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.

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.