Nick Kyme

That’s right folks, it was like Christmas all over again for me today as the brand spanking new copies of Salamander, hot from the printing presses, hit my desk.

In my humble opinion, it looks totally awesome. I congratulate the printers and the artist, indeed everyone involved in sealing my words into such an attractive package. Colour me pleased (green then).

You probably can’t tell from the photos below, but it has a matte finish to the colour with gloss, embossed lettering for the title (man, I sound like Patrick Batemen going through his business cards or something). The cover treatments, as they’re called, really set off the wonderfully powerful artwork by Cheoljoo Lee, and I am a very happy author indeed. The back fades into salamander scales, likewise the spine which sports a natty Salamander’s Chapter icon. Me likey!

Check out the interiors too, as each chapter start has a cooly rendered line art version of said Chapter icon. Burn baby, burn…

The book itself is also slightly bigger than your average 40K novel, weighing in at a slightly portly 448 pages to accommodate the extra 22,000 words I insisted upon writing.

As you can tell, I’m very, very excitement. I love it. Fingers crossed that you do too.

If you want to read about the further adventures of my Salamander characters as depicted in Salamander then look no further than Heroes of the Space Marines and the short story ‘Fires of War’. You’ll also find a whole host of other great tales by my fellow Black Library authors – great work it is, too.

After Salamander, the next time you’ll be able to read about Dak’ir and Tsu’gan is in ‘Hell Night’, which is due to appear in the short story anthology Legends of the Space Marines. And following that the sequel, Firedrake, book two in the Tome of Fire Trilogy, which I’m planning now.

So far, signing appearances for Salamander are limited to Games Day Chicago on the 25th of July and Games Day UK on the 27th of September. I will also be attending an advanced signing session as Bugman’s in Nottingham on the evening of the 17th of June but this is restricted to Games Workshop Managers as part of a sales conference. If you have a local GW and get bend your manager’s arm, who knows… Future dates may be announced closer to the official release date at the end of August. Legends of the Space Marines is released in May 2010.

For all events and signings, check out the events calendar next to the blog. All my appearances etc will be here and updated on a regular basis.

Check out the pics of the new book below…

Unbeknownst to me, out in the farthest reaches of Western Australia there lurks a hobby radio station. And the fine gentlemen who run wanted to chat to me about my books and writing. Who was I to refuse?

A couple of weeks back, I was contacted by a nice Aussie chap called Luke Retallack who runs World’s End Radio, a hobby podcast station that operates in Western Australia and covers all the Games Workshop hobby games (whom I write novels and short stories about), amongst a host of other things.

Luke and his partner in crime (not literally, I hasten to add – just a figure of speech), John ‘JJ’ Layfield called me up on a bleary Sunday morning and to wax lyrical about Honourkeeper, Salamander and writing in general.

A huge hats off to both of them, who made the experience enjoyable and gave me some probing and testing questions. Hopefully, I was reasonably interesting too.

Contained within the mammoth two-part interview are a number of exclusives that I’ll leave to the boys and not mention here. Suffice to say, if you’d like to listen to it just head over to World’s End Radio. Your looking for Episode 16 ‘Down the Rabbit Hole’ (I wonder if that’s in homage to my house rabbit, Shakespeare). The link is embedded above, if seeking it out proves tricky.

I think Salamander fans will find it particularly interesting (I hope), as there’s quite a lot on that especially given the imminent release of Heroes of the Space Marines with the tie-in story ‘Fires of War’ in it, and then of course the novel itself.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on the show. The interview is in with a bunch of other stuff, so all you need do is skip forward on the progress by once you’ve clicked on the audio link (unless you want to hear the rest of the podcast, of course, and why wouldn’t you – it’s all good hobby stuff).

Would love to know your thoughts on it…

After a long, hard slog I finished the first draft of Salamander last night.

There’s still a little honing and editing to do, plus incorporating any feedback/comments that my editor makes, but the words are in the bag and I am one relieved writer.

I was only saying to Louise last night that this has been the toughest book I’ve ever had to write – it also feels like the longest it terms of the time it’s taken me to get it done. By the end, I like to think that everything came together very satisfyingly and sets things up for a sequel, which I’m already planning (my moleskine notebook is literally crammed with material on volumes two and three of what is going to be called ‘The Tome of Fire’ trilogy).

At this point, I just want to thank again everyone who has posted on the blog or spoken to me at conventions etc about the book, offering their advice, support and general good will – it is all very much appreciated. I don’t think I good have gone on and written this book in the way I have if it weren’t for all of you.

A special shout out must go to Brother Argos and Brother Pyriel, who were there with me right from the start as devoted and highly knowledgeable Salamander fans and gamers – you I want to impress most of all. You will both be honoured in the novel as characters within the Third Company.

Now, I just have to wait and see what the fan reaction will be to Fires of War, the Salamander short story/novella which features in Heroes of the Space Marines. I’ve heard some nice rumblings from the Games Workshop Design Studio about the story, so I’m hoping it’ll go down well.

I’ve reached the 105,000 word mark on Salamander (just over) and I’m still going. This is my last week on the book (hopefully) and I reckon I’m only about 5-10,000 words away from crossing the finishing line and ending this first milestone on what will be an epic journey for the sons of Vulkan.

There are some pretty serious revelations and reveals to wrap up in the last few thousand words, not to mention the odd absolute shock that I hope will have readers reeling. Several dangling threads will be left deliberately that I plan to eventually pick up in book two (assuming this one does well enough to justify a sequel).

Nearing the end, as I am, I really feel like I’ve invested heart and soul, plus no small amount of intellectual sweat on this novel. It has been such a hard journey, but a great one. It almost feels a little sad to be leaving the warriors of Third Company behind – they will be together again, but never in the same way.

I have lots of plans for the sequel, not least of which the ongoing character arcs for the main protagonists.

Heroes of the Space Marines is out soon, so that’ll give fans a good taster of what the Salamanders are all about in this novel. Fingers crossed, the story will get a favourable reception.

Now, on to those last few thousand words…

I know some blog readers think this is a bit of a tease, me telling you 10,000 words by 10,000 how far along I am with Salamander, well… yeah, it is a bit.

It’s actually really good for me too, as it helps give me the extra impetus I need to get over that finish line and complete the novel. Nearing the end of this, somewhat marathon-like novel, I can safely say it’s probably the toughest book I’ve ever had to write. I’ve loved it, don’t get me wrong, and am already looking forward to getting stuck into a sequel once I’ve had a bit of a break and tackled a couple of other projects, but it’s been a real test of my writerly skills.

I think, I hope, that I’ve pulled it off.

Looking over the chapter breakdown/synopsis, I reckon there’s about another 10-15,000 words in this yet as I’m well into the final act but still have a few reveals and a fairly hefty epilogue to get in. Not to mention the explosive denouement…

Finishing a novel, totally unlike starting one, is probably the hardest bit of the entire process. Yes, inevitably, in my experience at least, there’s a moment half way through (ish) where a crisis point hits you and you’re left questioning where the heck to go next and ‘does all that stuff I wrote earlier actually work’ and even ‘it all needs a bit of a rewrite’ – it’s healthy; it just means you care.

And I care. I really do. People sometimes ask me how I came to write a book about the Salamanders Chapter (I’ve even had some folks saying that I’m brave to even tackle it). Honestly, I can’t remember now. It had something to do with wanting to write a short story with Space Marines in it for Heroes of the Space Marines (the anthology with said story, Fires of War, is released in May by the way) and sort of spiralled from there.

I have to say, I’ve really taken the Salamanders to my heart. The more I read about them (and re-read), the more their noble spirit, humanity and earthiness shine through. Not all of the characters in my book are noble, though. There is one in particular who’s pretty ignoble. Most are damaged in one way or another, but then part of the story deals with what happens to a Company that loses its inspirational captain. There’s grief, anger, even retribution. Ultimately, brotherhood comes through in the end, but not all wounds are totally healed.

I wanted to give the story some emotional heart and not just play the Space Marines as fairly dull, uber-warriors that ‘Hulk-smash’ their way through every obstacle. Oh, don’t get me wrong , there’s some serious butt-kicking action in this tale but, I hope, there’s some deeper content too.

The way I saw it, the Salamanders are in touch with their humanity, or at least they empathise with ordinary humans and recognise their role in protecting them from the evils of the galaxy. Expect plenty of trauma within and without the Company focused on in the novel and some heartbreak too.

I reckon that’s probably enough for now. I do like a good blog in the morning; mixed in with a cup of coffee, it’s what I need to get the creative juices flowing.

Okay, off to write the next few thousand words. Hoping to get finished in a couple of weeks, so fingers crossed and power on through!