Dan Abnett

Thursday, August 09, 2007

X-fire!

http://xfire.com/scifi/

...is the place to hurry to! Head over there and sign up for any one (or more) of their week long range of amazing on line sci-fi chats, with such luminaries as Charles Stross, Vernor Vinge, Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle, Mike Whelan, Brian Herbert, Kevin J. Anderson and... well, me.

Mine's at 1pm PDT/4pm EST/9pm BST on Friday 17th of August. Maybe I'll 'see' you there. The last one was a lot of fun.

In the mean time, feast your eyes on the above snap of Drew Drescher's Golden Daemon winning 'Sons of Ithaka' Iron Snakes, plus a shot of Drew in the act of celebrating his win. Thanks for the pics, Drew... more to come later, everyone!

Sunday, August 05, 2007

New Clone Arrives To Swell Abnett Workforce

Mmm... so many cool posts on the last entry, I feel I should reply to them all. May I just say, in no particular order, that: (1) Robert’s memories of Chicago and food advice was priceless; (2) I’m glad you all liked Transformers; (3) chin up in Arizona, Jesse, and good luck with the cult; (4) Eisenhorn is coming... at some point; (5) Chris, you showing me around the tournament was MY high point too, thanks; (6) Xhalax takes the prize (as usual) for the funniest, deadpan one liner (a girl makes a model railway joke, how cool is that?); (7) I actually LOVE the Inquisition book, sorry... all the lore in one place (and I wrote the psychic mastery thing heh heh!); (8) Martin (pack master) - email me your snail address and it’ll be my pleasure to SEND you a signed copy of something; and (9) thanks to everyone who came to Chicago Games Day. I have some piccies. I’ll try scanning them and posting them.

The main reason for tonight’s post, however, is (10) to welcome to this site the one and only (first and only?) Jack Abnett O’Reilly!

Isn’t he just... much much sweeter than me? Thanks for the picture, Chris, and my very best wishes to you and your family.

Now everybody post “awwwwwwww!”

Funnily enough, that's exactly what I look like when I sit in the Golden Throne my clones have built for me in the basement and play "I'm the God-Emperor". Only not quite so cute, obviously.

Sunday, July 29, 2007

Wild Leek

That’s right, everyone! Chicago means ‘wild leek’. I include this detail as a jaunty segue into the fact that - hey! - I’m in Chicago! For Games Day! So this is my first roving, on-the-road blog (thanks to the hotel’s wireless internet connection ... don’cha just love modern technology?)!

And what can I tell you that I can’t tell you from home?

Uhmm...

Well, it’s not windy, for starters. And I’ve never been anywhere that’s so like New York and yet defiantly not. The cab drivers are a bit ‘two fer’ (ie for every one that took me where I wanted to go, there were two who didn’t). I saw that Paul Morley off the telly riding the down escalator in Borders while I was riding the up (a fact that will mean little to nothing to our US readers). I met the very charming Chris O’Reilly, who has (as regular posters will know) named his new born son Jack Abnett O’Reilly. O’really? Yeah, really. I wish Chris, his wife and little Jack absolutely the very best for the future (whilst feeling slightly... nonplussed). Jack will have the first available book dedicated to him. May I also, while I remember, wish Tara’s boyfriend Jason a very Happy Dan Abnett Birthday Party. It’s a funny old world.

My dad (I don’t know if I’ve ever mentioned this), apart from being a rather famous maker of plucked stringed instruments (the correct term is luthier) is also a keen railway modeller (N gauge, for those nerdishously interested), and has constructed some of the most amazing scale model railways I’ve ever seen (and I’ve seen a good few, believe you me). So I arrive at my hotel and guess what? The other convention in town is an American railway modeller’s show. I’m going to have to go awol from Games Day for half an hour and take pictures so he can evaluate the competition.

What else? I’m half tempted to go off on a little riff about food in the states, and how it’s great but it comes in portions four or five times larger than is in any way necessary, and that’s coming from me, and you’ve seen me, I like my food...

But I won’t, ‘cause it’s a cliché. Though clichés are usually clichés for a reason.

Instead, I will point you in the direction of Hot Fuzz, which I watched on the plane. Yeah, it’s been out for ages and, yeah, I love Simon Pegg and Nick Frost... it’d just slipped past my lateral deflectors somehow. Great stuff, if a little odd in places, but truly, truly sublime in others.

And Transformers, which I went to see with my girls and my brother in law last weekend. Accepting the premise that it isn’t and cannot be the greatest film ever made, I will add the following remarks:

1) Michael Bay in fabulous movie shocker! (Never, EVER thought I’d write that)

2) It’s pure, pure entertainment if, like me, you’ve the brain of a twelve year old boy (mine’s in a jar, where do you keep yours?).

3) It’s the first film I’ve seen since I was a teenager that simply made me thrilled to be in the theatre. I’ve seen better films than Transformers, but nothing (not Matrix, not King Kong, not Lord of the Rings etc) that afforded me that same pure buzz, the buzz I got off Empire Strikes Back, Blade Runner, Conan, Aliens and Mad Max 2 when I was a nipper and going to the Maidstone ABC.

4) Also, if you forget for a moment that they’re robots/Transformers, I contend the movie has the best superhero/40K action ever filmed (depending on your preference). In the last third of the flick, think of them as superheroes (if you’re into comics) or Space Marines and Dreadnaughts (if you’re a 40ker), and you’ll see what I mean. Crunching, super-powered, high speed, heavy calibre street fighting.

To sum up, I absolutely loved it. Which is a good thing, as I’m going to have to go and see it again with Andy Lanning, or he’ll feel left out. PROVISO - do not take my recommendation if you:
a) don’t like heavy duty shooty death kill action

and/or

b) are not prepared to suspend your disbelief.

Otherwise run, run like a fool and go see it. I personally think it’s going to change the way movies work. Here’s why. Ahem... My theory, my theory is this... when CGI first came along, it changed the face of cinema and advertising (cf Jurassic Park, Matrix etc) and thereupon everyone realised that ANYTHING was possible, so they tried to DO anything, with some pretty creditable results (cf Lord of the Rings) and some palpably bad ones (cf the Star Wars prequels). In other words, because CGI allowed film makers to do anything, they tried to do EVERYTHING. And the kitchen sink.
Now Transformers is not a movie of restraint, and Mr Bay is not a director of restraint, but restraint is ultimately what Transformers delivers. It does what it has to do - hugely and brilliantly - but it doesn’t go overboard (I mean, not more than any movie about giant clashing robots CAN go overboard). It is massive and noisy, but there is was nothing extraneous. I honestly believe it is a turning point: the first blockbuster picture to use CGI absolutely as much as is necessary without CGI-ing the arse off everything willy nilly. I mean, it’s got a surprisingly good script, characters, humour, good performances...

...AND GIANT FIGHTING ROBOTS!

Time for bed. Games Day looms. I miss being at home, and I miss Nik and the girls. Home soon. I will retire and contemplate Jack Abnett O’Reilly. I don’t wish to harp on about that, and I certainly don’t want Chris and his wife to feel in any way odd about their naming choice. But it’s very strange to me. I just wrote some stories and look what happened. I am, entirely, flattered and humbled.

Dan, Chicago, Friday night.

Tuesday, July 17, 2007

Rubbish

Is what I appear to be at blogging this month. Sorry. Very work heavy just now, chasing a deadline or two on what will now and forever be known as 'boks' (thanks, Jesse. Yes, I want to see the Smite Fairy). I'll come up for air shortly and tell you all about it.

Oh, while I remember, I'll be at Games Day Chicago on 28th of July (that snuck up on me), so I look forward to seeing some of you there.

In the meantime, may I recommend you amuse yourselves by going to UTube and looking for 'human tetris' and 'silent library'.

Sunday, July 01, 2007

And I feel fine

It was raining with biblical fury, real apocalyptic weather. Just moving between shops, I got soaked. I went into this particular shop. “Did you get wet?” asked the bloke at the till. He looked at me. “Oh yeah, oops, ha ha ha.”
“What’s this weather all about, eh?” he continued, jovially. “I mean, what is it like?”
“It’s the Deluge,” I said. “The end of the world.”
“Yeah, we’re all going to die!” he replied. “Anyway, have a nice weekend.”

So that was lovely. Bless. World’s blowing up, car bombs in London, burning Jeeps ramming into Glasgow airport, the Gaza Strip, Gordon Brown (“texture like sun”), not to mention the climate. But have a nice weekend.

Anybody watch Rescue Me? Anybody else think it’s the most underrated US series on telly? I mean, it’s so vulgar and politically incorrect and obnoxious, and all the characters, I mean ALL the characters, are so deeply flawed... I love it. Then again, I’ve been a fan of Denis Leary since he decided to become (Saint) Bill Hicks lite, and sang “I’m an asshole, woo-hoo!”

For those of you who’ve never seen Leary’s “No Cure For Cancer”, go find it. Savour it. Then watch all the Bill Hicks you can find. The late Bill, god love him, was the greatest, most toxic, most pertinent stand up that ever lived and died too soon. As you might be able to detect, I am a devoted Hicksian.

Here’s some thing else. The brilliant Gollanz Fantasy Masterworks series (just buy them all and read them) has recently brought out The Mark Of The Beast, a collection of Rudyard Kipling’s short tales. Say what you facking like about Kipling’s personal politics (mmh, much as you might about Bill Hicks, actually), he wrote like a glorious bastard. And scary too, scarier than Dickens or Wilkie Collins or James or Hardy or any other of the ‘grown up’ writers of that era who turned their hands to the supernatural. Not that they didn’t do a good job. But Kipling is really creepy, really tight.

And John Simm as the Master? That’s so good, it makes me want to grin a big, ludicrously larger than life grin, and run around like a giant spaz in my converse and vintage Edwardian pinstripe. And Martha, god bless her. It may be subtle, but I love the way the dynamic of her relationship with the Doctor is a little skewed from the normal Doctor/companion relationship. Series three took a borderline jump-the-shark-ish dip with the Daleks and 42, but Cornell’s two parter and Moffat’s stand alone were simply the best episodes the redux show has produced. It’s all about the writing, you see.

So, the world may be ending, but at least Doctor Who’s good, so I will have nice weekend. All together now, “I’m an asshole, woo-hoo, yeah yeah, yeah yeah, I’m an asshole...” [repeat to fade]

Thursday, June 21, 2007

It's that man again

Devastating lack of regular blog action recently. My apologies. The reason is very simple - Legion (that’s Horus Heresy volume 7) has been entirely occupying my attention, and the typing fingers of most of the clones.

So, sorry for the empty landscape and the forlorn tumbleweed. I wasn’t in Aruba or Clackton-On-Sea, I wasn’t indisposed or out for lunch. I was in deep cover with an Alpha Legion insurgency team. Honestly, officer.

While I’m on the subject of apologies, sorry about the centred thing (scroll down and behold). I don’t know what the feth that’s about, and it seems the only way to cure it is to remove the lovely Blood Pact pics from the last post, which I frankly don’t intend to do as Big Steve’s work deserves all the unabashed staring-at it can get.

Creativity certainly breeds oddness. You may care to know that after weeks of no-show my household guest is back. And all the clocks in the house went screwy again yesterday, just like last time. Maybe I generate poltergeist activity when my brain is in full writing mode. Maybe the ‘guest’ is a manifestation of my muse, though I thought my muse was Nik. Maybe it’s Nik, re-setting the clocks when I’m not looking to mess with my head.

I’d like you to run, not walk, directly to your local quality bookstore and purchase a copy of Graham M’s excellent Fulgrim (not that any of you need such encouragement, I’m sure). It’s worth remembering that a man who can write a Horus book that good knows what he’s talking about, so when he tells you that Stornoway black pudding is the best black pudding in the whole wide world, take him seriously. I can confirm that it is, and would only add the word ‘yum’.

What else? Nova has now reached its third issue, and every issue so far has sold out, which either means people like it, or Marvel is only publishing ten copies. Preferring to believe the latter, you’ll pardon me while I do a little happy jig.

By way of amusement, I recommend you google ‘Transformer costumes’ and watch the various U-Tube style clips the links lead you to. Home made transformer costumes that actually transform. Fantastic.

Also amusing was a sign I saw recently sellotaped to the doors of a lift in a department store. It said “This lift is isolated”. I know how it feels. More amusing - well, inexplicable, actually - was a sign I saw about ten minutes later, taped to the closed curtain of a changing cubicle in a clothes shop. It read “This Changing Room is Out of Order”. Uh... but... how could... ? What working parts are there in a changing room that could break down? Or maybe the shop assistants had just had enough of the cubicle’s unrelentingly surly attitude.

Finally for today, I got an e-mail from a ‘lilibat’ who is making an inquisitor costume for her husband and wondered if she could costume herself as the inquisitor’s wife, or would have to settle for being ‘a member of his staff’. I answer her here only because for some reason my e-mails back to her keep getting bounced. Can an inquisitor have a wife? Well, seeing as inquisitors can do pretty much anything they want to, I don’t see why not. May you have and hold, honour and respect, and burn and purge, from this day forward.

Wednesday, June 06, 2007

Ally Pally

Dan and James, pens in hands.

Graham, Dan and James

You see, people don't just put them on their shelves and look at them!

Big Blue Monster!

Big Balloon!

And from this point on, everyone marvel at Big Steve's custom made Blood Pact army. Take a bow, Big Steve!

Rear view...

... and front view of the regiment's corrupted ex-IG commander!

Here come the mutant auxillieries, Steve's 'twist troops!'

Check out the long-form staves of the flamers! And the Grotesks!

Thursday, May 31, 2007

So anyway

Taking back control of my own blog for a sec (thanks, Nik, for covering), I just wanted to remind all those who care that I'll be at Conflict:London this coming Sunday. See you there.

Kudos to all who voted 'aye' to the idea of the blogathon (yeah, THANKS, Nik), we'll have to get that sorted on a sunday soon (not that my typing fingers aren't already down to the bone - I've worn out two clones this week, and it isn't thursday yet!). Still, I'll be here if you will. Let's set a date.

Sunday, May 27, 2007

Listen up...

...everybody!

first of all... Ohmigod, I'm not Dan!

Some of you may remember that I (that is Nik, or as many know me, "Mrs Dan") managed to talk Dan into a blogathon. We had rules and everything...

Now, some of you seemed to get on board with the idea... one or two of you even seemed quite interested, so we set the blog date for Sunday, twenty-something May, anyway... tomorrow!

I did try to whip up some semblance of a frenzy about the whole deal... I for one was looking foreward to Dan sweating for twelve hours at a stretch, and turning in 6,000 words in one day (not that he hasn't done that once or twice before, with the help of the odd clone of course). But as of right now... that is 00-50 GST, Sunday the whatever of May, we have postponed.

The man plans to give up AN ENTIRE SUNDAY for feth's sake, so, of course, he needs an incentive.

I'm still up for it, and so is Dan, so if we can get enough people involved in batting stuff back to him over the Blogathon, then he will, sooner or later, commit to it.

All those in favour say "Aye"

See you back on the other side.

Tuesday, May 22, 2007

Signing II: This Time It's Bromley

Well, a big thank you to everyone who came to see me at last Saturday's London signings. In the spirit of public service announcements, I'm here to tell you I'll be at the Bromley GW store this coming Saturday from 2 til 4 approx, and the following Sunday (June 3rd) I'll be a guest at Conflict London at Alexandra Palace (along with Graham and Jim - yes, it's three-for-one day at Ali Pali!). BL probably know much more about when and what the three of us will be doing on the day so, as they say, check press (or the BL site at least) for details.

Quatermouse and the Mitt made me laugh (see last thread), and I can't let it go unanswered.

Quatermouse and the Kit

"So in fact what you're saying," said Quatermouse, with a slightly crestfallen air, "is that I should have painted it before I stuck the transfers on? Bum."

Tuesday, May 15, 2007

Incoming

Just a quick reminder that I'll be at Forbidden Planet this coming Saturday at 1.00 o'clock for an hour, and then at Games Workshop Oxford Street at 3.00. Hope to see some of you there.

Oh, and today's exclusive short story. It's called:

Quatermouse and the Flit

"Don't we owe them rent, professor?"

"Shut up," said Quatermouse, "and keep running."

The End

Sunday, May 13, 2007

Exclusive! Get It Here!

I took this evening off and, during the general and delicious R&R, watched Quatermass and the Pit. What a fabulous movie, and so ahead of its time. What makes it especially brilliant is the script - Nigel Kneale, of course - written in the fifties, revised in the sixties for the film, and absolutely dead on the noughties zeitgeist. As a writer of sf (albeit of the combat variety), it’s humbling to see so many relevant and oh-so contemporary themes right there, in a 1967 film. And we think the new stuff is new. There are no new ideas. Well, there are, but they’re staggeringly scarce and none of us are having any of them. I advise you all to watch it, anyway. It so shockingly prefigures Who and so many genre moments (Carrie, the Fury, Test Match Special... and I could go on). And yes, I know Who predates 1967. But not the original version of QatP. It would not be a surprise to me to learn that Russell T. and many of the writers and producers in the long legacy of Who were inspired by Quatermass in general and QatP in particular.

In tone, if nothing else.

Moving swiftly along (yes, Test Match Special WAS a joke), I have been asked a number of times to share some writing tips (of which, of course, I must have many) with the world. So here goes, the first of an occasional series of writerist observations:

Dan’s Writing Tips #1
Sometimes, a project - a novel, a story, a script - is like a piñata. The plot just hangs there and wants you to take a smack at it. A couple of solid thwacks, maybe, just to open it up. Then you have to keep on smacking it to get at all its goodies. It may resist and require a lot of smacking. Some projects are tough like that. Legion is like that.

To sum up: keep swinging. You’ll break the bastard eventually.

Today, Nik referred to Laurence Fishburne as “Loren Finchperson”. Later (during QatP, actually) she called a belisha beacon a “Beleeka Beeshon”. I don’t mean to mock. I just think that today may be National Lexical Drop-Out Day.

And now, before we drift off into sunday-land, here’s the first in a string of short short stories, exclusive to this blog. Short short story one is called..

Quatermouse and the Writ

“But I wasn’t anywhere near the Ballspond Road that night!” complained Professor Bernard Quatermouse.

“Whatever,” said the server, “you’ve just been sued.’

The End

Humm. Piñatas, like I said.

Thursday, May 10, 2007

Note to self

Dear me! Some backsliding! My blog rate seems to have dropped again. I must remedy that, and you know what that means, don’t you? It means daily lumps of content-free nonsense as I hit keys at random and post the result just to say I have.

Nik’s remedy was rather different. She suggested a blog-a-thon. According to her, a blog-a-thon would involve writing five hundred words an hour every hour for twelve hours. I’d write five hundred words, take the rest of the hour off, and then write another five hundred at the start of the next hour - and so on, all the while answering posts. I think she may have bee having a laugh. I can’t even find a clone willing to volunteer for that.

In other news, they’ve found King Herod’s tomb, which is interesting because I wasn’t aware they’d lost it. And scientists have observed a ‘super’ supernova called SN2006gy. It was a massive explosion, a hundred times more energetic that a typical supernova, and was 1000,000 million times brighter than the sun. On the plus side, we can relax, because it was 240 million light years away in another galaxy. However, a Milky Way star called Eta Carinae, just 7500 light years away, look like it’s about to go supernova. If it does, it’s likely we’ll be able to see it alongside the sun in daylight. Which doesn’t happen very often.

Just as long as we don’t all go blind looking at it, thus paving the way for the Triffid conquest of the Earth...

Wednesday, May 02, 2007

Pauses to blow own trumpet

This just in, and I must say I’m chuffed. Horus Rising, by yours truly, and False Gods, by Graham M, have both been nominated for Origin Awards. BL got three nominations over all. So there’s lovely. The BL website will, no doubt, have details as to when the actual awards are announced. It’s nice to be thought of.

A reminder that I’ll be at Forbidden Planet AND GW Oxford Street on the 19th to promote Brothers Of The Snake. After that, I’ll be at GW Bromley on the 26th, and Conflict London on the 3rd of June. That’s verging on the ubiquitous.

Aside from the next Horus book and Nova, I’ve been working on some ----------- for ----------, which I’m not actually allowed to talk about. This is a shame, because ------------- is quite an interesting challenge, and quite different to my usual stuff. You have to think in really different ways when you’re ---------- for a ------.

So don’t say I never tell you anything.

Wednesday, April 25, 2007

Stuff

So, let’s see now...Seems the Alpha Legion book, my next Heresy opus, will be called (drum roll) Legion. Which may confuse the arse off anyone who knows me for my DC work, but stuff happens.

Just now been writing a couple of episodes of the Kingdom strip for 2000AD. Kingdom’s first run was a hit, and I’ve heard very positive things from the readership. Most of that is undoubtedly due to Richard Elson’s amazing artwork, but the strip does seem to have something. You can’t beat a bit of hack and slash heroic fantasy dressed up in a post-apocalypse milieu. And, oddly (seeing as I’m absolutely a cat person), I seem to write good dogs.

All of which, on reflection, will make no sense to anyone who hasn’t read Kingdom. So let me just add... it’s so very easy to subscribe to the Galaxy’s Greatest Comic (Ker-ching! Oh, my pleasure, Tharg!).

So Ian Edginton, my ‘other’ partner in crime (‘other’ as opposed to Andy, yeah, yeah, I’m a collaborating hussy). Let’s leave aside for a moment the fact that the Warhammer 40K comic Ian and I are co-writing for Boom! (“Damnation Crusade!”) is selling like a hot selling thing, and our follow up Warhammer comic (“Forge of War!”) is about to launch (available, like Damnation Crusade, from all good comic shops, not GW stores), the thing I really want to mention here is that Ian has just got himself nominated for TWO Eisner awards.

TWO. Tuh-woo.

And all I can say is, it can’t have happened to a nicer, more talented, more deserving person. I’ve plugged his work with D’Israeli for Dark Horse before. That’s what he got his nominations for. Go find it, buy it, read it.

The Angel of Coincidence has been round my place again, as usual. I’ll spare you the boring the details. But I am growing worried about my ghost. Not a peep out of him in a fortnight.

Maybe I should leave some food out. What do ghosts eat?

Saturday, April 21, 2007

Random Box of Horns part II

Games Day France, April 15 2007.

"Let's get this party started!"

Spontaneous jubilation breaks out as the crowd is told that

Dan and Graham have entered the building.

Le shopping.

Rawne!

Blood Pact!

Sigmar Queues.

A blue man.

A French ork.

Dan and Natalie, Madame le translator.

Dan and Julien, Monsieur le translator.

Nik and Mathieu, Monsieur le Publisher,

Bibliotheque Interdite.

Dan and Graham, the Look of Destiny!

A random box of horns, earlier.

Friday, April 20, 2007

Random box of horns

Previously on Dan’s blog...

I found out today that issue one of Nova has sold out. Andy and I are jolly pleased and so, I imagine, is Marvel. Thanks to all who bought it. I hope you liked it. It’s great to get a new series off to a healthy and robust start.

Spent the day at the Black Library today, discussing ideas for my next Horus book with Primarch Alan Merrett. No, I can’t tell you what we talked about and what we decided, but I will express my delight and slight disbelief about what BL/GW is going to let me do. Talk about being given the keys to the executive wash room (creatively speaking). This book is going to elicit gasps. I’ll go as far as to say it’s going to be the Marmite Horus Heresy book - people are either going to love it or hate it. And I haven’t even written it yet. I just hope I can pull it off.

While I was there, I got my cloned hands on a copy of Brothers Of The Snake for the first time. It’s a lovely thing (wonderful Clint Langley cover) and I think you’re going to like it. Hell, it’s a Space Marines book. And it might, just might, have orks in it too.

I (and when I say I, I mean we - me, Nik and the girls, along with Graham McNeill and his girlfriend Rebecca) attended Games Day in Paris last weekend. The response was amazing, almost overwhelming, and we had a fantastic time. We met Sigmar, for a start. On behalf of us all, I’d like to thank everyone who came along to ask a question or get something signed, and thank our host, Matt, and our translators (who were doing in person what they usually do to our books) Dju and Nathalie.

Nik and Lily took lots of snaps, so as soon as I can, I’ll post up a little pictorial of the highlights: Sigmar, crowds, looks of destiny, and a random box of horns. You’ll see.

I see you’ve been posting comments about Miss Kys. Well, she isn’t very likeable, I suppose, though that was part of the point. She’s always been very polite to me. That said, she still won’t let me call her ‘Patti’.

Thursday, April 12, 2007

Nova Day

Today, I am reliably informed by both the Diamond Previews catalogue and my esteemed editor at Marvel, Bill Rosemann, is Nova day.
The first issue of Nova hit the stands in the US this morning. Written by myself and my long time partner in crime Andy Lanning (collectively DnA), it’s drawn by Sean Chen, and is an ongoing series arising from the success of the Nova mini series Andy and I wrote last year as part of Marvel’s Annihilation event.
Nova the character has been around since the early seventies. A teenager from Long Island who becomes a member of an alien-sponsored galactic ‘police force’ (the Nova Corps) and gets amazing powers as a result, Nova was always a little bit... naff.
I’m not dissing the poor guy, it’s just that, compared to Cap or Iron Man or Spider-Man, he was always a bit second rate and try-hard, a third division player, an ‘if wet’ hero. As in “featuring The Mighty Thor! (if wet, Nova)”.
But, he was a cosmic hero with cosmic powers (he’s a human rocket, don’cha know?), and Andy and I lurve cosmic heroes. Warlock! Captain Marvel! The Silver Surfer! The Legion of Superheroes! (if wet, Nova). When we wrote the Nova mini, we made that ‘if wet’-ness part of the riff. Nova was painfully aware that he WASN’T Cap or Shellhead or Spidey. He had become a second stringer because that’s how he saw himself.
It seemed to work. Nova ended up saving the galaxy and becoming one of the most potent characters in the Marvel Universe. He’s first rank now, premiere division. “Featuring Nova! (if wet, the Fantastic Four)”.
Okay, not quite, but you get my drift.
The new series kicks off by taking Nova back home, so that the rest of the Marvel Universe can collectively gasp, then propels him into this year’s cosmic event, Annihilation: Conquest!, which Andy and I have also been left in charge of.
It’s the most fun Andy and I have had without laughing for ages. I say without laughing, that’s a lie. When we get together for plot-bashing sessions, Andy and I regularly end up in a fit of giggles. This is most often due to the fact that a) we tend to act out, in improvised format, various parts of the story, and b) during said actings out, unlikely casting choices seem to influence the lead roles (Ray Winston IS Galactus! Dick Emery IS The Silver Surfer! Goldmember from the Austin Powers movie IS Drax the Destroyer! Professor Stephen Hawkings IS the artist formally known as Prince!).
We might have gone off on a bit of a tangent that day, admittedly. Although, you try reciting the lyrics of U Got The Look in a voicebox monotone and see if you don’t crack up.
I’ve lost the point, if I ever had one. Oh yeah, Nova day! Huzzah! Get thee hence (he says, using his best Stan Lee cover blurb voice) and purchase Nova #1. If only to read it aloud in the most inappropriate celebrity voices.
I’m off to Paris this weekend, to attend the French Games Day, so if you’re in the vicinity of the Stade De France on Sunday, drop in and say hello. The part of Harlon Nayl will be played by Hulk Hogan (if wet, Bob Hoskins).

“Oi, Ravenor! There’s bin an eruption!” Like that, you see, but in French.

Saturday, April 07, 2007

Easter rabbit

So, Happy Easter. I hope you get all the chocolatey egg related loveliness you need.

At what seemed like an almost leisurely pace, I’ve been working on the Horus Heresy exclusive short for Games Day, my half of a double header with Graham, like a brace of pistols*. It proved to be an excellent way of easing myself back into all that Horusy goodness after long sojourns with the Ghosts, the Inquisition and, uh, Torchwood.

It’s sometimes hard to get back into the right mindset when starting a fresh project. The sheer number of characters in Gaunt, for example, makes it quite a demanding exercise when you sit down and think “Right, where was I?”

I began to assemble material for Horus work and was struck by how dense and complex the Heresy strand has become, after only a few books. It’s partly because it’s 30K and not 40K , and they do things differently there, but it’s also down to the fact that the Heresy is about main players and cosmic events. Writing 40K, you can (in a manner of speaking at least) occupy a little corner of your own and allow the 40K Universe to just BE as a backdrop. Any, shall we say, aberrations, can be chalked down to it being just one incident in the middle of a billion billion world scheme of things. In 30K, one false move and you’ve rewritten history. I’m consulting a different source book, note pad, post it or manuscript every couple of lines.

In the next week or so, I’m going to GW HQ to present my pitch for the next Horus book. I’ll let you know what their verdict is. Let’s hope it’s not “Are you off your chuff? You can’t do that!”

Now let’s all join hands and sing a rousing chorus of “Happy Birthday” for the Black Library, ten years old this past week. Which means that, at some point last year, I became the freelance equivalent of a ten year veteran. How time flies when you’re burning the galaxy.

An Easter Joke (in the spirit of all things chocolatey)

Q: What do you call a hobbit’s thingy?
A: A hobnob.

Today’s joke was brought to you courtesy of Lily’s friend Hannah Lloyd. So do not be taking issue with me.

* Hmm... just got a ‘battery low’ warning on my Simile-O-Meter.

Wednesday, April 04, 2007

Life after (Only in) Death

So OiD is done. Well, it’s gone to Lindsey at BL, and her word will be final, but I finished it at the weekend, and I’m feeling pretty happy with it. “Are you feeling pretty happy with it because it has a happy ending?” I hear you ask. Well...

... that would be telling. And defeating the purpose of writing a book designed to intrigue and surprise. Oddly, I haven’t heard a peep out of my ‘ghost’ since I finished. Maybe it was a creatively generated poltergeist. I’ll let you know.

No rest for me. Nova, Annihilation: Conquest and - hey hey! - Superman awaits, along with my next Horus novel, plus a special little thing Graham McNeill and I are working on for Games Day. Oh, and yet another Secret Project I can’t blog about just yet. Busy busy busy.

Games Day Paris awaits, the weekend after Easter. Both Graham and I will be there, so if you’re around, come along and say ‘bonjour’.

Let me, once again, thank you for the ongoing comments and remarks - great stuff as usual (Jesse’s turn of phrase once again made me laugh, and Toymachine’s list of Gaunt’s previous ‘demises’ was truly funny), and I’ll just take on the chin any less than glowing remarks about AoC (which I’m very proud of, and which was deliberately written to show a view of 40K combat quite different to the other Ghosts books). For those purists out there (Xhalax?), OiD is a return to the ‘all the Ghosts together in one hell of a bad situation’ format. So I hope that’ll make you happy.

Making me happy was the movie Stranger Than Fiction. It’s a sort of Adaptation lite, but extremely entertaining (plus Will Ferrell in bearable lead role shock). Like Adaptation (which I also recommend), it’s a story-within-a-story story about writers and their characters. Can’t imagine why it appealed to me.

Oh, my Torchwood novel just came out on audio, read by Eve Myles. Which was nice.

Right, which notebook did I write those ideas about Alpha Legion in..?