I have just sent The Angel of Fire in to Black Library. It’s my first 40K in a long time and it’s my first ever book written for Black Library in the first person singular. It was a lot of fun and a very different experience looking at the 41st Millennium from the point of view of an ordinary soldier rather than that of a Space Wolf. I am now waiting for feedback from my esteemed editor Nick Kyme at Black Library and soon, I hope I will be making the necessary revisions and pushing on to the second book in the Macharian Crusade trilogy. I won’t be idle in the meantime. I have to revise the fourth Terrarch book, Shadowblood, and prepare it for e-book release at the end of the month. I’ll also be scribbling down ideas for any changes to the outline of Book Two of the Macharian Trilogy brought about by events in Book One.
It will probably come as no surprise to most of you that things do not always go exactly according to plan when you are writing a Warhammer novel. Sometimes characters take on a life of their own, sometimes events blindside you, sometimes things that looked good in the outline turn out dead on the page and other things that were covered in a sentence in the outline grow to be major events. I’ve said it before and I’ll doubtless keep on saying it because it’s true; no plan survives contact with the enemy. No outline is ever an exact representation of the book.
In the case of The Angel of Fire one major character got killed in a way that I was not expecting but which made perfect sense and another major character refused to play his assigned role and became something altogether darker and more interesting. I also got to see Macharius in action and his relationship to the world and some of the people round about him was not quite what I was expecting it to be so I’ll need to take this into account in the second book. It’s all good because it makes the characters and the books come alive but it means there will need to be some alterations to my basic outlines. In the case of the major character who died, the fact that it came out of the blue made it a shock to me and thus hopefully to the reader as well. Such things tend to keep the writing fresh.
I’ll be taking the rest of the day off once I finish this blog post. The only other thing I need to mention is that my short story Guardian of the Dawn is currently available for free at Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, Smashwords, Barnes and Noble and iTunes. I was going to discuss the ins and outs of this in the present blog post but I am both tired and elated after completing The Angel of Fire and I feel the need for a break. Normal bloggage shall be resumed on Wednesday.
Consider me very excited about the Macharian Crusade trilogy. Macharius is, what, a 40k take on Alexander the Great? That should make for an interesting character – as idealistic and brilliant as he was ruthless – to re-define and develop into an original cast member of the milieu.
Thank you. The Alexander connection was one of the things about the character that appealed to me.
Mr King, it is good to see you back on the 40k trail and also good to see you, such a great writer, covering the Macharian Crusade, one of my favourite sections of 40k ‘history’. I really can’t wait for this!
ps – when are you going to finish Ragnar’s tale? it’s just not the same without you!!
Thank you, Dave. I am excited to be doing the Crusade. No plans for anything with Ragnar at the moment. Sorry.
I have not been able to contain my excitement about a Macharian Crusade novel (let alone a trilogy!). Everyone I have spoken too feels the same way, so a massive thank you for writing on this topic. I know this would be a very long shot – but if by any chance you have more writing to do on the subject, and you happen to be short on names of regiments fighting in the crusade, could you throw in the ‘Macharian Thunder Guard’ (A regiment formed during the crusade from the newly renamed plant Macharia)? I understand the unlikeliness of this, but I can dare to dream.
Keep up the great work and thanks also for giving us these insights into the first books creation.
Thanks Raymond,
I don’t think I can do the Thunder Guard thing. I fear if I do it for one person I will be inundated with similar requests by others. I’ll ask the High Lords though…
Mr King – I will echo the excitement about getting a trilogy about the Macharian Crusade. A couple of questions if I can:
1. What date (roughly) is the first book set in? (I always get confused whether the Macharian Crusade happened in M40 or M41).
2. You might not want or be able to say but… will the trilogy also touch upon the events after the Crusade in the Macharian Heresy?
Thanks.
Thanks Jay. To answer your questions: 1) It’s very early M41. 2). The books touch on events after the Crusade and more stuff can be worked out by implication.
Superb thanks for answering that.