I'm Back

Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen,

It is indeed I, your favorite neighborhood wacko foul mouthed, angry Scotsman.

It has been a good long while since I posted, there was the massive the massively drunken rant over the UK blackout of events on Fight Pass, I got over it since I get BT Sports for free and just record it, but apart from that there hasn't been anything since the Referendum, which I'm just going to say much other I'm bummed about, but come May hopefully the Westminster Establishment of theives, cunts, pedophiles and wankers are going to be kicked squarely in the arse by the rolling freight train of the renewed vigour of Scottish interest in how we are governed, and how badly we've been getting shafted by the Tories, the Red Tories and the Yellow Tories.

I passed two of my units for the first half of my Uni 3rd year, the one I failed was Unix and it was the exam that I failed miserably but it doesn't help when you the study materials you have don't even remotely match what's in your exam, you can't study the whole of Unix, it's frigging impossible. Hoping this half won't be as bad, doesn't seem like it (Helps that HTML and Javascript doesn't have an exam) and I get to resit in August so won't be repeating and wasting a whole year on it.

The Dystpian Wars extraveganza is rolling on, 6000 points strong of Prussians and 4000 points strong of Russians, and while we are fighting the Battle of Gibraltar at Carronade in very early May, the Rock itself is being crafted masterfully by the great George Dick, is rolling along quickly and not absolutley prepared for it, but I'll be orgainising that little bit in the ext few weeks, emails need to be sent and the delivery of members of the clubs who cant be there's ships needs to be arranged.

On the Wargaming front still and I just spent over £200 on a new World War II American army, with the required Sherman, in 28mm for Chain of Command by Two Fat Lardies and Bolt Action by Warlord. Pictures will be forthcoming when the painting is complete. Yes, I am a glutton for punishment and always give myself more work than I can handle but screw it.

Yet again staying with Wargaming, I will be taking part once again in the Scottish Battletech Championship this year at the Schiltron Wargaming tournament, hoping to make up for last years debacle with a top half finish this year. If you are interested I believe there are some places still available for Battletech so if you pop along to the website and have a look see

On the writing side of things, I am in the middle of working on the first draft of Warrior Rising, it is the new title of my first Caleb (originally Calibern) O'Hearn novel, it is actually a completely different book from Running out of Space which along with the several books that I started since I began that, got stopped because I couldn't take them anywhere at a certain point cause I didn't feel it (maybe because I'm an idiot and didn't have a plan for any of them). This was precipitated by a conversation I had in the Pub (oh, everyone has to be surprised by that) with my good friend Ferdinand, big crazy Dutch Philosopher in chief of Rufus T Firefly, about how I always start things and have great plans for them (or not really in my case) but they always go to shit, I started afresh with a brand new book but using the back story I had created for him and a number of the characters, sat down and went through all the backlog of stuff I had written and then made a plan of the novel section by section who the characters would be that were in the story. It'll be finished at the end of August this year, drafted, read by people I trust, drafted, read, drafted and then polished up and in September I  begin shopping it around publishers after that and if I don't get a bite I will be self publshing for this time next year.

In other writing news the Alliance of Worldbuilders is in the final stages of prep (I'm a lazy shit and only just wrote my Bio) the irrepresible and awesome Sammy HK Smith, author of In Search of Gods and Heroes, mother of Cats (seriously she has a whole fuck load of them), one of the head honchos of Grimbold Books is working her way to completing that, I have two short stories in there, Mr Gabriel of Alba, protagonist of my Urban Fantasy work is hacking away and shooting spells at people in there, so watch this space or my facebook or even my Google+ feed for that and if you haven't bought and read In Search of Gods and Heroes why the hell not?

This year also as part of my attempt to become healthy and fit once again, am seriously (aposed to fucking around with it for short periods) taking up  Muay Thai and Brazilian Jui-jitsu as part of an MMA orientated regime, it will encompasse eventually the whole spectrum of training in MMA but I'm starting with the hard bits first. Also I begin 352 days of no Booze, that's correct no more drunken ramblings for almost year, as of  the 16th of March, conveniently those 352 days land on the end of my birthday celebration period of one year and end at the beginning of the celebration period of another year, not really all that convinient since I sent the time limit. I reckon if I can go that long without booze after losing three stone over three months without it, I will be a lean mean and less angry machine by the end of the 352 days, that and I'l save a shitload of money.

That's about it for this particular blog, as I am about to eat dinner and head out to Falkirk for some Chain of Command, first outing of my new army.

Peace, love and all that good shit.

Clearout

Well, today I did what every gamer I know dreads doing, deciding what in their collection is dead weight and needs to go and what they use and gets to stay.

Needless to say not the most fun moment in my life, as collections that were painstakingly put together are going to be put to the wayside and sold.

To be fair though it's figures that have barely been out the box in the last ten years and none of them have even seen the light of day for the past five, except when I was looking for a box of something and cause I'm a lazy get haven't labelled them.

My entire Star Wars Minitures collection, all 74 Revenge of the Sith and  48 Clone Strike models in a box ready for another persons gaming tables.

My Catachan Jungle Fighters, which I'll admit hasn't got the best paint job, but was kittbashed with abandon (Empire Free Company boxed set were awesome for that back in the day where 15 quid got you twenty to thirty a box) along with Metals which are few and far between these days, the classic big ass bazooka missile launchers, the Captain big enough and ugly enough to wield a power fist and a bolter and make anything but a marine of any stripe his bitch, the wheelie heavy weapons teams, and the Heavy flamer teams that scared the bejesus out opponents in a jungle.

My Dark Eldar that I've been slowly but surely pairing away for the last couple of years, mine are all of the original run, when Scourges looked badass rather than like fairies and something with bat wings, and Warriors that looked Eldarish but with plenty of blades to cut you up.

And onto my flintloque collection, small it may be but for the dozen times it was out the hand crafted carry box that they are in (I'll be keeping that for sure) it was much loved, my 105th Rifles along with Sharke and all the characters so lovingly ripped off from the Sharpe Novels, my orc foot and Ogres along with a great big hound from somwhere far off that never got to play, of course the Duke of Wheeling-turn on foot, the Velite Grenadiers de la Garde who I never got to play nice ever, always ruining the plans, my Voltiguers that made the Grenadiers look like puppies, then there is the Witchlands mob that like the ogres and orc line, never got a game, unfortunately my only opponent for the game sauntered off to the land of Hobbitses.

Which marches me onto my Lord of the Rings models, what a frigging waste of time they were buying, the Fellowship, warriors of the third age, moria orcs, rohan, uruk-hai. I stopped at the Two Towers because not only did the game blow, Games Workshop had got to the point that their over inflated prices had finally taken there toll and I gave up to go onto pastures Historical, where you could buy three whole armies in 15mm for one GW army.

And last but no means least, the surplus Battlemechs, yes there is such a thing, Mechs which I have at least one of (If not more than one) of already and will never use in a battle because one or two is more than enough.

But there is a side to them, 9 Rogue Trader Space Marines, two of which were in the first release of Marines, all more for collecters rather than the current crop of players, considering one, as you could in Rogue trader, is armed with a freaking shuriken catapult, no doubt scavenged from the Eldar pointy eared ponce that he's just stomped to death.

So the list is drawn up and been passed onto Gateshead games to see if they'll take the whole lot off me before I need to think about ebay and other avenues. If the price is right they can have it at Claymore but if  the price isn't anywhere near my minimum I will be considering other avenues.

Of course as the money comes in it will probably be feeding that insatiable Dystopian Wars addiction I have developed, the new Battlegroups for both my main fleets land and air will do nicely and by the looks of it my ally fleets are going to be getting some goodies to. Of course some of the money will be liberally spent on libations in my favourite pub, just as soon as the dry month comes to an end.

Shadow of the Wraith Blog and Review

Howdy Folks,

Just me with yet another Bandit Book Blog, this time it's a book I've actually read, enjoyed thoroughly and have read again since, which is a pretty good indicator of whether a book rates a thumbs up from me, I read it over and over again.

The Book is called Shadow of the Wraith, by an ever so nice gentleman who lives on the Emerald Isle, by the name of Ross Harrison, I reviewed it for my friend Sammy HK Smith, the publisher of my own work, for her blog when she interviewd Ross for her blog, and I'm going to put it up again along with everything else you need to know to purchase a copy of this fine piece of fiction.

Shadow of the Wraith (by Ross Harrison)

Review by David Muir

Right, Sammy asked me to do this review for her, maybe because she thinks I've got loads of free time (which I do, but don't needed reminded of) and I had only thus far read the Book in bits and pieces, Up on Authonomy and while not distracted by boobs and booze, I read a couple of the chapters after the parts on the site, but had enjoyed it so thoroughly I gave it a 4 star rating on good reads without actually reading the whole thing).

Anyway did finally read the whole thing and did most of it today, in fact I read 75% of the book today, and while there were bits missing from the draft that I had seen part of and bits added, it still holds on to it's essence. Which is frankly, (stealing a Castleism) is So Awesome! Great characters, most of them completely looney tunes. There's a main character who is more than he seems (which by the way I never saw coming and I normally see these things coming, until it was right in my face), who seems to live half in the real world half in the movies, hero complex much, along with his trusty sidekick, a relationship much like a certain Mr Reynolds and Mr Cobb, it has a wisecracking Android who throws off one liners that even Bender would be proud of (but sadly not as rude) along with the odd movie quoute (though the Arnie one was wrong), an assassin that learns to play nice with others, a bad guy who isn't a guy at all, intrigue and plot twists that makes your head spin a bit.

Anyway the story starts with Travis Archer, the focal character of the story, former Terran Alliance military operative, now bounty hunter who is chasing a mark he's been after for a bit, he finds him only for his bounty to be nicked by the Krathan Assasin Juni Lien. Mr Archer not so happy about this so when he goes looking for her on the ethernet (galactic internet) he finds his old team mate Jay Miller, has a bounty on his head, Archer feeling nothing but a sense of loyalty, and probably a good dose of his hero complex. This precipitates into an investigation for the alliance to find the Star Wraith, big honking ship that's been running around the stars knocking ships off left right and centre for years. They get the old team back together and add a number of aliens, including the Krathan Assasin eventually the aforementioned wisecracking Android.

There is intrigue abound as they are ordered to blow the Star Wraith, find out that it's actually built by the alliance, and basically steal the ship until they find out what is really going on. Now I'm sure I could reveal the whole plot to you, but that would be a waste, because you wouldn't get the enjoyment out of reading the book, so hopefully this should wet your appetite.

I did find the book awesome but there were also not so awesome parts to it, while the wisecracking robot was great at times it did feel as if some of the earlier witty spark between Archer and Miller which I found quiet interesting was transferred between the android and the guy who now owns him, and the too and fro between the team-mates wasn't used as well after that pint, and it felt like sometimes his jokes and one-liners were there just for the sake of it.

I felt that possibly it was a little too short. I think that sometimes it was too easy to get from a to b, the end hook was a little contrived and the author will know which bit I'm talking about, but maybe that particular character is the hook for the second because I understand the book is meant meant to be part of a series and while a lot of authors do that leave a hook (I do) so you know there's more to come and also leave it with a proper ending (which there is), I felt that the book itself is that hook and there wasn't any need for it to be that easy to get the information they needed to get to the end bit. I felt at times the author wanted to get his story out on the page (digital as mine may have been it's still a page) it maybe just felt a little too fast, though nominally the first book in a series is the shortest one.

I liked the way the parts of the book were broken up with the headings, but sometimes and I don't know if this is just the way it was formatted on my Kindle but on the same page without any spacing you had two different perspectives for characters in the same bit, but again maybe the formatting on my kindle.

All in all I would highly recommend this book to anyone who likes Science Fiction, Space Opera or as Ross put it Space Fantasy. It is all in all a good first book, and the fact that it is self-published shouldn't put you off because I have seen writers who actually got a book deal nowhere good as this.

Purchase Links:

Kindle: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007ZBK6QA

ePub: http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/210824

Paperback: http://www.amazon.com/dp/0957592906

Also available from a variety of other retailers.

 

Blurb:

It sounds like a simple assignment: track down the mysterious Star Wraith and put an end to its rampage. But when Travis Archer and his team of inept soldiers find themselves the most wanted people in the galaxy - hounded by assassins, terrorists and their own military - they realise the Wraith is just a symptom of a much larger problem... Finding war raging between one army intent on destroying an entire species, and another that will destroy the galaxy, Travis must put aside his fears and his past to uncover the truth behind it all. To become the hero he's always imagined.

Shadow of the Wraith is the first book in the NEXUS series.

Kindle ASIN: B007ZBK6QA

£2.49 $3.79

ePub ISBN: 9781476390390

£2.49 $3.82

Paperback ISBN-13: 978-0957592902

£7.99 $12.10

About the Author:

Ross Harrison has been writing since childhood without thought of publication. When the idea was planted by his grandmother to do so, it grew rapidly, and after a bumpy ten years or so, here sits the fruit. Ross lives on the UK/Eire border in Ireland, hoping the rain will help his hair grow back.

Links:

http://www.ross-harrison.com

http://www.facebook.com/StarWraith

http://www.twitter.com/AuthoRoss

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Ross-Harrison/e/B007ZSUY06/

An excerpt and some thoughts.

  Little bit of Running out of Space, one of my works in progress, it comes in after the main character Caleb O'Hearn has been talking about the history of Psionics and language in the Magiverse to demonstrate his genetic memory from his Magi heritage, that bit is about six hundred words itself and it's a little bit lecturing but part of the rolling history into the story without it being just flung at you so I'm not going to post that. After the excerpt there are a few thoughts of mine on shared universes and collaboration between writers and shared timelines.

****************

'But it's funny to watch you drone on and not even realise it though, but also educational. Learned a little piece about my own heritage while bored shitless about yours.' Kerry-Anne told him and he flipped his middle finger at her. 'That wasn't Magi ancestor knowledge, all of your Magi ancestors were Hunters, Guardians and Soldiers. Where did that come from?'

'Sarah of Trenton, her sire's sire was a Professor of Germanic Languages at the University of New Amsterdam.' He replied with a grimace. 'When the hippie pothead wasn't on a commune.'

'Your warrior attitude would be an embarrassment to him as much as he's an embarrassment to you.' Kerry-Anne chuckled at him. 'Hell his granddaughter was an embarrassment for joining the FIB. He considered the whole notion of war and Big Government pointless.'

'War is fuckin pointless.' O'Hearn sighed and Kerry-Anne gave him a look of surprise. 'Show me a true warrior that wouldn't rather he never had to fight again, and I'll show you a damned liar or a homicidal maniac that should never be in uniform, like dear old dad. It is true, I am never more alive when I am chasing down prey or fighting hand-to-hand in a struggle to the death, but I've been stabbed, shot, sliced open, gouged, blown up, and had to heal from those wounds too many times in what has not been the longest life. I would really rather that I could spend the rest of my considerable life time with my feet up until I'm old enough that it's the end for me and one last battle for me to shuffle off the mortalish coil and sit in Bilskirnir until I am needed  once more.'

************************************

 This plus everything else I'm working on, is running through my mind constantly, interlinking all the Magiverse stories can be a bit of work, especially when you are jumping two thousand years from the time of Gabriel to the time of Caleb,  and even when I jump just under a hundred years to my cyberpunk work, totally inspired by Continuum and Shadowrun, Corporate governments and Megacorporations.

Haven't seen series two of Continuum beyond the third episode been too busy with writing and painting soldiers. I can have TV shows in the background if I've seen them before but if it's new I have to actually sit and concentrate on it. But I'm getting off topic.

When I'm doing the Cyberpunk I have to remember what the map of Gabriel's Terra looks like even though it's all in my head (not the best idea, right now it's a bit fluid), trying to fit the Corporate Nations later in the timeline to nations from earlier in the timeline and then having to remember to use the right names in Caleb's time can hurt your head sometimes but I love reading shared universe fiction, and seeing how they evolve and how the stories evolved from where, granted you don't normally see three different periods on a timeline at the same time but that's me, glutton for the punishment I put upon myself.

I always wanted to be one of those authors that inspires collaboration with his fellow writers, I think that's what makes the Roleplaying, Comic book and TV & Movie shared universes so fun to immerse yourself in is the vibrant and many voiced reality, that no-one person is telling the story. Don't get me wrong they always need a strong hand to guide the ship and some of my favourite books series are written by one hand but I still believe it doesn't happen nearly enough in Sci-fi and Fantasy fiction that many hands help to form a better universe unless they tie in with a TV series or Movies or RPG's. 

Often enough authors will have others write for short story anthologies from their Universe which they edit,  but I think personally that D&D settings especially the Forgotten Realms Novels and even the Games Workshop forever dubbed the Evil Empire, fictional universes are made so much better, deeper and more real by the dozens of authors that write in the universe, though I'm sure most authors wouldn't like giving up money they would make writing their own work. 

People I'm sure will quote the expansions of the Cthulhu Mythos, the Man-Kzin Wars that added to Larry Niven's Known space, the expansion of Asimov's Foundation series and the adding to Lyman Frank Baum's (A prophet was he) Oz, the additions to Robert Howard's (Himself a Cthulhu Mythos expander) Conan, to me but I will also point out none of these except the Man-Kzin wars were ever done in the original author's lifetime.

But I won't deny that's always something nice to see, people trying to anticipate what would this author have written about next if he hadn't passed onto the halls of Valhalla, and I do applaud that, I would however like to see more authors collaborating to expand their own universes.

That's my end for today, off to the Falkirk District Wargames Club tonight, so dinner and work out an army, which I should have done last week when I was sitting on my arse at the club.

O'Hearn

There was a blog here that was written for the Military Sci-fi series main character I am writing but since I changed a whole lot of things about the story the story didn't actually fit in with the character and the path he was taking it just didn't work with the arc.

 

Interesting

Yeah, so, for the last say 12 hours, (yes, it's after 6 in the morning here) I've been working on nothing other than huge amounts of back story for My Military Sci-fi series (not got a name for it yet, as we all know I suck at titles) what I've been doing was firstly set up the way that the main character's Star Nation's Navy was set up, how each individual section of a fleet from a fleet all the way down to the lowest possible level, which is a huge amount of planning for me, and I actually enjoyed it even if I've just realised I screwed up with the other organizational chart I made up, for the particular section of the fleet that the main character is about to start serving with at the beginning of the book, but I've got every CO for every ship that I've set up so far, every flag officer for each of the fleets, but what's so interesting to me is that this has got me wanting to go forth with writing this despite the fact I've still got the next draft of Burn to finish (I left it alone to do this because part of it was doing my head in, I know the bit I was working on does work because I had the additions and the subtractions to make it work written down, but I can't find the damn pad that has it.

My normal thinking is write, write, write until I sparko from sleep deprivation, if I don't start seeing things and convince myself I've had conversations with people I haven't, one time I was convinced a week had gone by, this is after 4 days of no sleep working on a project that I should have had finished weeks before I did, that was funny, but I have taken a step back and allowed myself to digest everything, that I'm doing, I'm adding character that otherwise, if I just wrote as I always do, wouldn't be there. Don't get me wrong, every single named character I write, even if they're barely in a page of text, all feel real, but this makes the whole world feel more real, and it's weird.

If this seems rather rambling, I've been up since half five Tuesday afternoon, so it's fairly sure to say that I'm a bit tired.

Rant time

Evenin folks,

It's time for another patented (pun intended) rant from your friendly neighborhood crazy.

A friend of mine posted this on facebook and I became fairly annoyed because of it.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-21380003

This is a pretty much a fuck you to the company Games Workshop, so anyone reading this from the company, try threatening me with legal action, go the fuck ahead, you can suck my balls, it's called freedom of speech assholes.

As a former player of Games Workshop games, former purchaser of your products, if find it a joke. You screw anyone who buys your products with over priced figures and games, there are plenty of 28mm producers who price their products far lower than yours and yet they are much smaller than you, don't see how you justify that same as I don't see how you justify screwing someone who is just trying to make money to do what they love doing and make some money from it, the Trademark on Space marines is meant to protect the Space Marines from being copied by others for profit, but I find it funny when you have Quake, Timesplitters, Halo, Dead Space, Mass Effect and Starcraft, which as we all know is a thinly veiled 40k knock off, you haven't sued Eidos, EA, Blizzard or Microsoft for using the Space marines in their games, it's because you are afraid that if you did you would get laughed out of court, but you sue someone who would have absolutely no way of fighting you because they don't have the money to do it back doors the term becoming IP of Games Workshop. It's not only despicable, it's downright corrupt, but then I'm not surprised by that coming from the Evil Empire of Wargaming.

I've got two words for that.

FUCK YOU.

As a Science fiction and Fantasy writer I find it absolutely appalling that you are trying to co-opt a term that has been used in Science Fiction for over eighty years, considering you assholes got the idea from Traveller and Laserburn, so my Space Marines from my Military Sci-fi series become unusable, I don't think so assholes, and you can go ahead if/and when I publish it to try and sue me, take me to court all you like, I live in the UK and oh, yeah, we have a little thing called Legal Aid, so the kind of thing that works against Americans that can't afford it doesn't happen here.

In short, FUCK YOU, you greedy, thieving assholes.

The Next Big Thing

Do you want to play a game? No, this isn’t some weird ‘Saw’ horror malarky, but a game of ‘blog tag’ that’s circulating at the moment. I was tagged by Sammy HK Smith, who writes like me in a whole load of genres, right now she's working on Anna, a dystopian work, that is kind of outside my wheelhouse.

Thing is I don't have anyone to blog tag, but I thought I'd give it a shot anyway.

The blog tag game involves answering questions about your current work in progress.

What is the working title of your book?

As with all times in the coming and goings of the world, I'm working on more than one, but currently when not affected by the worst case of writiers block I've ever had I am working on one called Magic in the Blood. I am also editing the first draft of Burn, Forest City, Burn.

What genre does your book fall under?

 Like a lot of my work recently Magic in the blood is urban fantasy, but then alot of my work in recent times is Urban Fantasy, very much in the vein of the Dresden Files, and stuff like that. But MitB in a turn around it isn't in the Magiverse (yes I coined a verse for myself) that Burn and my military sci-fi series and my short story book are based in.

 Burn is itself an Urban Fantasy book but it also has is set in an alternative world that is vastly different from our own, where magic is a power unto itself and the people who police the world don't like the normals getting invovled, which also includes elements of Sci-fi other than the alt world concept, it has alternate realities, time travel concepts and throws the history books out the window.

Give a brief synopsis of your book.

Magic in the Blood involves two primary characters, which is a bit of a departure for me, my writing in the past either involves one primary character or between three and six primary characters. I've been reading lots of different genres recently and other than the Urban Fantasy ones the books I've most got into have two primary protagonists. It's basically the set-up story, set a couple of years in the future, introducing Damien Ambrosius Caledonensis McCain Wizard of the 1st order, and Detective Sergent of the Scottish Police Force, his official title being liason between the SPF and the federal agencies of the USA, but his actual job is liason between the Magic World's law enforcement the Sheriff's and the Watchmen, operatives of the neutral Grey Council, and the non-magical law enforcement in the US. He is asked to consult with the SFPD's Major Crimes unit and Sergeant-Inspector Carmen Isabel Cortez, uninitiated daughter of Constantine Cortez, Damien's mentor, when Major Crimes is caught up in a power struggle between two rival magic houses, one of the Light and one of the Dark but with humans getting caught in the middle and getting killed by magic, pretty much a no-no even for Dark magic practitioners.

Burn, again is a first book, an introduction for the three primary protagonists, Gabriel of Alba, Magi Warmaster, Suzie Owens, Wizard and his partner and Sarah Morrow, a Federal Investigations Bureau agent and the very different world that they live in, and by very different I mean so different that it requires a cartographer to draw a map of the world they live in. The basic story is a Pyromancer goes nuts in the City of Cleveland, and Gabriel and Suzie who work for the United Magical Investigations Agency, get sent to sort it out, aware that Sara and her team at the FIB's Unexplained Phenomina Division are looking into it, but none of their team are at this point even aware magic exists. The story has a number of twists and turns and pretty much screws with the order of things, but it sets up the series and explains some very intricate ideas without becoming too bogged down in minutae.

Where did the idea come from for the book? 

With MitB it was very much a merging of different stories and different characters that had been running around in my ideas folder for a while, the characters in it are amalgams of a number of characters I've written over the years, but the setting is different from anywhere I've ever written before, most of my stuff when the series is set in a particular city in the US, since I'm not an American myself, is normally either LA or New York, but then they are the city's I know best in the US since most crime TV series are based in these citites, but I wanted something different this time, so I did a bit of research on different cities in America and decided on San Fransisco, mainly the differences between it's Police department and most of the other departments or Sheriff's offices, inspectors instead of detectives. With the magic side of it I hadn't read anything that wasn't leading up to a crescendo, some big battle a ways down the road where good had to triumph over evil to save the world, every fantasy series has it whether it's the Wheel of Time, Dragonlance or the Dresden Files, even though Dresden's a half decent mage he's still getting in the middle of some heavy shit, and at some point some evil's needin it's ass kicked. With Damien nothing is black and white, it's just the world as it is, shades of grey and at either end there is the Light and the Dark, but he's there to keep everyone in check, he's a powerful Wizard but he's not going to save the world for the light or destroy the world for the dark, he's going to slap anyone who tries down to keep the world in balance, because for there to be good in the world there has to be evil and eveything has to be in balance.

 Burn was just something that came from my totally messed up head. At the time I started writing it I had never read any Urban Fantasy, I didn't even know there was such a thing as Urban Fantasy, I was totally in the dark about it at that point. It came about because I was sick of writing the traditional fantasy settings, your Sword and Sorcery, High Fantasy and Sword and Sandal types. I love reading them, but I didn't feel at that time that really there wasn't something that hadn't been done before, so I started work on Burn, mixing the fantasy, the sci-fi and alternative history with crime stories that I had been reading a lot of at the time, and it was just something totally different, it evolved into a series of fairly brutal stories set in this alternative world that just sprung from my head from nowhere. But as with everything else I got sidetracked and went and wrote other things, many of them in the same world as that Gabriel, Sara and Suzie inhabit, and many of them with two or three of the characters themselves involved, and it took me until almost a year after beginning the book to complete the final chapters back at the end of September beginning of October and I am working on the bits that I alreayd know needed fixing, and I don't mean the grammer.


Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?

This is actually something I think about an awful lot, because I've got to admit I like having a basic facial structure for my main characters that I can go to artists, well this is their basic look, or they look like this person, and it extends eventually into the other characters. for Damien it would be hard because the guy is 6 foot six and built like the side of a house so it would probably have to be somebody that was specfically brought in to play the character, and I would really not like anyone other than a Scotsman to play the character, I find faked Scottish accents to be terrible, for Carmen I'd go with Natalie Morales, she's about the right age, got the right look, I think she's a very good actress .

For Burn, I had a very definate look at actors and the closest I ever got to Gabriel was Gerard Butler for the look and size, then I saw Game of Thrones and Richard Madden, again it's the whole people who aren't Scottish do shit Scottish accents, but yeah he'd be awesome if he bulked up. For Suzie it was always Anna Popplewell and for Sarah I always had Taylor Schilling in mind for that part, and for a couple of the minor characters I had ideas who I would like to play them, for Hjordis, Gabriel's Magi right hand, Linda Zilliacus who is Finnish, for Special agent Tyrone I was thinking probably Anwan Glover of The Wire and for Maria Adler of the UPD Martha MacIssac from Superbad.

Battletech Novels

Hello all, just a little random thoughts for your troubles this day.

Normally I'm not one to read books licensed from games, because they generally go one of two ways they are very good or very bad and there don't seem to be any inbetween, I do read certain writers of said fiction, R.A. Salvatore, Dan Abnett, and William King pretty much being it.

But I had remembered that I had read the Legend of the Jade Phoenix many years ago, I think I was ten or twelve the last time I read it, which was more than half a lifetime ago, and I found a copy of it in the library, which in itself is fairly unusual, the library up my way generally doesn't have the greatest fantasy and sci-fi collection which is sad really, because there is a whole effing section devoted to "Celebrity" biographies, I'm not going to get into the sad state of reading habits right now, that can be kept for a more drunk and wacky mood.

Now why did I enjoy this because I enjoy the stories where the hero, in this Aiden Pryde, go from failure to redemption in the space of the series, this being a trilogy.

 Pryde is his bloodname, being Trueborn of the Sibko, the Clans of the Battletech Universe's genetically created warrior sibling company where those who are created to be warriors grow up, it's a bit fucked I know.

When I first read this I was a player of Battletech but I had never actually learned anything about the Clans, the guys I played with were very much purists of the game, though they were like 20 or more years older than me (I played at the Wargaming club I am still a member of) and never had anything to do with the clans, I think they may have had a Tech readout or two with some clanner stuff in them but just for reference.

So I was intriqued, my only knowledge of the Clans came from the Animated series, which according to the canon of the game was lets say wrong. So, I found every piece of this particular series of books very interesting to read in the first place, adding knowledge that I did not have of battles and such in the series that I had never even heard of up until that point (and pretty much made it my mission to find out more, which I have and far too much information for one human brain to contain it's all in the books).

Anyway Aiden and his Sibko start their warrior training having been whittled down from their ninety members after their birth to a much smaller number when they begin weeior trainign, because only the strong survive, which eventaully through deaths or washouts becomes three, along with Marthe, who would one day become Khan of their Clan (the Jade Falcon, funny I hadn't mentioned that yet), they enter their trail of position which he loses because to Marthe who stabs him in the back when he makes it a free-for-all with veyr unClanlike tactics, which would become a watchword for Aiden himself.

He is demoted to Astech and escapes before his training commander can engineer a second Trail of Postion, only meant to get one, he is brought back by his Sibko's Falconer, or trainging officer, Joanna who would be part of his life up until the end. During this time Aiden fathers a child, Dianna, with his Sibkin, Peri, yes I know it's a bit ick. Ter Roshak has a Freeborn, that would be someone with a momma and a Poppa, training group killed so Aiden can take his place. He does and with the help of Horse, a Freeborn warrior who becomes his constant companion on his journey through the universe of Battletech.

He eventually gets to fight for a Bloodname, with the help of Marthe, Horse and Joanna, wins it, in the book Bloodname, having earned his place in the Grand Mellee, he eventually wins his bloodname and goes on in Falcon Guard to command a disgraced cluster of Clan warriors (Named the Falcon Guards) but eventually because of him and his unClanlike tactics the Guards become a unit of choice for Clan Trueborn, nicknamed Pryde's Pride after him.

I Highly recommend this trilogy to anyone, if you like big robots that kick the shit out of each other, and if you've played any of the previous computer games based in the universe you'll get a kick out of it, don't need to know anything about the games, because it's all explained in the back.
 
 So, now because I'm clambering to find as many of the novels as I can get my hands on, got an eye on the seven books of the Saga of the Grey Death Legion it would be nice if you could get them in an omnibus Catalyst Game Labs should do that.