Here is the last article I salvaged from the old Trollslayer.net site. It comes from the time when I was writing Wolfblade. As usual, it is not part of the official Warhammer 40,000 background save where parts of it have made their way into the book. The Navigators An extract from the basic training lectures of Brother Guillame, Fabricator Scriptorum, Inquisition Library, Stalynheim. Reference: Light of Knowledge Clearance Level: Tertius Unauthorised Viewing May Result In Termination of Library Privileges and Life. Praise the Emperor. Brothers, suffer not a mutant to live is one of the most ancient precepts of our order, but as we shall see it has not been applied in every case. Today we shall talk about another ancient institution … [Read more...]
Revising Macharius
This is the part I always enjoy. The grunt work of writing the first draft is out of the way and I am now going through The Angel of Fire in Scrivener with an eye to improving it. I took a short break away from the book last week so I could come to it cold for the rewrite. In an ideal world this interval would be longer than a week, but even that small amount of time has given me some distance. Since it's been several months since I wrote the earliest parts of the book, I have plenty of distance from them. Now its time to get down to revising. What does this process actually involve? Pretty much what you would expect. I am going through the manuscript and re-reading it and making changes where needed. I will hopefully notice some of the … [Read more...]
One For the Titan Fans
I’ve a lot of work to do this half week before we head off to Berlin so here’s a very brief extract from the Imperial Guard book I am currently writing. The usual disclaimers apply— this is a work in progress, subject to change and editing, no Titans were hurt in the making of this extract, etc. An enormous shadow fell on our position. The gigantic humanoid shape of a Titan loomed over us. I looked up, an insect confronting an angry god. The Warlord's monstrous head scanned from side to side like a predator looking for prey. I sensed the ancient, terrible spirit within it. This was not some inanimate unthinking engine. It was a living thing, bred to war, intended to kill and full of dreadful fury. Just the sight of it made me … [Read more...]
Building a Hive
What does the future smell like? I spend a significant chunk of my working life thinking about this. To write fiction set in the 40K universe (or any other) you need to know how things look, sound, feel and smell. You need to convince your readers of the reality of the world your characters are moving through. You need to stimulate their imaginations with small, telling details that help them to believe in the place. You need to be able to describe how things feel, how they smell, how they sound if you are going to conjure up vivid images in their minds. Games Workshop’s artists and sculptors have given us a very good idea of what the 41st Millennium looks like, but for the rest of it, you have some work to do. Right now I am writing a … [Read more...]
