It’s time for my annual end-of-year wrap-up post…
…and as we swing into Space Year 2020 (which always seemed like the distant future to me as a kid), I’m working hard to maintain a positive outlook on things. A lot went on in 2019 that required me to find a new normal, with the big changes wrought in 2018 still reaching their level and a whole lot of bigger events way outside my control casting a long shadow. In times like this, it’s always good to stick with what you know, and I stuck to writing and working hard – with a few breaks here and there to help keep me (relatively) sane…
2019 marked the launch of this very website you’re looking at – the “version 4.0” of my ongoing digital presence, and it’s been ticking along quite well so far. I’m planning to continue to expand the site as time goes on with more content, more frequent blogs, and perhaps a digital storefront too, if I can find the time to put it all together.
This site launched with Rough Air, a free downloadable ebook novella from my Marc Dane action thriller series (find it Here) and the response to that from my readers was very encouraging!
Marc also returned in 2019 with Shadow, the fourth novel in the series, and the paperback edition is in stores right now if you didn’t catch it in hardcover.
I spent several months of last year working on the next Marc Dane adventure Rogue, and you’ll be hearing more about that in the run up to the release this summer.
My other writing gigs in 2019 fell into three distinct camps…
First, some new fiction and reprints from Black Library’s Warhammer 40,000 and Horus Heresy sagas – Heart & Soul, The Buried Dagger, Lantern’s Light and The Chamber at the End of Memory, along with a complete omnibus edition of all my 40K Blood Angels stories and a new audiobook edition of my Sisters of Battle novel Hammer & Anvil; second, new video game work in The Division 2, Dark Future: Blood Red States and the forthcoming Bleeding Edge and Phantom: Covert Ops; and thirdly, a personal milestone marked by my first ever comic script projects, writing stories for the venerable British war comic Commando.
I have to say the most memorable of these were Phantom and Commando – the former because it’s my very first full-on virtual reality game, and the latter because I’ve always wanted to try my hand at writing comics.
Working in VR and in comicbook formats threw up very different and very interesting challenges for me, and I’m pleased to have had the opportunity to tackle them and stretch my skill-set!
Outside of work, this year was a busy one in terms of places visited, too. 2019 started with a working tour of bookstores all across the UK in the run-up to the launch of Shadow, and I followed that up with appearances at Noireland in Belfast, Thrillerfest in New York City, the inaugural Capital Crime in London and Destination Star Trek in Birmingham. I turned my NYC visit into a working vacation and met lots of great people in the US thriller community, and I took the opportunity to make research trips to Berlin and Portugal as well. I indulged my love of fast jets and heavy iron with RAF Hendon’s Cold War aviation tour and Biggin Hill’s Festival of Flight (all good source material for future Commando scripts, I reckon), and of course my new obsession with synthwave music drew me to shows by The Midnight, FM-84, Timecop1983 and a screening of The Rise of the Synths.
But how did I round out my year? Well, it’s too soon to talk specifics right now, but something big is on the horizon…
Stay tuned!
