I attended the Altfiction convention in Derby last month, where I took part in a Podcast on tie-in fiction with Gav Thorpe, James Goss and Simon Guerrier. It was a fun hour to sit and natter with everyone, so if you want to have a listen to what he have to say, click here.

And in other news, there's going to be a mass invasion of London on the 9th of September by a number of Black Library authors. In a treat of signing goodness you can come long to Forbidden Planet at 179 Shaftesbury Avenue, London, to get your brand new copy of The Sabbat Worlds anthology signed by Dan Abnett, Christian Dunn, Nick Kyme, Sandy Mitchell, Nik Vincent and James Swallow. Oh, and me too. You can find details of that event here.

Right, back to work on Project X.

Well...

It was the David Gemmell Legend Awards on Friday, and, to cut a long story short, Empire won. It’s difficult to know exactly what to say here, since I don’t really remember much about the things I said on the stage after I was handed the mighty Snaga with my name engraved in it. Nick Kyme’s done a great blog post on the event, and since I don’t think I can improve on his write up, I’ll simply get on with a belated acceptance/thank you speech. Bear with me…

 

(And if you’re wondering about the title of this post, that rhyming phrase was about all I could say for about an hour after the win…)

 

David Gemmell was (and remains) a huge influence on me and my writing, and to have won an award that bears his name is one of the greatest thrills of my career. His work, with its powerful themes of heroism, nobility and the gritty ‘reality’ of fantastic fiction, was like nothing I’d read before, and I strive to carry on the traditions he established in his books. His powerful depictions of courage, honour and the unbending code of Druss, have inspired me through the years, and, as the dedication in Heldenhammer says, “To DG, you taught me all I know”. Says it all really…

 

So now I want to thank a few folk, without whose help, love and friendship I wouldn’t be writing this.

 

Firstly, thank you to everyone who bought, read and voted for Empire. It means more to me than you can know to have won this award, and without you, the fans, behind it, we couldn’t possibly have won. This just goes to prove how loyal, how devoted and how amazing the Black Library’s fans really are. Without your support, we’d have been left in the dust, but we came out on top and I now have a couple of axes to hang on my wall. But this win is as much for BL, the fans and tie-in fiction as a whole. Between us, we’ve been saying all along that there’s much to admire in the world of tie-in writing, a quality that belies the stigma that’s often attached to such works. We’ve debated the merits/difficulties/benefits in writing shared universe fiction elsewhere, so I won’t go into that right now, but I think this proves that we’re here and we’re here to stay.

 

Thanks are also due to Nick Kyme and Lindsey Priestley, for collaborating with me at the very beginning of the Sigmar books, working through the themes, tone and setting of the trilogy. Without that meeting, I don’t think the books would have turned out anything like as meaty as I feel they are. Their help at that stage and throughout the writing of the three (and counting) books has been invaluable. Everyone at BL deserves a mention, as they gave me the support and help I needed to make the leap from a full time job to become a freelancing buccaneer on the high seas of tie-in writing. Thank you all; you’re my great friends as well as my publisher.

 

My beautiful girlfriend Anita deserves special mention for going above and beyond the call of duty for putting up with my long hours, frequent incomprehensible monologues on Unberogens, magic hammers and Orcs. As my First Reader, she gave me a unique perspective on the books, pointing out flaws that only someone who knew nothing about the history of the Warhammer World would spot. You’re my inspiration and my soul-mate. And Evan, my gorgeous little boy, deserves thanks for providing the inspiration for a great deal of the thoughts and themes behind Empire and God King. Even though he’d rather eat the book that read it just now.

 

And last, but not least, I need to thank my mum and dad for providing me with various typewriters and computers over the years that allowed me to indulge my passion for writing. I also need to mention the fact that it’s all my mum’s fault that I became a writer. She took me to the Milgavie Bookshop when I was eleven and bought me a copy of Warlock of Firetop Mountain. That’s where it all started.

 

To all of you, love and thanks from the bottom of my heart. You don’t know what it means to have you with me along the way.

 

Cheers,

Graham

 

Right, here’s some pictures of axes!

My two new axes. The smaller of the two was one of five awarded to all the shortlisted authors, and upon receiving it I thought, 'Well, at least I get to take one axe away..."



A close up of the replica Snaga, complete with inscription. Pride of place on the wall, methinks...

Irish Times

You may or may not know I was in Ireland last week. If you did then it’s only thanks to the sterling efforts of the GW/Waterstones staff over there and the good folk at BL, as I completely forgot to mention it here. Shame on me. Double shame, as it was a great little tour, and so well attended that I was shocked a couple of times at how many folk were there.

 

The first event was at Waterstones in Dawson Street, which was, unusually for me, an evening do. This involved me doing a reading from The Chapter’s Due – which seemed to go down well – followed by a Q&A session. As usual, this took a little bit of chivvying along, as there’s always that awkward silence for a moment when you ask the assembled fans, ‘Okay, who has a question?’ But once things got going, they were in full, Irish flow, and we had a great back and forth going before I went on to sign lots of books. So many in fact, that we were late to the pub, where I hung out with the manager of the store and some folk from the event. We had a great night, even though my throat was still killing me with residual tonsillitis, and finished it off with some chicken kebab formed from poultry made of razors.

 

Next day I headed to GW Liffey St, and signed more books and chatted to some of the folk who’d come along to Waterstones the previous evening. I did take my camera over to Ireland, but it lay, forgotten in my bag, so here’s a pic of me with Robb Dunphy at the GW store there, courtesy of Robb and his camera phone. Enjoy the Look of Destiny…

At GW Liffey Street, as photographed through a butter-smeared lens...

Then, after a journey northwards to Belfast, we stopped off in another Waterstones before heading to GW Belfast. And that’s where I got a real shock. The queue was around the gaming tables, out the door, past the shop window and out the shopping centre itself. For the next two and a bit hours, I signed, chatted and hung out with the Belfast fans, and it was a blast. I’ve never had such a warm welcome as I received there, so thanks to everyone for turning up and bringing you books. We had great chats and after one fan said something I misheard, it flipped a switch in my head that gave me an idea of such mind-melting awesomeness that I’ve already tagged it for the finale for the next arc of Ultramarines novels.

So thanks to Graham, Trevor, Robb and everyone who came along to the events for making it a great trip. See you again soon.

Alt.Fiction

To make up for forgetting to mention that I was off to Ireland, here’s some word that I’m off to AltFiction at the Derby Quad this weekend. If you’re a fan of SF, horror or fantasy, you want to get yourself along to this, as it promises to be a great day out judging by the calibre of the other authors. You can find the full programme of events here, but if you’re anywhere near the Mac Suite come along to the podcast recording I’ll be doing with Gav Thorpe, Simon Guerrier and James Goss, where we’ll be talking all things to do with Tie-in Fiction. I’ll be floating about for a good part of the day, chatting and seeing what nifty bits and pieces I can spend money on. Hopefully see you there.

 

The Chapter’s Due hits

I wanted to share this review for The Chapter’s Due, as it gave me a warm feeling inside when I read it. Yeah…this gal (as I now see...) gets it.

 

New Projects

As the astute among you will remember, I handed in God King a few weeks back. I’m now a quarter of the way through another novel, though I can’t really say what this one is, who it’s for and when it’s out. Which is all very mysterious, I know, but I wanted you to know I wasn’t slacking and just swanning about doing nothing. Don’t worry, as soon as I can reveal the true, cosmic horror of this latest blasphemous tome, I’ll let you know.

 

Julius Antigonus

A little while ago I was sent a couple of pictures of a sculpt done by John Papoulakos, who’d done this bust of a 4th Company Space Marine. When I looked at it I thought the guy looked a bit beaten up, perhaps a prime candidate for a Dreadnought sarcophagus. Then I read the e-mail more thoroughly and realised that was exactly what he was. Here’s a few pics of Julius Antigonus, and you never know…he might pop up in a future Ultramarines story.

Pretty impressive, huh? If you want to see more of John’s work, head over to Papoulakos Art to check out more of his amazing stuff.

 

TV Watching

Watched the finale of 24 the other day and can rest easy now, satisfied with the sense of closure it gave me and guiltily enjoying Jack’s kill-crazy rampage across New York. Just got the last Fringe to watch tonight – which looks like it could be the best thing. Ever. And Lie to Me starts tomorrow, so life is good.

 

Reading

Just finished China Miéville’s novel, Kraken, which was a fantastic read, with page-turning goodness that kept me from early nights on several occasions. It’s dark urban fantasy weird fiction that reads like Clive Barker with a bigger thesaurus. There’s action and madness aplenty, and to me that was one of the book’s shortcomings. It sounds churlish to criticize a book for having too much imaginative things happening, but they overwhelmed the plot and characters. Every corner of London had something magical happening in it, so much so that it seemed outrageous that no-one could see it. Like I said, that’s a ‘My wallet is too small for all my £50 notes and my diamond shoes are too tight’ criticism, so if you fancy a romp around London with some crazy characters and some wild imagination let loose, this is definitely the book for you. And Wati…he has to be the best character I’ve read in a long time.

New signings

I should have some more news soon about some signings I’ll be doing over the next couple of months, so keep coming back for more news on that.

Lost is...over..sniff...
Okay, so the sixth season of Lost aired on Monday, and, having watched the penultimate episode only the night before I was primed and ready for it. I'll go into specifics in a second, but let me first up say that I loved the way the show ended. It did everything I needed it to, providing me with emotional highs, closure to the main story arcs and a sense that there was still more I could read into the story, still more I could gather round the water cooler (If I had one) to talk about what it all meant.

After six years and so many sprawling plot lines, it was inevitable that some questions would remain unanswered, but you know what? That's absolutely fine. That's Lost. If everything had been tied in a neat bow, fed to me on a silver spoon, I'd have been disappointed. There's still aspects of the show I don't know and probably never will, and I'm okay with that. What was the golden light, who was Jacob and MiB's mother, what was the deal with Walt? To name a few. But the show's strength was always its characters and the writers and actors imbued them all with real depth and warmth that made me really care about them. I've lived and breathed alongside them on that island, and to see their fates played out before me gave me many moments of triumph along the way. Seeing Claire and Charlie reunited at the concert during Aaron's birth had me blubbing like a little girl, as did Sun and Jin's reveal - even though it included scenes of their death. And Jack's, 'I'll see you in another life, brother,' line in the cave turned me into a wreck.

Watching Jack and Locke brawling on the cliff in the rain was just amazing, with its shades of 300, and the symmetry of so many images throughout the episode spoke of such carefully crafted plotting that I sat in real admiration of J.J. Abrams, Carlton Cuse, Damon Lindelof and all the other writers. Watching characters I'd grown to love over the six year run of the show meet their fates, grisly or otherwise, was a real treat, and I don't think I've invested in a show as much as I did Lost.

And the ending. Finding out that the Flash Sideways were a kind of celestial waiting room, where all the characters had to find themselves to 'let go' and move on was a stroke of genius, as it made sense of the strange connections established in what I had assumed was a cracked, parallel time line established by the detonation of the hydrogen bomb at the end of Season 5 (which, as it now turns out, clearly didn't go off...). I guess a lot of folk read this as confirming the suspicions many had early on that everyone died in the crash and that the island was some form of Purgatory, but Christian spells it out for Jack, that everyone had to find each other, and that what happened on the island really happened. In a lovely piece of symmetry from the opening episode, we saw Jack lying in the bamboo field, and where we begin with his eye opening, we end with it closing. Perfect. Oh, and the dog lives too. Jerry Bruckheimer would be proud.

So, emotional journeys, wonderful character moments and a sense of closure. I couldn't ask for anything more, though I have to say that I felt kind of sorry for the Man in Black. Yeah, he did some terrible things along the way, but didn't he just want to leave the island after glimpsing the possibility that there was life beyond its shores? Perhaps as Old Smokey he really shouldn't have left...great evil, blah, blah, blah, but perhaps if his mother had just let him go in the first place, all this could have been avoided. Yeah, and if they'd given Gwaihir the Ring there'd have been no trek across Middle Earth. And wouldn't that have been boring? That's what I thought of Lost's finale, what did you think? Genius, dross, not enough answers, satisfying in every way...? Let me know.

Farewell Lost, I'm going back to the Season 1 box set to start again, armed with the knowledge of what's really going on...

Paul Gray
And in other news, I read that Paul Gray, the bassist for Slipknot was found dead on May 24th, which made me pretty sad, as I'm a big fan of the band. Having just watched BBC2's documentary "I'm in a Rock & Roll Band", I've developed a newfound respect for the bass player, the so-called, 'other one'. Often without the fiery charisma of the lead singer, furious noodling of the lead guitarist or pounding aggression of the drummer, they were sort of the quiet ones at the back. There are of course, some obvious exceptions, like Gene Simmons, Geddy Lee, Paul Simonon, Peter 'Hooky' Hook, Steve Harris and, of course, Mark Gibbons. And if you don't know who any of these guys are, Google them now.

So you ignore the bassist at your peril, for a powerful bassline anchors the greatest rock songs. Just look at Ace of Spades. I know Slipknot weren't to everyone's tastes, but when they exploded onto the scene with their self-titled album in 1999, it was like a hand grenade in the midst of bloated stadium bands that shook the world of rock and metal to its core. I equate their impact to that of Nirvana, who did something similar, playing a stripped back rock that was powerful in its simplicity and lo-fi approach to rock. Anyway, this Maggot wishes Paul's soul well wherever it is now. Maybe he's meeting up with Jon Bonham, Keith Moon and Kurt Cobain before moving on...

Cancellations
Don't you hate it when you're just getting into a show and the network pulls the plug? Why is it that dross like Two and a Half Men (A show by Chuck Lorre, whose other work, The Big Bang Theory, I love) and the innumerable cop procedurals get into their tenth seasons and beyond, while shows that demand a bit of investment and eye-on-the-ball smarts get canceled before they have a chance to grow? Shows like Flash Forward, Firefly, Invasion etc... I understand that the American TV landscape is a harsh place, where cut-throat execs roam with their snipping shears of doom, but it seems to me that by canceling shows that don't hit stratospheric numbers of viewers they're actually shooting themselves in the foot.

Now it seems to me that you get a lot of people watching a new show, then there's obviously going to be some drop off from the fly-by-nighters who aren't interested in continuing, but there's a loyal core of fans who get the show and stick with it, loyally tuning in every week to see what happens next. Aren't they the ones you're sticking it to by canceling the show, the ones who stuck with you and put their faith in its potential? It's a rare tv show that gets to choose its time to end. The Wire did it beautifully, BSG did it well, as did Buffy, and as I mentioned above, Lost managed it too. To an extent Angel did it too, though a lot of what went into the ending was a tad rushed and the open-ended charge into the monsters felt a little...unconvincing as a finale. Listening to Joss Whedon's commentary for that final episode, I can see his point that it's representing the fact that the battle against evil never ends, but it still left a sour taste in my mouth, like that explanation was bent to fit how they ended the episode.

Take Flash Forward for example. It started well, and though, admittedly, sagged a tad in the middle - not helped by a mid-season break in a terribly chosen spot - it was picking up pace toward the end and was establishing a nice balance between dangling bemusing threads and answering some of the earlier questions. And then it gets canceled. Arse. We've yet to watch the final episode, though I read that it's been edited and put together in such a way as to provide some element of closure to its multiple plot lines since the show's producers knew they weren't going to get any more episodes. We'll see. And 24, another of my favourite shows, is ending soon too (can I take the trauma of so many cancellations!?). We'll see how they end that in a convincing way, though knowing Jack, it's going to be ridiculously over the top, violent and with plenty of utterances of the word Dammit! Which is just how I want my Jack Bauer.

Right, back to work now, and I promise I'll have something vaguely writing related to talk about next time.

...to the Literary Project, where I was interviewed by the splendid Gemma Noon, who deserves many brownie points for being able to transcribe several, rambling hours of chatter into a coherent blog entry. (You'll need to scroll down to the 14th of May to find me, as I was a bit late in publishing this link...)

And here, to Team Preston's review of the Chapter's Due.

That's it, have a great weekend, and I'll speak to you next week.

Another short one today, because website content doesn't just write itself...

As I may have mentioned once or twice, Empire has been nominated for the David Gemmell Legend Award, and the good folk there asked me a few questions about the book and the nomination.

You can find out what I had to say to them by clicking here.

And if you haven't voted for Empire yet (and why not...?) then you can click here and make your voice heard. At least here we shouldn't have a hung vote. Remember to vote for Jon Sullivan too!

Just a short one today, as I'm busy collating information for the shiny new website look and content that's coming your way soon.

As a follow up to my last post about the trip to London for the SFX Summer of SF Reading, the interview I did with the guys is up on the SFX website.

You can read what I've got to say by clicking here.

And you can read the SFX report from the evening by clicking here.

Yesterday I took the train to London’s Piccadilly branch of Waterstones for the launch of SFX’s Summer of SF reading. I found the store with surprising ease, as I normally get all turned around when I get to London and find that each tube station has a dozen different exits. But the gods of metal were with me and I arrived at the store far too early to be cool, but early enough to get this picture of where we were to be doing our signing.

Dan and I shared the table on the left, though we were prepared to knock others from their tables had the need arisen. An eager fan awaits our arrival.

 

By the time everyone turned up and we were ready to go, quite a nice little crowd had gathered, complete with rucksacks bulging with books and curious expressions. We had a fine stable of authors for the fans to pick from; myself, Stephen Hunt, Adam Roberts, China Miéville, Michael Cobley and last, but not least, Sir Dan of Abnett.

The stars come out. Dan and Mrs Dan, Nik Abnett.

 

Then the signings began, and I think I missed my calling as a salesman, as I managed to foist both our books on unsuspecting customers who were just passing and made the schoolboy error of making eye contact with me. It was a fun hour and a half, and lot of people said very nice things about both our books, so it was an evening of Win. At the end of it, I managed to sidle up to China Miéville and blag a signed copy of his latest novel, Kraken – which from the little I read on the way home, looks set to be a fantastic romp.

 

As we were the last to leave the signing area, I nattered away to him, complimenting him on his last novel, The City and the City, and trying not to sound like a dribbling fanboy. As we got our drinks, I mentioned how I’d gotten Evan to roll his first dice as a d20 saving throw for me (against being turned to stone) and he pointed out what a lovely metaphor that was. Evan’s arrival had been an event that saved me from the ossification of aging, an act that had made us young again. And given the TV we’re watching a lot of these days (Timmy Time, Tinga Tinga Tales and 3rd and Bird) I think he’s spot on. It was a cracking moment, and I promised him I’d make mention of it, so for that lovely observation, Mr Miéville, I thank you.

 

Me with China Miéville.

 

Then Dave Bradley of SFX called the panellists to heel to discuss the following conundrum: “Millions of people watch SF on TV and at the cinema – why don’t more people read SF books too?” I stood at the sidelines with Jon Green and watched as the debate unfolded, with everyone making good points with an acuity and articulation that made me glad I wasn’t up there with them, dribbling like a simpering numpty after two large glasses of the free red wine. More than one question came out about the BL/GW connection and my hand went up more than once to reply/refute what had just been asked, but Dave (probably wisely) went to other people for more questions rather than indulge me.

 

Terry Pratchett was there too (just to the right of the pillar), though I didn’t get a chance to do more than say hello to him. He was in fine form and looked like he was enjoying the panelists deliberations.

 

A lot of good points came out of the discussion from panellists and listeners; the merits (or otherwise) of SF cinema and the clear distinction that cinema is a different medium that deals in images and spectacle as opposed to the written form of SF, which is all about ideas. Not to say that they can’t cross over – of course they can – but SF novels can go far deeper than most cinema has the power, time or financial viability to do. Anyone here have any thoughts on the matter…?

 

Dan holds court on the panel.

 

Everyone on the panel acquitted themselves nobly, and though I was a tad intimidated by the idea of being amongst such interesting panelists, I think I could have held my own had I been up there too. Next time. Dave did a great job wrangling everyone, and when it was over, the room broke up into lots of nattering groups pondering upon what had been said. I chatted away to loads of people and was having a great time until I remembered I had a train to catch.

 

A nearby helpful soul told me it was quarter to nine, which was forty minutes before my train was due to leave St. Pancras. Plenty of time, right? Turns out their watch was slow, but by the time that was pointed out to me, it was 21.12 (coincidentally my favourite Rush album), leaving me thirteen minutes to get down six flights of stairs, catch a tube to St. Pancras and haul ass out of the tube station to the platform. Needless to say that didn’t happen, though I was outa there like I stole somethin’. After a bit of jiggery, and indeed, pokery, I found my way home via a different train and half-empty night bus that did a magical mystery tour of the midlands before I finally crashed back into the house at half one in the morning.

 

It had been a long day, but a great one, so thanks to all the guys at SFX; Dave, Ade and Stuart for making it such a great day and making us all feel so welcome. And thanks to everyone who came down for the day; Christos (I’ll be looking for that Look Of Destiny picture soon) Jenni, Jon, Joe, Mark, Simon, Alan, and the authors for coming down and really marking this day as the beginning of the Summer of SF reading.

 

So what are you doing reading this…go get some SF and start reading!