Work was equally challenging and rewarding, and that was put under pressure by ongoing family illness issues, because of course the universe doesn’t seem to think I have enough stressors in my life already. I lost a friend last year – so long Andy – and a hero too – so long Mr. Nimoy – but those close to me are still here and for that I’m grateful.
I did some cool stuff, which included; hiking around a volcano in the Canary Islands and swimming in the Atlantic ocean; going from London to Tatooine for a drink in that cantina and getting to be a Rebel for a moment or two (as well as finding out that Stormtroopers have no sense of humour); visiting Spamalot, and the court of the King of All Cheese, the Lord ‘Weird Al’ Yankovic; indulging my love of things with wings at air shows and the Red Bull Air Race. And then there were the conventions, from the worlds of Warhammer and the Horus Heresy to my people in the tribes of Trekkers and Gamers. I also set foot in a new field this year, thanks to the nice folks at ITW, the International Thriller Writers group, who were very welcoming and had lots of wine.
In a writerly fashion, I got my hands on some very cool things, and found the opportunity to cross stuff off my writer/nerd bucket lists. Top of that was getting to write – finally, after decades of missing the brass ring – fiction for one of my all-time favourite universes: Star Wars.
I gotta say, doing that in 2015 of all years, with The Force Awakens bringing the Galaxy Far, Far Away back into the public consciousness, was a personal milestone for me. Putting words in Obi-Wan Kenobi’s mouth and penning an “opening crawl” was something else – and the thrill at starting a script with the words A Long Time Ago… was amazing. But I also learned that be careful what you wish for is advice that always applies.
2015 saw me release a new Star Trek: Titan novel with Sight Unseen (which just this month made the Locus Bestseller list, so thanks to everyone who bought it!), bring in some new audio stories for the Horus Heresy saga with the Nathaniel Garro box-set, and have some fun with short stories for The Scientific Secrets of Doctor Who and the Game Over anthology. The tale I wrote for the latter, “Screen Burn”, was probably the most fun I had with a keyboard all year.
Elsewhere, I’ve had the chance to put a line through a couple of other bucket list bullet points, but right now I can’t talk about the stories I’m doing for the worlds of [REDACTED] and [REDACTED] (both of which are things I’ve been a fan of for many years), not to mention the more-recent-but-equally-cool [REDACTED]; I can say that I’ve got more stories on the way in 2016 for the Horus Heresy and Star Trek fiction lines, the Deus Ex gameworld and a forthcoming audio series featuring an iconic British comicbook hero.
But beyond all of that is something big, something new, something totally original that I’ve been working on for quite a while now. Watch for Nomad in the months to come; I’ll be talking about it a lot.
