Graham McNeill
Encyclopedia
Graham McNeill is a British novelist. He is best known for his Warhammer Fantasy
and Warhammer 40,000
novels, and his previous role as games designer for Games Workshop
.
, Scotland
and studied architecture
and building surveying at Glasgow Caledonian University
from 1989–1996. In 1996 he started work in an architects’ office designing new flats and commercial properties, until he saw an advertisement for a writer in the December 1999 copy of White Dwarf
.
In February 2000, Graham started work for Games Workshop as a staff writer for games development, writing articles for White Dwarf and army-specific books. In May 2000 he started writing for the Warhammer 40,000
team, but has also kept up writing articles for White Dwarf. Graham has been heavily involved working on codex
es, especially Warhammer 40,000 Codex: Tau
(Chambers et al., 2001) between late 2000 and June 2001. Other codexes he has been involved with are Warhammer 40,000 Codex: Necrons (Chambers et al., 2002), Warhammer 40,000 Codex: Chaos Space Marines
(Games Workshop Design Staff, 2002), Warhammer 40,000 Codex: Imperial Guard
(Chambers et al., 2003) and Warhammer 40,000 Codex: Daemonhunters (McNeill and Haines, 2003). Since a promotion from staff writer to games developer, he has written Warhammer 40,000 Codex: Witch Hunters (McNeill et al., 2003) and Warhammer 40,000 Codex: Space Marines
(Chambers, 2004).
Graham is an avid writer and has had several novels published by The Black Library
. They are Nightbringer (McNeill, 2005) published in January 2002, Storm of Iron (McNeill, 2003) in July 2002, Warriors of Ultramar (McNeill, 2004a) in February 2003 and Dead Sky Black Sun (McNeill, 2004). In addition McNeill has written The Ambassador, a Warhammer novel, in November 2003, "The Ambassador Chronicles" in July 2005, "Guardians of the Forest" in September 2005.
His most recent works have been False Gods (McNeill, 2006), published in June 2006, Fulgrim (McNeill, 2007), published in July 2007,and Mechanicum (McNeill, 2008), the three of which are part of the Black Library's
Horus Heresy
novel series. Another part to McNeill's story about the Ultramarines, The Killing Ground, was released in May 2008. Early 2009 saw the release of his first novel outside of the Black Library, I, Mengsk (McNeill, 2009), set in Blizzard Entertainment
's StarCraft
universe. The novel tells the tale of three generations of the Mengsk family - Angus and his revolutionary activities, his son Arcturus and his rise to power (leading up to the events of the first game
), and Arcturus' son Valerian as he struggles to embrace his family's legacy (leading up to the events of the second game).
In April 2009, Graham also contributed to the anthology book Tales of Heresy with a story entitled The Last Church, one of the first stories in the Black Library imprint in which the Emperor spoke directly and at length, rather than described from afar as had so far been the case in the Horus Heresy series. Early in 2010, Graham then released A Thousand Sons, a Horus Heresy novel focusing on the Thousand Sons legion and their fall from the graces of the Emperor by the hand of the Space Wolves. This novel was written in sync with a novel due to be released in early 2011 by Dan Abnett
, titled Prospero Burns, which tells the same narrative from the opposite perspective.
Graham worked closely with Abnett on the two novels, ensuring they met at certain points and would not contradict one another. This planning was rewarded when, a month after A Thousand Sons was published, it not only reached the top of the UK science fiction charts (displacing a long-held spot by the novels of Charlaine Harris
), but soon entered at number 22 on the New York Times Bestseller List, cementing his reputation as a writer of high-standard tie-in fiction.
Graham plays both Warhammer 40,000
, in which he plays with both Tau
and Necron
armies, he started with The Ultramarines, and Warhammer
, in which he plays an Empire
army.
In 2011, Graham wrote his first novel for Fantasy Flight Games
(known for a wide range of roleplaying games, card games, and board games), Ghouls of the Miskatonic, the first story of the Dark Waters Trilogy, based on FFG's Arkham Horror
board game and thus closely linked to H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos
.
Warhammer 40,000
Horus Heresy
StarCraft
Other
Warhammer Fantasy (setting)
Warhammer Fantasy is a fantasy setting, created by Games Workshop, which is used by many of the company's games. Some of the best-known games set in this world are: the table top wargame Warhammer Fantasy Battle, the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay pen-and-paper role-playing game, and the MMORPG...
and Warhammer 40,000
Warhammer 40,000
Warhammer 40,000 is a tabletop miniature wargame produced by Games Workshop, set in a dystopian science fantasy universe. Warhammer 40,000 was created by Rick Priestley in 1987 as the futuristic companion to Warhammer Fantasy Battle, sharing many game mechanics...
novels, and his previous role as games designer for Games Workshop
Games Workshop
Games Workshop Group plc is a British game production and retailing company. Games Workshop has published the tabletop wargames Warhammer Fantasy Battle and Warhammer 40,000...
.
Biography
McNeill was born in GlasgowGlasgow
Glasgow is the largest city in Scotland and third most populous in the United Kingdom. The city is situated on the River Clyde in the country's west central lowlands...
, Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
and studied architecture
Architecture
Architecture is both the process and product of planning, designing and construction. Architectural works, in the material form of buildings, are often perceived as cultural and political symbols and as works of art...
and building surveying at Glasgow Caledonian University
Glasgow Caledonian University
Glasgow Caledonian University is a public university in Glasgow, Scotland.The university was constituted by an Act of Parliament on 1 April 1993 as a result of a merger between Glasgow Polytechnic and The Queen's College, Glasgow....
from 1989–1996. In 1996 he started work in an architects’ office designing new flats and commercial properties, until he saw an advertisement for a writer in the December 1999 copy of White Dwarf
White Dwarf (magazine)
White Dwarf is a magazine published by British games manufacturer Games Workshop. Initially covering a wide variety of fantasy and science-fiction role-playing and board games, particularly the role playing games Dungeons & Dragons, RuneQuest and Traveller...
.
In February 2000, Graham started work for Games Workshop as a staff writer for games development, writing articles for White Dwarf and army-specific books. In May 2000 he started writing for the Warhammer 40,000
Warhammer 40,000
Warhammer 40,000 is a tabletop miniature wargame produced by Games Workshop, set in a dystopian science fantasy universe. Warhammer 40,000 was created by Rick Priestley in 1987 as the futuristic companion to Warhammer Fantasy Battle, sharing many game mechanics...
team, but has also kept up writing articles for White Dwarf. Graham has been heavily involved working on codex
Codex (Warhammer 40,000)
A codex , in the Warhammer 40,000 tabletop wargame, is a rules supplement containing information concerning a particular army, environment, or worldwide campaign....
es, especially Warhammer 40,000 Codex: Tau
Tau (Warhammer 40,000)
In the universe of Games Workshop's table-top wargame Warhammer 40,000, the Tau Empire is an alien race, inhabiting a small but dense region of space on the eastern edge of the Galaxy, roughly 300 light years in diameter...
(Chambers et al., 2001) between late 2000 and June 2001. Other codexes he has been involved with are Warhammer 40,000 Codex: Necrons (Chambers et al., 2002), Warhammer 40,000 Codex: Chaos Space Marines
Chaos Space Marines
In the table-top wargame Warhammer 40,000, the Chaos Space Marines or Chaos Marines, are Space Marines who serve the Chaos Gods. They are also referred to as the Traitor Legions, primarily in background material written from the perspective of the Imperium.-History:The background shown in both...
(Games Workshop Design Staff, 2002), Warhammer 40,000 Codex: Imperial Guard
Imperial Guard (Warhammer 40,000)
The Imperial Guard are a specific army or faction in the Warhammer 40,000 and Epic tabletop games and universe. The army itself is characterised by being capable of fielding a multitude of lightly armoured, average infantry in combination with some of the toughest and most powerful tanks in the game...
(Chambers et al., 2003) and Warhammer 40,000 Codex: Daemonhunters (McNeill and Haines, 2003). Since a promotion from staff writer to games developer, he has written Warhammer 40,000 Codex: Witch Hunters (McNeill et al., 2003) and Warhammer 40,000 Codex: Space Marines
Space Marines (Warhammer 40,000)
In the fictional universe of Warhammer 40,000 setting created by Games Workshop, Space Marines are genetically modified "super human" soldiers created by the Emperor to conquer the galaxy and defend mankind. According to Games Workshop, there are over a thousand recorded chapters of Space Marines,...
(Chambers, 2004).
Graham is an avid writer and has had several novels published by The Black Library
Black Library
The Black Library is a division of Games Workshop which is devoted to publishing novels and audiobooks set in the Warhammer Fantasy Battle and Warhammer 40,000 fictional universes...
. They are Nightbringer (McNeill, 2005) published in January 2002, Storm of Iron (McNeill, 2003) in July 2002, Warriors of Ultramar (McNeill, 2004a) in February 2003 and Dead Sky Black Sun (McNeill, 2004). In addition McNeill has written The Ambassador, a Warhammer novel, in November 2003, "The Ambassador Chronicles" in July 2005, "Guardians of the Forest" in September 2005.
His most recent works have been False Gods (McNeill, 2006), published in June 2006, Fulgrim (McNeill, 2007), published in July 2007,and Mechanicum (McNeill, 2008), the three of which are part of the Black Library's
Black Library
The Black Library is a division of Games Workshop which is devoted to publishing novels and audiobooks set in the Warhammer Fantasy Battle and Warhammer 40,000 fictional universes...
Horus Heresy
Horus Heresy
In the fictional Warhammer 40,000 universe, the Horus Heresy was a galaxy-spanning civil war that marked the end of the Great Crusade which took place in the 31st millennium. First described in the 1988 Games Workshop book Realm of Chaos: Slaves to Darkness, it was used as the background for the...
novel series. Another part to McNeill's story about the Ultramarines, The Killing Ground, was released in May 2008. Early 2009 saw the release of his first novel outside of the Black Library, I, Mengsk (McNeill, 2009), set in Blizzard Entertainment
Blizzard Entertainment
Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. is an American video game developer and publisher founded on February 8, 1991 under the name Silicon & Synapse by three graduates of UCLA, Michael Morhaime, Allen Adham and Frank Pearce and currently owned by French company Activision Blizzard...
's StarCraft
StarCraft (series)
StarCraft is a military science fiction media franchise created by Chris Metzen and James Phinney, and owned by Blizzard Entertainment. The series centers on a galactic struggle for dominance between three species—the adaptable and mobile Terrans, the insectoid Zerg, and the enigmatic Protoss—in a...
universe. The novel tells the tale of three generations of the Mengsk family - Angus and his revolutionary activities, his son Arcturus and his rise to power (leading up to the events of the first game
StarCraft
StarCraft is a military science fiction real-time strategy video game developed by Blizzard Entertainment. The first game of the StarCraft series was released for Microsoft Windows on 31 March 1998. With more than 11 million copies sold worldwide as of February 2009, it is one of the best-selling...
), and Arcturus' son Valerian as he struggles to embrace his family's legacy (leading up to the events of the second game).
In April 2009, Graham also contributed to the anthology book Tales of Heresy with a story entitled The Last Church, one of the first stories in the Black Library imprint in which the Emperor spoke directly and at length, rather than described from afar as had so far been the case in the Horus Heresy series. Early in 2010, Graham then released A Thousand Sons, a Horus Heresy novel focusing on the Thousand Sons legion and their fall from the graces of the Emperor by the hand of the Space Wolves. This novel was written in sync with a novel due to be released in early 2011 by Dan Abnett
Dan Abnett
Dan Abnett is a British comic book writer and novelist. He is a frequent collaborator with fellow writer Andy Lanning, and is known for his work on books for both Marvel Comics, and their UK imprint, Marvel UK, since the 1990s, including 2000 AD...
, titled Prospero Burns, which tells the same narrative from the opposite perspective.
Graham worked closely with Abnett on the two novels, ensuring they met at certain points and would not contradict one another. This planning was rewarded when, a month after A Thousand Sons was published, it not only reached the top of the UK science fiction charts (displacing a long-held spot by the novels of Charlaine Harris
Charlaine Harris
Charlaine Harris is a New York Times bestselling author who has been writing mysteries for over twenty years. She was born and raised in the Mississippi River Delta area of the United States. She now lives in southern Arkansas with her husband and three children...
), but soon entered at number 22 on the New York Times Bestseller List, cementing his reputation as a writer of high-standard tie-in fiction.
Graham plays both Warhammer 40,000
Warhammer 40,000
Warhammer 40,000 is a tabletop miniature wargame produced by Games Workshop, set in a dystopian science fantasy universe. Warhammer 40,000 was created by Rick Priestley in 1987 as the futuristic companion to Warhammer Fantasy Battle, sharing many game mechanics...
, in which he plays with both Tau
Tau
Tau is the 19th letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals it has a value of 300.The name in English is pronounced , but in modern Greek it is...
and Necron
Necron
In the table-top wargame Warhammer 40,000, the Necrons are a mysterious skeletal robot-like race that have lain dormant and largely unknown by the other races of the universe for sixty four million years, and are reemerging in the distant future of the Warhammer 40,000 universe...
armies, he started with The Ultramarines, and Warhammer
Warhammer Fantasy Battle
Warhammer: The Game of Fantasy Battles is a tabletop wargame created by Games Workshop. It is the origin of the Warhammer Fantasy setting....
, in which he plays an Empire
The Empire (Warhammer)
In Games Workshop's Warhammer Fantasy fictional universe, The Empire is one of the human political factions and armies, and is featured in many games and novels. In terms of location, language, culture, and society, it bears a strong resemblance to the Holy Roman Empire...
army.
In 2011, Graham wrote his first novel for Fantasy Flight Games
Fantasy Flight Games
Fantasy Flight Games is a Roseville, Minnesota-based game company that creates and publishes role-playing, board, and card games. Fantasy Flight Publishing was founded in 1995 by its CEO, Christian T. Petersen. Since the release of its first game product in 1997, the company has been doing...
(known for a wide range of roleplaying games, card games, and board games), Ghouls of the Miskatonic, the first story of the Dark Waters Trilogy, based on FFG's Arkham Horror
Arkham Horror
Arkham Horror is an adventure board game designed by Richard Launius, originally published in 1987 by Chaosium and most recently published in 2005 and revised in 2007 by Fantasy Flight Games. In both editions, players take on the role of investigators in H. P. Lovecraft's Massachusetts town of...
board game and thus closely linked to H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos
Cthulhu Mythos
The Cthulhu Mythos is a shared fictional universe, based on the work of American horror writer H. P. Lovecraft.The term was first coined by August Derleth, a contemporary correspondent of Lovecraft, who used the name of the creature Cthulhu - a central figure in Lovecraft literature and the focus...
.
Novels
WarhammerWarhammer 40,000
Horus Heresy
StarCraft
Other
Comics
- Warhammer 40,000Warhammer 40,000 comicsWarhammer 40,000 comics are spin-offs and tie-ins based in the Warhammer 40,000 fictional universe. Over the years these have been published by different sources...
(Boom! StudiosBoom! StudiosBOOM! Studios is an American comic book company headquartered in Los Angeles, California, United States. The "BOOM!" in BOOM! Studios is always capitalized by the company.-History:BOOM! was founded June 22, 2005 with Zombie Tales #1....
):- "Fire and Honour" (with Tony Parker, August 2008)
- "Defenders of Ultramar" (with Kevin Hopgood, November 2008)
- Warhammer OnlineWarhammer Online: Age of ReckoningWarhammer Online: Age of Reckoning is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game based on Games Workshop's Warhammer Fantasy setting. It was developed by Mythic Entertainment and simultaneously released in North and South Americas, Europe, Asia, Australia and New Zealand on September 18, 2008...
: Prelude to War (graphic novelGraphic novelA graphic novel is a narrative work in which the story is conveyed to the reader using sequential art in either an experimental design or in a traditional comics format...
given away as part of the Collectors Edition)