Authorised - Bill's Monthly Column

September 2002

Floods

First up thanks to all of you who wrote to Angela and myself during the recent flooding here in Prague. I was deeply touched. However there was no need for alarm. With my usual good fortune, I was in Hungary watching the whole thing on CNN as it happened, and was en route back to Prague by the time the flood waters hit Budapest. My flat is on top of a very high hill so it was not affected at all, a fact for which I am profoundly grateful. Sadly however, it was a different story for much of the city though -mass evacuations, houses destroyed, old monuments like the Charles Bridge threatened. Tragic times indeed. 

And the devastation spread far beyond Prague or indeed the central republic. For me one of the strangest moments came seeing footage of Dresden station under water and realising that where I had been walking just a few months ago was now covered by water that would be above my head. It's certainly been a wild old month.

Journeys

August is the traditional holiday month and I spent mine at Lake Balaton in Hungary. It's a lovely place, the largest lake in Europe outside Scandinavia according to my guidebook, and more like a small sea. The Ottoman Turks used to keep a fleet there, a fact that as a fantasy writer I find quite inspiring. I also spent a few days in Munich, a lovely city with a stunning rathaus (town hall), which I fully intend to use as a set for one of my Warhammer stories one day. I would post a picture here, but cunningly forgot to have a disc in my digital camera when I was there.

I was visiting an old friend in Munich, Alistair Currie, who was kind enough (and mad enough) to run a role-playing game featuring myself as Gotrek, and another old friend, John McLintock as Felix. It was a fun scenario involving beastmen, abandoned mines, and cannibal halflings serving human pies. I could not have written anything nastier or better myself. Strangest of all was looking at the world through the eyes of the Slayer.

Might try this with Ragnar some time. It was certainly an interesting experience. 

Giantslayer

On the subject of Gotrek and Felix, Giantslayer proceeds apace, and looks to be more or less on track to hit the midway milestone on September 16th. For those of you wondering what I am gibbering about, the Black Library sets milestones for its novels when it commissions them. You get paid part of your advance on acceptance of the outline, part when they receive the first half of the book (approximately 45000 words) and the rest on acceptance of the full manuscript. So far our heroes are having some problems with beastmen and Chaos warriors, while Teclis, the elven Archmage wrestles with a problem on a slightly larger scale: the potential sinking of Ulthuan in a magical catastrophe of Atlantean proportions. As you can see floods have been on my mind this month.... 

Right, time for me to get back to work,

All the best,

Bill

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