Warhammer Wednesday: Mission Games Workshop - Chiswick

After utterly failing to get into the London Film and Comic Con on Saturday, I took a stroll through West London, eventually finding myself at the Chiswick Games Workshop store.

Jake the store manager was there, just as he was the last time I was in the branch, only it turned out he'd been to Bromley and back in the interim! Anyway, Jake had nice things to say about my Black Templar stories and The Relic, so here are some pictures of some of the minis on show this week.

Black Templars and Crimson Fists.

An impressive-looking gun.

A downed Drop Pod.

Warhammer Wednesday: Vampires, vampires, vampires

They get everywhere, don't they? But before 1897, and the publication of Bram Stoker's Dracula, there weren't actually that many instances of undead bloodsuckers appearing in English literature.

Of course Dracula changed all that, although one reviewer at the time completely misjudged the impact that book would have on the world.

I have written about vampires on numerous occasions and my latest gamebook publication Shadows Over Sylvania doesn't only feature a host of the foul fiends, you get to play the part of one yourself!

You can pick up a copy of Shadows Over Sylvania here, or you could wait until the Sci-Fi Weekender and pick one up from the Black Library stand where I shall be signing copies during the course of the weekend.

Warhammer Wednesday: Shadows Over Sylvania

Are you ready to meet the King in Crimson?

Coming Friday 8 February...

Warhammer Wednesday: A Word to the Wise

An Extract from

The Great Book of Banishment

Chapter X

Being a Description of the Diverse Artifacts with which the Righteous shall Equip themselves against the Undead

 

The Book

Keepest thou the sacred book with thee always, so none that are unclean may come nigh unto it. And its pages shall be of vellum, inscribed in the high tongue. And the leather bindings shall be graven with all the marks of Sigmar. When thou reciteth from the book, speakest thou with authority, that the evil-doer may tremble at thy words and shrink back from thee, for they cannot show their faces to righteousness.

The Stake & The Hammer

Seek the holy tree of Sigmar and from its staves, cut thee sturdy stakes. Harden then the spike in the holy flame, while reciting the words of banishment. Take thou thine hammer, like unto that which holy Sigmar wielded on his day of valour. Let it be graven with his holy sigil, against which nothing that is unclean may prevail. And know ye that the unclean shall be dispatched with but three strikes of the hammer upon the stake. And the stake will penetrateth the heart of the evil one and accomplish the banishment for all eternity. And when thou striketh, say the prayer of Sigmar.

The Mirror

Take thou a mirror of polished silver which cometh out of the Dwarf realms and tarnisheth not. Behold, it is incorruptible metal and revealeth the souls of men. Keep it discreetly and let not anyone see it in the palm of thine hand. Whosoever shall have no reflection in the mirror ye shall deliver unto them the holy stake of banishment.

The Sacred Water

And thou shalt have with thee a phial and the sacred water of the well of Sigmar shall be within it. Draw thou this from the holy temple upon his feast day. Behold the sacred water burneth the flesh of the Undead and causeth them to recoil from thee.

The Sign of Sigmar

And this shall be the mark of the witch hunter. He shall wear the sign of Sigmar which is the Twin-Tailed Comet. By this sign his foes may know that the power of holy Sigmar is with him. And none shall withstand the wrath of holy Sigmar, who cometh to save the righteous from the depredations of evil. And whosoever maketh the sign of Sigmar with his hand, he also shall be protected.

Coming soon...

Warhammer Wednesday: "Quote of the Day"

Herald of Oblivion is on the Black Library's Facebook page today as some words what I wrote are Quote of the Day. Yay! Go me!

Here's the quote:

‘Rightly was it named Herald of Oblivion by the tallymen of the Ordo Xenos, for who knows what savage Ork hordes or Genestealer broods lie hidden within its labyrinthine depths, waiting for the derelict to come within range of a fecund Imperial star system or potential prize-world?’

And here's the book it comes from.

That reminds me, I must chase up that special commission...

Mission: Games Workshop - Salisbury again

It's been a while since I last dropped by the Salisbury GW store (for one reason or another) but I made it back there today and was very impressed with the new layout. And it wasn't only the store that had had a make-over - Manager Anthony and Full Timer Matt had too!

Whilst there I had a thumb through of the new White Dwarf and picked up the new Black Library Previews Catalogue, uttering the famous last words, "even though I'm not in this one" - completely forgetting that my second Path to Victory gamebook Shadows over Sylvania would be included (and I'm also in the anthology Treacheries of the Space Marines, of course).

The mocked-up cover looks cool (in fact I'd be very happen if this was the final cover) and the write-up should get any warm-blooded Warhammer fans excited about the gamebook:

You are a vampire, a shadow-clad terror of the night. Vlad von Carstein, the closest your cursed breed had to a leader, is dead, killed at the gates of Altdorf by the head of the Imperial Sigmarite church. Now your kind fight amongst themselves, each desperate to grab the power that Vlad held. You have been sent by your dark master to retrieve three powerful artefacts - a sword, a ring and a chalice - that are prophesied to provide the wielder with ultimate power. With other vampires ahead of you and the witch hunters of the Empire at your heels, can you claim the artefacts and unite the armies of Sylvania?

Shadows over Sylvania will be released this October as a Black Library Direct Exclusive.

Tie-in Tuesday: The Yellow Peril

Today's blog post should really be titled Tenuous Tie-in Tuesday, since it's actually a post about Warhammer 40K (but the work I do for Black Library is still a form of franchise fiction).

I received my subscription issue of White Dwarf on Saturday (#391 for those keeping count) which is all about* the new edition of Warhammer 40,000. And what did I find on the Black Library page?

That's right - Herald of Oblivion is so close I can almost smell the yellow paint of the Imperial Fists' armour. Keep checking the Direct Exclusives page of the Black Library website so you know when my first Path to Victory gamebook is unleashed upon the world.


* And I mean ALL!

Coming July 2012... Herald of Oblivion

Coming this July as part of Black Library's Direct Exclusives line:

You are a veteran Space Marine of the Imperial Fists Chapter. Equipped with powerful Terminator armour and armed with the deadliest weapons that the Adeptus Astartes wield, you are a symbol of the Emperor's might. Trapped aboard the space hulk Herald of Oblivion and the only survivor of your squad, you must fight your way through the aliens and heretics that infest the star vessel and find a way to escape the horror and return to your Chapter.

Herald of Oblivion is out in the same month as The Best of Hammer and Bolter: Volume One.

Nathan Creed lives again!

Fans of Underhive bounty hunter Nathan Creed (and I'm proud to say that BL writer Clint Werner is one of them!) will be pleased to hear that the five short stories I wrote back in the day featuring the character are now back in print, thanks to Black Library's Direct Exclusives range.

The five Creed stories (which probably equate to a good-sized novella in terms of word count), presented in chronological order, are:

• Bad Spirits – Bounty hunter Nathan Creed tracks a monstrous creature that has decimated a ratskin camp. What could this monster be and what are its origins?

• Mama’s Boys – Hunting the scavvy cannibal Django Kaynn, Nathan Creed finds himself beset by mutants eager to recapture the twisted killer.

• Boyz in the Hive – Nathan Creed faces his most dangerous foe yet: a savage greenskinned ork that has escaped from an uphive zoo.

• Firestarter – Nathan Creed tangles with a fearsome mutant with power over fire – but the mutant’s power is rapidly growing out of control…

• Bad Medicine – The Death Walker, terror of the Underhive, is on the prowl. His target? Nathan Creed.

I always intended there to be more Nathan Creed stories, but with the demise of Inferno! magazine there wasn't an outlet for them and so no more were ever written. Nathan Creed was also supposed to be the subject of my first Black Library novel, but my idea clashed with something being developed for another Games Workshop project that I knew of as Hive Secundus, but which never saw the light of day (as far as I am aware).

When Black Library started publishing Necromunda novels I was disappointed not to be asked to contribute a title then, but I'm thrilled that the Creed stories are available again now - ten years after I wrote the last story Bad Medicine!

To order your copy of the Necromunda Omnibus 2, simply follow this link.

In the grim darkness of the far future, there is only war

Today marks the 25th anniversary of the Warhammer 40,000 game. To find out how Black Library is marking this momentous occasion follow this link. And in other 40K-related news...

To hear about how Dan Abnett found the experience of writing his latest Horus Heresy novel Know No Fear, click here. (The interview starts at about 01.45.)

And there's an interesting insight into the writing process here by another Horus Heresy author, James Swallow.

Tony Hough, who illustrated my books Knights of Doom and Bloodbones, also illustrated the 40K universe in the early days. And he just so happens to be selling some of those illustrations here.

And lastly, I discovered the other day that The Armageddon Omnibus and Iron Hands (my 40K novels available again as Direct Exclusives from Black Library) are BL's two best-selling PoD reprint titles. Which is nice.

I first wrote for the 40K universe before the foundation of Black Library, contributing colour text to Codex: Tyranids, Codex: Chaos, Codex: Angels of Death, and Epic 40,000. My very first piece for Inferno! Magazine (one of BL's early publications) was a 40K story called Salvation.

If you're curious about my other 40K fiction contributions, click here. And of course this summer sees the publication of Herald of Oblivion, my first Warhammer 40K gamebook.

And They Shall Know No Fear...

Calth awaits...

Did you know that today is Know No Fear Day? No? Well you do now.

Inspired by Dan Abnett's latest Horus Heresy novel, Know No Fear, Games Workshop stores all over the world are running campaigns in which the forces of Chaos, spearheaded by the Word Bearers Legion, will attempt to destroy the Ultramarines Chapter once and for all.

Here in the UK a number of stores are running Know No Fear-themed campaigns for half term week too, so get yourself over the Games Workshop site and check out what's happening near you.

By the way, the Word Bearers are also the villains of my second Warhammer 40K novel Iron Hands, which is available again now as a Direct Exclusive from Black Library.