Gav Thorpe Interview

Gav Thorpe is a name that will be familiar to anyone acquainted with many of Games Workshop's various rule systems writing several himself, as well as being accredited with work in developing many others including the Lord of the Rings game. He is also a Warhammer novelist, regular contributor to White Dwarf and organiser of games at the Nottingham headquarters, however he has found time in his busy schedule to talk to us here at Gamer Heaven.

KD: When did your interest in wargaming first begin?

GT: When I was around eight or nine, I would say. I had lots of plastic toy soldiers, and a friend and I made up some rules for them. When I was ten years old or so I discovered several wargaming books in the local library, including a couple by Donald Featherstone, and I realised there was this whole hobby out there just waiting for me.

KD: How did your career at Games Workshop start, and what was the first project they had you work on?

GT: I started GW as an Assistant Games Developer in 1993, after speaking to Jervis at Games Day and sending in a letter and some stuff I had written. My very first job was pasting together mock-up wargear and psychic power cards for the playtests of Dark Millennium for 2nd ed 40K! Writing-wise it was the relaunch of the Citadel Journal, alongside Mark Hawkins and Ian Pickstock. My first ‘mainstream’ product was the Pit Fighter warrior pack for Warhammer Quest, and my first WD article was about the Squat Cyclops for Space Marine (Epic).

KD: Of all the codex's, Army books, Rule books you have worked on which is your favorite, which are you most proud of?

GT: Tough choice! I’m really proud of Codex: Sisters of Battle and Inquisitor, both of which allowed me to introduce all kinds of things to the 40K universe that are now taken as granted and seen everywhere, but were fresh and new at the time. I’m also quite pleased with my last two contributions – Vampire Counts and Dark Elves. As projects they were perhaps the most complete and rounded things I have worked on, combining background, miniatures, rules and art from concept to completion in a very pleasing way.

KD: Are there any of the codex's/ Army Books that you thought looking back "Oh I wish I had(n't) done this!" or "Damn I could have included/ changed that special rule"?

GT: Every single project contains a few things that you would tweak in retrospect. One that I usually bring up is the special bonus movement rule for the Blood Angels in 3rd ed. Originally the rule simply made the Blood Angels squad move forwards, but after a discussion with Jervis (who rightly said “players tend to forget rules that aren’t of benefit to them”) I changed it to a bonus movement and look where that ended up! As I said, there is always a points cost that can be modified, a rule worded better or changed, a magic item or piece of wargear that is under- or over-powered.
As a project, I think the rewrite of Chaos Space Marines could have benefitted from a bit more ‘grit’ and options, and we were overall too puritan at that time. I still think the principle of streamlining the list and rules was right, but we took it a little too far.

KD When working on the Army book/ Codex of one of your favorite armies is it hard to resist the temptation to make it especially hard so you will win more games?

GT: Not hard at all. My primary goal has always been to make an army interesting to collect, play and face, and you have to bring the same enthusiasm to every project. You find and angle that you think will work as a dynamic and stick with that. If you’re already deeply involved with an army it’s often tempting to write for only those people who have the same experience as you, but you have to be professional and remember that you are writing for newcomers as well as established players.
You can’t second-guess everybody, so you have to go with what feels fun and cool and hope that other players agree with you. Power-levels and all of that are part of what you need to keep an eye on, but blandness is a far more significant problem.

KD: The career route of Games Developer to author seems to be quite popular (yourself, Graham McNeill to name a few) how did you go about writing and submitting your first novel/ short story.

GT: I was sat in the same department as Andy Jones when Black Library was started, so it was a simple matter of having a chat with him about writing a short story for the to-be-launched Inferno magazine. Rather bravely I pitched in with Birth of a Legend, telling the story of how Sigmar got his hammer! Later came the debut of Kage and the Last Chancers, which naturally led me into the novels when BL were looking to turn some of their Inferno characters into series. I’ve been very fortunate to have it this easy!

KD: So can you give us a quick list of the armies you collect yourself and which is your favorite?

GT: I must confess that I haven’t done much with my GW armies for a while now, they’ve sort of fallen fallow for the last couple of years. That said, I have Dwarfs for Warhammer, Eldar for 40K and Orcs and Easterling allies for LOTR. The Dwarfs have seen the most use, so I guess that says something about which I have the greatest love for.

KD: If you could introduce a new plotline or race to 40k who and or what would it be?

GT: This sorta follows from the last answers, but if I had a magic wand I would bring the Demiurg into full existence as an army and race. Various discussions over the years about making space dwarfs make me believe there is a fantastic image and background to be explored there. I came up with the Demiurg name, by the way, when we were trying not to use ‘Squats’.

KD: One of your biggest acheivements has to be the "Inquisitor" system. How did that come about? Did you pitch the idea to "Them" or did "They" approch you?

GT: There was a ‘slot’ open for a spring 2001 game. Games Dev got together and devised a bunch of pitches, including bringing back Man o’ War, recreating Space Hulk as a boarding actions game, doing Warhammer pirates, Adeptus Titanicus pitting Necron War Engines against Mechanicus armies on the surface of Mars, all kinds of stuff. Amongst them was a 54mm skirmish game. We had an Inquisition angle in mind, though nothing with any detail.
The idea of creating a highly collectible range of 54mm models appealed to the higher-ups and that option was taken. At that stage of my career is was felt my next step was to create a rules system, so I became lead designer and we went from there. The original idea was for the ‘sides’ to be Inquisitors and Chaos Magi, but after considering the somewhat small size of the range I came up with the puritans and radicals idea to allow the majority of miniatures to be used by any player.

KD: How would you respond to the comment that "the lack of balance/and power creep in all of gw's creations is spurred by an imbalanced need to sell than fun or for the good of the game."?

GT: I would say that power creep is not as prevalent as some gamers would like you to think, and that it exists not because of official policy but by the human nature of games developers. If power creep were enshrined in the games development strategy, you wouldn’t have some of the older armies still being more powerful, in some players’ eyes, than the new ones. There is imbalance, unfortunately, but there are only a couple of armies that are so out-of-whack it makes any difference outside of the narrow tournament mentality.
There are some factors inherent in 40K and Warhammer that favour certain army styles, but as can be seen with many of the other games systems like LOTR, Epic, Blood Bowl and so on, that’s more to do with the ‘inheritance’ of many years of constant development and the complexity of the basic system as anything any individual developer creates. At no point in any briefing I was part of or wrote did the words ‘This army has to be more powerful than the other ones’ appear. Never attribute to malice that which can be attributed to incompetence!

KD: Have you ever played any non GW games systems? (Privateer Press, Battletech, Flames of War etc)

GT: I’ve toyed around with various other games. I wrote the ‘Open Fire!’ starter booklet for Flames of War, for instance. Recently I’ve been concentrating on creating some games systems of my own, just like it was when I started out, rather than off-the-shelf games systems already out there.

KD: If the answer is yes then was there any part of their systems that you thought "Wow thats good I wish we had thought of that" ?

GT: The examples you cited are all very different games trying to achieve a different gameplay. Particularly with 40K and Warhammer the style of the game has been established for so long you’re not going to do anything that radical to the underlying games system. I like all kinds of games, whether miniatures, roleplaying, board and card games, video games, and I always look for interesting ways of organising rules or mechanics for resolving certain things.

KD: To date (Nov 2010) you haven't written any full novels for the HH series. Is there any part of the HH that you think "I would sell my soul to Khorne to write about that" and if so what part?

GT: I’ll be starting my first HH novel after Christmas. I wouldn’t sell my soul for any particular subject, it just isn’t helpful to become wedded to a narrow idea, but I’m very happy to play in that big sandpit with the other authors.

KD: Apart from your own which is your favorite BL Book?

GT: Probably Execution Hour, by Gordon Rennie. Not only is it a cool 40K novel, it reminded me a lot of the Hornblower and Ramage novels I read as a teenager.

KD: And to continue my $h!t stirring. :) In his interview, Graham is convinced that if all the BL Authors got together for a session, he would be the last man standing (Air Guitaring). Do you agree with that statement?

GT: Hell no! McNeill is such a lightweight these days, he’s always falling asleep. Something about having a young kid, and all that... Not that I’m claiming the prize for myself either – three beers is about my limit these days. I think I used up all my ‘Resist Alcohol’ points in my youth.

KD: Do you have a preference when it comes to writing 40k or fantasy books?

GT: No. Both have their different appeals and challenges.

KD: If one of our readers was thinking of trying to get into the games development field what advice would you offer?

GT: Think of it as a whole, don’t fixate on working for a particular company or on a single games system. Opportunities are too few and far between to limit your options. Everyone I know that is a games designer or developer started out just doing it for themselves. You either have the urge to write games and scenarios and stories, or you don’t. If you get the chance to turn that into a career, all the better, but if you want a chance to make a decent living out of it, get into computer games!
Or found your own company...

KD: Do you get much time to play/ paint now or doesn't your timetable allow it?

GT: Not much time. I still play plenty of games, I just don’t have much time to do the painting. I’ve always been hot and cold in that respect, perhaps going on a binge for a few weeks before cooling off. If I ever get around to sorting out a permanent painting area, that might improve.

KD: What was the last model you painted and game you played?

GT: I can’t say... It’s a game I’m currently working on for a miniatures company!

KD: Did you win?

GT: I sort of did, but since I was just testing out the basic rules, it doesn’t really count.

KD: So finally can you give us a few hints on what you are working on now or will be in the near future?

GT: For Black Library, I’m just finishing Path of Seer. After Crimbo is the Horus Heresy, and rewrites for my Angry Robot novel The Crown of the Conqueror. There’s plenty of other Black Library stuff over the next couple of years!
On the games front, I’ve written/ am writing a couple of different rules systems at the moment; one a skirmish game, the other for slightly larger forces. That’s about all I can say at the moment until the information has been released by the companies involved.

KD: Well thanks for taking the time to answer these questions its been a pleasure as always. The next time you are in Ireland promoting a book or whatever the first drink is on me.

GT: Cheers, I’ll take you up on that!



Till next time

KD

Irish 40K ETC Captain Paul Quigley Interview

This is an interview with my good friend, the outgoing Irish 40k ETC Captain Paul Quigley.

KD: Hey Paul, Thanks for taking the time to talk to me I suppose we had better "start at the very begining as its a very good place to start" as the famous song states. So how did you get into Table top wargaming?

PQ: Oh Lord, peering into the mists of time there KD. At the grand old age of eleven I got an old school battle in a box set named “Battlemasters” it was something of a gateway drug to folks having a complete hodge podge of the Warhammer World (Empire, Orcs and Chaos). Well after playing my long suffering Dad for the first time on Christmas evening I was absolutely hooked in! That same year one of my school friends showed me a copy of the 40K second edition rulebook and that was all she wrote as they say. I was a gaming addict from that day forward

KD: Obviously you play 40k but what other Games/ Systems do you play?

PQ: Ha...where do I start. Games Workshop wise I have armies for Battlefleet Gothic, Bloodbowl, Mordheim, Necromunda and Warhammer Fantasy Battle. I also play Warmachine/Hordes and Ive got a couple of fleets for the Spartan Games system Firestorm Armada not to mention a Panzer Grenadier company for Flames of War...So as you can see, just a few systems!

KD: Since you have been playing for so long and in so many systems you must have some collection of armies would you mind giving us a quick list of them?

PQ: Is this blog now called name and shame KD??? Well army wise for 40k I have currently Marines (of all variants), Dark Eldar, Tau, Eldar and a small Chaos army I promise myself I’ll use at some point. For Warhammer Fantasy my army of choice is Lizardmen (mostly for the Slann and Stegadon Models if I’m honest). For Warmachine I have Khador and Cygnar and for Hordes Trollbloods. BFG I have every current fleet, I also have 8 different bloodbowl teams ranging all accross the boards from elves to norse and orcs and back to elves again! Delaque gang in Necromunda, Sisters of Sigmar in Mordheim, Germans in Flames of War and last but by no means least I have an Aquan fleet for Firestorm Armada. As you can see I really and truly need help as I’m something of a completist once I start an army I tend to get every unit they have. I don’t even try and justify this lunacy anymore.

KD: Now a little bird tells me you used to be a "Pressganger" for Privateer Press would you mind just telling us how that came about and what it entailed?

PQ: I was indeed a member of the Press Gang for 4 years or so. Essentially when I first started Warmachine there really wasn’t anyone playing the game beyond my immediate group of 4 or 5 mates. The best way to change that was to become a PG and go out to different groups and spread the gospel of Warmachine (Hordes at this stage didn’t exist). So I used to run demo events for different games clubs around the area (along with Richard Tighe, who signed up with me as a PG). Soon enough there were enough players to run small tournaments and then bigger league events, which has led to the pretty solid scene that exists today. It was fantastic to be a part, but 40k began taking up so much time from an organisational perspective it was time to step aside and let the new breed of fanatics take the reigns. Guys like Ciaran Bolger and Owen Conlan are now busy doing a great job of keeping the system going. Which is great to see....and now I get to play in tournaments instead of running them!

KD: So now onto the important stuff. How did you become Captain for the Irish 40k ETC team?

PQ: Oh lord now thats a question. When the idea of sending a 40k team to the event was had in the derranged mind of Nigel Kavannagh he was given my name as a possible person to get on board as I head to a large number of events and seem to know people in most of Irelands clubs. So when Nige Kav had but together his core group of 4 attendees they decided I’d do an okay job of being the skipper. Either that or they knew how much work it’d be and didn’t want the job!


Paul at this years Vaticon

KD: What qualities do you think you brought to the role?

PQ: Pretty much I’d describe myself as a people person. Being social and good natured is essential for getting interest up with people for the team and for making the team a good place to be for people involved. So I commited to being at almost every 40k event for a year (no small undertaking) and being as good an Ambassador for team Ireland as humanly possible....It also meant communicating and getting on with every other team captain in Europe from which I made some great mates so was chuffed to be able to do!

KD: In your opinion what do you think makes a good tournament player?

PQ: Well thats a good one KD! In my humble opinion the following are key.
1. Pick a good list and know it inside out, you need to be aware of what each and ever unit in your army can or can’t do. This involves playing a lot of games with it! Also sometimes you have to grit your teeth and keep going with an army. 5 games is not enough to decided wheteher you like an army, 50 would be closer to the mark. I’d also avoid lists that the internet tells you are great. They are most of the time based on one opinion and what you can make work vs others is different to what anyone else can. Too many times I’ve seen guys grab a “net list” and epic fail with it simply because they lack the nuance of the original player to make it work! Be your own gamer and you’ll find things a whole lot easier.
2. Don’t allow yourself to get swept up in the game and merely find yourself reacting to whats going on. Keep your focus on what you want to achieve and how you want to do it. The plan will change as you go on and the game evolves but your objectives rarely will
3. Have fun! If you don’t play the game with good nature and with an eye to fun I don’t consider you a good player, pure simple. The great players are those that can if you pardon the expression “bend you over” at the table but you still remember of it as a great game

KD: Now you and the Irish team have recently returned from the ETC in Munster, Germany. How did yiz get on?

PQ: I think we did okay KD, finishing with 1 win, three draws and two losses. All in all we were a little disappointed with our overall performance but as a team we set high standards for ourselves so I’m not sure how fair we are on our own performance. As Nigel himself told me, the achievement was getting a team from nothing in less then a year and not only that but one that actually did okay!

KD: So to put you on the spot; who was the best player on the team this year?

PQ: Ha don’t pull your punches there eh. To be honest I don’t think you could ever have a best as all of us were equally capable of beating each other on our day. The team did have some of my favourite players from a personal point of view. From Darragh Cullens ultra agressive go and get em style, to Joe Cullens absolute determination to get the job done, right through to Barra MacNiocall’s speed is the key list. It was a great cross section of differing 40k talent!

KD: and looking back was there any changes you would have made to the personel or army selections this year?

PQ: Not a one....simple as that

KD: Say there was someone reading this who wants to try and qualify for next years ETC what advice would you give them?

PQ: First and foremost good on them! Secondly the best way of doing things is to simply go to events and play hard and have fun. If you qualify after that I’d pretty much describe that as gravy!

KD: You recently purchased a lizardmen army for WHFB. (That God-Damn birdy again) How do you think you will get on with the transition from "Ray-guns" to "Pointy-Sticks"?

PQ: Ive had a great time playing with my lizards in 8th ed. The completely different style and way of thinking has been great! I also pretty much suck at it so its nice to have to learn a game from the ground up so to speak

KD: Well thanks again for doing the interview Paul. It's been a pleasure as always.

PQ: The pleasure was mine KD, any chance to waffle on about games is always greatly appreciated!

Till next time

KD

Graham McNeill Interview

KD: Hey Graham, Firstly let me thank you for taking the time out of your busy schedule to talk to me.

We will start with the easy questions:

How long have you been writing for black Library now?

GMN: My first novel, Nightbringer. was published in 2002, and I’d presented BL with a job lot of short stories just before that, so I’d say around nine and a bit years.

KD: Was this your first writing job or did you have any before it?

GMN: It was my first paying writing job, though I’d done lots of writing beforehand, my own comics, board games, role-playing scenarios and so on. And while I was at university I wrote a novel (which probably explains why I’m a writer and not an architect). None of it has been published, but it was all vital training to get me ready to actually write professionally.

KD: We all know you are a huge David Gemmell fan (who isn't) but who else do you enjoy reading for pleasure?

GMN: I read lots of different authors. I love Clive Barker’s work, Terry Pratchett, Irvine Welsh, Bernard Cornwell and James Ellroy to name but a few. Certainly, they’re the ones that give me the most enjoyment, though each in very different ways.

KD: You have written novels for both the WHFB world and the 40K universe, do you have a preference and if so which one?

GMN: I only have a preference when I’m actually writing one or the other. When I write 40k, I love the immersion in the gothic madness of it all, with its boundless scope for invention and planetary destruction. Then when I get to write Warhammer, I love the gritty, grim realism of it all. Heroic fantasy is where my heart lies as a writer, so when I get to tell those kinds of stories, I think it’s when I’m at my most empathic with the world and the characters.

KD: Who is the favourite character from the books you have written and why?

GMN: I like Uriel (obviously) as he is the heroic embodiment of what it means to be a hero in the horror of the Imperium. Despite all the darkness, all the ways it would be easy to be ruthless and heartless or give into despair in the face of never-ending hordes of aliens, heretics and a galaxy’s worth of hostile forces, he never gives in, and he always remembers the Space Marines’ original purpose – to claim the galaxy for humanity to prosper. Other Chapters might now see themselves as superior to humanity, but the Ultramarines never do, they recognise that they were created to serve mankind, and that the galaxy isn’t their private playground. It’s that willingly-made sacrifice that makes them so appealing to me.


KD: Which of your novels so far was the most difficult to write and why?

GMN: In some ways it was Nightbringer, as it was my first novel and I didn’t really know what I was doing or how to bring it to life. I learned on the job, and while I’m still very proud of it, I think with all the experience I’ve gained along the way, I’d do it very differently now. The other difficult one was False Gods, which was my first Heresy novel. Hard enough to do, but then when your book follows Dan Abnett’s Horus Rising – a book that excited me like no other as I read it – was no small challenge. Though having said all that, where a book is a challenge to write, it makes you raise your game and often gets the best work out of you. In sport the only way to improve is to play opponents better than you, and the same principle works in writing too. I like to work on projects that are going to challenge me, push me to do better and work my mental muscles in new ways that improve my writing and give me a wide range of styles, skills and ways to tell exciting, interesting stories.

KD: Excluding your own which is your favourite HH novel so far?

GMN: I’d have to say it was Horus Rising, as it was so different from anything I’d read in the 40k universe. Its tone, pacing and language was a real shift away from those books, and it made me see Horus in a totally new light. It might sound stupid, but I’d never thought of the Warmaster as a good guy, he’s always been the arch-traitor who spat on his oaths of loyalty. It’s hard to remember that he was the best and brightest son who fell so far. So to see him as this beautiful, magnificent war god was thrilling to read. And any book that can make you feel sorry for Horus has to be doing something right.

KD: When you were writing the short story The last Church did you have a particular location in mind when describing it?

GMN: A few folk have asked this, and yeah, I had a very definite place in mind. I imagined the Lightning Stone to be the Old Man of Storr on the Isle of Skye. There’s a few hints within the story that can lead you there if you know a little bit of British geography. My family’s originally from Skye, and I’ve been to the Old Man of Storr many times, and always thought it was a really dramatic location to use in a story.

KD: Have you ever based the personalities of any of your characters on Real life people?

GMN: Not consciously, though I’ve used the names of folk I know a few times (with appropriate 40k-ification). And then killed them. That’s the price you pay for appearing in one of my books – you die horribly. Though when I was writing Ursun’s Teeth, the follow up to The Ambassador, I was having the guys in Games Development read the chapters of the book as I was going along, and Phil Kelly remarked that the character of Kaspar was uncannily similar to mine. I presume he was talking about his heroic nature, unfailing loyalty and noble demeanour, not his cranky belligerence, shouty temperament and general old mannishness.

KD: Which is your favorite GMN novel?

GMN: To use the clichéd answer, the one I’m working on now. But in all seriousness, I don’t know, they each have their strengths and flaws that wax and wane for me depending on the mood I’m in. One one day it might be Heldenhammer or Storm of Iron, on another it could be Mechanicum or The Chapter’s Due. Each of them represents a period of my life and that’s likely reflected in each of them, so they hold a special place in my memories dependent on where my head was at the time. For example, A Thousand Sons will always be the book I was writing when my son, Evan, was born, so that will always have a special memory associated with it. Likewise, Fulgrim was the first book I wrote after leaving Games Workshop, so there’s a bittersweet flavour to that one.

KD: Do you actually play 40k or WHFB and if so what armies do you have and are you any good as a player?

GMN: I haven’t played in a long time, but I do have a number of armies. I have fully painted Necron and Space Marine armies (4th Company naturally…) and a half built, half painted Tau army. And I also have my Empire army, as well as an unbuilt, unpainted Rohan force. All of them are buried at the back of a cupboard in their carry cases, and regrettably haven’t made it onto a tabletop in quite some time.

KD: How come you weren't asked to write the screenplay for the upcoming ultramarines movie especially since you had written about them so much?

GMN: I don’t know the answer to that; you’d have to ask the guys that commissioned the script from Dan. If you think about it for a moment, it makes perfect sense to have Dan write the script for the movie, as he has written a great many scripts, has a vast fanbase, both in the Games Workshop universes and many others (Marvel springs to mind…)and is a fantastic writer. All of which will bring in fans from other areas to the movie. To be a real hit, the movie needs to cross over to folk who haven’t necessarily heard of 40k, but will likely have heard of Dan, so hopefully we’ll create an army of new fans for the movie and the universe.

KD: I will finish with a few questions from some of my friends and gaming colleagues around the country.

- Jimmy Murphy from Cork would like to know if all the BL authors got together for a piss up who would be the first to fall and who would be last man standing?

GMN: As a hard-drinking Scotsman, I’d have to say that I’d be the lat man standing, or at least the last man dancing, as I tend to end up air-guitaring and headbanging on the dance floor by the end of a night. The lava pouring through my veins, bestowed by the brazen gods of metal from their abode on Mount Olympus probably burns up the alcohol in my body. As to who would be first to fall, who knows, the nights have always ended with the dawn chorus before anyone falls over.


KD: John Stowe from the DGG (Dublin Games Guild) would like to know did you regret killing off inquisitor Ario Barzano? He also said:

- Kudos to you for "The Last Church" in Tales of the Heresy. Finally a bit of substance to the character of the Emperor. Any more plans to flesh out the Emperor (no pun intended)?

GMN: I’ve certainly no plans to do anything as full on as The Last Church for appearances by the Emperor. I used him there in the guise of Revelation, as it was a facet of his personality rather than him in Full Emperor Mode. I think we’ll see more of the Emperor as we go on, gradually building his persona and motivations as the books progress (or delve back into the past…) so that by the time we get to the final battle between Horus and the Emperor, the outcome actually matters. It’s no use having a final battle that’s taken years to reach if we don’t care for either of the combatants. To be affected by the outcome, we need to feel for both the Emperor and Horus.

KD: And Colin Murray from DGG wants to know if you could write about any part of the rest of the known HH; which story would you most like to tell?

GMN: I certainly want to tell an Iron Warriors story. So far we’ve seen lots of stories about how certain legions fell to Chaos by trying to do the right thing, pursuing the right ends by the wrong means. I’d like to tell a story where a legion falls to Chaos because they choose to do it, because they’re bad bastards and willingly embrace the chance to let loose the beast within. To my mind, the Iron Warriors fit that bill rather nicely. Then there’s Calth…that would be fun to do as a two hander with a Word Bearers author.

KD: Lastly, without breaking any non-disclosure agreements you have; can you give us any hints as to what we can expect to see in the future from yourself?

GMN: In a couple of weeks I’ll be getting stuck into a Heresy short story and another audio drama, and once they’re out the way, I’ll finally be writing the sequel (and concluding part) to Defenders of Ulthuan. It’s been a long time coming, as bigger projects kept muscling it out of the way, but I’ve finally found time on the schedule to get it in before I start my next HH book. Huzzah!

KD: Thanks again for taking the time to answer these questions. I will make sure the next time you are in Ireland we will meet up and have a pint or 2. Good luck with the rest of your career, long may it last.

GMN: Sounds like a plan to me. Mine’s a JD and Coke.