Late last year I joined Ragnarok Publications for their Kaiju Rising: Age of Monsters giant
monster anthology KickStarter campaign, and after successfully making
their target - and more besides - the book's first stage of release in
digital format has arrived!
As a "stretch goal" author for the project, I wrote "The Turn of the Card", an original story for the collection based on creatures from the Colossal Kaiju Combat card game produced by Sunstone Games, which is complimented with this action-packed piece of artwork by Matt Frank!
"The Turn of the Card"
tells the tale of the crew of India 99, a Metropolitan Police
helicopter that ventures into harm's way when London is invaded by
gigantic beasts; you can check it out here in the retail digital edition for Kindle, Nook or eReader...
Back in 2011 I wrote an audio drama for what was at the time Big Finish's newest revival of a classic British SF series, The Liberator Chronicles, and I'm pleased to announce it will be available next month! Working with B7 Media to carry on the legacy of "classic" Blake's 7 and
featuring all-new stories starring the cast of the original TV show,
the series has been a big success for the BF team, clocking up six
three-story box sets to date, tie-in novels and most recently full-cast
audio stories.
My first experience writing for Blake's 7
was working on the reimagined B7M audio series and Early Years
prequels, so it was interesting for me to get to close the circle by
coming up with a story that slots into the original incarnation of the
show; and so, next month Blake's 7: The Liberator Chronicles Volume 7 will be on sale, featuring my story "The Hard Road", starring Gareth Thomas as Blake and Andrew Whipp as Trel Dekkan.
"The Hard Road"
is a story about Blake's fateful choice to make an alliance with
another group of anti-Federation rebels, and a confrontation with a
question that cuts to the heart of his resistance - Is there a line you will not cross?
Blake's 7: The Liberator Chronicles Volume 7 also features "Spy", a story by Simon Guerrier and "Disorder" by Eddie Robson.
To pre-order a copy of the box set, visit the Big Finish site Here.
Last year I worked on the Deus Ex: The Fall, the first game in the Deus Ex franchise
for mobile and tablet devices - released to great critical acclaim on
iOS, the title has now been ported across to the Android operating
system and is available for download via Google Play.
The game is a side-story set in the same world as Deus Ex: Human Revolution, and it picks up from the end of my tie-in novel Icarus Effect:
Winner
of seven "Best Mobile/iOS Game" awards at E3 2013, the game tells the
story of Ben Saxon, a former British SAS Mercenary who underwent
physical augmentation and is now seeking the truth behind the drug
conspiracy. Betrayed by his private military employers, the Tyrants, not
only is his own life at risk, but time is running out for all augmented
humans. Deus Ex: The Fall was developed by Square Enix’s Mobile division in Europe, in collaboration with the original Deus Ex: Human Revolution team at Eidos-Montréal and N-Fusion, and is the first foray of the Deus Ex franchise into the mobile space.
It's that gift-after-Christmas that comes to scribes around the nation: the Public Lending Right.
If you are a writer/editor/illustrator/etc, a resident of the UK or
Ireland and you ever need a reason for donating your books to the
library - on top of all the obvious ones like promoting reading and
supporting this valuable and increasingly undermined public service -
here it is.
What is the PLR?
The
PLR is a system where authors who've written books that are in public
libraries get a little revenue each time somebody borrows their works.
It's a way to repay writers who won't be earning a royalty from a sale
in a bookstore. The hardworking folks at the PLR office pay a nominal
fee based on how borrowed you were - and in the interests of fairness,
you can't earn more than around £6000, so the big names don't get to hog
all the money.
In the current political climate, both the PLR and
the libraries it springs from are under threat, so if you are a writer
or a reader, please do your bit to help support both as best you can.
Here's my Top Ten Library Loans of my novels for 2013 (with 2012's position in brackets)
1 (1) Peacemaker
2 (-) Fear To Tread
3 (4) Hammer & Anvil
4 (3) Nemesis
5 (2) The Flight of the Eisenstein
6 (5) Red Fury
7 (7) Cast No Shadow
8 (6) Icarus Effect
9 (8) The Blood Angels Omnibus
10 (9) Synthesis
Once again, my Doctor Who Western Peacemaker maintains its top slot in the chart, although my most recent Horus Heresy novel Fear To Tread was a close second place.
As always, my thanks to everyone who supported their local libraries and borrowed my books...
This is my first 'Coming Soon' update on future projects and events for 2014...
"The Turn of The Card" - eBook edition of the Kaiju Rising: Age of Monsters anthology, featuring my short story inspired by the Colossal Kaiju Combat gameworld. January.
Animex 2014 - I'll be talking about games writing as part of the Animex International Festival of Animation and Computer Games at the University of Teeside. February 10th & 11th.
Warhammer 40,000: Maree Noir - French language edition of my Warhammer 40,000 novel Black Tide. February 21st.
Blake's 7 The Liberator Chronicles Volume 7: The Hard Road - Part of Big Finish's upcoming Blake's 7 audio box-set series. February.
Warhammer 40,000: Schwarze Flut - German language edition of my Warhammer 40,000 novel Black Tide. March 6th.
"The Turn of The Card" - Hardcover and paperback edition of the Kaiju Rising: Age of Monsters anthology, featuring my short story inspired by the Colossal Kaiju Combat gameworld. March.
Deus Ex 4 - A new chapter in the Deus Ex videogame series, for next-generation consoles and PCs. TBC.
