Chaos armour - it's spiky.

Hurrah!

The package seems to have had quite an adventure to get here. According to its delivery form, it went from the UK, to the US, to Australia, back to the US (Hawaii, no less), then back to Australia. Curious.

The omnibus is officially released in January.

Oz Games day is on this Saturday in Sydney – click here for details. It should be a cracker of a day.

It’s the first Australian Games Day in years and there is a big lineup of guests, including two of my best mates, Graham McNeil and Phil Kelly.

There will also be other Black Library authors (namely Henry ‘Commando’ Zou and the mighty Matt Farrer), so bring your books along to be signed! The Perry twins (figure sculptors extraordinaire) and Adam Troke (the nicest man in the world) will also be in attendance from the Design Studio.

Pirates: now with less Roger the Cabin Boy and more skullz.

It’s also the release day for Dreadfleet, written by Phil – hopefully I’ll find time to give it a try on the day, but knowing how hectic Games Days can be, that might be tricky.

If you are planning on heading along, make sure you pop by for a chat!

My books: I'll sign 'em for treats. Or, you know, if you ask me.

For me, the best albums to help me write are ones that I’m fairly familiar with (so I don’t end up stopping writing to listen to them), have minimal or no lyrics (to stop the lyrics seeping into my writing, and me singing along), and are fairly atmospheric (though this changes depending on what I’m writing).

My top five albums to write to changes on a daily (if not hourly) basis, but right now, at this precise moment, I’d go with:

1. Ghosts – Nine Inch Nails

2. Requiem – Mozart

3.

Inception (soundtrack) – Hans Zimmer

4.

Dracula (soundtrack) – Wojciech Kilar

5.

Whatever You Love, You Are – The Dirty Three

What’s your favourite music to listen to (or read to)?

Oh, and I just joined the twitterverse. Find me there @_AntReynolds_

Hmmm, it’s been a long time since I posted anything on my blog, huh… especially since I said a few blog entries ago that I’d finally answer all those unanswered questions that folks had sent in. Ok, now I feel bad. Consider me suitably chastened. I’ve been busy, m’kay?

To make up for it, here is the cover of my Word Beaerers omnibus that comes out January next year, if you have not already seen it on the Black Library site. It’s been done by Clint Langley, and I’m sure you will agree that it is rad to the power of sick. Pure awesomeness.

Spiky, isn’t he? I wonder if he gets stuck to chairs often? In all honesty, I couldn’t be happier about the cover, I really think it is gonna look awesome on the shelf.

Right, I promised some answers, and so answers you shall get.

Lucian: Yes, Grail Knight is part of the Knights of Bretonnia Omnibus (out next month, woo!), but it is not a full blown novel. Both it and Questing Knight are novellas of around 30,000 words. In an ideal world, I would have liked to have written half a dozen extra short stories about Calard’s various exploits while engaged on his quest for the grail, and turned Grail Knight into a novel, but there is only so much that you can realistically fit into an omnibus, and it is already a pretty dense book. Also, doing it that way would have probably taken another year or two, which would have been a shame. As it is, I think the novellas round things off really well, and it certainly is nice to have the whole sequence, start to finish, in the one volume.

Lloydy: Awesome, glad you liked Dark Creed! Writing the Necrons was fun, though I’d say I probably enjoyed writing about the Dark Eldar in Dark Disciple more. I can’t wait to see what - deleted by the Inquisition - does with them (you know he’s writing a Dark Eldar novel, yeah?)

Gary: Hi there, very cool to hear that my Bretonnia books made you start an army, and your first wargaming army at that! Awesome. That Army Book is one of the few of mine that are still current, written back in the day when I was in the Studio. Wow, that was quite a long time ago now!

Chilon: I wrote 80% of a Death Guard/Word Bearer short story, with the intention of it going into the Word Bearers Omnibus, but I reached a point where I realised that story was bigger and further-reaching than would fit comfortably in the omni. The repercussions from the story opened up quite a few doors, and I didn’t feel it was the right place to do that in a self-contained omnibus, where those hooks would be left hanging. I felt that would be a little unsatisfactory to the readers. The story that I’ve just finished that will appear in the omni is much more self contained, and fits well into the framework of the omnibus story arc. It focusses on what happens to one of my favourite characters from the trilogy, and I think you’ll dig it. I’ve put the Death Guard story idea aside for the moment, with the intension of coming back to it at some point and develop it up further – into a longer piece, most likely. Stay tuned…  Oh, and you also asked about Raven Guard. The idea I have for them is probably my favourite 40K novel idea at the moment (and has been for the last year and a half or so), but I’m not sure it is the right time for BL, what with other Raven Guard action going on (notably from Gav Thorpe). I’m sure it will be something I can come back to down the line. I’ve also a hankering for some Space Wolf action. Hmm, too many ideas, too little time!

Bastiaan: for a teaser as to the short story in the Word Bearers omni, see the previous answer. The story is called Torment, and it takes place after the three novels… As to you other question, I’d like to come back to the Word Bearers down the track, but it won’t be for some time. No current plans are afoot for future books.

George: I saw the star fortress as a mobile space station, a one of a kind leftover remnant from an earlier era.

Martine Rice: Thanks for the compliments, I’m pleased you liked the books. No plans to write more Dark Eldar at the moment, though I’d definitely be keen to. And as I said above, I’m looking forward to seeing what - Deleted by the Inquisition – does with them. It’s been too long since he’s had a hand in anything 40K related. As to killing Abaddon, I don’t think that’s gonna happen! He’s too big a player in the 40K universe to be killed in a book. Plus, I believe Aaron has some plans for a Black Legion book/series – I’m sure he’ll show the Warmaster as the terrifying (and competent) badass that he really is. The man can write – I was very impressed by the First Heretic.

Albert: Thanks for the kind words, and I hope that the Bretonnian omnibus, and the completion of the saga, fulfils your expectations. Keep up with the writing, too!

Till next time, guys…

Here’s the link if you fancy a read:

http://publishingperspectives.com/2010/11/should-i-tweet/

I’ll follow this post up shortly with another answering all the questions and messages in the previous post, which I’ve been sorely neglecting – many apologies! I’ve been incredibly shite with updating this blog (eight months!?!), and it is high time that I put up a few updates…

Some of these are old news really, but I’ve just seen a few reviews for Dark Creed.

http://www.flamesrising.com/dark-creed-review/

http://www.graemesfantasybookreview.com/2009/12/dark-creed-anthony-reynolds-black.html

http://scifiguysbookreview.blogspot.com/2010/02/dark-creed-book-review.html

It’s pleasing to see that people seem to be liking it. I struggled writing this one, and must admit I hit a point halfway through when I wondered if it would get finished at all. It was at about the half way mark when I managed to cleverly lose over 20,000 words with a cut-and-paste/save error of my own devising,which was a bit of a body blow. It certainly reinforced the notion of frequent saves and backups! After that, it took a long time to regain a good flow of work, and I re-wrote, re-worked and re-edited myself silly, not being completely happy with what I was producing. In all, I reckon I wrote about 200,000 words for this book, which considering the final product is about 100,000 words, means I wrote twice as much as I should have, really. Definitely some learning points to be had! Being that it was such a bugger to get written, its hugely gratifying to hear people are digging it.

Ant

Ironic really, given some of ideas I’ve been talking about with my editor at Black Library, Nick Kyme. I guess Pappa Nurgle approves and has decided to show me his favour with some special attention. Aint I the lucky one.