Victories of the Space Marines: Reviews

It is nice to see my short story The Long Games at Carcharias getting some love as Victories of the Space Marines receives some forum and blog reviews. Here is one from Three Color Minimum. Read and enjoy. If you haven’t read The Long Games yet then we are very much in cart before the horse territory. Can I suggest an excellent solution to this problem? Get down to your local book store and grab a copy of Victories of the Space Marines or, if you feel you can’t wait that long, click on the EBook version of the text on the bar opposite. It is really that easy.

Legion of the Damned

Black Library has just announced my upcoming novel Legion of the Damned on their ‘Coming Soon’ page. It is part of the successful 'Space Marine Battles' series. I’m very excited to be writing about Space Marines after my short stories The Long Games at Carcharias and The Iron Within. I decided to go in a slightly different direction with the novel. Rather than choose a ‘traditional’ Chapter to follow, I wanted to explore the Adeptus Astartes phenomenon known only as ‘The Legion of the Damned’ and their ghostly interventions on the blood-soaked battlefields of the 41st millennium. More details and cool internet art to follow.

Victories of the Space Marines

I haven’t really had much opportunity to talk about The Long Games at Carcharias, my short story for the ‘Victories of the Space Marines’ anthology. The story centres on Chapter Master Elias Artegall and the tragedies that befall his Astartes brothers, the Crimson Consuls.


This was my first outing with Space Marines and I wanted to get them just right. I settled on an invented chapter - because of what I wanted to do to them – and also because I wanted greater control over their background. The Crimson Consuls have a distinct and detailed culture and history that emerges across the story and I tried to be bold in the way the narrative sweeps through an entire Chapter. I feel that you either get Space Marines right or wrong: they are, after all, Games Workshop’s poster boys. I was a little anxious in terms of writing about them: perhaps a little reticent at first. So far, I have chosen to explore the narrative viewpoints of ‘human’ characters in the Warhammer 40,000 universe: Imperial Guardsman and Inquisitors etc. The further I got into the planning and actual writing, the more I came to appreciate the narrative challenges and opportunities that the Adeptus Astartes offer. The story was well received by my editor and shortly after I was asked to write an Adeptus Astartes short story for the ‘Age of Darkness’ anthology, which forms part of the best-selling Horus Heresy series. Not too shabby!


Advance copies of ‘Victories of the Space Marines’ were available at Black Library Live 2011 and early feedback has been very good. The anthology is available to buy in April and can be bought in print or as an e-book. The short story can be bought on its own as an e-text also (see right hand bar). As well as The Long Games at Carcharias, ‘Victories of the Space Marines’ contains stories by the excellent Jonathan Green, James Swallow, Gav Thorpe, Chris Wraight, CL Werner, Ben Counter, Steve Parker and Black Library debutant Sarah Cawkwell (who is excellent too!).

Where The Hell Have I Been?

You know you have been neglecting your blog when you’ve forgotten which buttons do what on the posting Dashboard. Have been busy with a whole myriad of things, many creative, some horrifying and some simply required. Among the horrifying was an ‘Ofsted’ inspection: teachers just love those, I can tell you. Clearing out my garage was just required. It could hold no more and something had to be done about it. A something that basically amounted to three full days transporting junk to the local dump.

I promised more Review highlights and since many people have been saying many nice things about ‘Redemption Corps’ I should really get on that, but other forthcoming projects demand the attention. The fantastic folks at Black Library have posted my next novel on their ‘Coming Soon’ section. It is called ‘Atlas Infernal’ and the appropriately epic sounding blurb is as follows:

Inquisitor Bronislaw Czevak is a hunted man. Escaping from the Black Library of the eldar, Czevak steals the Atlas Infernal – a living map of the Webway. With this fabled artefact and his supreme intellect, Czevak foils the predations of the Harlequins sent to apprehend him and thwarts his enemies within the Inquisition who want to kill him. Czevak’s deadliest foe, however, is Ahriman – arch-sorcerer of the Thousand Sons. He desires the knowledge within the Black Library, knowledge that can exalt him to godhood, and is willing to destroy the inquisitor to obtain it. A desperate chase that will bend the fabric of reality ensues, where Czevak’s only hope of survival is to outwit the chosen of Tzeentch, Lord of Chaos and Architect of Fate. Failure is unconscionable, the very cost to the Imperium unimaginable.

Thanks to the blurb writer on that one. Good job! It’s a little known fact that authors do not tend to write their own blurbs – but do write their own books, you’ll be relieved to discover. We don’t farm that responsibility out. ‘Atlas Infernal’ is out in July so more on Bronislaw Czevak and his adventures later.

What else? I’m usually pretty cagey about future projects, but since other authors identified their contributions at ‘Games Day’, I can confirm that I too have a short story in ‘Victories of the Space Marines’, edited by Christian Dunn and out in April. Christian published my first work, so it’s always a pleasure to work with him and continuing that theme I can also announce that I have a short story in the forthcoming ‘Horus Heresy’ anthology ‘Age of Darkness’, out in May. Could I tell you more about these stories? Probably, but I won’t. Don’t want to ruin the surprise. You’ll see what I mean when you read them. You are going to read them, aren’t you?