So I did the fall of Rome, I did some battles in the Northern Highlands – and I used Medieval II as the engine to do that. In my novels, the historical events like when the Rus, who were kind of the Eastern Vikings, when they attack Miklagard they are repulsed – but in my novels, as an alternate history, they succeed. Then I recreated some of the battles in my novels, like the Fall of Miklagard *. You get mods that make them even more authentic, so I downloaded those. I would get in a bunch of skins, because – without being rude to your art team – some of them are not always as authentic as they might be. When I was trying to visualise my books, I would go in and take screenshots. I spent, well, a lot of time with Medieval as well. I spent a lot of time with Rome, which is remastered, right?Įxcellent, I’ll keep a look out for that. Ha! I’ve played all the Total War games though since the beginning. I’ll freely admit I wasn’t alive, so I may need to look it up. I looked this up the other day because my first ever Vikings-based game was in 1984, on the ZX Spectrum, and it was called Viking Raiders. Ian Sharpe: ‘Have I ever played Total War?!’ – what kind of pseud would I be if I talked to you without playing Total War. ĬA: Thanks for talking to us today, Ian! Figure a nice place to start might be your history in videogames – have you ever played a Total War? We thought you might be into that kind of thing.Īs well as going in for our giveaway over on Twitter, you can read below about the series’ origins with Total War, how and why this book came together, and Ian’s plans for entering Valhalla. It’s a spin-off from his Vikingverse series, a novel and comic anthology that depicts a modern world where Vikings and Paganism dominated Europe and the world through history. Such is the concept of Old Norse for Modern Times, a book by Ian Sharpe that teaches just enough Viking-speak to, for example, tell your friends your invasion was successful, you’ll see them on Discord, and you’d like another drink. Ever ran straight out of ways to shout bloody murder while driving the forces of Gaul / Sussex / England / The Northmen / Malekith before you? Perhaps a new language would do it?

Total war warhammer an old friend