Since I'm on the subject...

...Went to GW Cambridge today and had a fabulous time. Hats off to Andy and his crew, George, Alex and, of course, Big Steve. I think Big Steve will become a character in Sinister Dexter before too long, and Alex has become my go-to guy on all things Titanic. Fantastic burgers, also! Thanks to all for a really good afternoon and especially for the Gaunt miniature. It will sit on my desk and look at me. I wish I could share some of the stories that were told, but I feel some of them are too much for public consumption, which is not to say that you won't have the chance to read them in some format or other. If Sinister or Dexter don't end up with luminous splinters in their arses soon, I'd be very surprised. Thanks also to Kampfhamster, chocolate not-with-standing, who turned up on his own and his friend's behalf and did something that has happened to me only twice before, which is to say that he got his friend on the phone to talk to me. This happened to me in Indianapolis, and at Birmingham last year, where I ended up talking to somebody who couldn't be there, but wished they had been. In Cambridge I spoke to Packmaster in Dortmund. It's a funny old world.

On a site like this, you receive e-mails regularly, some of which take you aback. I love getting e-mail responses, either praise or criticism, it's great to know that people care enough to want to write. Below, I repeat in full, without comment, the e-mail I received yesterday. It's one of the all-time classics and I hope you enjoy it.

"Dear Dan

     I don't know where to begin... You used to be my favorite writer up until this book. I loved the Ravenor series. Double Eagle was one of the best books I ever read... But what happened when you wrote this book? Ever since Double Eagle I was dreaming that you would write a book about the Dark Eldar which is the team I play with. When I saw the book I almost crapped in my pants I was so excited... and then within the first chapter I was certain that someone else wrote this book and used your name to sell it because the writing isn't your style at all! Seeing as the book is all about space marines I knew the DE would get the shaft from the start but I was hoping that you would at least give some credit to them, and I cannot believe what you did. Droning on for chapters about how weak the DE are. I thought that if you would write about an army, you'd at least buy their codex and read their stats and study their weaponry to give credit where credit is due. Clearly you didn't even bother to learn anything about the DE. Because if you did, you would know why the Dark Eldar motto is "speed is our armor" the DE have almost nothing for armor, but they are incredibly fast, much faster than space marines, and yet, many times you go on about how much faster the "brothers" are in comparison. The DE also have outstanding anti-armor weapons, Blasters and Dark lances are better at busting up heavily armor tanks/people than lascannons with their special rules. But never once did you mention any other weapons than splinter riles/pistols. The DE also are a "Raiding" army, they rush in on Raiders and Ravagers, never did you include that in this book, which I think is funny, you write about the DE invading a city, and then your "brothers" come in, and the DE are fleeing the city on foot... So did the DE fly to this planet, and park all their vehicles in the jungle some 10 miles away just for kicks? or did they just run across space to this planet?

   There are so many awesome things about the DE that you could have wrote about and make an awesome book (even if the DE didn't win) All I was hoping for was that you would have done justice for the DE. Give them credit where credit is due, just like any other army, and all you did was insult them. For what? do you just hate them? There aren't many of us DE players but we are still around and we love our armies. We're all praying that Games Workshop will give us a new codex and update our models and such. But because we are so unpopular, I doubt we ever will, and you just made it so much worst for us... Why go to such great lengths just to insult all DE players? and not just us, you also insulted all Ork players as well... I believe at one point in the book it was just 50 of your brothers vs. thousands of orks, and not one single brother fell... do you actually play 40k? have you ever seen orks in action? they are unreal in close combat, and you sold them down the river just to rave about how awesome the space marines are... all I want to know is why? the space marines are the favored sons of Games Workshop and one of the most common armies played, and you outright insult several armies and thousands of players, just to praise the already over-praised? Well, you can be sure that you've lost quite a few fans because of this god awful book.

     But, even though I was furious when I finished your book, all I wanted to do is to write to you and scream my head off about how you could do such a thing as create this book. But after thinking about it... I could never insult you more than how much you have embarrassed yourself. The only part of the book that I liked was when you spent about 3-4 pages raving about how invincible your brothers are, enough to claim that they could "destroy the gods themselves"... and in the same chapter, wasn't it 2 of your brothers that were killed by farmers? and 1 was wounded or something like that. You didn't even make an excuse about why they died at the hands of farmers... you didn't rave about how the powers of chaos possessed these people and made them god-like (and that was why they managed to kill some of your brothers) so... the Dark Eldar and the Orks are no match for the space marines.... but pitch fork wielding farmers are their kryptonite? I sure hope that Games Workshop creates that army for the game because I would totally play them.

   So to sum up, you know nothing about the DE or the Orks but you write about them anyway. You completely insult thousands of players around the world. You've embarrassed yourself to no extent because of the terrible writing and god awful story plot, and you have surely lost fans... was it worth it? Seeing as this email is not praising your work, I'm sure you will never see it, but someone needed to try and open your eyes. BTW playing with the DE, I have won many more games than I've lost, and most of my victims have been space marines. I suggest, that if your going to write about a game, you should try to understand at least some of the game, and its armies."

So, it's goodnight from me, and, it's goodnight from him. Goodnight.

Cambridge

Another weekend, another signing. This coming Saturday (17th November) I'm due to be signing at the Cambridge Games Workshop during the afternoon. My plan is to arrive early afternoon (2 o'clock-ish) and to stay around for as long as people will have me. Perhaps I'll see you there