Hey folks,

Apologies for yet another extended absence from my website! Rest assured that I’ve made (yet another!) resolution to update more regularly!

I have no worthwhile excuse beyond saying that distractions have been coming far too easily over the past number of months, but after the last few weks I’ve managed to get myself into a more focussed and productive frame of mind. Work on a number of projects is progressing well, and all going to plan, next year should be a bumper year for releases, with at least 1 sci-fi story and at least 2 fantasy books, both new stories, one of which is Middle Sea, the other in the long-promised new world I’ve been building up for a while now!

Beyond that, I’ve been trying to catch up on some reading, which for the last little while has been non fiction, with one notable exception. I very rarely get the chance to take a look at  arcs, but one came my way between books not so long ago, so I dove in, and I’m very glad I did.

The book is Forsworn, by David Estes, which I believe by the time of me writing this has been released. It’s a really fun epic fantasy with some fantastic world building that I really enjoyed. There’s even a bit of a gothic horror vibe mixed through, which was probably my favourite aspect, as this was a genre I used to really like reading and writing way back in my misspent youth, and it definitely tickled those tropes for me!

If you’re interested in checking the book out, you can find it over on Amazon!

That’s about all I’ve got for this update. I’ve been managing to find a little time for painting recently, demonstrating just how quickly my limited skills develop a sheen of rust! I hope to have some of those efforts to show off next week, as I really do make an effort to get back to a weekly posting schedule!

Hey folks,

A quick announcement today to let you all know that The Privateer – Alpha Protocol Book 3 is out in audio today!

You can get your copy now at the following links:

Audible US

Audible UK

Here’s a short sample of Scott’s engrossing narration if you need any more convincing!

And finally, here’s the cover copy to give you a sense of what The Privateer is about:

The greatest threat humanity has ever faced lies beyond the frontier of its galactic civilization, but dangers closer to home have been overlooked and allowed to grow.

As greed and personal ambition in the Terran Union push the common good aside, the Navy is forced to turn to unconventional means. Jack Samson is ordered to team up with former allies to uncover and destroy the rot eating the Union from the inside.

Chasing down a trail of smuggled alien technology through the Union’s underworld, they soon discover the web of treachery reaches farther than anyone could have expected…

That’s all for today! I really hope you enjoy the audio edition of The Privateer!

Hey folks,

I hope you’re all doing well!

Today’s post is an announcement about the long awaited audiobook release for The Privateer – Alpha Protocol 3. It will be out on 2 July, as in, next Tuesday!

It’s available for preorder now, which you can do at this link:

https://www.audible.com/pd/The-Privateer-Audiobook/B0D6X6YSWK

The Privateer is once again narrated by the superb Scott Aiello who’s knocked it out of the park once again, putting in an amazing performance and really bring the characters to life.

The good folks over at Podium (who produce and publish the audiobook) have sent me over a load of nice teaser trailers and images, so I’m going to try embedding them here. Wish me luck!

Here’s a little bit on what the story is about:

The greatest threat humanity has ever faced lies beyond the frontier of its galactic civilization, but dangers closer to home have been overlooked and allowed to grow.

As greed and personal ambition in the Terran Union push the common good aside, the Navy is forced to turn to unconventional means. Jack Samson is ordered to team up with former allies to uncover and destroy the rot eating the Union from the inside.

Chasing down a trail of smuggled alien technology through the Union’s underworld, they soon discover the web of treachery reaches farther than anyone could have expected…

Finally, I have the banner graphic, which looks pretty cool, so I didn’t want to leave it out!

That’s all the excitement I’ve got for this week! See you all again next week!

Just a quick update this week to apologise for the radio silence the last couple of weeks. We had a little holiday and some summer flu in the house that threw me off my schedule!

My only update for this week is I’ve some bigger updates and news scheduled for next week, when I hope to get back to my planned regular Tuesday posts!

Until then, take care!

Hey folks,

As the title suggests, I’ve got a hobby post today, with this week’s subject being  a space marine of the Avenging Sons chapter.

As with my plan to built and paint a model of every Mark V Spitfire livery from the Siege of Malta (the second one!), including the more speculative schemes, I thought it would be fun to paint a big selection of different space marine chapters.

I went through one of the 40k wiki pages, and pulled out an image of all the chapters that I liked the look of, and ended up with a lot. An awful lot!

It’s definitely an ambitious, and long-term project, withover 100 chapters I want to do. I’ve bitten into this a little before with the previous generation of models, but I’m starting from scratch again with the lessons learned from those experimental approaches.

It’s going to take quite a while, but it’ll be fun. Although I love painting minis, I don’t actually wargame, so I’m under no pressure to get an army completed. This is purely an adventure in mini painting.

It’ll be made all the longer by the fact I want to continue making model planes. In this regard, I’m limiting myself to single engine fighters from the European/North African theatre, with the exception of a few Mosquitos, because I just love ’em! I also want to keep painting historical minis, of which I’ve a very large unpainted accumulation.

I’ve settled on my preference for a volumetric highlighting approach for these minis, rather than the ‘eavy Metal Games Workshop style, as this is both my aesthetic preference, and is also an aspect of model painting I really want to improve on. I’ve always looked on space marines as the ideal practice ground for this, with their easily classifiable shapes of cylinders, spheres, squares, and the occasional cone!

So, on to my first finished model in this series, a member of the Avenging Sons. Bear in mind, it’s been about a year since I did any regular painting, so I chose a simpler scheme in colours I’m comfortable working with as there was a lot of rust to shake off. I think I overreached a bit in my approach of picking two light sources which complicated my life a bit, but overall, I’m happy with the result, and it’s definitely a good base to build from.

Once again, I’m playing with a new camera and lighting box, and have overexposed the photos a bit!

Time for the photos!

That’s all I’ve got for this week. I hope you’re all doing well, and I will see you all again next week!