So I was was in Glasgow today and amongst other things I decided to pop into Games Workshop to get January's copy of White Dwarf and a plastic deamon prince. Its a very busy store on the weekend and as I was in there I looked around and did a double take as I saw a face I recognised, it was none other than Graham McNeil doing a book signing, I was totally stoked as I think he is definitely one of the best Black Library authors. I added a copy of god king to my shopping list and got in the queue to get him to scribble in it. Got to say he seemed like a top guy and was more than willing to talk about his work, what stood out for me was his desire to give what can be perceived as by some as boring chapters or legions a depth that perhaps hasn't before been achieved. He spoke whole heartedly about his attempted to humanise the Thousand Sons and the Ultramarines, (I'm paraphrasing here). He also gave the impression that the first part of the story arc of the Heresy is nearly complete with just a few loose ends to tie up with the origins of the Heresy. He also talked about the difficulty the guys on the team writing team had with planning the writing on seven year window between Istavaan and the siege of Terra, due to there being very little written on it historically. He also mentioned that during one of these planning meetings someone came up with a truly radical idea, which he described at the time as completely out of the box, but in hindsight making perfect sense. On a side note here I was always under the impression that the Black Library doesn't run strictly to Games Workshop IP fluff, but apparently they ran the "radical idea" passes Alan Merret and he said yes we will go with that. He was very careful not to give anything away but from what I can tell it runs along the lines of the Ultramarines throwing there weight around with respect to the instigation of the Codex Astartes and he refer ed to one of the short stories that he has written for the upcoming Heresy anthology "Age of Darkness" the short story is apparently called "Rules of Engagement" and apparently it the last two lines of this story hints at the shape of things to come, and how the Codex almost leads to a double galactic civil war. I know that none of this is real news to the fluff addicts out there but it was kinda cool hearing from the horses mouth some hints about which way they are going to take the story arc.
He also said that once the siege of terra has been completed and Horus defeated, that there are still many tales to tell concerning the Dark Angels and the Scouring to name but two.
Like I said he seemed like a really cool guy and I enjoyed chatting to him.
By the way the COA are coming along, and I have some Berserkers painted up now, pictures to follow soon.
Till the next time.
