Warhammer 40,000
The Soul Drinker Series
Writing The Soul Drinker Series – comprising Soul Drinker, The Bleeding Chalice, Crimson Tears, Chapter War, Hellforged, Daenyathos (novella), Phalanx, Traitor By Deed (Novella) – was a pleasure. The Soul Drinkers series, consisting of six novels and two novellas, followed the eponymous Space Marine Chapter who abandon the Imperium, but without falling to Chaos. The first novel in the series, Soul Drinker, was my first book, and I fulfilled a then long-term ambition to create my own Chapter. The series has a core of fans who enjoyed the idea of a third option between loyalist and traitor, and was recently resurrected through the novella Traitor By Deed which saw the Soul Drinkers refounded as a Primaris Chapter.
The Grey Knights Series
The Grey Knights trilogy – Grey Knights, Dark Adeptus, and Hammer of Daemons – followed one of my favourite aspects of Warhammer 40K, the Chapter of elite daemon hunting specialists. I was first out of the gate with a novel proposal when the Grey Knights got their first full rulebook and model range for Warhammer 40,000, and got to establish a lot of the elements
of the background surrounding them. The second book featured the Dark Mechanicus and the third put the series protagonist, Justicar Alaric, through the wringer after being imprisoned on a world dedicated to the Blood God.
Imperial Fists Series
The two-volume Imperial Fists series – Malodrax and Seventh Retribution – established a backstory and a series of heroic feats to Captain Lysander, especially his escape from the daemon world of Malodrax which was part of his in-game background. The second book, Seventh Retribution, pitted Lysander against the Officio Assassinorum, and I particularly enjoyed inventing a whole new type of Imperial Assassin.
The Horus Heresy Series
I wrote two of the early books in the bestselling Horus Heresy series, Galaxy in Flames and Battle for the Abyss, which featured characters like Garviel Loken who would later get their own novels and miniatures. The series recently reached its climax during the Battle for the Imperial Palace on Terra after more than 60
books.
Warhammer 40,000
My one-off Warhammer 40K novels include Daemon World, in which I indulged in some heavy metal Moorcockian Chaotic madness, and World Engine, probably my favourite of my 40K books, where a whole Chapter of Space Marines lands on a Necron superweapon to destroy it. I also got to write another favourite Chapter, the Space Wolves, in the novella Rockfist.
