Just like deadlines some special occasions sneak up on you. It’s Gamesday in a couple of weeks and Blood of Aenarion is going to be released there and yet somehow, while wittering on about writing and Macharius and short stories, I have forgotten to talk about it. You’re probably wondering how that is possible. I mean it is a major hardback release with the most astonishingly beautiful cover and it features some of my favourite characters ever. It’s also my first new book for Black Library in what– 8 years? (Bloody hell!)
How did this escape my notice?
The secret, young padawan, is that, like most writers, I live in a different timestream from the one you see. Most people connect to writers through their books and they can only do that through the ones that are available. (Well, duh!) The latest release seems new because it is new for the reader when they pick it up. For me though, the whole Blood of Aenarion experience took place two years ago. I wrote the book while wandering through South East Asia with my wife and son at the start of 2010. I revised it in Prague when we got back a few months later. It got dropped into the great production engine at Black Library and it is rolling off the conveyor belts of the Temple Factory even as I write this.
For me, Blood of Aenarion is a long way in the past, written under very different circumstances from the ones I live in now. I’ve lost a brother, moved home, been to Japan, gone through a few other changes in the meantime. Right now, Blood of Aenarion is like looking at a supernova in the sky. The actual event happened years ago. The light has just taken a long time to reach here. That’s the way it is with writers and readers and books. What you have yet to see was a fair while back for me. By the time you read it, I’ll be somewhere else, working on something else.
All of which makes it easy to lose track of things. Blood of Aenarion was four books ago. In between then and now there’s been Sword of Caledor, Bane of Malekith and The Angel of Fire. For me these are real books. For most everyone else they are just names. Like most people I tend to get lost in the day-to-day and focus on what’s in front of my nose. Of late, that’s been Macharius and this blog and Kormak and the Terrarch books. I sort of lost sight of Tyrion and Teclis there for a while. Looking at my plane tickets to the UK this morning made the release real. It brought some stuff back to me.
I’ll be talking about it over the next couple of weeks.
Just hunted up the cover on google image search – wow, that really is something special.
Oh yes! You should see the one for The Angel of Fire!
Best of luck with the upcoming release, Bill. Here’s to hoping that you sell a ton.
Thanks, Doug! Much appreciated.
I’ve first got excited about Blood of Aenarion when it appeared on the Black Library release schedule with you listed as the author. I loved your depiction of Teclis in Giantslayer. Since I read that you also intended to use the series to delve further into the stories of Aenarion and Caledor I’ve barely been able to contain my anticipation. That material has so much untapped potential. I’m glad BL have given it to someone who can do it justice. Counting down the days now!
Thanks, Gav. I’d been waiting to do this series since the early 90’s. I managed to slide in guest appearances from all the greats over the course of the trilogy, Morathi, Malekith, the Archmage Caledor and Aenarion himself. I also got to do another in my series of pen-portraits of Greater Daemons with N’Kari. I’ve always enjoyed doing those.
At last! I have been eagerly awaiting for you to pen another WH book , thanks you. However I do hope that sometime in the not too distant future you will be taking up the reins of Gotrek and Felix once again. Nothing against Nathan Long, but you left so many details unfinished with that storyline, such as the “abomination” sleeping under the northern pole, the story of the Old ones. Not to mention the final fate/destiny of Gotrek and felix, as well as Max Schrieber. Only you can answer these long anticipated conclusions. I will pray to Sigmar that you one day finish the great story line you created.