I thought I would say a little about the work in progress today.

The Angel of Fire is a story of the Imperial Guard during the Macharian Crusade. It follows three friends, Leo, Anton and Ivan, part of the crew of a Baneblade, who by a series of strange accidents and the occasional bit of heroism end up saving the life of Macharius himself. It also involves huge armoured battles, urban combat in the streets of a Hive and a particularly nasty bunch of pyromaniac Tzeentch cultists.

It’s been a lot of fun to look inside the 41st Millennium from the first person point of view. It places a different focus on things from the third person. It’s more idiosyncratic. All of the action is on a much more human scale than the Space Wolf books. Looking up at a Space Marine through the eyes of a common soldier is a lot different from looking out of the eyes of a genetically engineered berserker. Plus I’ve been describing massive tank battles in a post-Apocalyptic wasteland, a thing I find very enjoyable indeed.

Some of the characters have reached that interesting stage where they are taking on a life of their own. I am particularly pleased with one officer in particular who was all set up to be the cowardly glory-grabber who gets our heroes into all sorts of trouble. Instead, he is transmuting himself into something altogether darker, stranger and oddly heroic. I am not sure where this is going to go but its fun to watch. It’s one of the great pleasures of writing.

I am working my way through it at my usual slow but steady rate of 2000 words a day. It’s surprising how quickly how the word counts stack up over the course of a month, but some of the scenes will end up being dropped from the final work and there were doubtless be a lot of rewriting involved. Still I am happy with the way things are going.