Last year, Hachette Partworks launched the Warhammer 40,000 Legends Collection (which I blogged about Here), a bi-weekly part-work publication that is re-releasing selected Warhammer 40,000 and Horus Heresy titles in a collectible hardback format with new material and bonus content. This week's issue #16 (on sale on the 5th of April) sees the release of the first title by me in series...


In the grim nightmare future of the 41st millennium, the witch-hunting zealots of the the Sisters of Battle stand between humanity and damnation. From the elite Seraphim warriors to the berserk Sisters Repentia, they are the strong arm of the Ecclesiarchy and the brutal hammer of witches. When dangerous psychic heretic Torris Vaun escapes from her custody, Seraphim Miriya is disgraced in the eyes of her fellow sisters and superiors. Following Vaun's trail to the planet Neva, Miriya takes her sisters in pursuit and, along with Hospitalier Sister Verity, starts her investigations. When they uncover a terrifying plot that could threaten the future of the Imperium, is Miriya's and Verity's faith strong enough for them to triumph?

Faith & Fire has been out of print for some time, and this handsome hardcover edition looks very cool. Check out the Legends Collection site Here, or the Hachette on-line store Here where you can order individual titles.

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You may have heard of Humble Bundle; it's a digital storefront for games, ebooks and other stuff that not only allows people to get some excellent discounts on stuff (for a limited time) but also helps support worthy charities - and you get to pay as much or as little as you want.

And for around the next 13 days, the folks at Black Library are working with the Humble Bundle team to make a very cool Horus Heresy package available, which will benefit the UNHCR refugee agency (along with any other charity organization you mught like to help out). There are price points at $1, $8 and $15 which unlock multiple novels, audio dramas, comics and other stuff.


The $1 pack features the first five Horus Heresy novels, including my book The Flight of the Eisenstein and my audio story Oath of Moment. $8 gets you the next five books in the series, including Tales of Heresy which features a short story by me and the Garro audio drama Sword of Truth. Shell out $15 or more and get five more novels, including my 2nd Heresy book Nemesis and the audio Legion of One. It's all DRM-free, nearly $380's worth of fiction on sale as cheap as bio-chips, and for a good cause too. Click Here to visit the site and see the whole set of stuff you can get.

And meanwhile, Black Library's web presence has respawned itself into an independant website this week, which you can visit Here, sign up for the newsletter, get some free fiction and downloadable digital wallpapers.


They've also launched Tales From The Archive, dropping the prices of classic BL fiction for a short time, and among the discounted releases is the ebook edition of my Warhammer 40,000 novel Deus Encarmine, the first in my Blood Angels series from back in 2004. Check it out Here.

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I'm appearing at a new Star Trek convention later this year - Trek-On!, the pilot event for the TrekMate team. Check out the full details on the poster below or the announcement video on YouTube.


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This week, Ubisoft's newest videogame under the Tom Clancy banner is released - Ghost Recon Wildlands is an open-world military shooter title for one to four players, casting gamers as members of the Ghosts, a covert special forces unit of the US Army who have been sent into Bolivia in order to neutralize the Santa Blanca drug cartel by any and all means.

The core game will be followed up with a bunch of additional downloadable content, including two new story DLCs, Narco Road and Fallen Ghosts. I spent most of last year working with the team at Ubisoft Montpellier in France writing the mission narrative and scripts for Fallen Ghosts, and I'm pleased to be able to talk about it now it has been officially announced.


Fallen Ghosts takes place after the events of the main Wildlands storyline and Narco Road; during an evacuation mission, the Ghosts' chopper is shot down and the squad will need to adapt as they’re tracked down by an elite group of ruthless mercenaries. Players will fight a new powerful enemy, learn new skills and unlock new weapons to complete their mission.

I've always been a big fan of the Tom Clancy games, and the Ghost Recon series is one I've been playing since the very first title released way back in 2001, so it it was very cool for me to participate in the project! Check out the trailer for the DLC and all the other additional content below...

Today marks 40 years since the launch of the Galaxy's Greatest Comic, 2000AD - and it's undeniable that it has been a massive influence on me as both a fan and a writer. I'm proud to say I've been lucky enough to contribute to the fiction of two of the comic's most popular heroes - Judge Dredd and Rogue Trooper. Here's to four more decades!

My newest entry in the Horus Heresy series is officially relased this week: Garro: Weapon of Fate is the definitive compilation of all the Nathaniel Garro stories to date in prose form.

As my esteemed editor Laurie Goulding described the book: "It's James Swallow's full novelisation of Nathaniel Garro's story arc, something we've previously only seen (in part) in the audio dramas and novella. There are new and extended scenes, whole new chapters in fact, making this just about the most definitive exploration of the founding of the Knights Errant, and everything that comes after..."

Check out this ace piece of cover artwork from Neil Roberts...


The book includes a new introduction, content from the audio dramas Oath of Moment, Legion of One, Sword of Truth, Shield of Lies, Burden of Duty and Ashes of Fealty, plus the Vow of Faith novella and bridging material that collates the whole story into one single epic bind-up.

From out of the shadows of the Silent War, a hero emerges. Clad all in grey, an errant warrior of the Legiones Astartes kneels before the Regent of Terra, and accepts a solemn new duty – Battle-Captain Garro, once commander of the Eisenstein, now Agentia Primus of Malcador the Sigillite. From the desolation of Isstvan to the halls of the Imperial Palace itself, he stands as a paragon of loyalty and protector of the innocent, ever ready to strike back at the traitorous allies of the Warmaster. But Garro is walking a path of his own, one that may lead him to question his own place in the Imperium... and what if he, too, should falter?

As well as the hardcover book, there's an eBook edition and a 12 hour+ audiobook version narrated by the voice of Garro himself, the mighty Toby Longworth. Click Here to order a copy!

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I'm appearing at the official Horus Heresy event this weekend, along with a bunch of my colleagues from the Black Library...


Me, Gav Thorpe, Chris Wraight, John French, Neil Roberts and Guy Haley will be talking about our books and signing them too, over Saturday and Sunday at the Nottingham Belfry hotel. There will be some exclusive stuff available in advance of release and it's likely we'll spill some secret truths about upcoming works. I can't confirm or deny if anyone will be wearing war-pelts, though.

I'll be joining John and Guy on Saturday for the "Road To Terra" and "Black Library Preview" panels at 11:45am and 3:00pm, and on Sunday I'll be talking about "The Primarchs" with Guy, Gav and Chris from 12:30. I'll be doing book signings on both days, which will be posted outside the Scribe Station. Hardcover copies of Garro: Weapon of Fate should be available on the day.

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Ah, the Public Lending Right; the gift that keeps on giving (to writers, editors, illustrators and other booky folks) and generally helps to remind us all why libraries are important places – not just for readers but for those of us who make books happen.

Not familiar with the PLR? Read on for my annual public service announcement on the subject:
If you are a writer/editor/illustrator/etc, a resident of the UK or Ireland and you ever need a reason for donating your books to the library - on top of all the obvious ones like promoting reading and supporting this valuable and increasingly undermined public service - this is it.
The PLR is a system where authors who've written books that are in public libraries get a little revenue each time somebody borrows their works. It's a way to repay writers who won't be earning a royalty from a sale in a bookstore. The hardworking folks at the PLR office pay a nominal fee based on how borrowed you were - and in the interests of fairness, you can't earn more than around £6000, so the big names don't get to hog all the money.

Once more, the PLR and the libraries it springs from are under threat from the current powers that be, so if you are a writer or a reader, please do your bit to help support both as best you can.

Here's my Top Ten Library Loans of my novels for 2016 (with 2015's position in brackets)

1 (1) Deadline
2 (5) Fear to Tread
3 (2) Peacemaker
4 (3) The Poisoned Chalice
5 (-) Nomad (paperback & hardcover editions)
6 (10) Cast No Shadow
7 (6) Hammer & Anvil
8 (4) Nemesis
9 (9) The Flight of the Eisenstein
10 (13) Blood Angels: The Second Omnibus

For the second year running, by 24 novel Deadline holds the top slot, with the Horus Heresy story Fear to Tread and Doctor Who tale Peacemaker very close in 2nd and 3rd places. It was nice to see one of my Blood Angels omnibus editions re-enter the top ten, but I was most pleased to see my new thriller novel Nomad make a great showing!

As always, my thanks to everybody who supported their local libraries and borrowed my books!

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And my last list of the year is all about books. I got through less titles this year, but longer works so I guess it kinda evens out. Science fiction and thriller/crime titles came out almost level, and almost half my reading was digital in 2016.

My top reads of the year were Rowland White’s story of the first space shuttle flight Into The Black, my buddy Ben Aaronovitch’s The Hanging Tree, Peter Tieryas’s United States of Japan and Bob Judd’s Formula One.

Here’s the full list:
Designers & Dragons: The 2000's (Shannon Appelcline); The Weapon of a Jedi (Jason Fry); Be The Monkey (Barry Eisler & Joe Konrath); Warlord (James Steel); United States of Japan (Peter Tieryas); Private Sydney (James Patterson with Kathryn Fox); Into The Black (Rowland White); The Escape (Cavan Scott); How To Avoid Being Killed in a War Zone (Rosie Garthwaite); The Paradise Game (Brian Stableford); The Lions of Lucerne (Brad Thor); The Hostage (James Patterson with Robert Gold); Airport Code Red (James Patterson with Michael White); The Dream Machine (Richard Whittle); Dark Clouds (John Shirley); Spare Me The Truth (CJ Carver); The Hanging Tree (Ben Aaronovitch); Kill File (Christopher Farnsworth); The Assassination Game (Alan Gratz); Tenacity (JS Law); Brinkmanship (Una McCormack); Military Slang (Lee Pemberton); Codex (Graham McNeill); Fear of the Dark (McNeill); Wild Justice (Wilbur Smith); Formula One (Bob Judd); Catalyst (James Luceno); Delete (Karl Olsberg); A Dictionary of RAF Slang (Eric Partridge); Nerd Do Well (Simon Pegg); Devil's Due (Andrew Warren); The Farthest Station (Aaronovitch); Ahsoka (EK Johnston); Rogue One (Alexander Freed); Bloodline (Claudia Grey).

My number two year-end list is games, and this year I’ve also added board games and card games to the list just for the heck of it.

I got myself a Playstation 4 in 2016, so most of what I gamed was on that platform, although the PC got a workout too as I almost doubled the number of titles I played from the 2015.

Three games I worked on this year – Fractured Space, Deus Ex: Mankind Divided and No Man’s Sky – all came out in 2016 and I had a blast with all of them; I also got hands on with the next Ghost Recon title, which I’ve been writing for (more on that in the months ahead!)

I revisited a few familiar virtual worlds in 2016, going back to Destiny and Star Trek Online for the PS4, and my favourite non-digital title was Car Wars: The Card Game. Bests of the year include the excellent puzzle titles Mini Metro, 0rbitalis and Deus Ex GO, and my time-sink award goes to The Division, which kept me in a snowbound NYC for most of the year.

Here’s the full list:
Car Wars: The Card Game; Pandemic; Transistor; Rocket League; The Long Dark; The Logo Board Game; Skyliners; Fractured Space; Purble Place; Warhammer 40,000: Regicide; Batman Fluxx; The Division (PC and PS4 versions); Battleship; Battlefleet Gothic Armada; Mini Metro; Codenames; Ghost Recon Wildlands; Counterspy; Battleborn; Red Bull Air Race: The Game; Destiny: The Dark Below; Mad Max; The Expendabros; Star Wars Battlefront (PS4 version); Tron RUN/r; Doom [2016]; Destiny: House of Wolves; The Division: Underground; 0rbitalis; Ultratron (PS4 version); Deus Ex GO; Battlefield 4 (PS4 version); Battlefield Hardline (PS4 version); Deus Ex Breach; Deus Ex: Mankind Divided (PS4 version); No Man's Sky; Star Trek Online (PS4 version); Destiny: The Taken King; Drone Racing League Simulator; Transformers: Devestation; Inversus; The Bunker; Invisible, Inc: Console Edition; Hyper Void; Carmageddon Max Damage; Alienation; Hitman; Overwatch Origins Edition; Uncharted 4: A Thief's End; The Division: Survival.

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