Pardon My Dust

If you visit here with any regularity, you'll have noticed a lack of actual, you know, website or anything. Sorry about that.

The website is getting a facelift and overhaul (it hasn't had a make-over since it was first set up, during the Punic Wars, so it's really overdue, though I have always been terribly fond of the site Matt Snyman built for me, and I guess I've held onto it way past its relevancy horizon out of pure nostalgia).

Anyway, the new site is in development. Check in here for news, and I'll let you know when it's live.

In the meantime, the lack of website also means a lack of mailbox, so if you want to contact me for any purpose, send your lovely emails to vincent_abnett@aol.co.uk

And lo, they will be read and answered.

The Ten Thousand Immortals

Monday the 20th October is publication day for The Ten Thousand Immortals, the new Tomb Raider novel from me and Nik.

Let's all go ooooh and ahhhh at the gorgeous cover, shall we?

This brand new, white-knuckle adventure for Ms Croft is set after the fab new, "young Lara" reboot game successfully launched last year, and fits between it and the Rise Of The Tomb Raider sequel game due in 2015.

Nik and I had a great time devising and writing this adventure, and serious kudos is owed to Nik for her painstaking research and real-world detail. Put it this way, if you ever try parkouring in Paris, all those ladders, gutters and ledges actually exist...

Nik and I have co-authored several novels now - I would also point you in the direction of Fiefdom, the Kingdom novel we brought out earlier this year, based on my post-apocalyptic 20000AD strip. Our collaborations are proving to be immense fun, and I hope our enthusiasm and creative energy comes through. Breakfast table brainstorming is now a thing.

We're really proud of this - a globe-trotting contemporary thriller with a sinister mystical edge. Go out and raid yourself a copy.

To make said raiding easier, check out this handy link: http://www.bradygames.com/promotions/promotion.aspx?promo=139971

Get Whet

2000AD, aka "2K" and "The Galaxy's Greatest Comic", publishes its one thousand nine hundredth issue this Wednesday. A drokkin' milestone. Check out the thrillgasmic Dredd cover by the unfeasibly talented Greg Staples.

The home of Thrillpower is a venerable British institution, published weekly since 1977. It's an anthology title too, which sometimes makes it a little hard for new readers to jump on board, because in the average issue there'll be some stories starting, some ending and some mid-way through.  

Fear not, my lovely new readers. Indeed, rejoice – Prog 1900 is one of 2000AD's periodical, purpose-built, handy-dandy jump-aboard points, where all the stories are fresh starts. You get the kick-off of a new Judge Dredd epic by the mighty John Wagner and Carlos Esquerra (drool), and double helpings of a new Stickleback series by Ian Edginton and D'Isreali (yum), and the new Kingdom story by yours truly and Richard Elson.

Yes, I have a horse in this race. Shall we see the horse? (Yes, please, Dan)

Oh, nice. Shall we see some more of the horse? (Go on, then)

That Elson chap does a lovely job, doesn't he?

Anyway, I'm not plugging it simply because I have a story in it. Well, all right, but only slightly. I'm mainly drawing your attention to it because it's a splendid place to start or renew your relationship with this venerable British Comic Institution. If you've never read 2000AD before, or were put off trying because you didn't know where to start, then go get yourself a copy. You can subscribe to it and all sorts, but, incredibly, you can just go down to your local newsagent and buy it. Off the stands. Like in the olden days. 

And if you used to read 2K but have lapsed for whatever reason, here's a great excuse to un-lapse yourself. Re-lapse, if you will.

Ian Edginton, Tharg (2000AD's zarjaz alien editor who is actually real and not a made-up thing AT ALL) and myself will be doing a comic creator AMA ("Ask Me Anything") about this prog on Reddit this Wednesday. Not sure when exactly, so I'll post the details and links in the comment thread to this post when I learn them. Check back, or check me on Twitter.

Kingdom, by the way, is a fave strip of mine. I love working with Richard on it – he's been the artist since it first began. It's post-apocalypse dog-soldiers ("Aux") fighting giant insects. The main character, our hero, is an Aux called Gene the Hackman. Okay, it's more than that, but those are the key things you need to know to get going. Kingdom has proved so popular, in fact, Rebellion commissioned me and Nik to write a novel this year, expanding the Kingdom universe. The novel is called "Fiefdom", and you can happily read it and understand it without having to know anything about the strip. Of course, if you do know the strip, the novel develops the world for you more fully. Fiefdom looks like this:

And you can get it here. Or here. Or go and buy it from your local Waterstones. Or, if they haven't got it on the shelves, order it, and  while you're doing that, remind them it was pretty bloody daft of them not to be stocking it in the first place.

This has been a Monday Morning "Making Your Life Unreasonably Better" Public Service Announcement.

Anyway...

Hello.

Taking the time to look back over my blog-posting history for the last year or so (since Tuesday, 18th of June, 2013, actually) I am struck by one particular detail. 

I’m not really very good at blogging.*

There, I said it. I’m not. No idea why, really. I mean, it’s not as if I can’t words put order right in the together. And it’s not as if I don’t have either the facility or willpower to write every day.

The truth is, the last year or so has obviously been an extended effort by me to construct an ongoing post-modern blog, a sort of un-blog or anti-blog, exploring the inner dynamics of the unsaid and unwritten. I mean, it’s all there for you to see. My post about writing blogs in invisible ink. My post about the unspoken blog. My four incisive posts about my efforts to blog telepathically.  My guest blog by Mr Griffen of Iping, West Sussex. My blog post from the Microverse (sorry about the sub-atomic rescaling failure with the text on that one).  My innovative experiments in blogging with smoke signals. The semaphore blog. My blog using the medium of mime. My blog post about all the reasons I like the work of One Direction.

You’re not buying it, are you?

The real truth is, some people are natural bloggers and some are not. I can think of many blogs I read regularly that I admire, and then think “how did they do that?” Not just “how did they find something amusing to say?” but “Where did they find the necessary energy with which to say it?”

Nik’s a very good blogger, for example. Check her out here. Not only does she find interesting topics to discuss, she blogs regularly. The double threat. She’s not afraid to engage with provocative subjects and talk about them openly. And, you know, have an opinion that might be unpopular.

Why can’t I do that, I wonder? Am I just a people-pleaser? Do I see my blog as simply a social network tool with which I can shop-window stuff, a process that eventually becomes vacuous and repetitive even for me? Am I afraid of being contentious? 

Can I just not be arsed?**

Part of the problem (no, ‘problem’ is too big a word), part of the issue is the society of the internet. This has been written about many many times, with greater depth and understanding by better, cleverer commentators with better, cleverer blogs and better, cleverer insight (and better, cleverer grammar) so this is an infantile generalisation that barely begins to even point at the surface let alone scratch it, BUT… The moment someone posts even the mildest opinion on-line, you know that by the intricate, arcane action-begets-reaction algorithms of the internet, someone somewhere MUST take giant fucking exception to it. And then respond in the most outraged way. ***

And then... then the temptation is to respond, to gently and politely explain that “no, that’s not quite what I meant...” and the next thing you know it’s ramped up to flaming and trolling and land wars in Asia before bedtime.

I’m not, for a moment, suggesting that I want to adopt the mahooosively hypocritical stance of saying that I’d like to use my blog to express my opinions on this or that, but I’d prefer it if you kept your ignorant disagreements with said opinion to your own fucking selves.  Everyone is entitled to his or her opinion, and the sharing of said opinions is one of the beautiful freedoms of the on-line world.

It’s just that... well, people. People are people (I speak on the basis of being one of them). Protocol and manners, just basic manners, on the internet, are pants-awful. The on-line mask seems to empower folks to just say, out loud, with real words, stuff they would never even dream of saying (or even thinking) in person. That’s one thing.

The other is that the general scope of digital comments (I’m including not only blogs and their comments threads, but also forums, emails, texts, Facebook etc) generally and obviously lack nuance, subtlety and inflection. People bash out comments fast and casually (just as they should, immediacy of response is just another of the internet’s virtues), often without reflection or redraft (or, you know, spellcheck). Because they can, and why shouldn’t they?  What seems like a joke or a light-hearted quip when you bang it out gets read as rude or invasive (or simply perceived as such) at the other end. We all do that. I do it. I read innocuously-meant comments on Facebook and think, “oh well, entirely fuck you” and then realise that it was not at all intended as a ‘fuck you’ eliciting comment. If I’d heard it in person I’d have got the tone.

Maybe my blog post history for the last year is, in fact, the model example of perfect on-line expression, a sublimation of blogging. I have a blog. I posted nothing on it. No nuance was therefore lacking, and thus no one could be offended.

Except, of course, for the comments I’ve got about what a tiresome cockwomble I am for not blogging for over a year (don’t look for them - I deleted them, with a stabby finger).

So, do we call for a new digital protocol where nuance is stated in advance of a comment, so feathers can’t be accidentally ruffled? Do we start a comment with “This is a joke, meant light-heartedly and affectionately. I am smiling at you. My comment is [comment follows]. My name is [name here]” ?

Of course we don’t.

Grow a thicker skin, Abnett? Yeah, okay. Mine’s pretty thick already. I don’t think it’s that.

I guess I’ve realized that if I’m going to maintain a blog, it’s got to be a blog where I talk about things that interest me. You know, have an opinion and everything. Not just repost press releases and cool covers (lord knows, I’ll do that too).  

That’s when I tense up. Here’s an example. I was reading a comic trade the other day. It was an acclaimed book by an acclaimed writer. I liked it, but I also had issues with it. Shock, there were things about it that I didn’t like. Can you even imagine?  Anyway, I thought I’d write about it. I didn’t want to offend the writer, or damn the book. I just wanted to talk about the things in it that I found problematic. But I didn’t because that would immediately become ‘comic writer slags off other comic writer’. Hello offences un-meant but very much taken. Hello being quoted out of context on news sites. Hello ‘that escalated quickly’.

But maybe I will. Maybe instead of not blogging at all because I find Internet manners and reactions wearisomely depressing, instead of waiting for the ‘it’s never going to happen’ moment when anonymous internet arseholery vanishes forever, I should just do what everyone else does and man up. Flames, trolls, misunderstanding? Oh what the fuck. Okay. Okay, if that’s an inevitable part of it. I can’t pick and choose.

I’m going to restart my blog. I’m going to give it one last go. I’m going to post the sort of things I did before, like work updates and appearance notices, and reports on events, but I’m also going to express my ideas and actual opinions (oh, the horror) once in a while, or I’ll lose interest again, the blog will become a bland, self-promoting dirge, and it will wither and die once more.

Am I going to post every day? Fuck that. Am I going to post regularly, and with some conviction? That’s the idea. Am I going to stop being a people-pleaser and just be a person? Y-huh.

Let’s see how long this lasts.

Tune in next time to hear Nurse Chapel say “Captain, how the hell did I end up in the muppets?”

* Copyright 2014, UK Department of Understatement.

** a distinct possibility.

*** It’s always extra helpful, I find, if this response is delivered a) with the least possible regard for spelling and grammar and b) anonymously.

This is just to say

Just a quick note today to do two things: mention that I'm looking forward to seeing you at Black Library Live: Dublin, and point you in the direction of Nik's blog, where I have written a little guest post.

There. All done.

Plus, a William Carlos Williams ref in the post title. I can do brevity and literary-referency at the same time, me.

SF Bokhandeln - Sweden!

Coming to a Sweden near you this weekend (and I'm very excited about it!).... me!

Now, I don't speak Swedish, so I can't be sure, but I THINK these links will tell you everything you need to know:

For Friday and Saturday.

Also for Friday and Saturday.

And for Sunday.


This should be an awful lot of fun, so if you're... you know... in Sweden... come and join in!

Free Comic Book Day (or, May The Fourth be with you)

Be it an old gag, or an internationally recognised Festival, May the 4th is also this year's Free Comic Book Day, and I'll be a Forbidden Planet in London from 1 PM supporting 2000AD's FCBD publication, alongside Al Ewing, Ben Wilsher and - oh my goodness! - Ron Smith! Details, well, here. We are, apparently, "Legends of 2000AD", and with all due respect to the lovely Al and Ben, I suspect one of us is rather more legendary than the other three. And by that I mean... RON SMITH!

In the meantime, no blog post is complete without pretty pictures, so try this, the cover of the book I'm finishing now:

When you've done salivating over Neil Roberts's fine work, get your blinking gear around this:

And if that wasn't enough, here's the cover to a book I wrote oh... quite a while back... which is now being reissued as the first of the "Classic" series:

My pleasure :)

Gilead’s Blog

Any minute now, those lovely people at Black Library will be launching Gilead’s Curse, which is not only one of my all too infrequent forays into the Warhammer side of things, but one of the rare and exciting opportunities I have to collaborate with Nik Vincent (ie, the wife).

Gilead’s Curse  will appear alongside a reissue of our previous collaboration, Gilead’s Blood, which was published by the Black Library back in ninety-ten-a-hundred-and-frozen-to-death (and don’t you just love Stefan Kopinski's gorgeous matching covers? Two sides of Gilead!).

Nik and I have collaborated on quite a few projects over the years, and will continue to work together in the future: stand by for an adjunct to the Sabbat World’s Crusade saga. 

Gilead’s Blood was the first time we properly collaborated on a book. Hammers of Ulric was our second effort. Curse was a wonderful opportunity to return to such a powerful character as Gilead, and it has demonstrated to us that we can have as much fun working together as we have living together

So, grab a longbow and a decent sword, and delve into the adventures of this longstanding character. It was very satisfying to revisit him after all these years, and we jumped at the chance to write him again, because so many people at GamesDays and conventions asked us for more Gilead. It's funny to discover what an enduring figure he has become for certain people.

Oh, for those of you who don’t know, the Gilead books are about an elf, who is cut off from his ancestry and is roaming a lone path through a human-controlled world in search of his destiny. I’m told that we do particularly good Skaven, but the Skaven were actually Nik.

Oh, and there’s a lot of sand at the end... A LOT of sand.

Don’t get Nik started on sand.

By the way, back in the day, Forge World produced a large scale figure of Gilead based on the original cover art. I had one, because they very kindly sent me one, but it's long since disappeared into the black hole of innumerable moving days, and Forge World no longer have the moulds. Anyone out there got one? I’d love to know. Answers to the usual e-mail.

Doctor Who... and DemonCon

I had a great time at the Doctor Who 50th birthday event at Forbidden Planet last Saturday. Not the last event of its kind I'll be involved with this year, I imagine. It was a bit of an honour, to be honest. To have been even a small part of Doctor Who's fifty year history is a big fething deal to me.

What was the event specifically about? Thanks for asking, you at the back there. The BBC is re-releasing eleven classic Who novels this year, one for each Doctor. The design is gorgeous, and the set looks lovely all together (a full figure shot of each respective Doctor side-by-side on the spines, for instance). My novel The Silent Stars Go By was picked to represent the 11th Doctor, aka Matt Smith. This is what I mean about it being a bit of an honour.

Here we are (above) lining up in the delicious bowels (...uhn, delicious bowels? Really?) of London FP. From left: me, Gary Russell, Ben Aaronovitch, Terrance Dicks, and the lovely Shona Abhyankar, from BBC Books.

Add one very long queue (that's after we'd sat in the back room signing the vast stack of pre-orders) and serve.

Gary's book is the splendid 10th Doctor novel Beautiful Chaos, and Ben's is the 7th Doctor book, Remembrance of the Daleks, an adaptation of his own TV script, one of the best Sylvester McCoy adventures. Daleks and stairs? Hello? Special Weapons Daleks?

I finally got to meet a hero of mine, Terrance Dicks. This is the "official" photo of that moment...  

...but this blurry iPhone image much more effectively captures the friendly fun of the chat we had. Terrance's novel is the 6th Doctor story Players. His contribution to Doctor Who in books and on screen is colossal.

Gary and I were kept busy...

... until the very end. I owe Gary an awful lot. Thanks to his enthusiasm for the comic stories I used to script for Doctor Who Magazine 'back in the day', I got the chance to write for Big Finish, and then the Torchwood novel Border Princes, and then Doctor Who books and audios for the BBC. He's a lovely bloke too. Thanks, Gary.

Anyway, it was a great day. Thanks for coming along.

Speaking of great days, there's another in the offing tomorrow, when sunny Maidstone hosts the fifth Demoncon. Details below. I will be there... and it'll be a fine way to spend a Sunday.

Who is 50

Of course he is. We all knew that. And to celebrate that momentous birthday... well, lots and lots and lots of delicious Doctor Who things are happening this year. Cakes, for starters. Cakes in the shape of Daleks, most likely.  Hot air balloon flypasts where the hot air balloons are ingeniously made to look like Sontaran capsule ships. Or, indeed, Sontaran bonces, both being conveniently spherical. What else? I dunno. A special broadway revival of the musical Miss Zygon.

I digress ("No, really? You? Digress?" they all call out sarcastically).  I'd like to draw your attention to one delicious Doctor Who thing in particular. BBC Books is reissuing eleven classic Doctor Who novels -– one for each Doctor – from across their fiction range. Each one has a new cover, a new introduction, and looks pretty damn gorgeous, and my Eleventh Doctor novel The Silent Stars Go By has been selected to represent the Matt Smith incarnation. Look! Look below! Look, how pretty!

There's a good chance I'll be doing several signings for this as part of the 50th Anniversary event, but one is already set, and that's at Forbidden Planet in London on Saturday March the 9th. Here's the skinny. So materialise, get a signed copy, plus signed copies of the books by Gary, Ben and Terrance, and a very good day will have been had by you. And no mistake.







Miss Zygon. *makes a Sheldon Cooper "I've just amused myself" yelp-laugh*

It means "really very good"

It's Black Library Live this coming Saturday in Nottingham, home of the eternally burning galaxy. I hope we'll see you there.

But besides, that... Other business.  I do like to collect a good phrase, me. A nice, fresh, unexpected use of language. A few weeks ago, the writer Sarah Pinborough declared on her Facebook thread that "If I write more than four thousand words a day, my brain turns to wang." Turns to wang. I ask you. That's just brilliant. You don't see Shakespeare doing that.

Sarah's a great source of such elegant combinations of words. She said something about the Pope's resignation too. She described it as him "fucking off from his Popehood." Because that's what it should be called, officially. In the Vatican. On scrolls.

She's a fine writer, so it's no wonder she turns a memorable phrase. Another memorable phrase that dropped into my lap recently came in an email to this very website, which described one of my books as "pretty boss sausage". It means "really very good". I am now using it. I am also now using the "turns to wang" thing too.

Nik found something that was pretty boss sausage the other day (behold how I am using it in a sentence AND making a passable segue out of it? Yeah? Yeah? Get me and me fancy writing footwork). Anyway, it was this, a write up of Ravenor that properly made my day. Enjoy.

Me, in the middle of No Man's Land

... No Man's Land being the independent gaming store in my home town of Maidstone, which is a very friendly and convivial place to hang out, play some games, and generally be. Here's a link to their website.

Anyway, next saturday, the 23rd of february, they are going to be opening in a new premises not far from their old site, and I'm going to be generally hanging around in a menacing way during the afternoon to help celebrate their new opening.

The new shop address is Unit 32, the Royal Star Arcade, High Street, Maidstone ME14 1JL. They're going to be open from nine thirty to six on the day. If you're in the area, or feel the inclination, please come by and support the event. It will, I'm quite sure, be possible to persuade me to sign stuff, or answer questions, or even – can you believe it? – play a game of something. I believe there's also going to be a raffle or a competition... it'll be fun, anway. And if you need further incentive, there's a psychic fair on in the arcade the same day,  so you'll also be able to find out how grim and dark your own far future is going to be! Ba-dum tish!

No, wait... wait.... I've got a better closing gag... ready? Ready? Ahem... "And if you need further incentive, there's a psychic fair on in the arcade the same day, which we all should have seen coming."

Nothing? No? Really?

I'll get me coat.

In which I go back to college

Just a quick thing today, a reflection on the rewarding day I spent last weekend at my old college, St Edmund Hall, which held a celebration of "writing at the hall". It was enjoyable and inspiring. I'd like to write about it at length - and I may well do that - but I've got a full workload in front of me, and this Horus Heresy novel isn't going to just write itself (before you ask, it's The Unremembered Empire, direct sequel to both my Know No Fear AND Aaron's Betrayer, and The Lion hasn't actually punched Guilliman yet, but the fan and the faeces are going to meet when they both find out which other of their brothers are present in Macragge City...).

Anyway, the day was great. I particularly enjoyed the talks given by Samira Ahmed, Emma Brockes, and Stewart Lee (who, I discovered last night, name checks me in the extras on his latest stand-up DVD, Carpet Remnant World, which surprised and chuffed me). I also loved the fact that Samira was live-tweeting from the audience of my talk. And I found truly fascinating the fact that all of us, though we use writing in vastly different ways, had almost the same thing to say – or parallel, comparable things, at least – about the basic practice and craft.

As I said, I'm a little too busy writing to spend time today writing about writing, but I will direct you to Samira's blog where, unsurprisingly, she provides an excellent report of the day.

TV Highlights to look forward to...

Here’s the inside track on some of the new directions that TV will be going in 2013. Some very exciting developments, all of which are guaranteed to combine your favourite shows.

Now that Disney has secured the rights to the Star Wars franchise, we can expect a number of films and shows exploiting the potential variations of this immense licensing opportunity. My sources indicate that Disney is particularly keen to combine the crowd pulling appeal of Star Wars with the massive television audience ratings of the classy BBC period drama, so before the year’s end look out for the flagship new drama series “TaunTaun Abbey”, featuring Hugh Bonneville as Grand Moff Crawley, Rob James-Collier as the sinister looking one who skulks around in the back rooms and gives away the location of the Millennium Falcon’s landing bay while wearing goggles and a big nose, and Maggie Smith as a scruffy looking nerf herder.

Death Metal of a Salesman. Hotly anticipated reality tv show where the front man of Metallica joins creative forces with members of one of Sweden’s most notorious black metal bands in an effort to bring to the London stage a brutal yet muscular musical version of Arthur Miller’s classic play.

Last of the Summer Winehouse. The BBC scrapes the very bottom of the barrel in an attempt to find bits of Amy Winehouse footage that have not yet been anthologised, and comes up with some fleeting segments of the 1993 Jules Holland’s Hootenany when she was in the crowd at the back.

Big Shit, Little Shit. Frankly I can’t believe that the commissioning editors at CBeebies thought this was a good idea.

Gran Torino Designs. Clint Eastwood takes over from Kevin McCloud and talks us through the design and construction of some extraordinary and pretentious, middle-class self-build projects, before slightly curling his lip to camera and explaining why the World is a better place now that they’re dead. Featuring an Arne Jacobson chair with no one in it that Clint talks to as if it’s his co-host.

Nigella Lawson Lets You Actually Touch Them. I think the appeal of this show is aptly demonstrated in its title. May include meringue.

Goodness Gracious Meerschaum. In a desperate attempt to find a fresh take on the Holmes myth, Channel 4 relocates the story to Bombay, where a call centre worker (The Big Bang Theory’s Kunal Nayyar) discover’s that the random “western name generator” has allocated him the name Sherlock. He decides to uphold the legacy and become a detective. Capers ensue. Featuring Lucy Lu for no readily apparent reason.

TOWIE (The Only Way Is Exhaust-port). Set your deflectors to double-front for this new, high-octane quiz show, presented by Philip Schofield and Clare Balding. Part first-person-shooter and part one-of-those-ridiculously-complicated-games-they-play-before-the-national-lottery. Contestants are coached by Philip on how to hit a target not much bigger than a womp rat in Beggar’s Canyon back home, in order to win the Big Money Prizes. Highlight of the show is the moment when Clare Balding suddenly goes strangely slack-jawed and clacks out the program’s key catchphrase, “it’s a trap!” in a muppet-stylee.

Beastenders. From the people that brought you Masters of the Universe and the people that brought you Eastenders. Look! They’ve brought you something you didn’t even know you wanted. At all.

Richard Hammond’s Secret Service. Honest to god, dude, you really don’t want to know what this show is about.

Top Gear. With Gok Wan. On the Nurnberg Ring, Gok brings a whole new meaning to the phrase, “Show us your bangers.” Also, James May repeatedly says, “please stop touching me.” in an increasingly plaintive voice.

Gok Wan, Purl Wan. Knitting show.

Time Time. Tony Robinson and Phil Harding get their hands on a flux capacitor and a DeLorean, and haphazardly rewrite the history of 80s cinema. Nothing good results from their escapades, but Phil gets to say, “God, aaarrhh!” a fuck of a lot.

Flog it! Paul Martin comprehensively reinvents the antiques show in such a way that it is no longer an antiques show at all, but rather a gruelling catalogue of human perseverance. Featuring Philip Serrell.

Master Chief. Greg Wallace and John Torrode oversee the nail-biting competition to find the next HALO petty officer. Featuring Michel Roux-117 as the acceptable face of the Covenant.

Research, research, research...

Came across a question about research, posed in the blog of Medwayscott (follow the link and read his post before continuing, that might be best).

Anyway, he said some very nice things about Salvation's Reach, the most recent Gaunt book, and was very complimentary about the Navy action depicted in it. How much was researched, he wondered.

I do a LOT of research, for pretty much everything I write, which may sound faintly bonkers considering that what I write is Made Up Stuff. My contention, and I've stuck to it for over twenty years, is that SF and Fantasy work best when they feel authentic, when they seem grounded and real. So my basic approach is to consider each book as if it were a 'real world' or even historical novel. I find the closest thing in the real world to the fantastical thing I'm writing about, and research that, then convert laterally into the fantasy frame. So... writing about Kislevite Lancers (as I did in Riders of the Dead)? NO such thing in the real world, obviously, but how about 17th Century Polish Hussars?  Let's go! 40K air combat (Double Eagle)? Let's try the Battle of Britain and mix in a little Korean War and modern theatre jet warfare. TItans... and, indeed, Imperial Navy vessels and engagements (various, but especially Titanicus and Salvation's Reach)? Let's look at the British Navy, let's look at U boats and other submarine experiences. Let's visit Chatham Dockyard... ;)

Right now, I'm writing about court intrigue during the Horus Heresy, so I'm ransacking all the stuff I can find on the Tudor Court, the Vatican, Italian Principalities, Imperial Rome etc. etc.

But when the (goodness me!) half dozen Primarchs I'm handling here start duking it out through a city hand-to-hand, I don't know WHAT I'm going to start looking at. That may be when fiction starts looking at other fiction, and I start drawing on the thousands of superhero comics I've written over the last two decades...

Oh... my... GOD...

Yes. Yes, it is. It's Major Rawne. This isn't a dream, dear blog-post reader and Gaunt's Ghosts fan, it's an actual brilliant thing that has really happened somewhere in the world, and you're looking at it.

And if you think THAT'S as good as today is going to get, follow this link and see the rest. Yes, the rest! They're ALL there. Follow the link! Follow it now!

It's absolutely extraordinary. I have no words, to be honest. I am just too impressed. But I will say that TheMightyGoatMan on Reddit, whoever he is, is a very, very fine human being indeed.

Good letters what I have received – no #123 in an occasional series

Sometimes, a letter arrives via the website that properly amuses me. Here's the latest one - thanks, Adam :)

Dear mister Abnett,

I just wanted to let you know that I am sitting here at the pub with a pint of ale in one hand and "Brothers of the Snake" in the other. (1)

I am not quite certain, but I think it is the third or maybe the fourth time I read it. It is without the shadow of a blasphemous doubt my favourite book in the category "Shit Blowing Up", followed closely by "Titanicus".

I have lent both to my friends, and I will until the day I die remember one of them whooping and cheering as he read the sequence in which Sicarian Faero goes mano-a-mano with Nekromant Invidiosa in the Birdmarket. Just a few days ago, I let a librarian (2) friend read how brother-sergeant Priad engages the Dark Eldar in the treasury on Baal Solock. Afterwards, he just put the book down, nodded and said: "Slow motion writing. Respect."

I wanted to thank you for giving me hours of explosive entertainment. Whenever I feel the need for some dakka, I head over to the 'A' section of my bookshelf (3) and indulge myself. I expect to keep doing that for a long, long time to come.

So... thank you. Thank you very much. Keep it up, please.

All the best regards, from Malmo in Sweden,

Adam Thorp

"Spehss Mahreens - for the Emprah!"

(1) Actually, I had to put both down since writing on my phone is a two-handed job but I am sure you get my meaning.
(2) He is a librarian, not a librarian. The difference is small but important.
(3) Yes, you have your own section in my bookshelf.

Whoa-oh Wait a Minute Mr Postman...

Well, hello January. Hey. You’re looking pretty good. Nice to see you again. What’s that you’re wearing? Nice.

And look at all these things you’ve brought me. You’re generally regarded as the coldest and most unfriendly part of the year, like the biggest Monday morning ever, but look at this! Look at all the good things you’ve give to the postman to bring to me in the first two weeks of the year.

(Note to self: Maybe I should put aside one copy of everything of mine that is published in the course of one year and offer it as a prize for a Christmas competition. Hmmm. Needs thoughts and comments from blog commenters...)

So, on the first day of January my postman brought to me... Fuck all, because it’s a bank holiday.

But on the first postal day of January, my postman brought to me... the comp copies of Dragon Frontier!

Now I have waxed lyrical about this already in a previous post, but the start of January saw the publication of my first junior novel, and my first novel for Puffin (an imprint that I have been reading since I was a kid). Check out the Dragon Frontier FaceBook page, and look out for news of a schools tour in the UK, and read the damned book! Dragons and cowboys! Cowboys and dragons! What’s not to love? Read it yourself or buy it for a child you love if you consider it to be outside your age-range/demographic. For very many reasons, this novel is close to my heart, and I hope that it is enjoyed by its intended audience and anyone else who wants to read it. SFX magazine gave it 4 stars in this review. Thank you SFX.

On the second postal day... I got my comp copies of the Embedded audiobook, which is unabridged and lovely. Regular readers of my blog will know how important Embedded is to me, and I simply want to applaud the work of the audiobook producers in bringing my so-non-audio novel to audio-ness. Kudos. If you want to know what I sound like as an author when I’m not writing for a franchise, when I’m writing ‘original fiction’ (like that’s a distinction that matters to me) then this is a good place to start. It’s also military science fiction, which is, apparently, what I’m famous for, so get in!

Then the third lovely delight of January was my advance copies of The New Deadwardians trade paperback, from those splendid people at DC Vertigo. The New Deadwardians was my first venture for Vertigo, and my first collaboration with the redoubtable INJ Culbard, and I have to say that it was a particularly satisfying experience. In a world saturated with zombie/and/or/vampire stories, I think we managed to find something different to say. I hope we’ll be able to say some more about this particular world in ‘season two’ if this trade sells well. So, may I suggest you buy it. It certainly had some gloriously good reviews, which is most gratifying. I really love that reviewers found it both clever and funny. Ian’s artwork is sublime. Publisher’s Weekly picked it as an honourable mention in it’s graphic novel list of the year (along with Kingdom: Call of the Wild, which I write for 2000AD, and which is drawn by Richard Elson, and is another strip I am very proud of). It is no exaggeration to say that The New Deadwardians, for reasons that are hard to explain, is one of the highlights of my career. I urge anybody who is interested in anything I do to read it.

If that wasn’t enough, January’s postman also delivered the latest issue of The Hypernaturals. This creator-owned, cosmic superhero team book, which I create with Andy Lanning, my partner in crime from the Marvel cosmic classics, has been receiving extremely good press. We are blessed with two tremendous artists and some fabulous cover artists, and the depth of the world-building, matched with the complexity of the plot, seems to have really found an audience. If you aren’t reading The Hypernaturals, which is published by Boom! then what the hell are you playing at? Go and get some back issues, or, if you’re really lazy, wait for the first trade, which will be coming your way, soon.

Talking of January, I’m not given to making New Year’s resolutions, and that’s not going to change any time soon, but I am going to make a small half-promise to myself, and to you. I’m going to make a huge effort to be back here with a new blog before the end of the month.

Yeeee-haw! Dragon Frontier!

A lot of people have been asking me about my new book "Dragon Frontier", so let me answer some of the most pressing questions:

What is the title of your next book?

“Dragon Frontier”.

Where did the idea come from for the book?

Andy Lanning and I work on ideas together for comic books for the American comics market, and this was one of the ideas that we tossed around. When Puffin suggested that I wrote it as a children’s book, it really began to come together.

What genre does your book fall under?

This is very definitely a children’s book, but I hope that parents and carers reading it to children will enjoy it too.

What actors would you choose to play the parts of your characters in a movie rendition?

I love casting the characters in my books and imagining the stories being played out on the big screen. This story is set in the American Wild West frontier, and should include lots of young, unknown talent, so I think a big open casting session would be the order of the day. The other key thing would be to employ some of the greatest CGI animators in the World to recreate the scenes with the other main characters in the novel, the dragons!

What is the one sentence synopsis of your book?

Jake Polson and his family are starting a new life on the American Frontier. Twelve-year-old Jake is proud to drive the lead wagon; he's in charge of the oxen and minding his Ma and little sister. But tragedy strikes and Jake must venture deep into the West in search of a legendary creature to save his family. What he discovers in that vast landscape is wilder than he ever imagined. Out on the frontier, an evil force is waiting . . . According to the blurb.

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

“Dragon Frontier” is published by Puffin and will be available to buy on January 3rd 2013.

How long did it take you to write the first draft of the manuscript?

This book was very special, because, after writing more than forty novels, it was my first especially written for children. In the end it all happened very fast, and the first draft was probably completed in less than three months.

What other books would you compare this story to within your genre? 

This is such a first for me that I prefer not to make comparisons. It’s about cowboys and dragons. It’s about the Wild West and mythical beasts. It’s about family and faith, tradition and suspicion. It’s about the past and the future.

Who or what inspired you to write this book?

I was a keen reader as a child, and I loved reading to my own children, so it was only ever a matter of time before I would write a book for children. I think I’ve always been inspired by the memory of the excitement that a really good book can give you as a child, by the idea that going to bed is fun, because you get to read the next chapter of your favourite book. And, of course, I’ve been inspired by every great writer for children that it has been my pleasure and privilege to read, from Alan Garner to Arthur Ransome, from Paul Biegel to Susan Cooper, from...

What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?

What could be more interesting than dragons? Or cowboys? Or dragons? No, cowboys! No, dragons!

GAMES DAY UK 2012

So, this happened.

And it was bloody great.

Let's start at the beginning. It is Sunday, the Day of Days, the dawn of Games Day UK 2012. Imagine, gentle reader, that you're standing in the foyer of the internationally famous and renowned* Hilton Metropole NEC after a boozy night and a great dinner with the BL staffers. Lo, The Writers begin to congregate. That's right, The Writers. Capital "T", capital "Writers". Up they shamble to join the walking bus over to the convention centre.

And who was first?

"HI DAN ABNETT"

Aaron? Really? First up? REALLY? I know I'm a clean living soul these days, up with the larks and fresh as a daisy dipped in prometheum, but I never thought ADB would be the first shambler to join me. Anyway, Aaron held forth while I took this photo of him in the hotel lobby, but he shut up when...

Get your hands off my woman, motherfether.

... Nik joined him. Then came...

Never ask the man on the right about bounty hunting. Or the arms trade.

 Unless you want to hear Seriously Amazing Stories.

... our favourite demented cherub, Mr Joshua Reynolds, closely followed by...

Mr Swallow was amazingly good humoured despite losing

 two fingers in a freak "sliding door" accident earlier that day. 

... Jim Swallow, who was in charge of the bus, because he and only he knew where the convention centre ACTUALLY WAS in relation to us and the internationally famous and renowned** Hilton Metropole NEC. Then it only remained for us all to await the arrival of...

ADB: "Keep laughing and Graham won't hurt us!"

GM: "That's what you think."

...Graham McNeill, because who does anything or goes anywhere on GamesDay without the Mighty McNeill himself? That's right... no one!

Only minutes later, rain drenched and weary, we arrived at the NEC. Ah, my brethren. My comrades, my Fellow Writers, those who stood with me in the rain at Scrotal Gate and the Field Of Shite...

Anyhoo, we donned wrist-bands - well, see, some of us donned wrist-bands, others rebelled (okay, that may have been me. I apologise to the guy on door duty who had to deal with my refusenik moment) - collected backpacks, and headed for signing tables.

There awaited a sight to behold!

First there was the Abnett Maze (or "Dan's Labyrinth" as Nik calls it) where all the lovely people gathered to meet me.

Amazement in the Maze.

Then there were all the lovely people that couldn't fit into the Abnett Maze, which we simply called 'The Queue'.

Sometimes a euphemism is only a euphemism.

I was glad to be sitting at the head of it, although I did stand at the tail for a minute or two, just for the hell of it. Yes, I stood in my own queue and asked who we were queueing for. And people told me, bless 'em.

Then they did a double take.

I am such a rascal.

A rascal, earlier.

I'm not going to claim that my hand got as tired signing stuff as other people's feet got shuffling about in the Maze, but I did kill three Sharpies. Count them... THREE!

I also wore out a bit of shoe leather getting up and down to have my picture taken with some of you lovely folks. There is mucho evidence of this on FaceBook and Twitter.

Some of the time I wasn't allowed to stand. Some of the time, I was forced to remain seated.

Regan and her raygun.

I was, of course, more than happy to stand for the Tanith when they turned up, first one at a time,

Then severally.

And, finally, en masse.

Best Tanith ink of the day goes to this dude:

The Commissar kept everyone in line.

And, just like in the books, the Blood Pact are never far away.

So imbued with Chaos, he literally turned 

the air around him red. Chaos... or photoshop.

So I'd like to thank you all, all of you, for coming along and making the day so memorable. I hope you had as good a time as I did. Til next winter...

*Yeah, maybe not that much, actually.

**The more I think about it, you know....