It's hard to believe that it's been ten years since I first took up the pen to write about Nathaniel Garro and his odyssey through the catastrophic events of the Horus Heresy saga. Back when I wrote The Flight of the Eisenstein - which would go on to be one of my most popular books - I had no idea that the noble, "straight-arrow" Garro would become such a fan favorite and an enduring viewpoint character for the Heresy series. His newest entry in the saga comes in the pages of Weapon of Fate, out now in paperback from all good bookstores. This book is a prose collection featuring adaptations of all the Garro audio dramas to date (Oath of Moment, Legion of One, Shield of Lies, Sword of Truth, Burden of Duty, Ashes of Fealty) and the novella Vow of Faith.
From out of the shadows of the Silent War, a hero emerges. Clad all in grey, an errant warrior of the Legiones Astartes kneels before the Regent of Terra, and accepts a solemn new duty – Battle-Captain Garro, once commander of the Eisenstein, now Agentia Primus of Malcador the Sigillite.
From the desolation of Isstvan to the halls of the Imperial Palace itself, he stands as a paragon of loyalty and protector of the innocent, ever ready to strike back at the traitorous allies of the Warmaster. But Garro is walking a path of his own, one that may lead him to question his own place in the Imperium... and what if he, too, should falter?
This book contains James Swallow’s complete saga of Nathaniel Garro in the Horus Heresy – the audio drama series is embellished and expanded in prose, with additional scenes to represent the author’s original vision. This all serves as prelude to the events of the novella Vow of Faith, bringing Garro closer to his inescapable destiny as the first true martyr of the Lectitio Divinitatus. You can download an excerpt of Weapon of Fate here in epub or mobi formats; or order a copy of the paperback edition right Here.
The hardworking and highly talented duo of authors Holly Seddon and Gillian McAllister run an excellent podcast for new and upcoming writers, based around discussions, interviews and, as the title suggests, straight answers to listener questions.
Recently, I was lucky enough have a chat with Gillian and Holly about my career as an writer on The Honest Authors Podcast, where we talked about my new thriller Exile, the origins of and my future plans for the Marc Dane series, the ins and outs of writing tie-in fiction, the challenges of being a debut author and more! It was great to be on the show, and we had a blast getting into the fine detail of the craft...
Click on the link Here to hear the show with me on Spreaker, or go Here to subscribe to the podcast on iTunes.
Check out more from Holly Seddon and Gillian McAllister and their fiction by clicking on their names to visit their individual websites!
The author of the Guardian novel series D.J. Williams invited me over to his blog this month to answer a few questions about my holiday reading preferences, and you can check out my answers right Here!
He's also running a Summer Prize Giveaway including a whole bunch of cool stuff, and you can win signed copies of my Marc Dane thrillers Nomad and Exile - for full details, go Here.
At the start of the year, Titan Books announced that they would be publishing a novelization of the live-action Ghost in the Shell movie, written by me, for release on April 3rd. Unfortunately, issues with the licensor meant that we couldn't deliver a book that accurately reflected the finished movie in time to hit stores alongside the film's initial release.
Since April, I've been getting lots of questions about the fate of the book, and now I'm happy to say that rather than cancel it entirely, Titan decided to go forward with a later publication date to hit after the movie's Blu-Ray release.
My work schedule meant that I couldn't come back to work on the revisions for the major (no pun intended) edits for the final cut, and I have the hardworking and super-talented Abbie Bernstein to thank for taking over at the eleventh hour to see this novelization to the finish line.
As such, Ghost in the Shell: The Official Movie Novelization will be on sale in a trade paperback edition from September 26th, and is available for order Here. A French language edition will also be published by Pika Roman on January 3rd 2018.
I wanted to be a part of this project because I have been a fan of Masamune Shirow's manga and anime work for a very long time, and I took on the job specifically because it's a world I've always wanted to tell a story in. It will be great to be able to rack this book next to my copies of Masaki Yamada's and Junichi Fujisaku's tie-in novels to the original Ghost in the Shell and Stand Alone Complex anime...
It's not uncommon for the wildly differing schedules and needs of book publishing and movie making to act at cross purposes to one another, and sometimes things don't work out - but we got a second bite at the cyber-cherry here.
For everyone who pre-ordered a copy of Ghost in the Shell: The Official Movie Novelization, your orders should automatically be processed by your vendor, but if not, contact them directly.
Thanks to everyone out there for your support and patience with this, and much appreciation to Abbie, Becky Peacock and the editorial team at Titan Books.
Back when I was working on my novel Nomad, one of the things I did was put together a playlist of choons that were in one way or another, inspirational for story and characters.
The folks over at The Civilian Reader blog hosted a post I wrote about that mythic soundtrack album for Nomad, and a year later, with Exile - the second novel in the Rubicon series - out in bookstores, I thought I'd drop the beats that helped me write it. As I said when talking about Nomad; "writing a book isn’t just the writing of the book; there’s also the time spent wrangling ideas or thinking stuff up. I find pacing out the kilometers on the runner at the gym is a great place for this, usually with a loud and driving playlist in my earbuds to propel me along." So crank the volume and listen up...
