It’s been a busy couple of weeks. I managed to get a fair bit of writing done after getting back from Adepticon, but last week saw me heading up to Nottingham for a top-secret meeting of Heresy-types, followed by a series of meetings and other stuff in the murky bowels of HQ. I’d love to blog about what was discussed, but that would sadly bring my short career with BL to an untimely end. It was exciting, though. I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe, etc. etc.
Aside from that it was nice to spend a couple of hours at the Warhammer Doubles tournament on Saturday, where we had copies of Wrath of Iron on sale for the first time in the UK – thanks to all who came up to buy a copy, get a signature, or just say hi. The book is only just up for preorder, but that hasn’t stopped the reviewers from getting hold of copies. Take a look here to see what the Independent Characters made of it, and here for the review on the Founding Fields. There’s also a great review from the Lost on Fenris blog, a site which is new to me. I’ve updated the 40K page with some of these reviews.
All reviewers mentioned how dark this one is. I guess that’s likely to be one of the key responses, both from those that like the book and those that don’t. The bleak tone was deliberate, made in order to be true to the Iron Hands’ background (as I see it). Hopefully those that enjoy their grimdark will appreciate the story, and, as ever, I’ll be very interested to hear what Iron Hands players/readers make of their favourite faction’s depiction. There’s a short blog entry over on the BL site with some more thoughts on this. And of course there’s also Flesh available, which gives a pretty clear flavour of how the Sons of Manus get depicted.
What else is new? I’m keeping busy with a few concurrent projects right now. One of them is an audio drama for the Horus Heresy line, another is a brand new 40K novel, and the third is a limited edition novella. Once Nick Kyme has recovered from his recent jaw implosion (get well soon, Nick!) I’m sure I’ll also be turning my thoughts to the War of Vengeance series too. So, plenty to keep me occupied. In the meantime, it’s been nice to see my short story Kraken get some attention: the super-busy Independent Characters have posted their review here.
Chris Wraight 