#Author at Black Library, Solaris, Tor.com and Angry Robot. Ex-journalist and editor. Screenwriter, world-builder, ponderer. Angry goblin in a human world. Interested in far more things than I can possibly list in this puny box.
I did indeed make them up for the reason Gav gives. Apart from the twin hull, very much inspired by the blackstar model, I kept the details deliberately vague.
Heh, I also painted my titans as Legio Solaris. I don’t have any other Tigris details, as it’s not so much me selecting the bits of my imaginings to write down, but rather providing just enough detail to fire yours up.
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Scroll down to the bottom of this Warhammer Community article to find out that there's an audio version of my book, Shadowsword coming out. I didn't know. What a nice surprise.
www.warhammer-community.com/en-gb/articl...
As an aside, GW aren't overly dictatorial about what we write. It was actually my idea, having been introduced to Cawl while writing Dark Imperium, to feature him the distant past as a young man. Interestingly, someone else, simultaneously, wrote about him being old in that period of 40k's setting.
When I find contradictions like this, which are inevitable, given the setting's huge scope and the number of creators, it's my impulse to make BOTH true, which led to the Cawl series, and Cawl being a gestalt of merged personalities.
I also find it fascinating to speculate how this stuff would actually work in real life, and enjoy exploring it without breaking the rules of the universe.
I often try to use science to do this, but a lot of the time my research isn't profound, I do a bit of reading or simply apply logic to the situation. Logic led me to the Ultramaran quarantine protocols, so that's a win for me!
This one is me, talking about plague narratives in 40K, and how much they make sense from an epidemiological perspective.
TLDR: If it's @guyhaley.bsky.social odds are it's pretty good!
www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZG1...
Hey, thanks for that. That's really cool to hear that I got it right. It's very important for me as a writer that all the magic space stuff has a firm, believable background, because then it makes it easier to buy into.
So I have my knights well on the way. They will be my third Horus Heresy Army. I worked out with the four armigers, three questoris and twenty Solar Auxilia I have, I've got exactly 2000 points. I'm going to paint that, then I'd like to expand it to 3000. A full banner of 5 Questoris is tempting.
If you’re certain you’re going to cut that much, do the edit first. An edit that big will change the shape of the project. You’ll get more focussed feedback from your beta readers. It’s better than having them fight through stuff you’re going to lose anyway.
I see! Yeah, apologies if I seemed curt. It’s always the way with 40k. People can take any statement, no matter how it is contextualised or who is saying it, as being the truth. I’m always keen to avoid that!
Ah yeah. Well, I had to be really careful not to give any spoilers away, so that was one thing, and my original text was cut to avoid it. Another thing is that the sort of ‘great read’ kind of text veers dangerously close to reviewing, which I try to avoid.
It’s cool you’re liking this story. I wrote it so long ago now, when I’m reading these passages it’s like I’m seeing them for the first time. Nice to experience it again.
You know, it wasn’t supposed to (just) be marketing. It was my idea to put it in, and the main reason was that I often get asked for Era Indomitus reading lists. Of course, I did write a lot of those books, so there was an element of sales there, I admit.
Well, yeah, but in truth I only chose them because they were one of the only knight houses that had a full transfer sheet available when I bought my three knights about 8 years ago! But still, I have grown to love them.
Of course, all this depends on the author. Newer authors benefit from such things more, maybe. I watch Victoria Hayward's highly organised efforts to use the net with great interest. Then some authors just love doing it, while really successful authors have teams of people to do it for them.
As for me, I am available directly. If you want to ask me anything about author profiles or whatever else, I'm always here or on X or on LinkedIn. But for the time being, my inner time accountant says no to websites.
Authors with very active social media engagement, like Josh, or Chuck Wendig or John Scalzi, often do it for the love of it. Chuck wrote at length about how his website didn't really sell his books.
I found this true. Even during times of high traffic my site did nothing to increase sales of my original books, which is what I wanted - because Warhammer sells itself, by and large. It also didn't stop people confusing me with Gav Thorpe or David Guymer... 😆
Now, you're talking about a simple website, which is different. But even something like that, with links, lists, descriptions, images, takes time and effort (even if, once done, it's done). And once it's there, the temptation arises to engage once again; the fear that static sites are dead sites.
I've always treated writing very much as a business. It's opportunity cost - if I spend x number of hours writing content for online, it's x number of hours not writing stuff I actually get paid for. So, I decided to shut it down, and experienced an immediate cessation of stress.
