I'm Surrounded!

I can't seem to turn around without bumping into a Space Marine at the moment, which is, of course, a good thing. It seems the next place they'll be turning up is on the Xbox360 and the Playstation3 (thanks to Jack for the tip-off).

This being the season of the Electronic Entertainment Expo, the biggest video-gaming event of the year, gaming news abounds, and none of it is more exciting for us 40k-bots than word of the upcoming THQ/Relic Entertainment title Space Marine. Okay, so whoever came up with the title didn't get overtime pay, but it tells you everything you need to know, right?

Some of you may already have seen this news over on Nick Kyme's blog. If not, head over there now and check out the link to the excellent promotional video. It's a beauty! Look out for that ork warboss at the end. What a monster!

Anyway, rather than duplicate Nick's content, here's a look at the promo artwork which is currently doing the rounds:


In other news, the first draft of Rynn's World is about two-thirds complete and is definitely going to go beyond the initially specified word count. There's just so much story to tell, so expect a few extra pages for your buck, all jam-packed with blazing bolters and blown-out brain-pans (without quite so much alliteration, thankfully).

Other than that, my back injury has healed up nicely, so I'm back to training as hard as ever. That's critical for me as, if I'm not doing some type of training on an almost daily basis, my head gets a bit messed up. Gotta have balance.

Reading: Horus Heresy - The Collected Visions and anything at all by Peter 'Mr. Awesome' Benchley
Watching: BBC's Horizon (What on Earth is Wrong with Gravity?, Most of Our Universe is Missing, How to Make Better Decisions, etc.)
Listening to: Jim Swallow's Heart of Rage (or rather, I soon will be)
Playing: nothing until Tekken 6 comes out later this year

You'll Enjoy Mr. Barlow...

... and he'll enjoy you.

No, that's not a picture of me after three cups of coffee. It is, of course, The Master from the 1979 TV adaptation of Stephen King's utterly brilliant Salem's Lot. I had the pleasure of watching it for what must be the tenth time (possibly more) last night, and it was just as damned freaky as ever.

If you haven't seen Salem's Lot, and you like a good vampire story, you really owe it to yourself to track down a copy of the DVD. The version I have is the uncut one, lasting a little over three hours, and, for my money at least, there's not a wasted moment in the whole thing. David Soul and James Mason turn in awesome performances. Before The Master arrives, it's a toss-up between them as to who steals the show, with Mason just edging ahead because he's so brilliantly creepy and funny at the same time. Look out for the moment when he educates the fat local cop on the use of the word 'ciao'. Priceless!

If you've seen the film/mini-series, but you haven't read the book (published in 1975), what are you waiting for? I've read a good few Stephen King stories. He's one of those guys who makes writing look truly effortless (though it bloody ain't, King, you deceiver!). Of all the King works I've read, though, Salem's Lot is far and away my favourite. Check it out.

As for my news... Rynn's World rolls on, but I'm not really prone to talking about work in progress. Headhunted has had some fantastic feedback, which is very heartening, obviously. And this week, I sustained a training injury that makes sleeping, breathing and (worst of all) sneezing truly agonising experiences. Every time I move my head, it's like someone is stabbing me in the back with a red hot bobby pin. It's very frustrating since my training has been right on the mark since the turn of the year. I'm now having to miss workouts until my fibres re-knit, which is almost as tortuous as being bitten by The Master and living forever as one of his undead pawns.

Fangs for reading (groan!). ;)

Heroes of the Space Marines...

... is available now. That's right, the new Warhammer 40,000 anthology, featuring my Deathwatch short story, Headhunted, is now on sale. So far, the reaction seems to be very good indeed, so I hope you'll all check it out. On a related note, I'm very pleased to report that I'll be writing- Mrrrrph! (gagged by Editor-Commissar Kyme)

Ahem, well, since I can't talk about that, here are a few pics of something I came across on a site called ut3mod.com, which is dedicated to the totally brilliant online shooter, Unreal Tournament III (by Epic Games, the studio behind the equally brilliant Gears of War 1 and 2).

As you can see, the fan-made model is a pretty damned decent likeness of a Space Marine. Playing with this badass doesn't change the game in any way save cosmetically, and there are no Space Marine Chapter icons or double-headed Aquilas anywhere (for copyright reasons, no doubt), but it's still very cool to see him running around blasting other players, and I have to take my hat off to the guy behind the mod.

There are a bunch of other mods floating around out there that feature great game characters like Solid Snake, Samus Arran, Marcus Fenix, Master Chief and the like, so if you're a UT3 player, there's plenty for you to play around with. I only wish I had time to play around with it more myself. Who would be a bloody writer, eh?