Can’t lie, I thought long and hard about giving up on these; after the challenging 2018 I went through, I wondered if I could still do it, if it was worth the time. In the end, here I am, writing. Partly it’s out of inertia, partly to just leave a waypoint for myself, partly because maybe I need to.
2018 was one the hardest years I’ve had to get through, but I did it, thanks to my loved ones, my good friends and my work colleagues. My family suffered a grave loss right at the start of the year and that cast a long, dark shadow over everything else that followed. I feel now like I’ve got enough distance to look at things rationally, but I know the road is long. I’m still finding my balance with this new normal, but I have a fantastic support structure – and I am very lucky to be where I am, with so many good people around me. You all know who you are; from the bottom of my heart, thank you.
My testing times came right in the middle of working on The Buried Dagger, my last (and the last) Horus Heresy novel, which will be out in the spring. All the themes of that mythic saga were thrown into sharp relief for me, those questions of nature versus nurture, of fathers and sons, of what we leave behind and how our deeds measure who we are… Suddenly, I felt all these things more acutely than I ever had before. The blade cut close to home. It made me reflect on some of the things that have happened to me since I became a writer, and it made me reconsider what exactly is important in my life.
In a strange way, these events have made me feel more alive – and more aware of how fragile our lives are – than ever before. I take that on and move forward.
I’m proud of how The Buried Dagger came out; the energy of a lot of what I went through in those months burns through that novel. I’m honoured that I got to be the one to write this particular bit of the saga, before the curtain rises on the Siege of Terra and the final endgame of the Horus Heresy epic. And as for other ventures into the grimdark future, I did a little work on the Space Hulk Tactics videogame, penned “Exocytosis”, a short story featuring the Death Guard legion, and had a whole bunch of my Black Library novels return to press in cool new editions and foreign translations. I wrote a couple of other Heresy short stories toward the end of 2018, but those won’t be out until later in 2019.
But the big deal in my writing career in 2018 was Ghost, the third in my bestselling Marc Dane action thriller series. I am proud to say that Ghost has been a huge success (making a note here), first with the hardcover release in the summer and the paperback last month.
The series is going from strength to strength with excellent feedback from my readers, so I want to express my great appreciation to everyone who continues to support my work. Shadow, the next Marc Dane novel, has already been delivered and we’re in talks for a fifth and sixth book, along with the possibility of exploring some other storytelling avenues for the series, so stay tuned. The Marc Dane books also made their debut across the pond this year with the release of Nomad in the USA, and the second novel Exile appeared in Germany, Italy and the Czech Republic.
Beyond that, I published a story for the Star Trek Discovery novel series with Fear Itself, the culmination of a lot of hard work during 2017, coming together in a book that I feel is one of my best bits of Trek fiction; what was especially rewarding for me was to see all the readers who found a strong connection to the main character of Saru and the exploration of him in the pages of Fear Itself.
There’s no greater accomplishment for an author to write a character that readers take to heart, and I’m happy I could build on Saru in a meaningful way for all the Discovery fans out there.
I did a little video games work this year, contributing some faction scripts to the upcoming Tom Clancy title The Division 2, and I can’t wait to play it. I’m also hoping that a to-be-announced title I worked on several months will soon be unveiled, but more on that when I’m allowed to talk about it…
It wasn’t all work, of course. I travelled a lot this year, some of it for events, others for research – to Utrecht in the Netherlands, Brussels in Belgium, Malmo in Sweden, Dusseldorf in Germany and Lanzarote in the Canary Islands. I went along to fun events like EGX Rezzed, the Morecambe & Vice Crime Festival, Destination Star Trek and library events in Hammersmith and Gillingham (If you were there, thanks for coming!)
I even got to see Vin Diesel – from a distance! – at Fast & Furious Live and cheer on one of my friends as they realized the childhood dream of racing at Brands Hatch. I got my first pair of spectacles; I had my first official author photo shoot; I was Best Man at a wedding for the first time (and yeah, I was late); and best of all, my team won sweet, sweet victory at our local pub quiz.
As for the coming year; like I’ve said before, I’m moving forward, always striving to improve my craft and do the best I can in the world. I’m not sure what the next 12 months with hold… I know I have a few cool projects lined up which I’ll be talking about in the days and weeks ahead, and some plans for travel and events. I hope to see you out there.
