Dear Ryan (part three)

Dear Ryan

I know this letter is a little overdue - my apologies.

We were talking about writing. One thing I’ve found gets recommended an awful lot by professional writerly types is the process of setting your completed work aside and then coming back to it after an interval, so you can examine it with fresh eyes. This sounds like a damn fine idea to me, but I seldom get to practise it because deadlines are so tight. I don’t finish a manuscript and then put it in a drawer for six months to mature. Oh, the luxury!

If you’re not riding the runaway express down Deadline Canyon, then this process is probably something you should take the opportunity of benefitting from. Put stuff to one side, and go and do something else for a while (another piece of writing). Then come back and see how well you like the original piece. Re-familiarise yourself with it. One thing's for sure, things won’t seem too precious to change anymore. You’ll be right in there with the red pen or the delete key.

The rules of writing are actually very simple. The first rule of writing is, you write your own rules. It doesn’t work the same way for any two people, no matter how many points of commonality you can find between them, but in terms of general guidance for someone just starting out, I think these tips are suitable and adjustable enough:

1. Write when it suits you. You might be a morning person, you might be a middle of the night person, you might have a day job and HAVE to work in the evenings. Do it to suit you while you’re getting to know it. When you’re married to it, then it can run your life.

2. Write as much as you like. Do not sit down to write and order yourself to write five hundred words (or whatever). You’ll quickly discover how much you can manage in a sitting. It might be a few hundred words, or ten thousand. If it’s ten thousand, you’re a freak, but we’ll move past that. Just make sure you write regularly. That’s more important than a high per-session word count. It’s not like mileage.

3. Write about what you like. Ah, now we enter the realms of the truly fuzzy, but stay with me. Some people recommend you run with your imagination and see where it takes you. Others say the best writers write about what they know. Both are valid philosophies. I reckon... well, I reckon that (unless you’re a very hard-nosed, commercially-minded sonuvagun, in which case these modest proposals are probably of little use to you) you should try to write the stories that would entertain you, the stories you would want to read. That might take you into your imagination, or it might take you to the things you know. Crikey, it might take you to both. My own basic yardstick is: if I don’t want to read it, who the hell else is going to? And how can you inject really stirring excitement into something that’s leaving you cold?

4. Write how you like. More fuzziness, but this is something worth considering. A lot of authors suggest that you keep writing, that every day when you come back to your work you just sit down and plough back in, without going back and reading over. The idea is that you keep plugging away until you’ve got a rough-cut manuscript, and THEN you start the process of reading back and revising. This is a very good idea, and you should do it if you can. I can’t. I’m a bugger for reading back on a regular basis (probably because I know my end reading time is often limited). I think there’s a strong case to be made for a writer finding nourishment and inspiration in his ongoing work that will allow him to advance it. These are simply two schools of thought. Try both and see which suits you.

When you’ve got something halfway done, a big chunk of something, or a first draft, the fun begins. You’ve got to read it yourself, re-read it, ACTUALLY read it rather than looking over it and imagining you see what you think you put there. Read it out loud if it helps, to find out if it’s got a dramatic rhythm and flow. Work back into it and add the things you feel you’ve missed, the connective tissue. Take out the stuff that’s extraneous. Be ruthless about this. Things will seem precious to you, especially if they’re still fresh. Do not be weak. As a rule of thumb, if you’re not sure whether or not a word should be cut, cut it.

(By the way, I’m assuming that, by this stage, you’ve committed your work to keyboard, even if you wrote your first draft or draft-notes in longhand. The editing process is a great deal less long-winded if you can make several (if necessary) copies of a MS file to try out edits and cuts. Always keep a file copy of your original draft so you can go back to it as a last resort if there’s some kind of editing disaster, and always keep a copy of your current or finished draft (I label mine ‘master’ with the date). In other words, keep a sample of the original ore, and a sample of the refined product. If you want to keep interesting variations produced along the way during the refining process, fine, but make sure you date-label them clearly or you’ll get very confused. This paragraph is the most confusing one in this letter - the only one you’ll have to read twice - so if a discussion of multiple drafts is confusing, imagine what managing them is going to be like.)

Once you’ve got that relatively tidy first draft, it’s probably time to show it to someone else. If you intend to write professionally, you’ve got to let people read your work sometime, and the first ones are probably going to have to be family and friends, which is going to be weird, because they know you. Get over this.

Much more importantly, get this idea front and centre: what they say when they’ve read it is going to help you. It is. It’s really valuable. You ought to pay them for it.

The chances are, you’ll either get polite feedback because people don’t know what to say or don’t want to hurt your feelings, or you’ll get some practical comments from people trying to help you. Both will seem like insults. They really will. You cannot imagine how annoying they will feel. Do not get annoyed. The people who have given you practical advice are simply telling you that there was something about the reading experience that they didn’t enjoy. Funnily enough, the people who just gave you polite feedback are essentially doing the same thing. They’re just not bold enough to suggest a change.

Now we can make allowances for genre and story type - grandma’s probably not going to be a huge fan of brutal combat SF, for example, so that colours things slightly. But the simple truth is that you want to write, and if you want to write, you need to write for OTHER PEOPLE. Using your own enthusiasms as a yardstick in the creative phase is a very sound idea (see above), and if people like what you like, that’s great. But if they have criticisms or comments, listen to them. Don’t get the hump. Don’t tell them they’re wrong, or they don’t understand. Listen to them. This is free test audience advice, so take it and be grateful. Consider what it is about your stories that people like, and which elements they dislike. If you’ve had time to let your manuscript mature, these things may have become obvious to you too.

One of the reasons you’ll get cross about ‘negative’ comments is that a novel or even a novella is a huge chunk of work. It will have probably taken you months to write, and acting on someone’s remarks could represent months more revision work, not a quick afternoon of fixes.

Sorry, that’s the way it is. If you want to write, this is one of the simple facts that you need to accept from the start or disembark the writing bus. Glaciers move slowly. Supertankers do not turn on a dime. Writing takes time. Sometimes you will despise it, because it will seem like the worst up-hill slog ever. Jokes aside, learning some stress-busting relaxation techniques (meditation, yoga, breathing exercises etc) might help, because it’s a long haul. Remember what I said in the previous letter about marathons?

Well, I’ve said plenty. If you, Ryan, or anyone else has any specific questions on this topic, or want me to expand on anything, this is the place to ask. I can’t pretend I’m going to be any more useful than I’ve already not been.

I’ll just add a couple of things in conclusion here. One is to remark upon the comment Dju made after one of the earlier letters, when he said that sometimes chasing and collecting ideas is of itself a wonderful thing. Couldn’t agree more. Jeffrey Dobberpuhl quoted the great Harlon Ellison saying something I couldn’t agree LESS with, except from the standpoint of a professional writer, but I really appreciated Jeff’s novice-friendly reading of the advice.

And as a last word, you should all check out Alan Moore’s Five Tips for Would-be Comic Writers, which appeared in his book 'On Writing' and apply to all writers, I believe. You can find it here.

Good luck and happy writing.

Dan

Three Funky and Fun Things To Do On Saturday

1. Put on some comfortable clothes, relax, and then read and enjoy the loveliness of this little trail here. Then wash it down with this perfectly formed review.

2. Hie yourself over to Aaron Dembski-Bowden's blog and enjoy the ass off his recent post about the Black Library Live/Horus Summit.

3. Dash to your local newsagent or vendor and buy a copy of today's Guardian. The Review section has a particularly good feature where some very famous writers give their top ten writing tips. It's great - much better than jaded old me expected it to be when I sat down and started reading. Note: I know it's late in the day, and by the time you read this the shop might be out of Guardians, or it might be Sunday. I'm guessing the Guardian on-line will carry the article too. Very interesting and very useful in combination with my "Dear Ryan" ramblings...

Sci-FiNow...now!

SciFiNow, that splendid journal of SF, fantasy, horror and cult TV, interviewed me this week for their next issue, but before I could even blink, the interview was already up on their website. I tell you, it's like living in the future. I say it here, it comes out there.

Also, this just in: IGN's 8.5 review of Guardians of the Galaxy. Take heed! Spoiler warnings!

Also in the weekend post...

...a makes-it-all-worthwhile review, which can be found here.

Things To Do At The Weekend #2: Forget Things

I forget names. We’ll come back to that, though it’s important. Who are you again?

I was going to go Blog-Zing crazy yesterday with stuff about BLL, but after my first post I realised I was tired and firing on about one-and-a-half cylinders, so it was time to sit down. Sorry about that. Still, that first post got bundles of great comments out of you, some of which reminded me about the forgetting names thing I’ve been meaning to mention.



Here's one dude I do know the name of. Russ welcomes you to BL Live.





Anyway, covering the basics I should have covered yesterday:

Yes, I like White Scars a lot.
I had a great time.
I’m not sure which I liked more - the mind-zap Horus Summit or BL Live, as they were both so enervating.
It’s been a long time since I’ve been out, so thanks to everyone for being so nice.
I want to write a book about Imperial Navy actions sometime.
I’m sorry I didn’t get a chance to talk to you longer, Matthew; I’m sorry I didn’t get to talk to you at all, Sarah; I’m sorry I missed you, Big; I’m sorry we didn’t get to dissect Aliens properly, Xhalax; I’m sorry I don’t necessarily know more of you better (more of that again later).
I finally met the quite splendid Junior McNeill.
I want to thank Jim Swallow for his advice.
I want to thank Alex Stewart for the lift.
I want to thank Caroline and George for the tea.
I want to say “Hi Katie, sorry you didn’t get to go dancing”.
Just before Aaron decided to throw me to the mob to ensure his safe entry to the BL building, he, Jim and I had created a Second Founding Space Marine chapter called The Arseless Chaps.
Thanks to the Heresy Summit, I know what my next Horus book is going to be called.
No, of course I can’t tell you.
I forget names.

I don’t know how the summit could have been bettered, apart maybe for running it over several days. There’s a great thing that happens when the ideas start ricocheting around the room (“Put that thing away before you get us all killed!”). I’m not going to call it synergy, because that a pants word, but something happens that there’s probably a five dollar term for. I think it’s fair to say there were four or maybe five probably great, big ideas that came out of the afternoon, and we all, collectively, recognised them the moment they occurred. And each idea was had by one of us for one of the others to use. There was no “I’m keeping that one for myself”.

BL Live was an excellent way to spend the day. For me, it was like getting back on the horse after my recent high jinks. Thanks, everyone.



Warhamer World was its usual splendid self. This is before the gaming hordes descended.

Now, I would like to make it publicly known that I’m terrible with names. Properly terrible. Birthdays too, but that’s another story. It’s bad enough with people I don’t know, but when you’ve done a few years of Games Days etc, and the same faces are beginning to crop up more than once, I feel proper anguish that I can’t remember who people are with any degree of precision. I would never want to be rude and mis-remember people, and clearly there is a growing bunch of you that I’ve actually got to know now, but please, everyone else, don’t be shy. People can only remember so many faces anyway, and I’m crapper than average at it (especially now my synapses are mis-firing). Remind me when I saw you last, or if you haunt this blog under a colourful pseudonym, or whatever, otherwise I come away with a sense of slight regret that I didn’t recognise someone, or engage with them more than in a general, cheerful way.

Right, that’s the end of the pathetic-sounding appeal. Those of you who have queued up in the past know what it looks like as you approach the signing table.

Here's what it looked like for Graham, Neil and me.



pyro (Sarah) - ADB’s sideburns will dominate any room. Fact.

tim - I actually found being verbally redacted by the Inquisition to be quite fun, though I was trying to think of something to say that was so outrageous Alex would have had to physically tackle me and hurl me to the ground. Also, during the summit the day before, we thought (too late) of taking some mock photos of us all sitting there looking bored, like in school on a Friday afternoon. God, that would have been funny.

suneokun - Yeah, I heard they called it the Third Reich Building.

Matthew - There are no wolves on Fenris. Maybe cats...maybe...

Hagelrat - sorry you weren’t there but thank you so much for the bookmarks (in use now).

Ilmarinen - this is exactly what I’m talking about!

Big! What happened, buddy?

Things To Do For The Weekend #1: Plot Overthrow Of Imperium

What a great weekend. Normal blogging service will be resumed as soon as possible, but before that, I want to share some of the fun that was Black Library Live AND the latest Horus Heresy planning summit.



Let's start with a shot of the chamber known as The High Lords Of Terra. This is one of the key sanctum sanctorum rooms in GW headquarters, where we gathered on Friday for our Horus Heresy Summit. And, yes, it's got a giant aquila across the windows



In the second shot, some of the High Lords begin to assemble: from left, Jim Swallow, Christian Dunn, Aaron Dembski-Bowden and Nick Kyme.

(BL) Live and kicking!

The long-anticipated Black Library Live day coming up this Saturday, so see you there if you’re going. Warning: the event may cause a slight hiatus in blog posts (by which I mean a slight hiatus by my new regular-as-fibre standards) depending upon hotel internet access. I’ll be thinking of things to blog at the very least.

Before I dash away now, here’s another rather lovely comics review (follow the link and scroll down to click Nova/Guardians of the Galaxy on The Pull List). It’s nice when somebody gets it.

See you Saturday in Nottingham, BL Livers!

Clickety-clack (again!)

Once again, Marvel deadlines have kept me too busy to write the next part of “Dear Ryan”. That’s coming soon. In the meantime, big thanks to Dju, my French translator, for passing along the following news item. It would appear that a certain someone has run mad again...

Irishman urinated on French bread in protest at Henry handball, court told

 (ROSCOMMON, IRELAND)

A drunken unemployed plasterer who was found urinating on the French loaves section of a large supermarket in protest at the infamous handball incident in the France vs Ireland World Cup qualifier was this week given a suspended sentence, fined and bound over to keep the peace.



Frances “Smokie” Larkin, The Meadows, Killareagh, Co Roscommon pleaded guilty to the incident at Maher’s ValueStore supermarket, Killareagh, one week after the match which Ireland controversially drew after the French goal was deemed to have scored despite a blatant handball by French striker Thierry Henry.



Staff found the 46-year-old urinating on the Cuisine de France section of the bread shelves in Maher’s, shouting “this will teach ye, ye cheating French b*****dddds,” before he was taken away by local gardai.



Gardai Anthony Flanagan told the court that he had been called to the store at 11.15 on the morning of November 25.

“When I reached the shop, I was informed that Mr Larkin was causing a disturbance in the bread section and when I got there, he was urinating on the French bread section and stamping on a loaf. I later ascertained that the loaves were brioches, a sort of French bread.



“When he saw me, he tried to run away but I apprehended him and grabbed him by the arm. He said ‘that’s for Thierry Henry, guard. If you have any pride in your country, you’ll let me go.

“Then he said ‘that’ll teach them, the cheating French b*****dddds.’”



Addressing the court, Angela Roche, solicitor for the defendant said that her client had a problem with drink and that normally he was a placid character. 

“It is when he mixes alcohol with his passion for sport that he gets himself into situations like this,” she said. 

She said that Mr Larkin had become quite agitated with the result of the World Cup match and had worn an “I shot Thierry Henry” t-shirt that he had made up in a local t-shirt shop.



In evidence, Mr Larkin apologised to Mahers store and said that he “had no axe to grind with them,” but that they had been caught up in what he said was “friendly fire.” 

He said that he wanted to make a grand gesture to show that the Irish were not going to take the controversial incident lying down.



“The French loaf is the symbol of France and so by doing what I did, I was standing up for Irish pride,” he said.



Mr Larkin had a previous conviction for setting fire to a tennis club shed in his teens, an incident from which he had earned the nickname Smokie.



In his summary, Judge Fergus O’Halloran said that what Mr Larkin had done was despicable and was also a threat to public hygiene.

 “You did this without any thought to the consquences for the unfortunate shoppers who had to buy that bread.

 “If it was in my power to recommend that you seek help for your alcohol addiction, I would do so and also suggest that you take some responsibility for your temper and inappropriate behaviour.



“We cannot have louts like yourself with half-baked ideas about national pride carrying out acts like this,” he said, before sentencing Larkin to six months in jail, suspended on condition he does not breach the peace for one year, fining €500 and ordering him to pay €1,000 to Michael Maher for the clean up of the bread shelf areas.

Dear Ryan (part two)

Dear Ryan

I’m back, and this time I’ve brought a bag full of the bleeding obvious.

If you want to write, you’ve got to write (yeah, don’t groan, I said today was Bring A Bag Of The Bleeding Obvious To Work Day, didn’t I?). It’s as simple as that. If you want to be an actor, or a rock star, and you can’t get a part in a play, or an audition for a band, then there are mitigating circumstances for you not acting or rock-starring. Except for “I haven’t got a pen”, there are no excuses for not writing. And even without a pen, crayon, pencil, or lump of dried monkey poo, you can be thinking about stuff to write down later.

Writing - being a writer - is an ongoing, long-term, cumulative thing. It accretes like dust. It’s not something you do for a few hours one weekend, like kayaking or SingStar. It’s an ongoing lifestyle choice, something that is never far away, like a favourite sweater, or an annoying brother.

It’s up to you how much of a lifestyle choice it becomes. You decide where to place it on the bell curve that runs from idle pass-time through serious hobby to life-altering obsession. It’s a little like smoking, I suppose. You may smoke a couple of cigarettes at a party once in a while, or you might be a forty-a-day guy: either way, you’re still a smoker, dude.

The point is, you’ve got to be doing it to be it. You’ve got to write. In the early stages of what, if you’re lucky (and I use the word advisedly), will be a process that eventually comes to dominate your life like a giant and petulantly demanding Writing God, you should write for yourself. You should write as often as you can. You should write for fun. You should write anything.

Just write. Get those writing joints shaken out. Build those writing muscles. Pump it! Get limber and flexible. Have a laugh. Hum the Rocky theme as you jog up the steps in Writerdelphia (note: metaphors in use).

You can write scraps and fragments, you can write a book, you can write short stories. It doesn’t really matter what it is. I’ve got a stack of folders and file cartons filled with stuff I spewed out as a teenager, and as a young man trying to get into the industry. Sometimes I can still fish a fragment out that's got some battery life left in it, but most of the stuff is beyond recycling. The folders and cartons simply represent the training montage from the movie of my career (note: there isn’t a movie of my career, obviously.)

Once you’ve got the habit of it, the habit of writing things down, and trying them out for size, and for the way they sound in your head when you read them back, you can start showing them to people. That will be the moment when people start saying stupid things to you that you don’t want to hear, which is a fun issue we’ll deal with next time.

For now, buy a pencil. Hey, why not buy a BOX of pencils!? Or, you know, a laptop. Or feed your monkey extra fibre and wait beside him with a hairdryer. Just get writing.

Visualise it this way: a poem or a song lyric is a 100 metres sprint; an article or feature is a 400 metres race; a short story is an 800 metres steeplechase; a novel is a marathon.

Would you try to run any of those things if you hadn’t been in training first?

Oh, and if this bag of the bleeding obvious has come as a disappointment (sorry, you were warned), let me throw in one Actual Solid Practical Tip, free and gratis, no purchase necessary. Buy a small notebook, one that pleases you to use and is small enough to carry in your pocket. Carry it in your pocket at all times. When you are not equipped with a pocket (I’m thinking, in bed, in the shower, dressed as Wonder Woman) strategically place the notebook near to your location (ie on the night stand, by the sink, in the glovebox of the invisible jet).

Write down any ideas you have. Any good names, or words, or notions. Any jokes you like, or stories, or whatever the hell else. Write down anything you think might be of use in your writing (suitably recycled, adjusted or customised, etc). Just collect stuff up for later use. If you don’t write ideas down when you think of them, YOU WILL FORGET THEM. Do not tell yourself you will be able to remember them later when you get home, because you will be lying to yourself, and no one likes a liar.

I’m only going to tell you that tip once.

Talk to you soon.


Dan

Clickety-Clack! (the sound of my fingers typing faster than Jessica Fletcher's)

Up to my Nova Corps helmet chin-strap with some Marvel scripting right now, so I'll be back with another chunk of "Dear Ryan" writing tips as soon as (though here's one to be going on with: writing for a living trumps writing about writing for a living).

In the meantime, a short but very sweet review here.

Dear Ryan

I got this letter by email the other day. As you can imagine, I get a lot of mail, most of it through this site. A lot of it is positive feedback for my books and comics, which I’m grateful to receive. I try to respond to everybody personally, even if it’s just a casual thank you.

Sometimes, people write to take me to task over something and generally tell me how wrong I am, or how bad, or how mistaken, or simply how crap. This is pretty much par for the course in this business we call Write, and I’m grateful for it too, no matter how odd that might sound. It’s not pleasant to be told you suck, but sometimes it’s useful. A writer needs to learn how to use negative criticism as free ammunition (to make him think about his own work and perhaps improve it) and not feel wounded. Either that, or never stick his head over the battlements.

I’m not invulnerable, and sometimes I feel dejected because of the things people say to me about my books despite the fact that, quite often, I don’t even think they mean to be hurtful.

Anyway, a hot button topic, positive or negative, is usually the death of characters (what a surprise). It crops up about as often as the other FAQ - writing advice. Ryan’s letter typifies the sentiment of much of my positive mail, but I found it a particularly stirring example. He’s given me permission to publish it below, so that rather than answering his request for tips privately, I can do it in public for everyone’s benefit.

Ryan, thanks.

Dear Mr. Abnett,

We met once, eight years ago at the 2002 Gamesday in Baltimore,
Maryland. I was just fifteen years old then and my father was with me. He had bought your Eisenhorn trilogy for me, which you signed, and I left untouched on my shelf all these years for fear of damaging actual signed copies. I finally did read the Eisenhorn and Ravenor trilogies just this past year, great stuff, the dialogue between Frauka and Carl when they're waiting in the lander and the thug gets the drop on them in the origin story about Patience had me laughing so hard I nearly fel out of my chair.

When you were signing them, I brought up how I was angry when you
killed Bragg. You asked me why I was angry and I gave you a rather offhand comment about how I liked the character. You nodded and went back to signing. Truth is, I was rather intimidated at that moment and my answer was a cop-out. Plus, my real answer was rather more long-winded so I figured it wasn't proper etiquette to tie up your time with it. It has always nagged me since then (silly, I know, right?) that I never got to tell you my real answer.

So here it is. It was not so much that you killed Bragg that upset me, but how he was killed. If he had died in war, slain by some agent of Chaos or what-have-you I do not think I would have felt much disappointment because he's a soldier and that is what you expect to happen. But having Cuu kill him really got to me. It made me so angry I couldn't even sleep after reading it. And it was because the Ghosts had been a family. The original Ghosts from Tanith, we had gotten to know them over a few books before the influx of the Vervunhivers. Here was this Vervunhiver betraying and killing off one of the original Ghosts, an outsider coming in and destroying the family. That's what made me so angry, and that's the answer I would have liked to have given you back in 2002.

Since that book, you've killed off many of the main characters,
and every one made me feel sad at their loss. It is for that very
reason that whenever I am asked my favorite author, my answer has
always been, Dan Abnett. I actually feel something when a character dies. They're fictional, not real, no one was actually harmed in the writing of your books, and yet I can still feel sad after putting the book down like I just lost someone I cared about.

I definitely do not have the gift of a storyteller, in fact my
stories usually fall flat when I tell them, but perhaps that is
another art altogether from the written story. But something in me wants to write stories, for no other reason than for myself. I have always wanted something more from life than what is possible. To me life is really all just variations of the same pattern. We get an education, we choose a career, we start a family, and we see things through to our end. But that doesn't hold much meaning for me.

What I find meaningful can only be found in stories. I want to go
slay a dragon, be a hero, save Middle Earth, clash lightsabers with a Sith, pour lasgun shots over a sandbag bunker, I think that pretty much conveys the idea. Sure, I try to satisfy this desire with reading, Warhammer, with video games, movies, TV shows, etc but my thirst is never really sated.

The only way I can experience all these fantastical things would be to live vicariously through the stories I create. Even if my
written stories fall flat and are as trash as I anticipate, at least they'll serve their purpose to me. I have no formal training, I never had a creative writing class in my life, I don't fancy myself a writer of any kind.

I just wanted to perhaps hear some advice from you on the subject of writing. You signed the word "Repent!" into my Eisenhorn books so perhaps that is really the key behind all things, but if you had any more elaborate answers that would be lovely. Another author made a comment about how whenever he's approached by people who say they want to write, his first question is, "What do you like to read?" because reading is a great way to improve writing and I agree with that.

When I do try to write, I have plenty of ideas for characters and
scenes and dialogue but it all gets lost in translation between my
brain and the screen. Honestly, I don't know how to start.
Perhaps working inside a universe that has already been created, like Warhammer or Star Wars, or Warcraft where the general framework of the universe has already been established and I can work off that framework rather than from scratch would be easier?
Anyways, thank for you providing me with endless stories to enjoy
since the day I picked up First & Only.

Take care and thank you for your time,

-Ryan Brundage


Dear Ryan

Thanks for your email. The subject of Bragg’s death has come up time and again since The Guns of Tanith came out, and I’m sure my comments to you back in 2002 were a variation on what I usually ask: “Did you care?”

This is what matters to me, and this is why I ‘did’ it. I try to create character-driven stories that are so compelling they inspire gut reactions in a reader - even if that reaction is to hurl a book across a room in outrage. If I kill off a character and the readers utter a resounding “meh” then I don’t think I’m doing a bang-up job.

From your letter, I get it. You may not have been able to express it in 2002 (though you could have held the queue up for a few minutes, nobody would have minded), but your letter does it really well. I’m glad, it’s the response I wanted, because it’s a response. I’m flattered.

I think it’s important to realize that while I am in control of these books and characters, I’m not a cruel and vengeful creator. I am very engaged with them, and it pains me, really pains me, to do anything remotely unpleasant to any of them. I go where the drama takes me, and sometimes (though this will sound terribly poncey, so forgive me) it’s the characters who decide what happens next, and who lives or dies. To give you two non-specific examples, there’s one Ghost book where I knew a main character was going to die but only in the writing of the ‘death’ scene’ did I realise that it wasn’t going to be the one I was expecting it to be. In another Gaunt book, a Ghost died when I wasn’t expecting one to at all, unplanned. It just made sense. It wasn’t nice sense, but it was sense.

I’m glad this matters to you, and I’m glad and honored that it seems to matter to a lot of readers.

As for storytelling, I get asked for advice a lot, and I’d like to take this opportunity, in this post and the next few that follow, to set out some basic pointers as they appear to me. They are not infallible, and they are neither right nor wrong. They’re are just what they are. You can learn an awful lot from formal writing classes or informal advice from authors but, in the end, writing is just one of those things that are unquantifiable.

This post is now running too long, so I’ll end for now with a couple of comments. One is to pick up on the reading thing. It is the primary way to develop your writing and write better. Look at what other writers do and consider how they do it, how they achieve (or fail to achieve, heaven forbid) what they’re up to. I also believe that if you aren’t an eager reader you won’t make an eager writer. It’s like trying to be a great chef but not liking food much.

I also believe reading and writing enjoy a relationship that’s akin to the fuel in/fuel out principle. I’m not talking about plagiarism here; I just know that if I don’t read for a few days, if I don’t pour words into the fuel tank, I can’t write well. And it can be anything - a classic novel, a newspaper, a gossip magazine.

The second thing is just an idle aside. I agree that fiction is a marvelous escape, perhaps the greatest and purest route of all, but I think real life has a little more going for it than you suggest. Balance in all things.

Nice talking to you. I’ll post more soon.


Dan

Black Library Love

Here's how it's looking, official and timetabled. I believe there are still, like, two tickets left.

Run. RUN.

No Blog Like Home(page)

Babel Clash was a nice place to visit for a fortnight. The weather was great, and the company very affable, and the nightlife - man oh man! Between us Graham McNeill and I turned our stay as guest bloggers on the Borders US SF and F site into a record breaker - they got more traffic than during any previous guest tenure. So if you’re joining me here because you met me there, howdy! Let’s see what we can get nattering about.

Two cultural things for today. First, I see that Steve Jobs is finally marketing the dataslate I invented at the start of the Gaunt's Ghosts series ten years ago. B-dam tish!

Second (and I realise that this time I’m way late to the party) I went to see Avatar. Very groovy indeed. I was genuinely relieved to see Wayne Barlowe’s name in the end titles because, you know, otherwise he’d have every reason to feel intellectually raped. But doesn’t JC owe a fat old thank-you payment to the estate of Burne Hogarth for the jungles, and Roger Dean for... everything else? (Except for the Colonial Marines, which JC took from himself.)

And was it just me, or did the score from Oscar-winning composer James Horner* keep sounding either a) like the driving Colonial Marine music from Aliens, or b) like it was a note or two away from soaring into the main theme from Titanic?


* That’s James Horner, Oscar-winning composer of the music from James Cameron’s movies Aliens and Titanic.

First look: Embedded

To celebrate the first day of February or whatever else the funt you want to celebrate, Angry Robot has unveiled the cover art to my 2010 release, the combat SF novel Embedded. The art is by the fethtastically talented Larry Rostant. No further words are necessary. Just look.

Mmmh! A very nice review...

... right here!

Noteworthy Alignments Get On My Wick, Says Author

So, coincidences. It’s no biggie, really, it’s just that I’m being stalked by coincidences.

I usually take a coincidence as a good thing, a sign that the universe is working the way it’s supposed to be, but just in the last few weeks, man, has my life been Noteworthy-alignment-of-two-or-more-events-or-circumstances-without-obvious-causal-connection Central.

It’s not even anything in particular, just an accumulation. the details would bore you (if you really must know, the latest one that made me exclaim in my Facebook status was that the latest issue of Fortean Times arrived through the door, and inside was an article on PRECISELY matched what I was working on - the same thing had happened with the Guardian and the TLS already this week).

One of the first questions they ask when they examine you for epilepsy and related conditions is if you experience deja vu. Hell, yeah. Mister, I’ve had deja vu BOTH times. Well, apparently, paramnesia can be a diagnostic indicator of epilepsy. I mention it because, to me, deja vu and coincidence are very similar things. They feel related. I wonder if coincidence can also be an epilepsy indicator, except I’m not sure if it can be.

I mean, it’s external, isn’t it? It’s not in my head, it’s clearly things out there in the world.

I was going to look it up on the Interweb, but I decided to wait. There’ll be an article about it in the paper tomorrow.

And the winner is...

.. me! Or it could be. My fate is your hands. Here’s how it works. The fabulous comic website The Outhouse (www.theouthousers.com) is holding their first annual awards, and the winners are decided by a public vote. Andy and I have been nominated in two categories: Best Creative Team and Best Mainstream Ongoing (for Guardians of the Galaxy). So what you do is you go along to the website, register as an Outhouser (a free and painless process) and cast your vote. Then we finish on a big musical number, roll end titles.

What could possibly go wrong?

Oh, let's just do another blog!

Yes, let's! I've got a drum kit, your dad's got a barn... we can put the show on right here!

Graham and I are still ruling the roost over at Borders Babel Clash, which is strengthening my blogging muscles and giving me momentum. So I’m back.

My confession about the Imperial Fists got you all over-excited, and condemned the blog forever to a very off-colour running gag. Which, BigWill and Matthew, I will make no effort to encourage (“Up the Emperor!”).

Flekkzo - thanks for the permission to keep writing ;) You put me in mind of the tone of Grand Moff Tarkin (“You may fire when ready”).

HiWayRobry - the Hawk Lords always sound to me like they’ve got a silver machine.

The SGC - As far as I’m concerned, and as far as I’ve been concerned all along, Loken is alive. (*Ming voice* “Loken’s alive!”). Plus, Aaron Dembski-Bowden’s got a cat called Loken, so I can’t let him down. Thanks for the YouTube tip, Adelie and BigWill.

Anonymous - I was wondering just how many people you were. One? Two? Three? Funnily enough, I’m writing Prospero Burns because I don’t like Russ and the Wolves much either, and I want to find out how they tick. The delay in that and the Ghosts has much more to do with my recent problems with epilepsy that have slowed everything down a bit. Sorry for the wait. Oh, I and I think I kill PLENTY of major characters in the Gaunt books. I’m infamous for it. Don’t lose anybody important in 10 books indeed! Honestly!

frieslander - the arrogance level may vary, but they’re all still seven foot high super-humans. It’s not so much a matter of lacking respect, I suppose, it’s more like different habitats, like saying Leopards have no respect for sardines, or eagles have no respect for termites. Or have I lost the plot? I don’t consciously favour Khorn, though I know I have a problem with Nurgle. I’d use Nurgle more, because the concept is the most interesting, but the name makes me laugh.

Philip - “The Space Wolves have kept their links to humanity”. Frieslander not the only one in need of special pills, I think ;)

Babel Clash 2: Electric Boogaloo

Just thought I’d re-remind all of you that Im guest blogger over at the BORDERS sci-fi blog Babel Clash (link in the post below). It’s going well, and thanks to those of you who have already turned up to hurl vegetables at the stocks. In fact, I really shouldn’t draw attention to the fact that I’ve posted there two days in a row AND answered questions, because it will make painfully clear what a laggard I am here. I will do better. I will. It’s one of my New Year Resolutions.

To prove my point:

BigWill - I’m not sure how they compare, but a comparison would necessarily involve tests in sneaking about and hiding behind trees, which the Tanith would obviously win. My favorite chapter (apart from the iron Snakes, because that’s mine) is the Imperial Fists (this is not a lie or a joke, so don’t wait for a punchline). Incidentally, my least favorite was always the Wolves, but Prospero Burns is rapidly changing that.

Willard - thank you, me too, and see my previous answer.

frieslander - David, I can’t imagine what you mean ;)
Yes, I suppose some fair-minded, generous, liberal-thinking Astartes might be quite impressed by the Tanith. a) do you know any? and b) even then, they’d be quite condescending.

Lars - I don’t think so. Then again, Monsters Inc (a fine film) isn’t the first story to use the idea of a magic door either. By the way, it’s a pen AND a keyboard.

Big - yes, yes! Away with the cartoony garnish! Big, these Wolves are so ****ing mean and tough, they are going to ****ing come round Horus’s crib and **** him up so ****ing nasty, he won’t be able to ******* without a **** and two sturdy ***** ****. Actually, they are so ****ing ***** and ******* ***** *****, they don’t even like being called Space Wolves. THAT’S how hard they are!

Matthew - I know, but this is big and bright American Borders, where dreams still dream to be dreamed. Plus, you never know, you might get yourself a lovely taupe portcullis thing.

Babel Clash

So, as part of a serious New Years Resolution-y effort to get my blog-a-rhythms pulsing along at a more regular lick, you are hereby given notice that as of the 19th of January, which is this coming Tuesday, I will be the latest guest blogger on Babel Clash, the BORDERS sci-fi blog. This can be found at http://bordersblog.com/scifi/

I’ll be in the driving seat there for the next two weeks, posting at least something every day, so pop along and take a peek. And comment. You know how to comment, don’t you? You just put your cursor on the link and click...

“Will there be a theme to your ramblings?” I hear you ask. Is there ever? Honestly? How long have you known me? Do I ever stick to a point? Nominally, I will be talking about (and taking questions about) writing in someone else’s Universe (which is, of course, what I do at Marvel and Black Library). But I may digress. You all know I am very easily distrac... oh look! That dog’s got a puffy tail!

Where was I? Oh yeah... I was on Babel Clash, the BORDERS sci-fi blog. Let’s go!

To hear air-brakes in the snow

It’s Christmas Eve already, and Nik’s birthday (Happy Birthday, Nik!) and the snow is beginning to retreat, though that didn’t stop a large truck breaking down on the main road outside in the middle of last night and keeping me awake by farting its air brakes every couple of minutes. Also on a downside today is the news that Dan O’Bannon is no longer with us. Amongst his contributions to the genre, not the least being his creative influence on Alien, one of the absolute highlights for me remains Dark Star, the student film he made with John Carpenter that went on to become a successful indie feature. It was a real team effort: O’Bannon worked as a scripter, editor and actor on the movie. If the name Dark Star means nothing to you, give yourself a Christmas Present and find a copy to watch. I remember seeing it for the first time around Christmas when I was, well, a kid. It had a lasting effect. My god, I just this second realised where I got the ‘to camera’ diary room pieces in Guardians of the Galaxy from.
Anyway, it is, nevertheless, Christmas, and we should think happy thoughts. As I lay in bed listening to the music of the air brakes, I thought about all the cool ideas I didn’t get around to using this year: the magical catering supply company called Witchkraft Services; the title “Horrorscope” (Andy and I ended up calling it something else, as readers will discover next year); a character called Drew Morgue (actually, that’s a lie, as he ended up sneaking back in somewhere else); the fact that an on-line identity of nonspecific gender may be referred to as s/h/it; and the phrase “like the galaxy, he had a western spiral arm”, which I just can’t seem to sneak in anywhere.
There were many others, and some are too juicy not to be reserved for later use. Thanks for reading this year, and thanks for all your generous support and encouragement. Please accept my apologies for anything that’s run late - normal service will be resumed as soon as possible.
For some festive fun, frolics and chuckles, may I recommend you head over to Comic Geek Speak and listen to the podcast interview Andy Lanning and I did about our Marvel work (amongst other things); It’s over here: http://www.comicgeekspeak.com/episodes/comic_geek_speak-971.php We were in an especially silly mood. I believe Cor has already expressed an interest in catching up with the comic stuff, so I’ll just say that Marvel has issued both Nova and the Guardians of the Galaxy in numbered trade paperback collections.
I can also very much recommend a trip over to http://www.paulcornell.com/ where Mr C has been running his splendid 12 blogs of Christmas. Yes, I do turn up in the mix at once point, but that’s not why I’m recommending it. There are all sorts of diversions and entertainments, plus people such as Russell T. Davies and Stephan Moffat talking about Christmases and New Years, past and present. 
Right, half seven, time for the day to begin. There’s a cup of tea to make and birthday presents to be removed from hiding.
If I don’t see you before, Happy Christmas, everyone.
 

The doctor will see you now.

“Oh, really?” said the specialist. “An author, eh?” and so began an enthusiastic ten minute chat about the merits of Dan Brown, which was all very nice and cordial, except I was sitting there, waiting anxiously to get the results of my MRI and find out if I had terminal Brain Death Lurgy or Sudden Cerebral Splat Out The Ears Syndrome, or whatever.

So I was a little tense and braced, and a ten minute chat about the relative merits of D. Brown Esq was not high on my list marked ‘to do’. Maybe, I suddenly thought, this is his way of relaxing me so he can Break It To Me Gently. Oh god...

Turns out, I have epilepsy. I ‘just’ have epilepsy. No family history, no explanation of why I have suddenly developed it, but I know what’s going on now, and, without making light of the condition in any way, it seems like a pretty good result, considering where the Dan Brown chat could have been leading.

Can I just thank you all for your messages of support and encouragement here and on Twitter and Facebook etc. You guys...

As many of you have mentioned, it’s now been revealed that I wrote the screenplay for the 40K animated movie 'Ultramarines' (http://ultramarinesthemovie.com/). I’ve been itching to let the cat out of the bag about this, and I’m properly excited it’s now been officially announced. Lots of you already have questions, and I’ll be answering them here and on the official site as we go along. But be patient! I’ll bring you the first update on the production as soon as they un-cuff me and let me out of this cupboard marked ‘secret movie stuff’.

Seeing as we’re getting all link-happy, I would like to point you to Nathan Long’s spiffy new website (www.sabrepunk.com), and also to an interesting dialogue I had with Mark Charan Newton, which Mark ran as a guest on Jeff Vandermeer’s blog (http://www.jeffvandermeer.com/2009/11/11/genre-fiction-and-tie-in-fiction-–-a-conversation-between-mark-charan-newton-and-dan-abnett/). As the link suggests, it’s a chat about tie-in fiction, which some of you might find thought-provoking.

One of the questions I got asked by the specialist was “do you ever experience deja vu?” Do I? Not again! I get deja vu a lot (along with its close kinfolk Astonishing Coincidence, Synchronicity, Morphic Resonance and Jamais Vu). What that means for my head, I don’t know, but it segues me neatly to the last thing I wanted to mention. About twenty five years ago, as an undergraduate, I went with several of my friends to a Lloyd Cole and the Commotions gig. We liked them very much, and we liked the show very much too, especially the endearing fact that they played some of their best numbers more than once (“because we don’t know that many songs yet” Mr Cole offered by way of an explanation).

One of my best friends - we’ll call him Duffy, because that’s his name - decided, for reasons he later came to regret, not to come to the gig. He was kicking himself for missing it within days, if not hours, of the concert.

Last week, he emailed me (he lives in a distant part of the world now). He wanted to tell me that he had finally got the chance to go to a Lloyd Cole concert (no more Commotions these days), and had enjoyed it hugely. After the interval, Mr Cole had played one of his most famous songs, but because some of the audience had been late back from the bar, and had missed it, he played it again. Then he said, “I haven’t played a song twice in one concert since 1984. Back then it was because I didn’t know many songs”). He was referring, you see, to the actual concert that I had been to, and which Duffy had missed, and now Duffy and been there when he said-

I’m sure you get it. Nice and synchronous though, right?

"Caution: Unexpected honking"

So I’m sitting here, writing this, watching the finals of the Over 35 Bronze Man-Lady. I assume that’s hyphenated. It could be, at a pinch, a slash. And before you go all taste and decency on me, it’s a ballroom dancing competition, and Man-Lady is a category that simply denotes a man dancing with a lady. Unnecessary clarity, I feel, unless there are categories I don’t know about like Man-Rotary Washing Line or Gnu-Lady.

Daughter B is taking part - she just won her third trophy. I’m sitting on the folding chairs with one eye on the dancefloor and my lap top in my lap. Outside in the park, thanks to the weekend storms, it looks like someone went bug-funt with an industrial leaf-blower.

I mention all of this simply for colour. It’s been a quiet week in Lake Wobegon. Thanks for all the messages of encouragement and support, I’ve really appreciated them. I did indeed break the MRI machine - this was just after they had scanned me to establish I have no cats in me. It’s probably their fault for not including the question “Are you an omega-level telekine scheduled for termination by the Ordo Hereticus?” on the pre-MRI checklist (between, presumably, “Have you got any metal plates, pins or stents?” and “Are you wearing tattooed eye-liner?”).

Anyway, it broke, and I had to come back later. In fact, when I say broke, it actually had the MRI equivalent of a paper jam, which, if you’ve ever had an MRI, you’ll be able to picture. Curious thing: they warn you about the odd loud noises, the banging, the necessity to stay still, and the potential claustrophobia (you’re inside a metal tube - now I know what an individually-vended King Edward cigar feels like), but they don’t warn that about halfway through, the MRI machine will stop banging like a pneumatic drill and starting making a noise like... Well, you know those horns that kids have on their bikes? A squeezy rubber bulb attached to a chrome horn? The sort of thing a seal would use in a circus? A honking thing? A sound most commonly experienced in Looney Tunes cartoons and Benny Hill sketches?

A noise like that. Behind my head. Over and over and over again.

Odd. Anyway, I didn’t break it this time, and the doctors and technicians were all smiley, and in a week or so, I’ll get the final results - “I’m sorry, Mr Abnett, but we’ve scanned your head and we can’t find any trace of a brain at all.” Equally odd is the fact that I choose this week to watch the final few episodes of the fourth season of Bones. I don’t want to spoil things for anyone who hasn't seen it, but odd, that’s what I’m saying. Odd.

Still, I’m getting a lot of reading done. More news as it happens. We’re off home, where there’s a dumpling with my name on it (note to self: stop labeling things).

I Hate Dan Abnett

Wonders will never cease. The marvelous Mark Charan Newton, author of "Villjamur", read "Triumff", and liked it so much that he has written a few words to inspire others to read it too. What a very fine chap he is. Take it away Mr Newton.


Enough has been said about the plot already, so what I most of all want to add is this:

I hate Dan Abnett.

Why? Because having proved himself the king of noir-infused miltary SF, it takes quite a talent to move easily to something completely different - and this really is a triumffant leap in style. Such transitions really are difficult to pull off, and you would have thought that he's been writing books like this for the past decade.

Our foppish lead, Sir Rupert, heads on a rip-snorter of a ride across a steampunk alternate London that blends historical truth with the wonderfully bizarre. Half the time pissed, the rest getting down and dirty in duels (though the two are not mutually exclusive), this unlikely hero heads on the trail of Occult Goings On of the highest order. Whilst it's chock-full of nods-of-the-head to the finest of Culture and Art and History, it doesn't come over as pretentious – because most of all, "Triumff" is a great slice of British fun.

Anyway, back to the prose, which is the most entertaining aspect: Dan's style here is the bastard-son of, say, Scott Lynch and Tim Powers and all that's best of Blackadder. The depiction of the cityscape is a brew of heady descriptions, and written with a vast and esoteric vocabulary. And the humour is delivered with a wry smile that will have you guffawing boisterously from your armchair.

What's especially annoying, though, is that this pesky Abnett chap makes such a change of gear in writing and storytelling look so damn easy.

Just a little reminder of dates for the Scottish tour!

Something for the weekend.

Forbidden Planet beckons, and Nik tells me that I've worked too much again, this week, what with more books in the mind-mill for AR and BL!

So, this is just to say that we both admire Matthew Farrer beyond anything that we can adequately express in a couple of sentences. We are beyond delighted that he has read and reviewed "Triumff", and here are his thoughts.

TRIUMFF - Her Majesty’s Hero, by Dan Abnett

It’s raining. It’s pouring. London is very much the worse for water, and as the little tour that opens Triumff shows you how bad things are there it also shows you what sort of London you’ve stepped into: a city of wooden buildings, wagon-rutted streets, cock-fighting pits, overflowing sewers and oddly underdressed nuns. Foul weather or no, it’s a jaunty, amused little expedition: you can feel Dan getting into the rhythm of his prose, feeling the saunter and spring in its step, seeing the gleam in its eye. It’s an intro that gets you into just the right frame of mind to meet our hero. Who is, of course, in the process of duelling for his life.

Sir Rupert Triumff, seafarer, Constable of the Gravesend Basin and celebrated discoverer of Australia, was commanding over a yard of sharpened metal of his own. His black locks hung in ringlets around his brow, his shirt had acquired two extra slits since he had put it on that morning, and he was humming a song about the Guinea Coast for no real reason at all. Triumff had once read the title page of Vegetius, owned a risible translation of Livy, and often quoted Caesar, even though he had never been within ten feet of a copy. He was not, at that stage, entirely sure what day it was.

It’s no great spoiler to say that Sir Rupert manages to survive the end of the duel, albeit neither undefeated nor unscathed, but even as the clouds clear over London you can tell they’re gathering over Triumff. We get a short course in the world the story has led us into: Queen Elizabeth XXX sits on the throne not only of England but of the Anglo-Hispanic Unity, a superpower that has dominated both Europe and the New World for centuries, aided by the rediscovery of Magick during the Renaissance and the incorporation of “the Cantrips and the Jinx” into the natural philosophies of the Church. And eavesdropping on a meeting of wicked conspirators gives a handy introduction to what certain parties want to do to this status quo (something rather bad), and hints at the magickal means they plan to employ to do it (something considerably worse).

Triumff thought he had problems before. The fallout from his expedition to Australia in search of new forms of Magick has put him in a deeply uncomfortable position at Court - the “attempts on one’s life” sort of level - and he’s wondering if and for how long he can conceal the real nature of what he found there, let alone the true nature of the native Australian who returned to England with him. These problems are about to get a sharp push down his list of priorities, though, when a terrible act of sabotage devastates the cantripworks that keep mighty London running.

The City was utterly, utterly dark. ... Usually, the City at night lies like a black velvet cape encrusted with winking sequins, spread across the muddy earth by some titanic Raleigh for some celestial Elizabeth. Tonight, even the poetry had been turned off. Everything down there, under the beating rain, was dark, and blind, and cold and frightened.

Before he knows it Triumff has been roped into a secret mission in the frantic defence of the kingdom, and as he and his little band of allies swashbuckle their way to the heart of the conspiracy we careen through swordfights, disguised identities, lute-playing, vile magick, a sedan-chair chase, the finer points of cat-nailing, and helping hands from an Italian genius, a fierce old hedge-witch and... something rather stranger. The whole adventure’s cheerful, crazy momentum carries it into a royal showdown with a hideous apparition and a literally explosive climax.

Triumff is the sort of story that tends to get described as “rollicking”, and in fact I’m pretty sure Dan used that exact word in one of his YouTube interviews recently. It’s a good word. Rollicking, roistering, roller-coasting. You can tell that Dan had fun with this. I’ve enjoyed and admired his Black Library work, but there’s a high-spirited gusto in Triumff that I don’t think I’ve really seen from him before. The sense of fun is infectious - if you read this book in company I predict you’ll be regularly tugging your companions’s sleeves wanting to share the bit that just got you chuckling. The writing has the occasional shade of Kim Newman, a touch of Blackadder and a few passages that put me in mind of Pratchett, but while you can catch Dan’s nods to some of his tastes and influences this remains indisputably an Abnett novel. It has Dan’s trademark crisp, pacy prose, his skill at evoking scenery and image, and his deft switches of direction. He has an easy confidence in shifting between his cast as their subplots and trajectories converge, bringing in minor characters for scenes that help broaden the picture and give backdrop to the main story, and changing gears from high slapstick to mournful or macabre. Dan’s prose is like a master fencer’s technique: however frantic the pace may seem, if you look carefully you can see how poised and controlled each movement actually is. Triumff also re-uses a technique from the Ravenor novels, switching between first and third person, with one Mr Beaver of Fleet Street providing commentary on the events as they unroll and occasionally stopping to address the reader directly. It’s a conceit that generally worked for Ravenor but actually works better here: it’s better built into the way the story is framed, and more suited to the amiably unruly feel.

In a garret on Fleet Street, your humble servant, the author, Master Wllm Beaver, sat, scribbling away by the light of the single overhead lamp. It was a piece on “Ten Things You Didn’t Know About Hose”, as I recall. It was destined never to be finished. My HB pencil had just broken, and a rummaging search was underway in the drawers of the desk for a clasp knife with which to resharpen it before item four (“You can wear it on your head if you seek to obtain money with menaces from a Banking House, Real Estate Society or Postal Depot”) slipped from my mind.

Triumff grabs the reader by the scruff of the neck early on and drags you along at such a pace that you can take the rough patches in stride, but in fairness, the rough patches are there. The main characters are sharply-drawn and endearing, but the supporting cast feels a little overstocked, and I found myself sometimes having to backtrack to earlier scenes so I could keep some of the characters straight in my head. The various subplots are handled well during the body of the book but there were rather a lot of them jostling for resolution at the end, and that meant that not all of them had satisfying payoffs and robbed the ending of some of its energy. There’s also a connection between an early scene of New World shamans and a subsequent character with a role right at the climax (be spoiler-aware when discussing this in the comments, please) which may have been intended as a deliberate bait-and-switch surprise but which ends up feeling disjointed.

None of this means that Triumff is less than a pleasure to read. I was busted more than once sneakily reading it while I was supposed to have my laptop open for something else entirely, I’ve read bits out from it to family and friends, and am very much looking forward to it hitting the shelves so I can start comparing favourite moments with other readers. It’s been great to see what Dan can do when he stretches his stride to the fullest.

So far no Angry Robot book seems to be anything like any of the others. I’ve now sampled the shuddering psychological wringer of Slights, the hypodermic-sharp post-cyberpunk of Moxyland and now had my swashbuckle dialled up to eleven for Triumff. Dan’s next book for them promises to be something different again, and I look forward to enjoying it as much as I’ve enjoyed this.

He saluted me, and strode away down the gravel path. As he disappeared from view behind the stable arch, I could hear that he was humming a song about the Guinea Coast.

That was the last time I saw him.

Until the next.

Forbidden Planet signing.

Day of Days!

It has arrived! My day of days, and my comp copies of "Triumff"! I'm going to take this opportunity, if I may, to introduce a new guest blogger. I know, I know, you've read a review of "Triumff" already, you might even have read two, but, frankly, I can't get enough of people saying nice things about this book. It's my baby, and it has been for a very long time, and I can't think of anything nicer to do, today, than revel in praise for it!

I was seriously considering have a competition for best review of "Triumff", but they've all been so darned marvelous that it'd be impossible to choose just one!

Jonathan Green has been a fellow Black Library writer, and a very fine fellow for more years than I care to remember. He's a jolly good writer and a jolly good egg, and I can't say enough nice things about him. I sent him "Triumff", and the dear man read it. This is what he had to say. Thank you, Jonathan, and take it away:

Triumffant
A review of Dan Abnett’s Triumff: Her Majesty’s Hero by Jonathan Green

Triumff: Her Majesty's Hero is Dan Abnett’s long-awaited and much-anticipated original fiction debut. He’s been writing for years, of course (which is patently apparent in Triumff), and is already a multi-million-selling author, but outside of 2000AD, Games Workshop and various other comic-writing and tie-in novelisation gigs, he is still, unbelievably a relative unknown. But all that is about to change with the publication of this truly original work of fiction.
The setting is the present day, only it’s a world very different to our own, the sun never having set on the glories of the first Elizabethan Age. In this alternate reality the Renaissance saw a re-emergence of the Magick Arts and hence the arresting of significant technological development. Against this backdrop of Shakespearean thesps, wily cardinals and duelling noblemen, Sir Rupert Triumff – dandy, drinker and dueller – is catapulted into a revenger’s tragedy’s worth of intrigue as he tries to uncover and put paid to a nefarious and damnably traitorous scheme.
Abnett’s world-building is assured and satisfyingly detailed, although none of this detail ever swamps the plot which moves at a rollicking rate. In fact, it reads like a Blackadder-inspired cinematic blockbuster. As a result, the alternate Elizabethan setting is instantly recognisable, populated with pastiches of historical figures as well as characters that have walked right out of your television set. There’s even a nod to hardcore Warhammer fans. Humour, action and intrigue abound in equal measure, and combine with Abnett’s idiosyncratic clockpunk stylings to create a wholly satisfying read.
To dismiss Triumff: Her Majesty's Hero as a Pratchett clone is to do it a disservice; this is classic Abnett. From the economy of description – which nonetheless conjures a vivid and fascinating backdrop – to the grand set-piece action scenes and frequent, pun-tastic humour – that extends to a scene right out of Bond – it could hardly be anything else.
If you want your buckles well and truly swashed and derring done, you know where to come. Triumff is, in a word, a triumph.

Eve of "Triumff"!

Tomorrow, "Triumff" will officially be on the bookshelves. Waterstones will have it, WHS will have it, heck, everyone will have it, and if they don't, jolly well ask for it!

To mark the occasion, it is my very great pleasure to introduce my latest guest blogger. (See, still not actually doing a whole lot of work over here, except for the several thousand words of "Prospero Burns" that I uploaded into my computer, today. So, thank you to everyone who is guesting and keeping you lot busy, here, so that I can get busy over yonder with more writing. That week off was very welcome, but now it's time to catch up.)

I digress. Let's have the guest blog. He is known far and wide for his wit and wisdom, and his all-around lovely-blokeness. Ladies and Gentlemen, it's Big... no really. Take it away, Big.



Cockspankingly brilliant!

Vivat Regina

Thanks to Matthew Churchill, I am able to indulge myself, once again, and hand over this column to another. Take it away, and thanks very much, Matthew.

Triumff: Her Majesty’s Hero is Dan Abnett’s long-awaited original fiction novel. Abnett has an extensive history of writing successfully for various science fiction and fantasy imprints, but Triumff is our first chance to see him playing with toys entirely of his own creation. Those familiar with Abnett’s writing will appreciate that such toys are likely to be full of whirly death, and will contain sharp objects not suitable for small children.

Its eponymous hero, Sir Rupert Triumff, drinks, cavorts and swashbuckles through an alternate version of present-day Earth where the sun never set on the Golden Age of Elizabethan England. Her Glorious Majesty Elizabeth XXX sits on the throne, along with a considerable weight of petticoats, bodice and pearls. A conspiracy is afoot to threaten the life of the Queen and taint the Magick that protects and prolongs her realm. And it’s down to Rupert Triumff to save the day.

The book is a rollicking good read. It has the easy grace and unpretentious style of Abnett’s Games Workshop novels, and shares his familiar blending of accessible prose, realistic characterisation, and resonant description. Triumff will expand your vocabulary with neat antique and obscure words if you care to look them up, but the writing never gets bogged down in flowery prose. Primarily, it is a comic novel, and its lightness of touch and playful language may surprise some who come to Abnett purely from the grim darkness of Games Workshop, although a deft comic sensibility has often been at the heart of Abnett’s work for 2000AD comics.

As an original novel, Triumff requires no familiarity with any of Abnett’s extensive back-catalogue. Comparisons to other writers are inevitable in the fantasy genre. Some are describing Triumff as a kind of Steampunk Pratchett, and it’s understandable. However, Abnett writes action considerably better than Pratchett, with several meaty fights and an explosive conclusion.

With its alternate Earth setting, much of the enjoyment comes from viewing our own world through a skewed mirror, and spotting the parallels. Triumff isn’t preoccupied, however, with playing this game to the detriment of the plot, but does allow for some nice cameos, including a Q’ute James Bond scene that had me laughing out loud.

Ultimately, that’s the important bit. Triumff is laugh-out-loud funny. The characters are strong and well-defined, and the neo-Elizabethan setting is handled carefully and without alienating those unfamiliar with all things cuffed and ruffed. It’s pacey, punchy, and highly enjoyable. Vivat Regina!


(This review was based on an advance proof copy. Triumff: Her Majesty’s Hero will be published in October by Angry Robot books and is available from Amazon.co.uk and Play.com)

GamesDay update and the Scottish tour

With only a few days to go before GamesDay, I'm really looking forward to it! I know I won't get to see you all, but I plan to have fun with the people that I do get to see, so buy a book and get in line.

For those of you with one of my hundred tickets, I'll see you there. I believe signing times are 11 - 12.30, 1.30 - 2.30 and 3 - 4.

For those of you who don't get a ticket, I'm really very sorry, and I will do my best to make it up to you, somehow.

The Scottish signing tour, which was to include Leeds and Gateshead has been trimmed down, so that I can only do the Scottish dates in Edinburgh, Glasgow and Falkirk. Again, my apologies, but I am unable to drive, and so I'm now flying straight to Scotland. I will add Leeds and Gateshead to my schedule as soon as I possibly can, hopefully in the spring.

Roll on GamesDay!

A Mind is a Terrible Thing to Waste

I'm not saying I've wasted mine, but I'm certainly going to be rewrapping it more carefully every time I put it back in the fridge from now on. At the end of last week, I had an unpleasant little episode that landed me in hospital for the day. It was, in all likelihood, related to a mild pre-existing condition called Nocturnal Epilepsy, but it wasn't very nice. Well, it wasn't very nice for Nik, I didn't know much about it. In fact, that was probably the most distressing part of it from my point of view: short term memory loss and a general befuddlement as to what was actually going on.

Anyway, I'm fine now. I feel fine. My brain works... as much as it ever did. I fully intend to be getting on with all the things I should be getting on with (and yes, that includes making sure these novels and comics come out on time). However, I've been told to take it easy for a little while, and not to do anything that might exacerbate the condition. I can foresee having all sorts of tests and examinations in the near future as nice doctors make sure I'm flight-worthy.

The principal upshot of all of this is that it will effect some of the public appearances planned over the next three months. I'm not really supposed to travel at all, but I'm not going to sit on my arse. I will have to limit the events I do, somewhat. That will mean flying to Scotland for the Edinburgh/Glasgow/Falkirk signings, rather than driving up country, which means, I'm very sorry to say, Gateshead and Leeds will have to wait until I can make it up to them for a properly dedicated visit. It also means that my face-time at GamesDay has been rationed. I'm especially disappointed about this, because I love the annual opportunity to meet and chat with as many BL readers as possible. There's always next year, and Black Library day in the spring! I'll also see if I can devise some cunning and inventive ways of making it up to anyone who missed out.

For the time being, please check the BL website and Facebook page for revised details of GamesDay and the signing tour of the north as they relate to me. I'll try to post these new details here, too, as soon as I have them.

To sum up, I'm fine. I may simply have worked a little bit too hard. Prospero Burns, and everything else that's lined up, is still very much on-course. I simply need to take a little constitutional rest or risk the tuts of Doctors and the wrath of Nik. Normal service will be resumed as soon as possible. The Emperor Protects.

That About Covers It!

The cover for "Triumff" has been finalised and I'm thrilled to be able to talk about it. Larry Rostant has done a fantastic job rendering our hero in all his muck and glory, and a very handsome man he is too - Triumff that is. (I'm sure Larry Rostant might also be considered a good looking man in some quarters, but, in this instance, I'm referring to the dashing adventurer at the heart of my tale.) I'm awfully fond of a good chimney, too, so all my requirements have been more than met. Thanks, Larry!

Form an Orderly Queue...

...The countdown to "Triumff" begins here. It's less than a month (October the 1st to be precise) before Angry Robot releases my first novel for them: "Triumff"! I've spoken about this a little before, and I must say, I'm beginning to get very excited about its launch. But you don't just want to hear me banging on about it: I've sent a few PDF copies out to some friends and relations of this blog to solicit their opinions and previews. As the responses come back, I'm going to run them as guest blogs, and today we have the very first. Ladies and gentlemen, let's have a very warm welcome for the indomitable and rather lovely Xhalax!

Take it away, Xhalax:


"I’ve never been much of a fan of history, even though a lot of sci-fi seems to be based on the past in a ‘history repeats itself’ sort of way. But I’m not one to prejudge, so I read “Triumff” with an open mind.

"The concept is pretty straight forward, but I have to admit that I kept forgetting that this was actually ‘modern times’ rather than the 16th century. The idea is that the UK hasn’t ‘progressed’ in a manner we’d recognise since the 1500’s. It is Elizabethan London in all it’s grotty, grimy glory.

"The setting is done to the usual Dan Abnett standard, with broad brush strokes setting up Triumff’s London to the right degree, and, as per usual, I was dropped right into the very middle of the world, and felt like this was a place where the characters could really live.

"The characters all fit the story nicely with elements of Flashman and shades of Blackadder. Not to mention the more contemporary references thrown in for good measure, and a laugh too.

"All in all, I really enjoyed this jolly good romp through London, and found myself laughing out loud on quite a few occasions, especially at the modern media references, which could necessitate another read through to try and spot more. Plus, I liked the little twist at the end, didn’t expect that one!"

What goes around comes around.

Hi all,

Our good friend, the digital artist and film maker, Matt Snyman is in the running for a YouTube HP competition. We love his work and want to support him, so if you'd like to visit the following tiny URL, and give him a thumbs-up, that'd be lovely. If you really like his work you can give him a thumbs-up every day. We will be!

http://tinyurl.com/kr2ohp

Thanks.

Scottish Tour

It seems strange to me that this time last week, I was at GamesDay Germany. To be honest, this time last week, I was actually negotiating the M25 on the way back from Heathrow, but the day had been spent in Cologne attending the positively wonderful GamesDay in Germany.

It was my first German GamesDay, and I positively had to be there, given my no-show last year. It was great. The city was great, the weather was great, the company was great, the food was great, the venue was great, and it was, simply fantastic to meet and chat to so many German readers.

Here's what my queue looked like before my queue arrived.
You've gotta love an empty rope-line, right? The crowd arrived to fill it pretty damned fast. Here's what they found themselves facing before I sat down:
Once I sat down, it was head-down elbows-out signing, and I'd just like to re-hello everybody who came to see me. Highlights for me included Packmaster (we meet at last) and Bernd and the guys from the Air Base, who I will most definitely be visiting next year for a proper guided tour (that is, if GW send me to GamesDay Germany next year). Addition highlights include the following people who turned up in costume:





... And mighty fine they looked too. For those of you who like a little tour-guide with your blog, here's what Cologne cathedral looked like as I walked over the Rhine towards it (obviously, there was a bridge, I'm not, like, Jesus). The cathedral houses the bones of the Magi in a golden ark. Allegedly. I must check that out, next year (I was pretty pushed this time, because of, you know, GamesDay.


All in all, as you can tell, it was great. I'd like to thank Mal and Mark and the German GW crew for making me feel welcome and keeping me company. Let's do it again, guys!

While I'm on the subject of photos and pictures and costumes, I would like to share this picture of Alison Smaalders, who sent me this photo of her as Saint Sabbat. I hope she won't mind me sharing it with all of you, because it's a great look.


Thanks to Nik's Photoshopping skills for the excellent backgrounds in these shots. We didn't want to upset anyone caught in the background.

A big shout out to Dave Taylor, whose website currently displays the winner of his "Design a Set of Stalk Tank Rules for Apocalypse" competition. Dave's site is damned good, and he's also one of the staunchest Ghost fans there is. That's why Blood Pact is dedicated to him. If you want to check out his blog it's at: http://tinyurl.com/dlaqbk

Finally, if my old college friend, Tom, tried to e-mail me through this site, could he do it again? As I checked out the in-box connected to this site the other day, I could've sworn I saw an e-mail from Tom, but it got swallowed by the aberrant behaviour of the internet, deleted before I could open it. If it was you, Tom, please e-mail again.

Ready for my close-up

The long-promised second batch of videos got filmed last weekend, thanks to Adelie, and she's been posting the results up on YouTube all week. The first four can be found at the following tiny URLs, and there will be more to come.

http://tinyurl.com/oevxka
http://tinyurl.com/pyb3e7
http://tinyurl.com/nr754y
http://tinyurl.com/mkyhwy

All told, I had about nine pages of questions that had come from this blog, Facebook, the BL site, and similar, and I think that I managed to answer just about everything (with varying degrees of accuracy). I'll be inviting more questions again soon, because I hope this will become something of a regular exercise, so get your thinking caps on. In addition, Black Library Television is going to quiz me next week, too, so they'll have a whole bunch of questions of their own. I guess the next film we do should be the promised bedtime reading of the first chapter of 'Triumff'.

And so to Germany, specifically Cologne, where I'm heading tomorrow. This is my first German GamesDay, and I'm really looking forward to it, particularly after I made such a howling kack-storm of attending last year. To be fair, I was bleeding, internally. I look forward to seeing everyone there, on Sunday, and I've got PacMaster's translation all ready.

Finally, I can't vouch for 'Prospero Burns', but 'A Thousand Sons' is bloody good, so far...

Pay Attention at the Back!

Two quick things I wanted to cover, this evening, whilst I was close to a laptop:

First of all, due to circumstances beyond my control (actually, I decided to update my software and didn't realise it would wipe out all sorts of settings on my imac) I haven't been picking up my e-mail feed from this blog and my website for an embarrassingly long time. This has now been rectified, thanks to the stirling work of Matt Snyman, so it should be business as usual again soon. In the meantime, let me apologise to anyone who sent me an e-mail with the reasonable expectation of an answer. I will work my way back through the e-mails and respond to as many as I possibly can. If after a couple of weeks you still feel left out or overlooked, please re-send an e-mail. I'll try to get to everybody.

The second thing is, just to quickly mention, how much I'm looking forward to attending GamesDay Germany next weekend. I was scheduled to appear there last year, but had to cancel at the last minute due to the fact that I had come down with some truly horrible lurgy. To everybody who missed me last year, I look forward to seeing you next weekend. In particular, I'm hoping to meet several long-time posters or corresponders, face to face, so let me know who you are. And somebody had better tell me how to write 'let the galaxy burn!' in German, incase anybody wants something not scribbled in English.

See you in Cologne next Sunday!

When the Books come In

Dance to the daddy,
Sing to the mummy,
Dance to the daddy,
To the mummy sing!

It's been excitement all round in our house, today, because the first copies of "Blood Pact" arrived hot off the press: one perfect UK Edition and one perfect US Edition. Very lovely they are too. It's a special something to actually get the printed work in your hands after all the time it took to produce it (especially in the case of Blood Pact). Huzzah!

October is going to be a busy time for me as Blood Pact and Triumff are both officially on the shelves that month. I can see there are going to be a lot of signings and interviews and stuff to do. In the next couple of weeks, I hope to be writing blogs specifically about the books to give you a taster, and maybe dreaming up some other inventive ways to fire your imaginations about them.

Talking of which, I have now sent out PDFs of Triumff to the English contingent (you know who you are), and I intend to send PDFs to eager American test-readers (it's like being a test pilot) in the very near future.

The cover of Triumff is coming together, and I was distracted for quite a long time this afternoon by the reading copy PDF, because it is the first time I've seen my text properly typeset with lovely Elizabethan fonts for the chapter headings etc. I started reading a chunk of it, and a) It made me laugh, and b) It got me jolly excited about it, all over again. I probably shouldn't admit either of those things out loud, but it's amazing how something as simple as typesetting can de-familiarise a piece of writing, so that you see it with fresh eyes. I can't wait for Triumff to come out. I can't wait for as many people as possible to read it.

In other news, bear in mind that we're in the middle of Perseid season. The nights of the eleventh and twelfth will be the busiest in the UK, with up to one a minute. This is shooting stars I'm talking about. On those nights, try to get out somewhere away from town light, and somewhere you can minimise the light of the moon (which will be a little bit of an interference this year. And then... make a wish.

Proof copies of Triumff

Hi all,

I have just sent out a couple of electronic review copies for people to read and post about. I thought I could get away with sending out a few more, before I get told off.

So... anyone who wants an electronic proof copy of Triumff by Dan Abnett, published by Angry Robot, just let me know why you'd be a good candidate for reviewing it, in 50 words or fewer, by Monday, and we'll see what we can do. Post your entries here, and we'll announce winners and get in touch with you. What we're looking for from you is a 100 to 300 word reviews that you'd be happy to post here, and possibly on Amazon and Play.com.

Best of luck.

Crikey! That sounds almost like a competition!