event, and there will be some fabulous people to meet. See?

Now is probably also a good time to mention that Titan is about to publish a paperback edition of Extinction Event, the Primeval novel I wrote a little while back. Oh, look at the lovely cover! The book was a lot of fun to write. Come on, stompy Tyrannosaurid death-kill. How often does a guy get to write that in his career? Baba Yaga, the big black She-Rex, is still one of my favourite bad guys.

Speaking of bad guys, I'm delighted to say that Sinister Dexter is back in 2000AD at the moment, in a six part story called Are You Being Severed? Gigantic kudos to Anthony Williams for the wonderful art. The Mighty Tharg is also about to start publishing Insurrection II in the pages of the Judge Dredd Megazine. This is the follow up to (a-duh) Insurrection, which ran a little while back to some acclaim. Story by me, art by Colin McNeil. That's ART BY COLIN McNEIL. See for yourselves.

We all understand why this is exciting now, right? It starts in Judge Dredd Megazine 305, on sale 8 December.

Our Marvel Editor Bill Rosemann forwarded me a picture earlier today. It was a commission done by Jeff Lemire, and he thought he'd share it with us. With Jeff's kind permission, I thought I'd share it with you too.

I've been a Lemire admirer since I read Essex County, and I urge you to go look for that, or Sweet Tooth, or his new run on Superboy. Check out Jeff's website here. Thank you, Jeff!

Anyway, it isn't Saturday, but let's have another one from the note book anyway. This one's not mine, it's from the demented mad of brain-man Dan Hart, but he says he's prepared to take the blame.

Idea for a one panel cartoon #84
In a haberdashery, Jean-Luc Picard is impatiently thrusting one of the machines at an assistant.
Caption: “ Make it sew!”

And scene.

Gunpowder Plotting...

2010-11-05T09:40:00.003Z

I'm thinking of getting Adelie to film me again for a weblog - it's been ages since I did one. I'm therefore going to need some questions to answer. They can be about 40K, Marvel, 2000AD, Angry Robot, cloning for pleasure and profit, whatever you like, really. Post them here and I'll see what I can do to answer them. There may even be a prize for the most imaginative query.

Thinking caps to maximum.

Tricks and Treats!

2010-10-30T20:01:00.007+01:00

Nik and I would very much like to thank every one who came to see us at our signing this afternoon at Waterstones in Maidstone. You can't beat playing to a home crowd. And we'll be in the KM too!

We were there, and so were lots of books.

Major thanks to Toby, and all of the staff at the Earl Street branch, for making us feel so welcome.

While I remember, can I just take the opportunity to say that the long awaited Knights of Pendragon (volume 1) trade paperback collection is out now from Panini? I can, can't I? Oh, I just did.

Anyway, it's Saturday. Time for some more from the note book:

Idea for a one panel cartoon #254
(Thanks to Andy Lanning) In an Italian Restaurant, Sarah Connor looks up in alarm from her dish of spaghetti polpette as a T-800 Terminator smashes through the door to confront her.
Caption: “Pasta la vista.”

Idea for a one panel cartoon #66
A female patient lying in a hospital bed screams in terror as a nurse shows her a photograph of an earthworm. The specialist explains what's going on to the patient's concerned husband.
Caption: "She's lack toes intolerant."

Happy Hallowe'en!

Waterstones Maidstone - signing!

2010-10-29T08:31:00.002+01:00

A quick reminder that I will be signing at the Earl Street Branch of Waterstones in my hometown Maidstone this Saturday (October 29th), and I would love to see you there if you can make it. I'll be around at noon for an hour, and then again and three in the afternoon, for another hour or so. Looking forward to meeting you in person!

Uhm, you know I'm talking to you, right? Yes, you.

A Maidstonian Werewolf In Oxford

2010-10-24T19:24:00.010+01:00

I may have mentioned that October is Birthday Month. Off we went this weekend to Oxford, to interpret Jess's birthday through the medium of dinner and presents. Jess is at St Edmund Hall, which is where I also spent my undergraduate days. For those of you who haven't visited the city, it looks a bit like this.

Rain threatened from time to time, in a moody and atmospheric way, but it held off long enough for us to enjoy a few wanderings and visits.

This is us, for example, in the Oxford Museum of Hogwarts Movie Sets, also known as the Bodleian Library.

We also spent some time in our hotel room playing Make Your Own Mark Rothko.

On Sunday morning, we visited the Ashmolean Museum, which is one of my top five all time great museums. Considering two of the other four are also in Oxford (the Pitt Rivers, the History Of Science), you may think me biased. The Ashmolean, recently and very dynamically renovated, is free, so there's no excuse for not going to find out how good it is for yourself. It's based on the private curio collection of Elias Ashmole (1617 - 1692), much of which was inherited from the collection of John Tradescant and son, and is the first University Museum in the world. It's full of art and artifacts that will simply take your breath away. This was the museum at dawn, long before it opened. The moon in shot is the lycanthropic orb that's been haunting me for the last few nights, bright as a bright thing, causing me to wake up naked and covered in blood at the bottom of a tube station escalator holding a beer mat marked "property of the Slaughtered Lamb, Yokelshire".

Anyway, here's what sunrise looks like in Oxford when everyone else is asleep, apart from the guy downstairs in the hotel kitchen who's warming up the grill to cook my breakfast. This last year, I have become a very early riser. And/or a werewolf.

Towards the end of our visit, a sudden heavenly insight hit me.

(A flash of insight from heaven, earlier)

Remember my account, a post or so back, of Nick Kyme in Modena? The tale of the Warm Milky Drink? Quite clearly, he should have visited this cafe in Oxford's Covered Market first:

Italy: what was The Point of that, then?

2010-10-21T08:49:00.010+01:00

Yes, what WAS the point of the Italian Games Day Expedition? Did it have a point? Or was it pointless? What's the point of anything? And, depending on your point of view, is there any point going on?

In an effort to answer these pressing and pointedly critical concerns, a team of Top Government Scientists (from The Department of Indicative Signifiers, Centre Point, Pointon) has been examining photographic evidence provided by Mal ("Malbuquerque") Green of BL. The Top Government Scientists now believe they have successfully identified the point in question or, at least, narrowed it down to a number of likely talking points... Up to a point.

Exhibit #A. This shot, from Mal's POV, may have been the actual point:

However, it clearly wasn't the whole point, as Exhibit #B clearly reveals:

The Top Government Scientists conclude that this, Exhibit #C, was probably the ultimate point:

All of which is clearly beside the point.

A Grande Day Out

2010-10-19T17:42:00.022+01:00

Just so you know, this blog entry might equally well have been entitled "Put Your Chocolate On My Cream Mountain". Or "Taste the Blood of Doctor Acula".

The Black Library's Expedition to Games Day Italy was marked by an unusually large number of actual rotfl moments, all born out of idle conversations that are now impossible to forensically reconstruct. I could spend some time explaining that "Put Your Chocolate On My Cream Mountain" was something Mr Nicholas Kyme requested, straight-faced, of the over-decorative dessert chef at the restaurant we frequented in Modena, one of those things you say before you've entirely thought it through. That, however, doesn't adequately explain why it reduced our entire table to helpless laughter. Helpless, weeping, fist-banging laughter.

We'll get the grande thing later.

In the company of Mr Kyme, and Mal Green (aka "Malbert", "Malbatross" etc), I headed for Modena, where we were joined by our very fine hosts from GW Italy, and our conversational co-conspirators from Forge World and the Studio, including Ead Brown, Tris Buckroyd, Jes Goodwin, Christina Burton, Alan Merrett, Joe Tomaszewski and Andrea Wright. In the days that followed, a number of conversations took place that, as Ead put it, caused us to go to bed with 'laughter headaches'. This is no bad thing, although It Was Really Funny But You Had To Be There stories do not a good blog make.

I can tell you that Games Day Italy was a roaring success, that we were made to feel very welcome, that the Italian staffers and the fans were incredibly friendly and enthusiastic, and that Modena is a beautiful town. I can also tell you that "grande" is Italian for large, and "latte" is Italian for milk. These things are useful to know.

I can also tell you that the mid-sized items of luggage that some passengers insist on bringing aboard as carry on, because the flight's 'only two hours long' and they can't be arsed to check them through baggage, despite the fact that said luggage will occupy ALL available locker space and caused untold invoncenience during disembarkation, will henceforth be known as "carry on douchebags". This is a blanket term for both the luggage and the owners thereof, and is named after the imaginary Carry On film of the same title. I can also tell you that at Bologna airport, we went down a ramp to board our flight home and were confronted, twenty feet away, by a plane. We knew it couldn't be ours, because there was a bus between it and us, a bus we were required to get on. Our plane is waiting at another stand, we decided. We got on the bus. It started up, drove around the plane in a tight circle, and stopped again as far away from the boarding steps as we had been from the nosecone in the first place.

I can't, on the other hand, tell you why our "League of Master Supervillains" (a work in progress), caused quite so much hilarity, though I can mention it includes The Menguin, The Crouton (aka, mild-mannered Bob Gently), The Pixilator, The Manchovie, Subliminal, plain old Liminal, and Mr Acula (he'd been struck off). And probably The Procrastinator.

So to Fair Modena, where we lay our scene.

Pretty isn't it? I took a LOT of photographs of the streets and general civic loveliness, but I'll spare you the holiday snaps because a) you get the idea, and b) it's clearly a hard life, jetting off to handsome locations like Modena to 'work', and I want us to still be friends by the end of the blog.

There were fine things to see, such as this famous statue depicting St Francis Lamenting The Loss Of His Smartphone In The Pond.

We also discovered that the chief local delicacy was not, as one might expect, pasta. It turned out to be the wrap.

Suffice to say, it was a very nice place to wander around. I recommend it, and its cathedral and museums, very highly indeed. There were an inordinate number of pipe shops too. Pipes for smoking, that is. And lingerie shops. Man, can you buy a lot of good lingerie and pipes in Modena. We never saw anybody smoking a pipe but, to be fair, we never saw anybody wearing lingerie either. I think the long Italian lunchtimes, where the only things to be seen on the streets are English idiots wandering around in search of beverages, must be a great deal more louche and exotic than we first imagined. Fancy a shag? Si, but let's have the sex first.

One place we were determined to find was the Modena branch of GW, except that Mal had forgotten to write down the exact street address. After some aimless wandering and several abortive plans ("Let's find a news stand and look up the address in an Italian copy of White Dwarf!", "Let's go into the computer shop and look up "GW Modena" on the interweb while we pretend to explore the display models!"), I came up with the blisteringly great idea of ringing Nik back home in Maidstone and asking her to google the address. As a result, shortly thereafter, we saw this:

And Andrea and his customers were delighted to see us.

It was in a street nearby that the grande thing happened. We're well aware that in Italy you don't drink hot milk after noon, and that coffee comes AFTER food, but - heck, we're English and its hard to quit our barbarian habits. Late in the afternoon, we sit down at a cafe, and Mr Kyme orders a "latte grande", just like, you know, in Starbucks. It's what he wanted, okay? He maintained his desire for it all through the waiter's increasingly panicked interrogation. There, in a nutshell, is the falsehood of marketing. Starbucks use the words in an attempt to convince us we're ordering something exotic and cosmopolitan. Chic, if you will. Starbucks can bollocks. Nick got a glass of hot milk. Not only that, but it was a large one, as he had specified. He insisted it was quite nice. We insisted he might like a lovely nap after his milky drink. We also took the piss relentlessly for the Whole Rest Of The Weekend. You play the hand fate deals you.

The show itself was in a terrific modern venue built to hold the AGMs for Ferrari. Seriously. Modena is slap bang in the middle of thoroughbred Italian sports car country. Exhibition space surrounded a main auditorium where the talks and readings were to be held. Not intimidating at all, then.

We had, of course, brought stock. English language stock, which was both brave and slightly passive aggressively jingoistic of us.

Still, who could resist piping hot Prospero Burns's fresh out of the book bakery?

The local carabinieri had, by that stage, circulated images of the usual suspects. This was due, we believe, to an incident of Da Vinci Code-esque mystery and adventure which had taken place the previous day during our wanderings. Mal, Nick and I had inadvertently strayed into a private, sacred and downright prohibited part of the cathedral during out touristy ramblings. A clerical official appeared and repeatedly hissed the word "Scusi!" at us. Scusi is, of course, an Italian word meaning "Absent yourselves from the bishop's bedroom immediately". We had already discovered that the custodians of the Duomo guarded their secrets jealously. A sign at the main door read "Please do not take photographs inside this building or you will be invited to get out". I love that. "Invited to get out". It's on a par with "Encouraged to die" or "Coaxed to burn".

A number of additional crimes were duly taken into account.

Then Nick and I faced our audience. I told you the auditorium wasn't intimidating. No sir, not one bit.

A roaring trade in signed books then followed. Here we see Mal, slightly stunned at the amount of business he is doing. In all fairness, he had drunk so many espressos by then, he was vibrating like a humming bird and could see through time.

I noticed this banner, one of the many brought to the show. From my perspective, it covered a number of interests close to my heart.

I also can't end this post without letting you glimpse the wonder of the Eldar craftworld constructed by one of the Italian clubs. I am trying to find out what the Italian for awesome sauce is.

I'd like to thank everyone who came to see us there, people like this happy band of GW enthusiasts. I would also like to thank the GW Italy crew: Elmes, Mauro, Gerry, Antonio, Andrea, Manuela and all the others who gave up their weekend and put in the hard work to make the third Italian Games Day a roaring success.

See you next time and, as they don't say in Italy, but do say wherever large milky drinks are politely requested, ding dang do!

Then This Happened

2010-10-13T15:20:00.021+01:00

Anyway, so I went to

for the

and hung with

(that's Todd Nauck and Andy Lanning breakfasting at the Tick Tock Diner, fyi)

and we saw lots of friendly

and several

(that's our old buddy Eddie Berganza in his editorial lair)

and we saw lots and lots of

lots and lots of them

and we weren't late for any of our signings, no sir

and some of our signings also involved ace artists Brad Walker and Miguel Sepulveda

and I talked to people about mucho projects, including

and

(Rocket Raccoon, not to scale)

and the Ultramarine wanted to know why I hadn't written the movie about a, you know, actually COOL chapter like the Space Wolves or the Blood Angels, and we lolled, and he suggested I had better go spend some time somewhere like

and think about what I'd done, mister, and I said "No way", and he said "Yes way", and that didn't end well

and then I got home just in time for

Lily (and Hannah's) Eighteenth Birthday Party, which was circus themed and apparently went brilliantly, except that everyone looked like Pennywise, which was creepy

and then Lily's birthday was over

and it was mine instead.

Busy week, as you can see. More busy to come, as I shoot off to Games Day Italy this weekend. I can't wait to be there. I hope the flight is better than the one to NY, where we circled Newark in the rain for so long, we ran out of fuel and had to land at an unrated airfield in Connecticut, and finally got in six hours late.

Andy and I would like to thank Legion fan extraordinaire Dave Rash for his support during the NY visit, and Todd for his forbearance, and say a huge "Peace and Love" to all the people who stopped by to say hi, or interviewed us, or tolerated our diva-like antics. And The Karaoke Incident. And thanks to Banks Wine Bar in Maidstone for being a brilliant party venue (tell your friends).

And anyway, you know how Customs and Immigration officers are REALLY serious, especially going in and out of the US, and you must never EVER try to be amiable or josh with them, because that way surprise cavity searches lie (I'm not mocking, it's a serious job, and they're trained to treat joviality with the contempt it deserves). So, Sunday night at JFK, heading home, Andy's gone through the barrier and is putting his stuff on the X-Ray, and I approach the Very Serious And Very Armed officer at the station, and he takes my passport off me, and looks at me and I know, I just KNOW that it's My Turn for a random spot check, or I've accidentally stepped over a line, or had a funny look on my face, and I brace myself, and he says, "When are you going to finish that Space Wolf novel, then?"

And grins.

Something Wicked Your Way Comes

2010-10-13T15:11:00.003+01:00

The splendid people at SFX magazine have just announced that issue 204's book club will feature Ray Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes, as raved about by me (Mr B is pretty much my all time favourite author). Details at SFX here.

Please join in and play along at home.

NYCC additions and revisions

2010-10-06T09:26:00.003+01:00

Off to New York in a second. Just wanted to add a quick update to the previous post. As of today (Wednesday), this is the most accurate info I've been given:

Artist Alley: the tables numbers for me and Andy are now T10 and T11.

On Saturday, Andy and I - along with Brad Walker - will be signing at the Marvel Booth between 3 and 4. This means my signing a the Codex stand that afternoon has been put back to 4 - 5. The Codex stand signing in the morning at 11 remains the same.

On Sunday, Andy and I will be at the Midtown Comics stand (2143) for an hour's signing at midday, as previously reported, and we will also be participating in a Marvel panel at 1.15 (room 1A06).

I will try to update you with any revisions and additions as I learn them. We're looking forward to seeing you at the Con.

New York Comic Con and other sightings

2010-10-04T09:56:00.003+01:00

Mr Lanning and I, collectively known as DnA, will be attending the New York Comic Con this week, from Friday through to Sunday. We'll be popping up all over the place, though Andy and I have tables (T8 and T9) in Artist Alley if you're especially struck by an urge to find us. Come say hello. DnA will be doing some Marvel signings and panels, the times of which I'll post here as soon we know them, but I can tell you that I'll definitely be at the Codex ("Ultramarines Movie") stand on Saturday between 12 and 1, and again between 3 and 4, and Andy and I will be at the Midtown Comics stand (2134) on Sunday for an hour, from noon. Looking forward to it.

I then rush home in time to wish my daughter Lily a happy eighteenth birthday, an event we're all celebrating with a big par-tay, during the course of which I quietly turn *mumble mumble* years old.

Thereafter, with barely any time to catch my breath, I'm out the door again and heading for Games Day Italy on Sunday the 17th. I really can't wait for this one - I've never been to an Italian Games Day before. Hope to see you there.

After that, on Saturday the 30th of October, I will be signing at Waterstones in Maidstone (the Earl Street branch). You will be able to find me there between 12 and 1, and then again between 3 and 4. Don't let me sit there on my own with just tumbleweed and crickets for company ;)

Oh, and just some advance notice that Nik and I will be attending Thought Bubble in Leeds in November.

Let us now whoop and cheer for the "at long last" publication of the Knights of Pendragon trade paperback collection (ignore the"when this item becomes available" bit on the Amazon link, IT'S COMING!). It'll be fabulous to see this - the first half of our KOP run from the very early nineties - back in print at last. I have very fond memories of this series, and I get asked about it a lot. Actually, here's a better link than the Amazon one, with extra info. If you haven't ever heard of KOP, try this handy primer.

Finally, let's gape in awe at the job Richard Dugher did assembling and painting my Titan. I recommend his work very highly indeed...;)

Games Day 2010

2010-09-27T13:22:00.035+01:00

And lo, we have returned from Games Day 2010, which we know to have been the greatest Games Day ever. Ever.

Very, very cool to see everyone (Big Steve must now be re-named Buff Steve - who knew?!), and special congratulations go out to Xhalax’s (yes, let’s call it Xhalax’s) costume posse for its outstanding Titan crew group impersonation. Also, thanks to Xhalax for the fudge, Bambi for the cookies, and who-ever it was for the Mechanicum cake (I wasn't there when that was delivered). Liam and Rachel? I’m sorry, I know who both of you are, but I was suffering from Games Day Daze when each of you came to see me. Thank you to everyone who attended and said hello, in fact. I hope no one went away disappointed. And, dude, was the Ultramarines trailer pant-wettingly exciting or what?

I’d like to say a very particular thank you to all the staff, crew and volunteers who did things like police the queues and man the tills and look after everyone. You know, the people who actually made it happen. Thank you from all of us who were just there larking about and having fun.

Now, a serious note for a moment. As is our wont, us author-types were locked in a very earnest little chat beforehand, and we decided that what we really wanted to do was to enter the arena on the day as a dramatic convoy, each one of us riding or driving an electric vehicle. It would be really, really dignified, and befit our status as, you know, 40K gods. Jim wanted a floor polisher or an airport baggage cart. I wanted to rise aloft aboard a cherry picker. Graham wanted a fork lift, and Aaron rather fancied an zamboni. We decided we’d all have special costumes and stage names, like wrestlers. Jim named me “Doctor Danhattan”, which supposes I want to be both blue and naked, and have CGI work applied to the ‘eye draw’ area. Eye draw. Yes, that’s what we’re going to call it.

Anyway, we’d all have theme music too. "Iron" Jim wanted Rock You Like A Hurricane by Scorpions. I wanted Don’t Fear The Reaper by BOC (which, while we’re on the subject, is my idea of a perfect Sinister Dexter theme). Graham wanted the title music from Roobard and Custard, which would, we felt, require him to lope into the hall. These aren’t big demands, let’s face it. They’re very do-able. We’re not prima donnas, after all. I really don’t understand why GW doesn’t let us organise Games Day one year. It would be full of win. And end after five minutes in a public safety debacle of truly Biblical proportions.

Anyway, let’s examine my photographic record.

PART ONE: THE JOURNEY THERE

Road trip! I call (automatic combat) shotgun!

Matt Farrer finally locates the hard-to-find venue.

Flash photography versus high-viz vests fail.

Inside the forbidding lair. Nik seems perfectly confident in her hand-sewn Titan crew outfit, but Aaron is beginning to get jumpy. "It's too quiet, Abnett! You said this would be fun! Damn you! It's too freaking quiet!"

The atmosphere builds. Deep in the bowels of the NEC, something stirs. Is that...the faint strains of the Roobard music I hear on the sepulchral wind?

They're he-ere!

Actual people doing actual proper work.

Katie excitedly shows off her augmetic nipple.

PART TWO: THE AUTHORS AT WORK AND PLAY

Nik begins to regret selecting the invisible clone for Games Day duties this year.

At the pre-signing, Aaron busies himself with copies of the Sabbat Worlds Anthology while nobody is watching, crossing out the words edited by in the phrase "edited by Dan Abnett" and replacing them with HI.

Matt chooses the wrong moment to critique Aaron's painstaking and carefully researched Sharpie puppet interpretation of the Horus/Emperor/Sanguinius showdown.

The view from where I was.

Aaron, mate, you do realise your mum can see the gesture you're making at me, don't you?

Then it was Graham's turn to be offered an augmetic nipple.

Jim WILL rock you like a hurricane.

The Next Big Thing.
(Alternative caption: Due to a slight warp mistranslation, Jim Swallow arrives twenty five years too early.)

PART THREE: LUNCH

Om to the nom.

PART FOUR: THE ULTRAMARINES TRAILER SCREENING

Everyone in this room is about to have "a moment".

PART FIVE: DRESSED TO KILL

Winner of the funniest T-shirt of the day competition.

After much shouting and threats of violence, the moderati finally agree which Titan they belong to.

Mrs A and the soon-to-be Mrs ADB wear this season's House Of Mechanicus couture.

Tona and Caff 4 ever.

The Emperor Protects, but it doesn't hurt to have a giant cog-axe as back up.

Clothes by Mars, eyes by Shoggy Domor.

And good night cadets, where ever you are. We salute you.

Next year, they tell me, the costume posse is going for an Inquisitor theme, which is so appealing I might have to join in. While I leave you pondering that shocking development, here are two podcasts - for The Overlords and Seanhammer - that I've done in the last week or so. Thanks again, UK Games Day-ers. See you in 2011 (which, for Jim, will be 1986).

Hired. Hired As.

2010-09-23T09:41:00.010+01:00

So, Heroes For Hire - just announced. Andy and I are very excited, and it's nice that Marvel is giving us a tilt at something a zillion light years away from our cosmic stuff. We think you'll really enjoy this series, and we're shooting for that tightly plotted, unexpected character combo feel we had in the very un-street team book Guardians of the Galaxy. Read us talk about the series here, and see the pre-buzz build here. Brad's art on this is eye-gasmic*.

Just so we're clear before the comments flood in, two things: first, I KNOW some of these characters can't be 'hired'. It's a little format reinvention, so go with it and see how much happy-happy-joy-joy it can be before you express outrage. Second, please PLEASE realise I have no say in - or control over - how, or when, or in what form the cosmic books might be published, or whether they're on hiatus or not. That's why Marvel is the "publisher" and I'm the "hired word monkey". I don't make the decisions, and when you wag your finger at me as though I do, please bear in mind I might be quite emotionally invested in the cosmic stuff too.

Aaaand relax. Anyway, one bright spark of cosmic loveliness to come that I can promise (apart from the cock-spankingly** amazing conclusion to The Thanos Imperative) is the Rocket and Groot mini series. Tim Green is doing amazing work on this, and we (by 'we', I mean DnA,) feel confident that you'll enjoy more explosive fun with this series than you would from twenty four hours locked in a XXXXXXX XXXXXXX XXXXX with XXXXXX XXXXXX and two XXXXXX XXXXXXXXX and a full XXXXXXX and absolutely zero inhibitions. ***

In other news, Games Day UK fast approaches. Look, look at it, whizzing towards us! How will we cope? How will we begin to navigate our way around the sheer awesome-ness-ness**** of it all? I'm glad you asked. Here's a map.

Now don't say I never give you anything.

Are you excited yet? Is your costume ready? is it? Iiiissssss it? Nik's is. Are you part of Xhalax's Titan crew? What do you mean, you don't know what I'm talking about?

The last few days, we've been having great fun hanging with Shira Calpurnia author Matt Farrer who, along with James and Donna, is visiting from Australia in time for Games Day. They are great company, and we've had a lot of laughs. An unnecessary amount of our amusement has derived from this vid. And the concept of the indifferent lamington. And awful puns based on the word "Hever".

Haven't got time to post all the pics, but here are a few:

Matt versus Anne Boleyn's attack swans. Bro, they were beached as, them swans.

We gave them Hever, Hever in the morning (see what I mean about puns?). Donna was also denied gravy at Hever, but we don't talk about that.

A maze, like wot we got lost in. There was a water maze too, wot we got wet in. Wet as. In the Tudor-bethan era, people must've thought: "I know what would be a fun activity. Extreme hedge navigation."

Meanwhile, in a moodier part of the county, Rochester Castle continued to look windswept and interesting, even though his name was Norman.

Speaking of Rocket and Groot, as we were earlier:

Idea for a new series house ad Marvel would never allow #9
A full page splash shot of Rocket Raccoon and Groot, full figure, armed to the teeth, posing with guns, looking us right in the eye. Leave space for series logo and credits.
Caption: “Got wood?”

* technical comic editor terminology.
** technical term of literary criticism, copyright Big Steve 2010.
*** Content redacted for extreme rudity.
**** A real word in real dictionaries. Look, I ought to know, I is a writist.

A (Magic) Leap Forward and other stories

2010-09-17T13:31:00.007+01:00

Hello!

In a packed blog today, I wanted to present a little round up of some recent goings on, and generally get excited in anticipation of Games Day UK, which happens in just over a week. Who will I see there? As many of you as possible, I hope!

Before I forget, I got all worked up a few minutes ago when the postman brought me my sample copy of this, which is a very very nice package indeed. Six hours of beautifully read Horus Rising audiobook? Yes please!

Let me also, while I remember, furnish you with a link to the second part of the Panel Borders broadcast about Marvel UK. Again, thanks to Alex Fitch for this, and to the London Science Fiction Film Festival for having us.

Next, a little anticipatory build up from Marvel.com.

Next up, a link I shared on my Facebook page to a thought provoking piece on SF Signal entitled 'Casting the Eisenhorn movie'.

Once you're done there, come and hear this podcast Mike Shevdon and I did for Angry Robot (thank you, Mur!).

Finally, a link to a new website from Magic Leap, a company I'm going to be talking about a lot in the next few months. You'll see why. Go take a look, and get yourself a little jazzed up.

Did I say finally? I was lying. This is just idleness, but I feel the world can always do with a link to a really good song on a Friday afternoon.

Have a great weekend.

Saturday Cartoons

2010-09-10T18:08:00.005+01:00

First, a mighty thank you to Forbidden Planet for hosting the feth-tastic Black Library Invasion last Thursday evening, where we launched The Sabbat Worlds Anthology. I say 'we', I mean me and fellow contributors Graham McNeill, Nik Vincent, Sandy Mitchell and Nick Kyme, along with High Lord Of Terra Jim Swallow. It was a roaring success, and here's some photo-magraphic evidence for those of you who were unable to make it. If you were able to make it, thanks for coming and it was absolutely jim dandy to see you.

If you'd like to read one of the first reviews of The Sabbat Worlds Anthology (spoiler warning!), go here.

Speaking of spoiler warnings, here's a nice reception for the latest issue of The Thanos Imperative. And here's another.

Finally in the catch up, here's a link to a podcast of the Marvel UK radio broadcast mentioned in the last post. Thanks, Alex!

Anyway, it's Saturday. More from the note book:

Idea for a one panel cartoon #419
In a wood-panelled study at the turn of the nineteenth century, a group of distinguished, bearded psychoanalysts look up at a sudden interruption. One of them raises his hand to make a calm gesture akin to a benediction, and addresses the IMPERIAL STORMTROOPERS who have burst into the room
Caption: “These aren't the Freuds you're looking for.”

Idea for a one panel cartoon #12
A VW Polo is parked outside the main doors of a magnificent French cathedral.
Caption: The hatchback of Notre Dame.

Idea for a one panel cartoon #33
A gloomy and conspiratorial board room in some anonymous office complex. Seated around the table, in deep and furtive discussion, are several sinister, silhouetted figures, although they have a curiously cuddly, ursine air about them.
Caption: The Build-A-Bear Group

Comics On The Radio

2010-09-09T11:41:00.001+01:00

Panel Borders: Making Marvels in the UK part 1

Resonance 104.4FM says: "Continuing our month long look at British creators who have written and drawn superhero comics for both the American and domestic markets, in a panel recorded in front of a live audience at the London Science-Fiction Film Festival, Alex Fitch talks to a quartet of Marvel UK luminaries who were responsible for some of the best action / adventure titles in the 1980s and 90s.
Dan Abnett and Gary Erskine co-created the Knights of Pendragon, a series which gave UK superhero Captain Britain a new, darker spin in the 1990s by adding him to an Arthurian team of heroes. Simon Furman was (and still is) the primary writer of Transformers, as well as the scribe behind a dozen installments of the Doctor Who comic strip, plus many of Marvel UK’s most memorable SF titles including Dragon Claws and Death’s Head. John Freeman helped create many of Marvel UK’s early 90s titles such as Death’s Head II, Warheads, Killpower and Motormouth.
Alex and the four creators discuss the rise in popularity of Marvel UK as a producer of original material in the 1980s and some of the memorable comics they founded along the way."

5pm, Resonance 104.4FM (London), Thursday 9th September 2010

Postal difficulties

2010-09-08T09:21:00.005+01:00

First things first...Invasion! at Forbidden Planet. It's tomorrow, okay? Thursday. I know I've banged on about it here and on the Book of Face, so pardon me if you know the details by heart, but I'd hate anyone who really wanted to go to miss it.

Second thing: post. Due to a variety of factors, including the phase of the Moon, the mean annual rainfall in Guatemala, and the elasticity of Roger Federer's socks, the Clones have fallen behind on this website's post-bag chores. Many apologies. It isn't helped by the fact that the mail box is also...now I'm sure there's a word for it...oh, cock-awful, that's it. Totally counter intuitive and user unfriendly. So answering post is a gazillion* times more complex than it needs to be. Then the mail box froze on me and, well, post was lost. There, I've said it. So if you've mailed me in the last six weeks or so, and I haven't replied to anything that needed a reply, I'm sorry.

As a general round up, if you were emailing me with a nice comment, thank you so much and keep on corresponding. If you were asking for some favour or work-related thing and I haven't got back to you as you might have expected, please mail me again. If you were selling me viagra or the chance to accept funds from Nigeria, I'm good, thanks.

If you were asking me to check out your writing, please understand that I get that a LOT, and I can't read your submission. With the best will in the world, I don't have time, and if I did it for one person I'd have to do it for everyone. Really sorry, and good luck. As far as general writing tips go, I'll always try to help, though I'd probably draw the line at inventing names or storylines for you to get you started, or listing what source material to read to get 'into' things (clue: the answer starts with "all the 40K rulebooks and supplements..."). If you were or are after a very specific piece of writing advice, re-mail your question. As far as writing tips in general go, I have wibbled about that before, at length, and would point you in the direction of my most recent round of comments on the subject, the posts entitled "Dear Ryan" (parts 1 to 3) back in February. Go read them, then see if your question still stands.

On that same topic, may I take the opportunity to point you all at this blog post by the splendid Chuck Wendig, which makes some extraordinarily useful and cogent remarks about the FREELANCE CIRCUMSTANCES surrounding the twenty-four hour party that is writing for a living. If you want to write, in any serious way, it's as important to know about this stuff as it is to know about words and the order correct go they in.

So, are we all good? Magnus and Viktor, I've replied to you. Niels, the reward is on its way. Steve, a podcast response is coming to you. Anyone else?

Okay - back to the twenty-four hour party, everyone, and see you all in Forbidden Planet tomorrow night.

*technical term of mail complexity measurement.

Vote for me! Today! Before it's too late!

2010-09-06T11:54:00.001+01:00

This piece about the Not The Booker prize just came my way. Please vote, if you feel like it. For me, I mean. But it has to be done today.

Saturday Cartoons

2010-09-04T17:38:00.003+01:00

More from the note book:

Idea for a one panel cartoon #211
An apparently lifeless HAND or FOOT protrudes from under the curtain of what appears to be a PASSPORT PHOTO BOOTH in a corner of a busy supermarket.
Caption: “Thank you for using Dignitas self check-out.”

Idea for a one panel cartoon #400
In an ice-cave hangar on the planet Hoth, a disgruntled HAN SOLO (dressed in snow gear) looks daggers at the only bipedal steed available, which is an especially mangy animal being offered to him by Joey Tempest of the Swedish melodic heavy metal band Europe.
Caption: “It’s the final tauntaun.”

Idea for a one panel cartoon #67
French General de division PIERRE BOSQUET seems singularly unimpressed with the contestants in the Stefani Angelina Germanotta look-alike competition he is judging.
Caption: “C’est magnifique, mais ce n’est pas La Gaga.”

Invasion of the Sabbat Worlds!

2010-09-02T10:13:00.003+01:00

Just an over-excited reminder that THIS is happening next week, and that missing it will suck for you. Bear in mind the link needs to have the words "...and Aaron Dembski-Bowden" added to it.

Wanted to celebrate the US and canadian publication of Triumff on the first. That's simultaneous ebook publication too.

And here's proof that the books are actually on sale.

Let's also pause to get hot under the collar about Hammer and Bolter, and the splendour that is Thor AND Iron Man being in the same place at the same time as me and Andy.

Then here's this very nice write-up of my talk to the BSFA last week. Thanks, Kai!

Finally, for your early warning radars - I'm going to be at Games Day UK (of COURSE I'm going to be at Games Day UK!) on 26th September, The New York Comic Con on 8 - 10th of October, and Games Day Italy on the 17th of October. Oh, and Thought Bubble in November.

And FINALLY finally, if the following trailer doesn't fill you with a huge squeee! of excitement, then you should surrender your boltgun at once and report to the Inquisition for immediate chastisement.

Found objects

2010-08-30T06:51:00.003+01:00

Just wanted to say "hi all" and have a happy Bank Holiday (apologies if it ISN'T a bank holiday where you are, I have no control over these things).

I can't claim responsibility for collecting these - I just ran across them, but they're very entertaining all the same. I don't know why, but I found the X-Files ones particularly amusing.

In which I become a Baltimoron. Wait, that's not right...

2010-08-24T16:48:00.024+01:00

Ahh, Baltimore...

...city of Homicide:Life On The Streets locations...

...and great diners (Scrapple, anyone?)

Okay, let's go to work.

This is what it looked like before the people arrived.

Waiting tables.

A refined palette.

Books!

It's a sign!

Brandon!

Ooooh! Necromundelicious!

Good morning, I am a giant Ork space hulk.

Inflato-Ventris.

Some tables, earlier.

Whole new levels of loveliness...

I wonder who this is?

Ork tank!

Giant Ork Face says, "We hope you had a great Games Day US 2010."

Nathan Long says, "Leave me alone, I am sleeping."

-

BSFA!

2010-08-18T17:17:00.003+01:00

Off to sunny Baltimore tomorrow, and looking forward to meeting and greeting all those attending Games Day US. If you need more details, roll down a couple of posts.

Meanwhile, a little late (my bad) but never mind, here's notice of the BSFA meeting in London next week, where I'll be the guest interviewee. Very nice of them to ask me and make me the focus of attention. If you're in the neighbourhood, it should be a most enjoyable evening.

Attack Of The Fifty Foot Pilgrim II: Revenge Of The Feline

2010-08-14T13:10:00.004+01:00

I received a letter addressed to "Pilgrim Abnett" c/o "the Dan Human", forwarded by Matthew Churchill, long time Friend Of This Blog and certifiable loon. The text read as follows:

"Dear Pilgrim

I am sorry to hear of your recent massive weight gain. My human has put me on a diet and it stinks. You must be very hungry being 50ft tall, so I've spared you some of my food. Apparently, they are called 'Kibbles'.

Enjoy

Mayhem Churchill"

Sometime later, an elite squad of RSPCA ninjas was HALO-dropped into the four mile Exclusion Zone, and they were able to send back the following picture before their transmissions went dark.

-

Bring me the (editorial) head of the New Yorker

2010-08-13T06:34:00.003+01:00

Here's a link to part of iFanboy's coverage of the San Diego Comic-con, during which a couple of the usual suspects turn up and gurn at the camera.

And from the notebook:

Idea for a one panel cartoon #256
A close up of a digital clock-radio-alarm on a bedside table. The digital clock reads 06:59. A large SQUID TENTACLE is reaching in from out of shot to thump the "snooze" button.
Caption: The Kraken wakes.

Idea for a one panel cartoon #309
A collectors fair or car boot sale. A banner reads "Records and CDs". A glum stall holder looks on as DARTH VADER thumbs through old albums in a box marked "Artists A to Z".
Caption: "I find your lack of Faith No More disturbing."

Baltimore and other stuff

2010-08-11T06:55:00.002+01:00

I've mentioned it before, but just in case you missed it - I'll be at Games Day US in Baltimore next week, and I'm really looking forward to seeing the US readership there (I am a regular visitor to the Baltimore show, but I wasn't there last year - it was Toronto's turn - and, of course, this year has been something of a bumpy ride). This link to the Ultramarines website hints at some of the fun you can expect. Anyway, see you there. Nathan Long, C.L. Werner, Mike Lee, Gav Thorpe and John Blanche - it's going to be quite a gathering. And if you come, you might be able to meet Nik too. She normally shies away from such events, but someone needs to come and keep an eye on me. Dig out your precious editions of Hammers of Ulric or Gilead's Blood, both of which she has a co-credit on, or if you're lucky enough to have an early copy of the new Sabbat Worlds Anthology, bring that, because she has a feth-tastic story in it too.

I recently did the following interview for the Vigilance Podcast. I'd like to thank Mike for taking the time to chat to me via Skype, despite ringing phones and other interruptions (at my end of the line!).

Finally, some (literally) bonkers case notes, courtesy of Ben Morse at Marvel. Thanks, Ben.

Stuff for Ideation

2010-08-10T07:43:00.003+01:00

First point, I hate the word ideation. Just saying.

I can't remember if I've posted this before, but what the heck. Thanks to "Diablo Cody..." for sharing this. Windows onto the writing process are always intriguing.

The Mamet connection reminded me of this post, which is of itself fething brilliant.

And while I'm in a sharing mood, if you're not regularly looking at Jeff Vandermeer's blog Ecstatic Days, or Graham Linehan's Why, That's Delightful, or dipping into the works of Peter Temple, Ted Chiang, Kelly Link or Ben Katchor, then there are ways your life can probably be enhanced.

Attack of the Fifty Foot Pilgrim

2010-08-08T13:48:00.008+01:00

By our South of England Correspondent.

A domestic cat answering to the name of 'Pilgrim" or "Pidgy-noyns" went on the rampage in Maidstone earlier today. A prominent vet said the animal had evidently been "bitten by a radioactive spider" or "exposed to freaky gamma radiation" or had even possibly "passed through some kind of strange fog during a boating excursion" as very little else could credibly explain the size increase.

Police were eventually able to pacify the cat using horse tranquilisers cunningly concealed inside a specially fabricated tin of Whiskas the size of a gas holder. Nine out of ten house owners said they preferred him that way.

-

Help Wanted

2010-08-05T06:18:00.005+01:00

Let's begin today's post with a splendid, makes-the-job-worthwhile letter from the mailbag:

Dear Messers Abnett and Lanning,

You've gone and done it again!
I was reading the Thanos Imperative #1 and was completely thrilled
at the comment that ‘evil' Captain Marvel makes to the
‘evil' Quasar about how this universe is still young enough to
have death, as this immediately made the following come to mind "And
with strange aeons even death may die." This was absolutely
brilliant! As it completely evokes the concepts behind H.P.
Lovecraft's Chtulhu mythos without being a terrible pastiche.
All I would really need for this to completely go over the top would
be the return of Cthon (the Marvel watered down version of Cthulhu
from the 70's horror) and an epic battle involving Dr. Strange. Now I
know these are highly unlikely to occur, but you have hit just about
every possible ‘beat' of my psyche with all your series so far
so a fellow can hope.
Further, now that SDCC has passed us by, I was gleeful at the
prospect of a Rocket Raccon and Groot mini! This just sounds as if it
is going to be a hilarious romp with Rocket using ever increasing fire
power and Groot constantly banting about yelling "I AM GROOT!".
Speaking of Rocket Raccon, I loved his threat to rampaging Thanos.
Not that he'd kill him, but rather he'd incapacitate him long enough
to put him in serious suspended animation so he would
live…….forever! What an excellent threat against someone
who's in love with Death.
And because I've truly adored everything you've written (that I've
read), I'm going to go ahead and give your Thor/Ironman mini a go and
see if you can pull the same magic with the Marvel first stringers.
Keep up the great work gentlemen, and here's hoping you've got years
more cosmic, or non-cosmic, comic tales to tell.
With much happiness,

Trevor Chapman

Bramtpon, ON

CANADA

Thanks, Trevor.

Now pay attention, everyone. I need your help. Well, a friend of mine does, anyway. Please take a look at the illustration below (brought to you - eventually - by the wonders of computer technology and Rachel, no thanks to my useless so-called "scanner") and see if you can assist me in identifying the artist. We've pretty much ruled out Beardsley (we have, haven't we?), but Rackham is still a person of interest. Anyone? Any ideas at all? There may be some sort of non-specific, non legally-binding prize if someone can ace it.

Help me, Obi Wan. You're my only hope.

--

Ravenor and Co

2010-08-04T09:33:00.002+01:00

Some splendid character sketches from this blog's good friend Nic Giacondino. May I also take this opportunity to point you in the direction of his fabulous online strip here. Gosh, it's just great!

Before I forget, hair colour suggestions for Carl or Wystan, anybody?

If it's on my fridge, it must be true

2010-08-03T10:19:00.004+01:00

Will you be there? (At the event, I mean. Not on my fridge. D'uh).

Home from Nerdistan...

2010-07-27T17:40:00.021+01:00

...as we affectionately called the San Diego Comic-Con. Let's take a look around. First, a quick peek at an interview with SFX magazine.

Then, above, here's me.

Here's my schedule.

Here's me signing someone's unfeasibly large weapon.

Here are some people (there were quite a few).

Is this the Dan Abnett queue? Why, yes!

To the Batcave (and soft furnishings, housewares and scented candles).

Commissar Smaalders and friends.

Another of the fair Commissar's assault squad.

Me signing another unfeasibly large weapon (you see how I bravely resisted the double entendre there? Aren't you proud of me?).

Look! In the middle there! It's Sire Kenneth of Branagh!

Who's behind the Odin Throne door?

Is it Sarah Palin?

Is it The Shat? (He's my hero of heroes).

No, it's the Destroyer (camera shake caused by too much excitement)!!!

Oh, it was all just a blur!

San Diego ComiCon: A Danwatcher's Guide

2010-07-19T12:02:00.002+01:00

ComiCon fast approaches. If you're going to be there, and you'd like to stop by and say hello to me (or to me AND Andy Lanning), here's a list of the whys and wherefores of when I'm supposed to be around:

THURSDAY

3.15 - 4.15 Mr Lanning and I will be part of the Mighty Marvel Mondo panel in room 6DE

5.00 - 6.00 I'll be on SFX magazine's “British Invasion” panel in room 5AB

FRIDAY

10.00 - 11.00 I'll be doing an Ultramarines signing at Autograph Area (AA) 20 in the Sails Pavilion

5.00 - 6.00 Andy Lanning and I will be signing at the Marvel Comics stand (# 2329)

SATURDAY

10.00 - 11.00 I'll be signing at the SFX Magazine stand (# 5567)

11.00 - 12.00 Team DnA return to the Marvel stand (# 2329) for another signing

At other times, I'll be strolling around the show going "wow" and "cor"' and "well, I never". Alternatively, Andy's sharing a table in Artists' Alley with the fabulous Todd Nauck, so that might well be a place to come and find us, or at least find out when we're likely to be there. Todd's stand is BB13. Go visit him anyway and drool over his fantastic art. Please bear in mind he'll be very happy to see you, but he's NOT there to be our social secretary for the convention. ;)

So... hands up who'll be in San Diego?

Black Library Invasion!

2010-07-15T12:41:00.000+01:00

Invading your world on September 9th, 2010.

A Trumpet of One's Own

2010-07-14T14:59:00.002+01:00

Please feel free to keep reading and expressing your verdicts on the exclusive Prospero Burns extract published in the post below. Today's quick post-ette isn't intended to get in the way of that. I just wanted to share a couple of coolnesses that had come my way today: first, a five star review from SF Signal, and then an opportunity to hear me and Andy shill our dubious wares on the Funnybooks podcast (thanks to Aron and Paulie!).

Prospero Burns: Exclusive extract

2010-07-12T09:02:00.003+01:00

Well, I promised it and here it is: a little taster from the opening of my next Horus Heresy novel to whet your appetites. Hope you enjoy it. Who knows - maybe I'll run another extract in the near future to really get you addicted.

Okay...*clears throat*...

Death had them surrounded.
It had come to cut threads, and today, it wore four faces.
A burning death for those too hurt or too afraid to flee the settlement as the firestorm swept through it. A freezing death for those who ran away up the scarp to escape the murder-make: even in spring, the wind came in off the ice flats with a death-edge that sucked an exposed man’s life-heat out through his lungs, and rotted his hands and feet into black twigs, and left him as a stiff, stone-hard bundle covered in rime.
For others, a drowning death, if they attempted to flee across the blue-ice around the spit. Spring’s touch was already working the sea ice loose against the shore, like a tooth in a gum. The ice would no longer take a man’s weight, not reliably. If the ice broke under you, down you went: fast and straight if you plunged through, slow and screaming if an ice plate tipped and slid you in. Either way, the water was oil black, and so cold it would freeze the thoughts in your brain before your lungs were even empty.
For the rest, for those who had remained to fight, a bloody death, the death of the murder-make. This was the death that knocked you down hard onto the ice with an axe or a maul, so you felt nothing except the cold burn of the ice, and the hot burn of your own blood, and the pain-scream of your crippling wound. This was the death that stood over you and knocked you again, and again, and as many times as necessary until you would not rise again, or until you were so disfigured that death could no longer bear to look at you, and moved off in disgust to find another soul to knock.

Any of those four faces would cut your thread as soon as look at you. And those were the faces the Balt were wearing.

The Balt. The Balt had brought the murder-make down on the Ascommani aett. Twenty boat. It was early in the season for a raid. A man had to be desperate to go out making red snow when he could wait for the first grasses and milder weather.
Twenty boat, and all of them still rigged for ice-running under their sea-sails.
If there had been time, the Ascomanni might have wondered why their doom had come so early. Ironland, where the Balt had settled, had persisted twenty Great Years, but many now said its roots were soft. Many now said it would only be one more summer, two at the most, before the ocean sucked it down again into the World-forge.
Ascomanni land ran from the spithead to the ice shelf, and was poor for farming and lacked natural defences, but it was yet just one Great Year old, and the dowsers had proclaimed it strong land, with many years left in it.

So land-thirst. Perhaps it was that.

Fith knew better. Nothing got the murder-urge pumping like fear, and nothing stoked up fear like a bad omen. A broom star. A day star. Colour in the ice. Bloom in the sea. Smoke out on the ice shelf where no settlement was. Some dead thing washed up that should not be. Something born to livestock or to a woman that should not be. Something with birth defects.
Sometimes a bad dream would be enough to do it, a bad dream that told you the tribe down the coast or around the headland was maleficarum. You let land-thirst be your excuse as you reached for your shirt and your blade, but you made sure the gothi marked your face in soot-glue with good cast-out marks like the sun-disk and the warding eye before you opened out your sails.

And there had been a bad omen, all right. Fith had seen it.

Fith had seen the make coming too. He’d seen the sails approaching along the in-shore early enough to blow the scream-horn, but too late for it to do any good. He had merely enabled his kinfolk to die awake.
The Balt main force had come up around the spit in their wyrmboats in the sightless pre-dawn grey, sailing black sails straight out of the water and onto the shore-ice on their rigs, translating from water-craft to ice-craft with barely a jolt. Their skirmishers had put ashore on the far side of the headland, and come romping in over the high back of the snow dunes to fall on the Ascommani settlement from the hind side.
After that, it had been fire and knocking. The Balt were mongrel-big, men with long faces and beards waxed into sun rays under their spectacle-face helms. They were horribly able with axe and maul, and the occasional high status sword that some carried.
But they brought with them none of the screaming vigour of a normal Balt raid or murder-make. They were silent, shit-scared of what they had come to kill, shit-scared of its sky magic. They were silent and grim, and set to murder everything to wipe the magic away. Men, women, the young, livestock, nothing was spared a knock. There was not a shred of mercy. There was not a moment’s thought to claim prisoners or take slaves. Ascommani girls were famously fine-looking, and there were plenty of healthy girl-children too, who would make valuable breeding slaves in time, but the Balt had put away all appetites, except for a fierce desire to be cleansed of fear.

The sound of an axe knocking-in is a wet smack of slicing meat and shattering bone, like sap-wood being cut. A maul makes a fat, bruising sound like a mattock driving pegs into marsh loam or wet ice. Worse than both are the after-sounds. The screaming of the agonised, the ruined and the dying. The begging shrieks of the hurt and maimed. The hacking impacts of death knocking until the fallen stop being alive, or stop trying to rise, or stop screaming, or stop being in once piece.

Fith had just enough time to get his shirt on and loft his axe. Several other hersirs fell to arms with him, and they met the first skirmishers coming in through the walls and window-slits of the settlement, head on. The panic was up already. It was blind blundering in the dark, a reek of urine, the first nose-full of smoke.
Fith’s axe was balanced for a single hand. It was a piece of proper craft, with a high carbon head that weighed as much as a decent newborn boy. From the toe of the blade to the heel of the beard, it had a smile on it wider than a man’s hand-span, and it had kissed a whetstone just the night before.
The axe is a simple machine, a lever that multiplies the force from your arm into the force delivered by the blade. The rudiments apply whether you’re splitting wood or men.
Fith’s axe was a bone-cutter, a shield-breaker, a helm-cleaver, a death-edge, a cutter of threads. He was a hersir of the Ascommani aett, and he knew how to stand his ground.

It was a throttle-fight in the settlement itself. Fith knocked two Balts back out of the tent wall, but the tight confines were choking his swing. He knew he needed to get out. He yelled to the hersirs with him, and they pulled back.
They got out of the tents into the settlement yard, wrapped in swirling black smoke, and went eye to eye with the Balts in their spectacle-helms. It was mayhem. A free-for-all. Blades swung like windmills in a storm.
Fenk went down as a Balt axe split his left calf lengthwise. He bawled in rage as his leg gave out, useless. Seconds later, a maul knocked his head sidelong, and snapped his neck and his thread, and he flopped down on the earth, his shattered skull-bag leaking blood.
Fith drove off a Balt with a mattock, scared him back with the whistling circles of his swinging axe.
Ghejj tried to cover Fith’s flank, using the basics of shield-wall tactics. But Ghejj had not had time to collect a decent shield from the stack, just a tattered practice square from the training field. A Balt spear punctured him right through, and tore him open so thoroughly, his guts spilled out onto the snow like ropes of sausage. Ghejj tried to catch them, as though he could gather them up and put them back inside himself and everything would be all right again. They steamed in the spring air. He squealed in dismayed pain. He couldn’t help himself. He knew he was ruined unto death.
He looked at Fith as he squealed again. It wasn’t the pain. He was so angry that he was irreparably dead.

Fith put mercy into his stroke.

Fith turned away from his last picture of Ghejj, and saw that there were fingers scattered on the snow, on the yard snow churned up by scrambling and sliding feet, along with blood by the bowl-full. They were the fingers of women and children, from hands held up to protect themselves. Defensive wounds.

There on the snow, a complete hand, the tiny hand of a child, perfect and whole. Fith recognised the mark on the ring. He knew the child the hand had once belonged to. He knew the father the child had once belonged to. Fith felt the red smoke blow up in his head.

A Balt came at him, silent and intent, and Fith flexed the lever of his axe, and hooked it in, and made a ravine of the Balt’s face.
Four hersirs left. Fith, Guthox, Lern and Brom. No sign of the aett-chief. The chief was probably dead and face down in the red snow with his huscarls.
Fith could smell blood. It was overpoweringly strong, a hot copper reek spicing the freezing dawn air. He could smell shit too. He could smell Ghejj’s insides. He could smell the inner parts of him, the ruptured stomach, the yellow fat of Ghejj’s belly meat, the heat of his life.
Fith knew it was time to go.
The Upplander was in the furthest shelter. Even the Ascommani knew to keep him away from people.

The Upplander was propped up against cushions.
“Listen to me,” Fith hissed. “Do you understand me?”
“I understand you. My translator is working,” the Upplander replied, looking pale.
“The Balt are here. Twenty boat. They will knock you dead. Tell me, do you want the mercy of my axe now?”
“No, I want to live.” 
“Then can you walk?”
“Perhaps,” the Upplander replied. “Just don’t leave me here. I am afraid of wolves.”

The Hundreds and Thousands Sons, or Prospero: the clean-up

2010-07-09T08:46:00.008+01:00

As I said, I have at last finished the unfeasibly ferocious epic that is Prospero Burns, the latest Horus Heresy novel. The book itself didn't give me any problems, per se, but regular readers will know that it has been badly delayed because, during the course of writing, I was set back by the sudden occurence of late-onset epilepsy. Such larks!

I had to work my way through the initial episodes and the subsequent diagnosis. In re-arranging my life around the condition (and the medication that came with it), I sort of had to learn how to write a novel again - and remember what the sacred feth I'd been trying to do with the one that was already underway.

Anyway, you know all this. I'm done now. PB is finished. I've got back on the horse, and I think I've delivered a bit of monster. I mean, of course, monster in the good sense of the word.

I thought you might be amused by these scene-of-crime pictures. This is how the monkey forge looked in the immediate aftermath of the ritual typing of the final full stop. I took a few snaps for posterity before clearing the decks.

This is the Primary Clone POV shot. Post-It plot-point mosaic City.

Here we have the right hand side of the desk spread (a view that was too big for one shot). Of particular note, the big "Master Book of Prospero Burns Ideas".

To the left of the Big Desk, the box-loads and stacks of ref.

And to desk-right, more notes, notebooks and ref (some physical items, as you can see).

On Monday, I'll be posting a short taster of the novel, the promised extract to whet your appetites and your axes. Monday at noon, UK time. Don't be late.

ComicCon (2)

2010-07-09T06:36:00.002+01:00

Little bit more detail from SFX on the panel I'll be participating in. Check the Ultramarines link in the post below for details of the Friday morning signing session, and I'll be back soon to post details of other stuff, probably Marvel related signing and panel work.

And yes, hooray, I did at last complete Prospero Burns yesterday (thank you for the congrats, Mr C). It's epic. Thanks for bearing with me through an unusually complicated writing period. I think you'll find it's been worth it.

Extract soon... I'm thinking live on Monday morning? How's that sound?

ComiCon!

2010-07-06T18:02:00.002+01:00

I'll blog about this in more detail shortly, but for now, here's the info direct from the Ultramarines site.

So, who's gonna be there?