Like I was last year, I'm a little
late with the first of my annual series of year-ending blog postings,
and the reason is pretty much the same. 2014, like 2013, has been a
tough one to assimilate. Without wanting to start off 2015 on a sour
note, I kept getting reminded last year of a line from Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, where Indy says that sooner or later we all reach an age "where life stops giving us things and starts taking them away".
Last year there was a lot of bad with the good, and the thing is, you
tend to dwell on the bad stuff because that's what leaves the scar.
(And for the record? I thought Crystal Skull
was a decent Indy movie. Seriously, if you're still getting your
knickers in a twist over ancient aliens in the same milieu where angry
Ark of the Covenant angels melt people or immortal knights exist, just
let it go. But I won't quibble over the Shia/Monkeys thing, though.)
So; all of that is a long way of saying "Farewell 2014. Don't come back."
So
what did I write last year? 2014 saw more than its fair share of
crashing and burning, I have to be honest. I slaved away on something
very important that went exactly nowhere, which reminded me about how a
lot of what writers do comes out of sheer bloody-mindedness, that I
[REDACTED] hate [REDACTED] and they should all [REDACTED], and most
importantly, to just keep writing. In the crazy world of videogames, I
had an awesome superhero project shot out from underneath the studio I
was working for, and months later it still burns, damn it. But that's teh gamez for
you, and out of the ashes of that came something even cooler which I am
not yet allowed to talk about, but I will say it's something I've
wanted to work on for a very long time. More on that in the months
ahead. For fun, I penned some script shorts on spec, and a couple of new
Horus Heresy audio dramas - Shield of Lies, which is out now, and Ashes of Fealty, which will be properly announced in the weeks ahead. I delivered Deadline, my first 24 novel and first action-thriller to deadline at the start of the year (see what I did there?), and a new Star Trek: Titan adventure called Sight Unseen, which will actually be seen some time in the Autumn. Lastly, I wrote the short stories "Gunsight" for the Death And Defiance anthology, "Reflection In Blood" for the Black Library Advent Calendar and a new Doctor Who tale which I'll talk more about later in the year. So, busy in spite of it all. On the edge. *snaps fingers* Where I gotta be. *snaps fingers*
I roved a bit in 2014 too, book-ending the year with panels about games with the great Animex festival
at the start, and the now-annual "games writing thing" at the London
University of the South Bank at the end; other game-related highlights
were getting to crash both the Destiny launch and Eurogamer Expo, and getting deep in boardgame stuff at the UK Games Expo. As well as a couple of Black Library-centred events (Warhammer Fest and a blink-and-you'd-miss-me at Black Library Weekender III), I showed my face at the Worldcon in London - it's my hometown after all, it would have been churlish not to - but I reckon the best gig of the year was Destination Star Trek 3,
which was warmly welcoming and just all-around nice to guest at.
Travelling in 2014 saw me in Malta, soaking up history and getting too
much sun, and San Francisco, where I met Yoda; and last but not least,
closer to home, I pegged my fun-o-meter at the Red Bull Air Race, which
was, quite certainly, hypercool.
And now onwards.
'Twas the night before the night before Christmas, and all through
the capsule hotel, not a creature was stirring, not even a
gene-engineered augmented rodent.
Yup, it's Deus eXmas again, and mes amis over in Quebec at Eidos Montreal are entering the spirit of the holiday season with a gift for all good mech-head boys and panzer girls!
Last year, when Deus Ex: Human Revolution - The Director's Cut was released, folks who bought the game direct from Eidos got an exclusive pre-order bonus in the form of Fallen Angel, an eBook novelette written by me. Fallen Angel
is a short prequel story centred on the popular character of Faridah
Malik, and it tells the tale of how she came to be in the employ of
Sarif Industries at the start of DX:HR; the story also ties into the "Shanghai Justice" mission from later in the game.
Deus Ex: Fallen Angel is now available for free from Eidos Montreal in pdf format, and you can download a copy Here.
Merry Christmas & Happy Neurojacked Year to y'all!
I'm around on the web once more this month, talking about two very different subjects for two very different podcasts....
Over at Fifty Shades of Geek, genial hosts EJ and Greg interviewed me about my work for the Horus Heresy series in general and my new Garro audio drama Shield of Lies in particular. Click Here to listen.
I also participated in a show broadcast on BBC Radio Five Live, as part of their 'Game On' stream presented by my old mate Adam Rosser, discussing the works of author William Gibson and his new book The Peripheral. You can click Here to listen to it as part of the Beeb's Let's Talk About Tech podcast series, and hear me talk about Gibson's influence on my writing before Adam chats to the man himself.
So December is here, and I'm dreaming of a Red Christmas; a new edition of the Warhammer 40,000 Blood
Angels codex - the rulebook for the tabletop miniatures game - drops
this weekend and the Sons of Sanguinius get a new lease of life.
It's
also the 10th anniversary of my very first Blood Angels story, and
thus, what better time to spotlight the fiction I've written for the
Boys in Crimson over the past few years? The stories below are all
available via digital download from Black Library's website, and you may
still be able to chase up the dead-tree editions in bookstores... Click
on the covers for order info.
The short tale "Blood Debt" (currently only available in The Book of Blood anthology) is a prequel story setting up the villain of my first Blood Angels novels, the Deus
duology, and the books themselves follow the tactical marine Rafen as
his chapter falls to a schism masterminded by the forces of Chaos, which
threatens civil war. "Redeemed" takes place in the aftermath, as
Rafen returns home to the fortress monastery on Baal with a powerful
artefact, only to face judgement at the hands of the mighty Astorath,
Redeemer of the Lost; that leads into the next two novels, Red Fury and Black Tide,
where the hubris of one warrior opens the chapter's heart to corruption
and our hero embarks on a mission against the plans of the mad
scientist Fabius Bile. Bloodline is a chapbook that shows the effects of
Black Tide's shattering conclusion, and my newest Blood Angels tale, "Reflection In Blood", is set months later as Rafen returns to his sworn duties.
I've written other Blood Angel tales beyond the adventures of Brother Rafen as well; "Honours" is the story of a Blood Angel captain and the battle-honours he has won; "The Fury" looks inside the mind of a Blood Angel in the depths of his rage; "Dante: Lord of the Host" and "The Sanguinor: Exemplar of the Host" are vignettes centred around these two key lore characters; and Heart of Rage is an audio drama (also released in short story form)
featuring a squad of Blood Angels venturing aboard a Tyranid hive ship
on a deadly mission at the behest of the Adeptus Mechanicus.
I've also written Blood Angel tales in the Horus Heresy saga - the Bloodline chapbook appears here again as it's also a 'crossover' tale that briefly links the Warhammer 40,000 character of Rafen with the Heresy-era legionary Meros, the hero of my novel Fear To Tread, which details the apocalyptic events of the Battle for Signus. And lastly, "Lost Sons" is a short story that takes place parallel to Fear To Tread, showing events on the Blood Angels homeworld of Baal and the ramifications of the battle.
The
Blood Angel stories are among my most popular works and I'm often asked
if I have more to come; right now, I'm developing a new narrative for
Rafen that I hope to bring to the page in the future; but for now, read
on and Praise Sanguinius!
As of now, you can download the MP3 edition of my now Horus Heresy audio drama featuring Nathaniel Garro; Shield of Lies
is the biggest audio yet, with over two hours of storyline starring
Toby Longworth as Garro, with guest-stars Jane Collingwood, Jonathan
Keeble and David Timson, and bonus content like artwork, wallpapers and
the script.
While the war rages on across the galaxy, for many on the Throneworld of Terra it exists only in rumour and hearsay.
But
in the course of her daily duties, humble adept Katanoh Tallery
discovers evidence of a conspiracy within the monolithic Administratum -
surely, this can only be the precursor to a traitor attack on the Solar
System itself!
Fleeing into the shadows, she soon finds herself at
the mercy of the mysterious Knight Errant Nathaniel Garro. Will this
stalwart defender of mankind be her saviour, or her executioner?
The digital version of Shield of Lies is available Here - and you can also check out an exclusive excerpt from the story there too.
For folks who want a physical object, the three-disc pack will be out later this month and you can pre-order it Here.
