Gav Thorpe Newsletter

Another newsletter from the author Gav Thorpe...

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Hello! Kickstarter Nu Thai Screw Job Interviews Upcoming Events Q&A Blog Post Round-Up Bi-Monthly Competition

Hello! After a few illness-induced disruptions last month I'm finally back into the groove, at least on the writing front. I’m steadily cruising my way through a novel for the Space Marine Legends series, more of that to come when I'm free to share more details. Rewrites are in for the next instalment of the Raven Guard story in the Horus Heresy. And on top of that I’ve even managed to squeeze in a little original fantasy fiction for a forthcoming indie press anthology. Not quite so business-as-usual were my trips to Daffcon and Salute 2016. The first was a great weekend playing Open Combat and demos of some lesser-known game systems. It really brought home how vibrant the tabletop games community and industry have become. One of those games, Mythos, is on Kickstarter right now and I invited the creators to do a guest post for the blog last week. Salute was a different sort of beast. I spent the day with Carl Brown of Second Thunder introducing folks to the joys of Open Combat. Though it’s Carl’s brainchild through and through, it’s nice to see a friend prosper and see a games system I really like start to gain traction with players. There was a lot of interest, and sales to match. In particular it was nice to hear that word has spread – quite a few folks had heard of the game online and through clubs, “Is this the one you can use with any miniatures?” Just like selling books, getting the key message out there about a new game is sometimes not glamorous, but it is essential.

Kickstarter "Mythos is a tabletop horror skirmish game inspired by H.P.Lovecraft. Put your characters sanity to the test while trying to stay alive." I had the opportunity to play Mythos from Paranoid Miniatures at Daffcon recently - it's great fun and I was particularly impressed by the design and story of the characters. The Kickstarter has funded, and stretch goals are starting to be met - like the miniature for Dorothy Good, Leader of the Wildborn faction, pictured below. Mythos

There are 11 days to go on the Kickstarter for these cute little Kritterkins, from Bombshell miniatures. Regular readers of my blog will know I have a thing for animal minis, and I think these lovely little sculpts are going to make me break my current 'no Kickstarter' rule, as I can see great potential for use with Open Combat. Kritterkins

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Nu Thai Screw-Job

I was really pleased to have my short story 'Nu Thai Screw Job' published in the latest issue of Grimdark magazine.  If you like your fiction a bit more 'adult', it's a cyber-punk story about sex and power, and the dangers when both are abused. "I sit on the end of the bed and pull on black calf-length boots, ignoring Eric as he flops out of the pay-by-the-hour motel cot. Still thirty minutes on the clock but no point hanging around." Read Extract

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Interviews It has been a busy month for interviews - you can hear a lengthy discussion about The Emperor Expects and being part of the shared narrative that is The Beast Arises series (including book eight in the series - The Beast Must Die!) over on the Combat Phase Podcast. You can also read interviews over atCivilian Reader and Age of Sigmar Battle Reports where I discuss what it was like writing in the new Age of Sigmar setting, give some background to Arkas Warbeast himself, and my next Horus Heresy novel Angels of Caliban. More Interviews

Upcoming Events 14th-15th May Warhammer Fest, Coventry 11th-14th August, Nine Worlds, London 23rd-25th September, Fantasycon By The Sea, Scarborough Do come and say 'hello' if you're attending any of these events.

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Newsletter Q&A Matthew asked on the blog: I wanted to know if you knew anything about Black Library’s policy on multiple submissions. It doesn’t seem to say anything in the guidelines against it. Given the way the process works, I would pick what you think is your best idea and go with that – they are looking at you as a writer as much as the particular idea you are pitching. Focus your energies on one awesome submission. If you’ve got plenty of ideas for stories that’s great, but make sure the one you send in has got enough meat to it to last ten thousand words – that’s pretty long for a short story and you may want to see if you can fold in a character idea or subplot from your others to  add some depth. All the best with your writing. If you want to ask a question, just reply to the newsletter and I'll get back to you as soon as my schedule allows.  I'll pick the best question to go in the next newsletter, and combine them all into a blog post for the website.  Click the button below for the full Q&A round-up for March. April Q&A

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Blog Post Round-Up The blog has been a bit sparse this month due to illness, workload, and weekend events, so other than the blogs already mentioned in the newsletter, you can also read my event report for Daffcon, a new 'multi-system gaming convention for small games' that took place in Cardiff. There's also a guest blog from the guys at Paranoid Miniatures who are currently running the Mythos Kickstarter.  Black Library have also released some new Horus Heresy prints, which you can read more about here.

Bi-Monthly Competition One of the perks of subscribing to my mailing list is that you get entered into the bi-monthly draw to win a personalised, signed copy of one of my books.  The next draw will take place in May, and the winner will receive a copy of my next Horus Heresy novel Angels of Caliban, when it is released in June.