If you are into Samurai, you will know all about Stephen Turnbull. He is one of the foremost experts on the Samurai - and we are immensely proud of the fact that he is one of our authors...and one of our more prolific authors at that, rapidly closing in on a rather spectacular half century of Osprey books.

He has written books in virtually all of our series - Campaigns like Nagashino and Tannenberg, a smattering of Men-at-Arms titles on subjects like The Mongols, New Vanguard titles on Far East Siege Weapons and Fighting Ships, Essential History titles like War in Japan 1467-1615 and Genghis Khan and the Mongol Conquests, Warrior titles on Ninja, Fortress titles on Crusader castles and fortified monasteries, a Battle Orders title on Samurai armies, an Elite on Hatamoto and a handful of our bigger coffee table sized books. He has also been one of the leading authors breaking new ground in our new series titles over the last couple of years - with Raid 6 The Samurai Capture a King - Okinawa 1609, Command 6 Toyotimi Hideyoshi and Weapon 5 Katana: The Samurai Sword.

In fact, pretty much the only series strand Stephen is yet to write in is our aviation series.

The next Osprey book by Stephen to hit shelves near you is another Raid title - Raid 23 The Revenge of the 47 Ronin: Edo 1703. I managed to get a sneak peak at the book earlier this week, and it looks set to be an absolute cracker, with some fabulous art from the likes of Johnny Shumate. But alongside all that is the rather cool fact that while Stephen was putting the finishing touches to this book, he was approached by Universal Pictures to work as an historical advisor on the forthcoming movie The 47 Ronin, starring Keanu Reeves.

Stephen has been sworn to secrecy - but has revealed a little bit of information on his own website.

By all accounts the film itself sounds like it is going to be a bit of a technical marvel, with rumours flying round the internet suggesting it is going to be filmed in ultra-realistic 3-d with huge battlescenes etc. Whatever happens with the film though - it is pretty cool that one of our authors has had a role to play in it!