NOIRELAND this weekend!

I'm heading out to the city of Belfast this weekend to take part in my first Irish event - the Noireland International Crime Fiction Festival - and I'm really looking forward to it!

The event runs from Friday 8th to Sunday 10th March at the Europa Hotel in Belfast, and I'll be joining top writers like Ann Cleeves, Anthony Horowitz, Adam Hamdy, Belinda Bauer, Denise Mina, Stuart MacBride and more to talk about crime and thrillers.

I'm taking part in the "Twenty-First Century Bonds" panel on Sunday morning from 9:30am, along with Asia Mackay (author of Killing It) and Douglas Lindsey (Song of the Dead) - James Bond has endured as one of the great icons of the thriller genre but how has he influenced modern thrillers and what are the challenges of writing about Secret Service agents for 21st century audiences? 

Full details on the Noireland website Here.

Warhammer Fest Europe

It's been a while since my last Games Workshop/Black Library event, so I'm looking forward to appearing at Warhammer Fest Europe 2018 in Düsseldorf this weekend. It'll be great to visit Germany again; last time was to take part in Games Day in Cologne, and the welcome I got from the fans over there was fantastic.

 

WFE 2018 is taking place on Saturday August 18th and Sunday August 19th at the Maritim Hotel in Düsseldorf, and it's going to be a big one, with a ton of stuff going one for fans of the worlds of Warhammer and the Horus Heresy.

I'm appearing on the Saturday to represent the Black Library - First off, I'll be signing books from Midday to 1:00pm, and then straight after from 1:00pm-2:00pm I'll be talking about my forthcoming Horus Heresy novel The Buried Dagger, the fate of the Knights Errant and the Doom of the Death Guard. 

Then from 3:00pm-4:00pm I'll join BL Germany's head of translation Tobias Roesner to talk more about our books, before a final signing session from 4:00pm. The signing will be a short one, as I have to dash off to catch my flight home...

M'colleague David Guymer will be there to fly the flag on the Sunday, so be sure to check out his talks and signings as well.

Along with me and David, there will be folks from the Forge World, Citadel, White Dwarf, Army Painter and ‘Eavy Metal Teams, plus the usual Golden Demon painting competition, displays, workshops, demo games and a whole load of tournaments

Full details of the other seminars taking place can be found Here.

The main event is 10.00am to 6.00pm on Saturday and 10.00am to 4.00pm on Sunday - for more details, tickets and the like, click Here.

And for or those of you who can't make it along, there will be a live blog covering the event at the Warhammer Community site Here.

Bis bald!

Seventeen (Again?)

It Me

Before I sat down to write my usual year-ender blog, I re-read last year's edition and I was struck by how things have moved on - and stayed the same. Here's a direct quote: "Last year was really a rollercoaster for me. Externally, pressures about the world at large, political fears reawakening and a general sense of what-the-hell-is-happening put a drag on everything else..." 

I can pretty much cut-and-paste this comment about 2016 straight into my 2017 blog with a perfect fit. It has been, with no sense of exaggeration, a rather mad year. I've tried hard to concentrate on the good and not get caught up in the crazy, looking at the important personal stuff rather than raging at things I can't change...

And on that, things have been going well for me. Building on the success for my first original thriller Nomad, the second book in the series - Exile - came out in the summer in hardcover, with a paperback release at the end of December. Exile looks set to do as well as Nomad did, if not better, so once more I want to thank everybody who supported my work by buying a copy. 

I've finished work on book three - Ghost - for release in May, and if all goes well, my ex-MI6 agent hero Marc Dane will return for a fourth adventure in 2019. But I'm getting a little ahead of myself; like I said last year, I'm taking this one step at a time. At a Q&A this year, someone asked me if I was angling to cash out in some big Hollywood movie deal, and I said not bloody likely; I'm hoping to keep telling Dane's stories for a long while yet.

Coincidentally, the title "Ghost" kept coming up in 2017. As well as the new Marc Dane book, I worked on a novelization of the live action adaptation of the anime/manga Ghost in the Shell, which was an...interesting...experience. I'll say this: I couldn't do all the things I wanted to do with the GitS novel, and I only took on the project because I am a big fan of Masamune Shirow's original comics, so I'm disappointed that we ended up having to go a bit vanilla with it. The final version of the book, which I couldn't finish up because of other commitments, was taken on by Abbie Bernstein to handle the last pass and edits and she did a great job under testing circumstances.

The other big "Ghost" project of mine was Fallen Ghosts - a downloadable content, story and mission expansion for the Tom Clancy franchise videogame Ghost Recon Wildlands. This was hard work and often challenging, but looking back now it is done and dusted, I'm pleased with how things came together and I liked working with the team at Ubisoft Montpellier - a self-professed gang of 'punks' who welcomed me into a team characterised by honesty and passion. Most rewarding of all, Fallen Ghosts was a big hit with the Wildlands player community, and as a long-time Ghost Recon fan (all the way back to the 2001 PC original!) that meant a lot to me. Fallen Ghosts wasn't the only videogame project I worked on in 2017, but the other two have still not been officially announced, so I won't be talking about them until later this year...

My other writing projects for 2017 were tie-ins; in the world of Warhammer 40,000, my two Sisters of Battle novels Faith & Fire and Hammer & Anvil were finally gathered under one cover, along with an adaptation of the audio drama Red & Black, in Sisters of Battle: The Omnibus, and to add a little something extra to the collection I wrote a brand new original short story called "Heart & Soul". I'd hoped at one point to write a third Sisters novel, but that's not on the cards at the moment, so for now this is my "definitive" Adepta Sororitas collection. My other 40K outing was Corsair: The Face of the Void, an audio drama project that spun out of me wanted to write something a bit different in the Grimdark Future of the 41st Millennium; this is essentially the pilot episode for an ongoing series of audios set aboard the rogue trader starship Corsair, featuring renegade captain Athene Santiago and her misfit crew. I'm hoping listeners will take to it enough to warrant future stories...

And speaking of starships, there was one other tie-in that I signed on to write back in December of 2015 which took a year to get done and announced - Fear Itself, an original novel based on the Star Trek Discovery series. It was tough keeping this one under wraps while the show debuted and everyone was talking about it, having to bite my tongue when the books were being promoted at the big Star Trek cons in the USA because I couldn't say anything about my particular part of the project! I had to work for months on this under near-total secrecy, paralleling the production of the TV episodes as I put together the storyline for the book. Fear Itself will be out in the summer, and I'll be talking about it in more detail in the months ahead.

The rest of 2017 I filled up with some fun travel and cool events, including the ReFramed games festival in Brighton, the Trek-On convention in the summer, the Black Library Weekender and a bunch of library Q&A's with m'colleague Ben Aaronovitch. I was nominated for the Wilbur Smith Adventure Prize, visited the Red Bull Soapbox Rally and Drone Racing League world championship finals, not to mention spending a week in Santa Monica with the ace folks from League of Legends creators Riot Games and a packed trip to Iceland that was cool in both senses of the word.

On the edge of the Faxi waterfall in Iceland

Here's to more of that for 2018, and less of the other stuff!

Late At The Library

After the success of last month's double-header event featuring myself and my sterling colleague Ben Aaronovitch (author of the Rivers of London urban fantasy series), we've been called on to do it again next month, this time in London - and tickets are now available!

Come along and listen to us talk about the craft of writing novels and genre fiction; we'll take questions and hopefully provide an insight into the life of a jobbing author...

The event is free, part of the #Late@TheLibrary programme, running from 6.30pm to 8.00pm on Tuesday 12th December at the Finsbury Library, 245 St John Street, London, EC1V 4NB - and you can sign up right Here.

As ever, copies of Ben's novels and my Marc Dane thrillers will be available for purchase on the day, and we'll both be happy to sign them and anything brought along by attendees. 

Black Library Weekender IV

It's the IVth Black Library Weekender this, uh, weekend, and I'll be along as usual talking about my fiction from the worlds of Warhammer 40,000 and the Horus Heresy, joined by a bunch of my fellow authors and artists...

For more details, check out the event website here. My schedule shakes out like this:

Saturday:
11.30am - 12.30am: Signing in the Administratum Room.
1.30pm - 2.30pm: I join Gav Thorpe and George Mann in the Strategium Room to talk about Black Library audio dramas.
4.00pm - 5.00pm: I'm in the Briefing Chamber with Gav and John French talking about scriptwriting for audio.
Sunday:
10.00am - 11.00am: Signing in the Administratum Room.
11.15am - 12.15am: I'll be in the Audience Chamber, discussing "The Emperor's Noble Sons" with Chris Wraight, David Annandale and David Guymer. 

There's also a metric f'ton of new stuff and early releases hitting at the event - and you can see the full list here - but among them is an all-new Warhammer 40,000 audio drama I've written called Corsair: The Face of the Void. 

This is the first in what may be a series of stories following the misadventures of Captain Athene Santiago and the crew of the Rogue Trader starship Corsair. 

We've got a great cast of characters and I've had a great time writing this tale - you can find out more about the audio here.

Magic Cops & Secret Agents: LIVE!

On October 5th, I'll be taking to the stage with my friend and fellow author Ben Aaronovitch at the Central Library in Bromley for an evening of Q&A, book signing and general hijinks...

If you're not familiar with Ben's acerbic and dynamic brand of urban fantasy, then you should be - his Rivers of London series featuring Met Police mage-in-traning Peter Grant is top stuff and the latest installment The Furthest Station is out this month. 

It's been a decade since Ben and I first met working on the Blake's 7 reboot series, and we regularly spend time chiding, ranting and brainstorming with one another, so getting the pair of us to do the same in front of an audience is going to be fun!

 

The event is being held from 7:00pm to 8:30pm at the Bromley Central Library (map) on Thursday October 5th in the Large Hall on Floor 4; tickets are available for £3.00 via Eventbrite. Numbers are limited, so please book as soon as possible!

Copies of Ben's novels and my Marc Dane thrillers will be available for purchase on the day, and we will both be happy to sign them and anything brought along by attendees.

Trek-On! convention announcement!

I'm appearing at a new Star Trek convention later this year - Trek-On!, the pilot event for the TrekMate team. Check out the full details on the poster below or the announcement video on YouTube.

Horus Heresy Weekender 2017 Schedule

I'm appearing at the official Horus Heresy event this weekend, along with a bunch of my colleagues from the Black Library...

 

Me, Gav Thorpe, Chris Wraight, John French, Neil Roberts and Guy Haley will be talking about our books and signing them too, over Saturday and Sunday at the Nottingham Belfry hotel. There will be some exclusive stuff available in advance of release and it's likely we'll spill some secret truths about upcoming works. I can't confirm or deny if anyone will be wearing war-pelts, though.

I'll be joining John and Guy on Saturday for the "Road To Terra" and "Black Library Preview" panels at 11:45am and 3:00pm, and on Sunday I'll be talking about "The Primarchs" with Guy, Gav and Chris from 12:30. I'll be doing book signings on both days, which will be posted outside the Scribe Station. Hardcover copies of Garro: Weapon of Fate should be available on the day.

 

STAR TREK signing event this Saturday!

Destination Star Trek Europe!

It's a little short notice, but I will now be appearing at the Destination Star Trek Europe this coming weekend, at the National Exhibition Centre in Birmingham!

 

Right now, the plan is for me to be on the Voyager Stage on Saturday 8th October from 2.45pm to 3.20pm, along with Jon Van Citters of CBS Licensing and Chris Cooper of Star Trek Magazine to talk about "Star Trek in print and the world of the novels".

Straight after the panel, I'll be off to the retail area to sign books and I'm told there will be copies of Star Trek - The Latter Fire, Star Trek: Titan - Sight Unseen and Star Trek: The Fall - The Poisoned Chalice for purchase there - but I'm happy to sign any of my stuff if you bring it along! (And for those who asked, I *never* charge for autographs)

Other bits of the schedule are still in flux, but it looks like I will also be joinging Ben Robinson from the Eaglemoss team on the Voyager stage on Sunday morning, where we will be talking about Star Trek in comics.

You can check out the full event timetable here.

You Are Hearing Me Talk...to BAFTA Guru

The British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) have been doing a lot over the past few years to make videogames an important part of their organization, and most recently there was a whole day of games-related events as part of the BAFTA Guru program - as the official site Here says, "Guru is bursting with advice from the best creative minds in the industries so whether you're an actor, a games developer or a cinematographer, we've got something for you."

I was pleased to be part of the Guru Live event last month, where I took part in a panel called "The Storytellers", along with Meg Jayanth (80 Days) and Rob Yescombe (The Division), hosted by Guy Cocker, where we talked about the various challenges of writing for interactive media. You can click on the panel below or go Here to listen.

 
BAFTA Guru have now put up all the audio recordings from the games day and you can check out the rest of them Here.

BAFTA Guru Live

Over the end of April - start of May Bank Holiday weekend this year, the folks at the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) in London are running a live event for anyone interested in a career in movies, TV or videogames. BAFTA Guru Live is an extension of their BAFTA Guru program (which you can learn about Here), which features masterclasses and programs centered around jobs in the entertainment industry, and I'm pleased to be taking part on April 30th's Games-focused day.

 

You can see the full Games Guru program by clicking Here, along with panel notes and so on. I'll be taking part in a discussion/Q&A called "The Storytellers" along with my fellow BAFTA-nominated games scriptwriters Meg Jayanth (80 Days, Sunless Sea) and Rob Yescombe (Rime, Haze), where we'll consider the craft of writing for interactive realms, and what the opportunities are for those with stories to tell in digital form.

First Contact Day 2016 postponed

A quick update: the organizers of the First Contact Day 2016 convention in Telford I was scheduled to attend with fellow Star Trek writers Una McCormack and Larry Nemecek have announced that the event has been postponed - more details are here at the FCD website.

I'm sorry to hear this - Una and I had a great time at last year's First Contact Day - and I hope the FCD team can return for another event in the future.

Horus Heresy Weekender 2016

Welcome to February; hopefully this month will have less blood on its hands, but it is kicking off with a bang (or more accurately, a dakka) as the Horus Heresy Weekender 2016 event happens up in Nottingham at the Belfry hotel on Saturday 6th and Sunday 7th February.

 

There's a whole bunch of stuff going on at HHW2016, including gaming events, seminars, along with panels and signings that will feature me and a few of my fellow Black Library authors. It will also be an opportunity to get hold of advance copies of the new War Without End mega-sized anthology, and the last few dozen copies of my limited run collector's edition novella Vow of Faith will also be on sale at the show. More details here at the Forge World website.

 

I Speak Games

In what has now become something of an annual pre-Christmas tradition, Siobhán Thomas of the London South Bank University - she's Senior Lecturer and Course Director of the BA (Hons) Game Cultures course there - has wrangled together myself and a group of games writers to talk about what it is we do.

Under the banner of the LSBU and in association with the International Games Developers Association London and The Writer's Guild of Great Britain, I'll be joining a bunch of industry veterans to talk about this year's theme of combining narrative with gameplay; here's the event blurb...

Playing the Story – how to marry gameplay with narrative without divorcing the player.

With narrative-driven and narrative-heavy games getting 9/10 and 10/10 reviews, has the era of story in games arrived, or is plot still ‘gameplay’s bitch’?

Join Rhianna (Tomb Raider) Pratchett, James (Deus Ex) Swallow, Andrew (Fable: Legends) Walsh, Ed (Brink) Stern and Tom (Subnautica) Jubert for a panel on the tricks, traps and travails of making stories work in games. After the event we’ll be heading over to The Albert Arms pub for further chat and networking.

The panel will take place at the Keyworth Centre, London South Bank University on Wednesday, December 9th from 7:00 PM to 8:30 PM. Tickets are free but limited in number; to register for one, click Here.

SCI FI Bromley on Saturday

Ah, Bromley; you might not think it, but this leafy London suburb has always a dash of science fiction running through its streets. HG Wells spent a troubled childhood there before going on to write The Time Machine and War of the Worlds. Ziggy Stardust himself, David Bowie, lived there in the 50's. And if you want to stretch the definition, even children's author and local lass Enid Blyton flirted with SF concepts in some of her novels.

So it's kinda cool that this Saturday, a couple of time machines (specifically a TARDIS and the one from the 1960's movie of the same name) will be materializing there, along with me and a bunch of other folks for the inaugural SCI FI Bromley show; there's also a concert planned for the evening, where the Lewisham Concert Band will play a set of famous SF themes.

The event runs from 11:00am to 6:00pm at the Great Hall in the Bromley Civic Centre.

As well as a display of props, sales stands and cosplay stuff going on, I'll be there signing books and taking part in Q&A panels with fellow authors Graham Guy and Graham Austin-King at 12:15pm and 3:15pm.

Also appearing at the show are Jami Reid-Quarrell from Doctor Who and Star Wars alumni Nick Joseph, Ted Western, Alan Flyng, Barrie Holland, Laurie Goode, Brian Muir and Stephanie English.

Entry to the show is free and tickets for the concert are £18, with proceeds going to charities Connect and the The National Brain Appeal.

For more information about the event, check out the website Here.

 

 

All These (Nine) Worlds Are Yours...

Just a quick reminder that the Nine Worlds Geekfest event is taking place this weekend from the 7th-9th August, at the Radisson Blu Edwardian hotel across from London's Heathrow airport, and I'll be along there on Saturday 8th to talk about Star Trek, tie-in fiction and more...

 

You can find out more about the event by visiting the website Here.

NINE WORLDS 2015

So the delightful folks over at the Nine Worlds Geekfest event have been kind enough to invite me along to their convention this year, which is being held over the weekend of the 7th-9th August, at the Radisson Blu Edwardian hotel across from London's Heathrow airport.

As they describe it, "It’s about gaming, film, cosplay, fandom, literature, science, geek culture, meeting people and having a really big party" and you can find out more about the event by visiting the website Here.

I'll be along to talk about stuff - currently I'm on the dedicated Star Trek track but there may be more of me depending on how things shake out - and joining me will be a whole bunch of other interesting people, including my fellow Trek novelist Una McCormack and top gaming chap James Wallis. The current guest line-up is listed Here.

You Are Hearing Me Talk...to Geek Apocalypse

A couple of weekends ago, I got to round out my merry month of May with three days of relaxing nerdery at the UK Games Expo convention in Birmingham, a massive board gaming event packed with interesting folks, cool games and lots of to indulge my cardboard and dice habit...

While I was there, Steven Hesse of the ace Geek Apocalypse podcast/YouTube/Twitch channel sat down with me at my signing table for a chat to talk about such things as my love of games, how I got my start as a writer and the challenges of writing in a shared universe. You can find me Here on Episode 80 (from the 26.17 mark), or also via iTunes if you'd like to subscribe to Steven's show.

This episode also features a whole bunch of other folks, including Librium Games, Dice Sports, The Next Great American Board Game, Andrew Harmen of Frankenstein's Bodies, Chris Birch of Modiphius, Dave Cousins of North And South Games and Rob Burnham, editor of the new Tabletop Magazine.

FIRST CONTACT DAY 2016

After I had such a great time there this year, it wasn't a a hard choice for me to say yes to an invite to 2016's First Contact Day event; a Star Trek and Sci-Fi TV convention taking place in Leicester over the weekend of 1st-3rd April, FCD 2016 already has Star Trek Voyager's Garret Wang, Babylon 5's Claudia Christian and Patrica Tallman and Trek experts Larry Nemecek and Doug Drexler on the guest list, and I'll be joining them along with my fellow Star Trek writer Una McCormack.

For more information about the event, check out the official site Here.