WARHAMMER 40K GALAXY MAP... SORT OF

OUT NOW

The novel Legion of the Damned.

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For today's offering I thought that I would spoil you with a map of the entire Warhammer 40K galaxy. Well... sort of. Consider it a meme-gift for your interest. What would be really cool is if we could spread it around a bit. Feel free to copy and paste it onto Facebook and forums. I borrow art all the time and credit it so I expect no less of you. The Facebook LIKES, Twitter FOLLOWing and blog joining is all progressing well (all located on the right hand side bar). If you would like to keep up to date with Rob Sanders Speculative Fiction then connect to the blog with one or all of those. Conversely, feel free to include a link to the blog on your own site. Like a Tyranid hive fleet or heretical idea - the blog is spreading!

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'"I'm the Scourge," Kersh said. "I was born a warrior. I was engineered to kill."

The novel Legion of the Damned

Have You Seen This Man?

OUT NOW

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First off, an apology. It’s not nice when something just stops. A film. A relationship. A life support machine. I haven’t updated this blog in over a year. The year before that made I regular appearances here. The reasons for my absence are largely interrelated. There is no one thing that’s kept me away. I changed from being a teacher and author to a full time author. While this is fantastic, it meant a lot of extra hard work to ensure that my students and my department were left in a good place. At the same time I planned to move websites. I still intend to do this at some point but my neglect of this site was a little premature. The main reason I have been away, however, is simply hard work. I’ve been working on a plethora of short stories, audio dramas, novellas and novels – some that are out, some that are just coming out and some that are as yet to be released. I’ve also been hard at work creating new writing opportunities in new formats, which I look forward to telling you about.

Like a sequel that comes to be regarded as better than the original (I’m thinking The Empire Strikes Back or Aliens here), the blog has returned. My aim is to work as hard, or even harder, than I have been doing on my creative ventures but also to maintain a healthy commitment to the blog. To begin that I’ve given it a much needed streamline and overhaul, embracing clean whites and blues over the rather sombre black and orange theme I had going on before. It contains all the great material of its first incarnation – some highlights of which you’ll find still trending on the side bar list in my absence. Fairly swiftly I’ll be adding to it with news of new releases, long-standing questions answered (a special sorry to the faithful of the ‘Ask the Author’ section), reviews and features. I might also be able to make better use of social media than I have done in the past but no promises. Crawl. Walk. Run.

Finally, welcome back to friendly and familiar faces and a big hello to fresh ones. If you feel so inclined, I encourage you to follow me, my work and the blog in a number of ways. You can join this site on the right hand bar. You can Like my author Facebook page above on the right. You can follow my Twitter feed, also up on the right hand bar. Hell, do all three. Also, feel free to ask questions (as long as it's not the one about where babies come from) and comment on the blog itself. On the left hand bar I've placed my list of sites and blogs deserving of attention. These are sites maintained by readers who have usually found their way there by attracting my attention with reviews and interviews. If, on the other hand, you would like to add my blog to your own list - as many have - that would be cool too. So, let's begin...

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'What must I do beyond the ease of killing, to get the attention of these daemon deities? These dogs of damnation?'
Archaon: Everchosen

Infraction Police!

Lately, fellow author Aaron Dembski-Bowden has been blogging about the time-consuming dangers of posting on forums. Today I ran foul of a different kind of forum danger: moderator infraction. I had been posting on a forum, talking to some nice people about shared interests and shooting the interweb breeze. It is fair to say that the forum was not dedicated to my publisher Black Library or associated with their products. Wherever I post, like many people, I include a signature below my comments. This tends to be my blog address. I opened my email today to find that I had communication from the forum moderator, informing me that they had removed my signature from a post I had made. Okay, I thought. There was nothing explicitly about that in the conditions, but if they felt it was necessary. Chalk that up to a warning. Won’t do that again. But wait - I opened my next email to find that I had been issued with an ‘Infraction’ and had lost a ‘point’. This sounded serious. I didn’t know I had a point: and now I had gone and lost it. It seems that because I had posted more than once in a day and my blog address was displayed on that post also, I had to be punished. Presumably as an example to other disobedient posters. Perhaps the moderators are afraid of some kind of uprising. I daren’t go back. I can’t remember how many posts I made on that day and therefore how many cumulative infractions I have racked up (before I knew they were infractions). I fear being seized as soon as I try to cross the border. It only takes a mouse-click, you know. The second email informed me in no uncertain terms that I had committed the cardinal sin of ‘Unsolicited Advertising’ when I included my blog address in my post signature – the forum equivalent of kerb crawling or indecent exposure.

This is all a great pity. I had been talking to some nice and interesting people. Perhaps they had been making extra efforts to be nice because they were being forum-policed so stringently - I will never know. I'm just glad I made it out alive. I’ve said before on here that I’m not a fan of unnecessary rules and prescription and this is another example. The internet is about communication. Without people writing on their sites, internet forums would be empty. What is the point in getting people together in one place if you are not going to allow communication? There are many nice people on forums and running forums and I’m interested in talking to them, but these rules are just silly. They might have a place on Panfu or Club Penguin but they are ridiculous as part of internet forums where grown men and women from all over the world exchange views and ideas.

I have some advice for my friend Aaron, with whom I share some sympathy. Your problem is solved. Danger-averted. Add your blog address as your post signature and your access to internet forums will automatically be restricted!

For Services To The Blog

Double blog entry today. A big thanks to Aaron Spuler who helped me out with some minor but important alterations to the blog. The site looks classier for it and I should have done them myself. Image is important in this game. Brother Spuler nominated for the Iron Halo for services rendered to the Blog. Now that Aaron and I have bonded over the fires of website design features, I am going to send the gentleman a friend request on Facebook. We have colour schemes to discuss!

Electronic Shoeboxing

Like sportspeople and actors, writers try to keep track of reportage and responses to their works / performances. They cut out reviews from magazines and profiles / interviews from newspapers and keep them in a folder or shoebox. The internet complicates this rather old-fashioned process, simply because of the sheer number of responses there might be to a particular text on any one day. It is also difficult to cut responses out of the internet. It occurred to me that this blog might be an appropriate place to set up an ‘Electronic Shoebox’ – a place where relevant snippets can be stored and enjoyed.

Like many Black Library writers I am a sporadic haunter of discussion boards and forums relating to speculative fiction and the specific setting / sub-genre in which I write. Heresy Online is one such hang out, where a range of opinions - both positive and negative - are exchanged in relation to Black Library books. Forums are a mixed bag for all writers. There are no authors, BL or otherwise, that receive universally good or bad feedback on such sites. Apart from the ‘Ask the Author’ section at the Black Library Bolt Hole, I tend not to intrude on such conversations (largely due to time constraints), but in fairness, I know authors that do and enjoy debating the merits of specific opinions with friendly forumites. The best thing about discussion boards for any writer, regardless of their genre, is the almost immediate nature of feedback. Before the advent and popularity of the internet, writers and publishing companies had much less of an idea regarding the specifics of what their readers thought and wanted.

Anyway, I digress. Here is a review from Heresy Online on Age of Darkness – the Horus Heresy anthology in which my short story The Iron Within can be found. I’ve reproduced the snippet regarding The Iron Within below but the remainder of the review, detailing responses to all the fantastic stories contained within Age of Darkness can be found here.


“The Iron Within – Rob Sanders

Finally, Iron Warriors!! We have waited long enough (I’m a fan as you can see). This story addresses the loyalties of the Iron Warriors left to garrison the compliant planets, and how they view their now traitorous primarch. The stage is set for an awesome siege with a fortress of unusual characteristics. The main Warsmith is brilliantly portrayed (having been a victim of the Hrud campaign), and the devious tactics he has up his sleeve provide an outstanding climax.

A ten out of ten for Rob Sanders, I hope much more from him going forward."

Atlas Infernal... at-last

I was doing so well...

I blame this one on my day job. Exam / coursework season just blitzed me. I am intensely jealous of some my Black Library colleagues, who only have to worry about hitting their own deadlines. I have to worry about my own and a couple of hundred students as well. Oh well, exam season is over but at the time I simply couldn’t keep the plates respectively called ‘full time job’, ‘Legion of the Damned' and ‘blogging’ all spinning at the same time. Unfortunately one had to take a back seat (more like it had to be gagged, tranquilized and dumped unconscious in the boot) and that one was the blog. I also have an apology to make over at The Black Library Bolthole, where my questions have been piling up unanswered.

Anyway, I’m glad to be back. I’d like to kick off with my second novel, Atlas Infernal - that was released while I was off air and has been getting some great feedback. If you haven’t checked it out yet, can I encourage you to do one of four things: you could read an extract from the novel here; you could read a review of Atlas Infernal from the good people at The Founding Fields here; you could read a second review of Atlas Infernal from more good people at The Founding Fields here; or you could click on the link opposite and buy the novel in its entirety (rather than simply teasing yourself with extracts and reviews). That’s enough about Atlas Infernal now: lots more on it later.

I intend to get back to the kind of blogging regularity I enjoyed earlier in the year – but don’t hold me to it. : ) Thanks for the kind comments in my absence.

Hello. Can We Start Over?

Blogging. Given the choice between writing and blogging, I try to do the right thing and write. Blogging has a bad reputation. Almost as bad as forum-hopping, Facebooking and tweeting. All forms of procrastination. So I do try to be good. I stoke the fires of inspiration and keep the words coming. The fact is, I have a lot to blog about and the two processes aren't mutually exclusive. They feed into each other. I need to blog more regularly but in smaller, bite-size chunks. That's the way to go. You know I mean business this time. I've changed the blog appearance and everything.