News

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!

Hey folks,

I hope you’re all keeping well and enjoying the opening days of summer (in the Northern half, at least!). We’ve had some really nice weather here lately, and have been trying to make the most of it with some barbecues and al fresco dining–not something we get to do that often in Ireland!

I’ve got some updates this week. The first thing I want to mention–something that I’m getting asked about quite a bit–is that the audio for Alpha Protocol 3 – The Privateer is slated for release on 2 July. I’ll have some more on that, excerpts etc, in weeks to come, so please stay tuned for that!

In other areas, I’ve finally gotten around to complete an Alpha Protocol novella, titled ‘The Outlaw’. I’ve wanted to get this done for a very long time, to include it as a thank you for everyone who signs up for my Sci-Fi newsletter. It still needs a little editing, but I hope to have it up before summer’s end. I’ll be sure to send an download link to everyone who’s already signed up, and for all new sign ups, you’ll get it as part of the on boarding process. For those who don’t like to sign up to newsletters, it will also be available on Amazon in the same way as The Frontier Lord for my Fantasy list is.

In terms of ongoing work, I’ve two major projects running at the moment. The first is the next Alpha Protocol book, which is yet to get a title. I’m well underway with this, and shooting for an autumn release.

The other project is the first of the Wolf of the North Lost Tales books, which is also well underway, and I also hope to have out this coming autumn. I’ll have more details on both of these books as the summer progresses.

I’m a little delayed in my usual release schedule as I’ve a full novel sitting here on my hard drive (the longest I’ve yet written) that I’m not ready to release yet. It’s the first book in my new series, set in an entirely new world. It’s a project I’ve been contemplating for a very long time and it’s very important for me to get it absolutely as I want it to be.

While the story itself is complete, and I’m very happy with it, there are some world building aspects that I want to develop more, as this setting is very close to me and I want to really bring it all the flavour it deserves. As such, I’ve stepped back from it while I complete the other projects, with a view to fleshing out those details with a fresh eye in the autumn. I’m still very excited about this project, and it’s very difficult to be patient and give the ideas the time they need to develop fully. This is a bit of a project of a lifetime for me though, and you only get one shot at it, so I’m doing my best to take my time!

Hey folks,

It’s been a while since I updated here as I’m sure you’ve noticed. As you may have heard, I lost  my website to a blunder while trying to make it compliant with the new bulk mailing systems requirements—I had to set up a sub domain, did it wrong, then ended up deleting the main domain. The backup system I’ve been paying for monthly for about 6 years instantly deleted all the files from the server. It seems the backup service doesn’t cover user stupidity…

Anyhow, faced with the daunting task of having to rebuild the whole thing from scratch, once I got the basic functionality up and running again, I put the whole thing on the long finger, and that finger got, well, a whole lot longer!

But here I am now! I’ve still got some rebuilding to do on the book pages and such, along with changing the font here to something more interesting than this one, but I’m going to start updating with content again, ideally on a weekly basis, but please don’t hold it against me if it’s occasionally every two weeks or so!

This is also a good time to thank everyone who got in touch with me about using Wayback machine to retrieve my old posts. I’ve pulled as much data as I could from that site, and will try to repost it when I get the time. Until then, I have a good chunk of it sitting safely here on a (backed up!) hard drive!

For my grand return, I’ve a Plastic, Paint, and Glue post. I’ll try to get in some work related updates, which I know is what you really want, with next week’s post.

Today, I have another in my list of Malta Spitfires. I took a long break from hobbying generally, not so much out of losing interest as in just not having the time to do it. It’s been about a year since I touched a paint brush, air brush, or pot of glue, so this one’s a little rough around the edges as I knocked the rust off and reminded myself how to do it.

This plane is an Airfix kit painted as it would have been delivered to Malta as part of Operation Calendar, and is a model Vc. My understanding is that these planes didn’t last very long after arriving in Malta, most of them being destroyed by a Luftwaffe raid before they even got off the ground.

Now, to the pictures!

I’m also using some new camera gear and a lighting booth thingy that I haven’t quite gotten to grips with, so bear with me as I endeavour to produce some better photos!

Until next week, take care!