Horus Heresy Weekender - Part Three

Day One: 7^th February (continued)

Blades of the Traitor

My struggle to describe who John French exactly looks like continued. Here I’ve scribbled: “Matt Damon. That’s what John French looks like. Matt Damon in some Daniel Day-Lewis method acting nightmare.” That seems weirdly insulting, but I think it’s mean as a compliment?

The seminar started with each author of the stories in the ‘Blades of the Traitor’ anthology describing their stories.

Chris Wraight described ‘Daemonology’ as a look at Mortarion’s psyche. He really enjoys writing for Mortarion – the character has a long way to go before he gets to his ultimate destination, but it’s an interesting journey. He also loves, in particular, the Primarch origin stories, and what the Emperor and Malcador had hoped for – perhaps misguidedly – when ‘making’ the Primarchs.

John French kind of repeated what he’d said in the Tallarn seminar about ‘Black Oculus’ (and I kind of zoned out, since I already read that story) but he did smirk that the story was “pretty trippy” which I got a kick out of.

Guy Haley described ‘Twisted’ as showing Maloghurst in “an exciting new light” but then noted that was what celebrities often said about ad campaigns where they model lingerie. It’s nothing like that. Apparently more than Maloghurst is described by the title. The Vengeful Spirit, the Sons of Horus legion, the Warmaster himself – all of them are becoming warped by the insidious influences brought into Horus’ side in this war. Guy characterised this as a “political manoeuvring story” which really piqued my interest.

Nick Kyme started his section with a debate on the pronunciation of his story’s title, ‘Chirurgeon’. It’s about Fabius, post-‘Angel Exterminatus’, post-‘Imperfect’, but it also ties in to the Great Crusade-era of the Legion. He described it as “unpleasant”.

Graham McNeill told us that ‘Wolf Mother’ is a follow-up to ‘Vengeful Spirit’, concerning the ship of refugees Horus let escape Molech. He’d wanted to write more about Slaaneshi cult debauches – “they’re fun and inspirational for all the family” – but for reasons of space, he had to leave them out of the novel, so what better place than a short story to explore them further?

Q&A

Q: As there’s a strong traitor theme to this anthology, were there any other traitor characters you would have liked to write about?

A: Graham: Loves writing about Lucius, but he’s already a pretty major character in The Crimson King. He likes Lucius a lot. You would have expected that guy to have embraced Slaaneshi excess more fully than any of his Legion, but in a lot of ways he’s keeping the disciplined spirit of the Emperor’s Children alive.

John: Would have liked to have explored the Davinite Priesthood more – we’re seeing more overt Chaos/warp stuff now, and it would have been good to fit something in to that.

Nick: Happy to keep working on Fabius, as he’d enjoyed writing about him in ‘Imperfect’. He’d like to write some more Conrad Kurze, but knowing where that arc is going next, there’s not really room to do more about him. (So, could we be seeing a direct sequel to Conrad's predicament at the end of ‘Unremembered Empire’ in the near future?) There was also a temptation to write an Erebus story, but there was a worry that he’d become a bit overexposed.

Chris: Would really like to write about Typhon, or perhaps Ahriman/Magnus – he likes the idea of tackling the ‘second in command’ dynamic. He’s interested in writing the Third Legion as well, Fabius or Lucius in particular – Chris tends to be quite keen on the good guys side, though.

Guy: Again, Typhon is a fascinating character as he’s so arrogant and overreaching and it all goes horribly wrong for him. Guy really likes bad guy stories in general – Maloghurst was chosen for him as a topic this time as there were key issues BL wanted addressed around the character.

Q: And who don’t you want to write? (OH SHIT! SOMEONE FLIPPED THE SCRIPT!)

A: Nick: Alpharius. There’s been a bit too much time in the sun for that guy! When a character becomes so widely written about it’s really hard to find a new angle without making up weird, outlandish stuff.

John: Garro. Jim’s stamp is on that character so deep that it would probably feel strange to write about him. It wouldn’t be easy to do your own version without wrecking something!

Graham: Pretty much nobody. If someone else has done the character really well, then it might give him pause – but maybe not, as he can view that as a challenge, like the Knight Errant stuff being so heavily associated with Jim and them Graham putting them in ‘Vengeful Spirit’.

Guy: Again, Garro. But that aversion does really make him want to give it a try.

Chris: Alpharius – he doesn’t feel that he has a handle on that character, which is why he didn’t put POV Alpha Legion stuff into ‘Scars’. He also doesn’t think he’d make a good Night Lord writer as he’s too reasonable!

Q: Do you feel possessive of your characters?

Guy: The HH characters I write belong to the series, they belong to all of the writers who take part. Having said that, he’d really like to do some more stuff for Lucretius Corvo (‘The Laurel of Defiance’), but he doesn’t necessarily want to lock that character down forever.

John: Wouldn’t want one of the arcs he’s writing taken over – but individual characters are pretty much OK. It was quite hard to let Polux go, though! It can be a bit like comic book writing. Characters are going to change arc to arc as different people write them.

Chris: There are huge characters which you just have to accept you will never get sole writing privileges for, but then there are smaller characters who you feel a bit more ownership of. For example, Chris would really like to write all of Arvida’s stuff (but then I think he said that Arvida might show up in ‘The Crimson King’, so I guess he didn’t get his wish?).

Graham: You need to be very possessive and attached to them while you’re actually writing them – but you shouldn’t necessarily feel that way all the time, you need to let other writers in and not shut them out.

Q: Which two characters in the Heresy series would you most like to write a confrontation between?

Nick: Has kind of already done his ideal one, Vulkan and Kurze. He enjoyed writing it and though their psychological games were quite subtly done, but it seems people only compliment him on the bit where Vulkan beats the shit out of Kurze with a giant hammer!

Graham: Also has kind of done his ideal one – the one he bagsied in the first Heresy meeting, Fulgrim and Ferrus. The most satisfying one to write was the memorable scene in Perturabo’s workshop where he smashes Fulgrim’s face.

Guy: The Emperor versus Horus! “But they’d never let me do it.” He does have a great one coming up between Kurze and someone else.

Chris: He likes this idea, as even the Primarchs have “who would win?” conversations (see ‘Scars’). He’d maybe like to do a confrontation between the two unknown Primarchs (that got a big laugh).

John: Malcador versus Magnus in the psychic realm having a battle of wills, or Guilliman and Dorn post-Heresy.

Q: How do you decide how the Primarchs relate to each other, ie, which ones get on or hate each other?

A: Graham: Some are planned long in advance, some end up as quite surprising. For example, you might not expect Magnus and Perturabo to be close. This lead to Graham doing a great impression of Magnus patronising the Lord of Iron – “Oooh, there’s little Perturabo. Oooh, he wants to build things. Isn’t that nice?”

John: Yeah, it doesn’t always make sense which Primarchs get on, but then, that’s a lot like real life – why people like or dislike each other isn’t always predictable and rational.

Chris: He spoke about the Khan and Russ’ mutual dislike – he thought it was an interesting twist; not hate, but antipathy. He was also really fascinated by the Khan and Magnus’ link when it was mentioned in ‘A Thousand Sons’, and built on that. He would absolutely love to do more on Horus’ relationships in general: was he really the universally loved figure we are told about, and if so, why?

Guy: He’s drawn to relationships – not necessarily friendly – of Primarchs who are mirrors to each other. Dorn/Perturabo, Kurze/Sanguinius, or Kurze/Vulkan for example.

Q: Ever going to do anything about the missing Primarchs?

A: (crickets chirping, barely perceptible sound of several authors and most of the fans in attendance rolling their eyes)

Q: Do you dislike any of the Primarchs as people?

A: John: All of them are pretty awful! Kurze is probably the worst.

New Models

The hall was filled up pretty quickly by a fairly boisterous, enthusiastic crowd, reinforcing the impression I was getting that more people here cared about the HH miniatures than the HH novels. There was a presentation that was fairly packed with new model releases, which we were told should mostly be out over the next few months, in time for the Warhammer World opening (the first of many times we were told to buy tickets for this other event). As well as the models I’d already seen in the ‘Flesh and Steel’ seminar, there were such upcoming releases as:

-Solar Auxiia Stormhammer (big, giant tank)

-Reaver Titan weapons such as a Volcano Cannon and Chainfist

-The Primus Redoubt Gun, a piece of fixed artillery so big it will come with its own scenery tile

-Thunderhawk landing pad

-Word Bearers tainted ‘Mhara Gal’ dreadnought (This was featured in the event programme and had some pretty interesting background, seeming to be some nameless Gal Vorbak warrior who was horribly wounded at Isstvan V – could be just some random guy, but wouldn’t it be a kick if they brought back Xaphen or one of Argel Tal’s other buddies?). This was a beautiful/horrible model.

-Raven Guard upgrade packs – MKVI armour heads, shoulderpads, torsos, command section extras

-Space Marine Deredeo Dreadnought, a ‘heavy artillery’ version of the dreadnought

-Solar Auxilia Rapier-style tracked platforms with various heavy weapons

-Alexis Polux of the Imperial Fists (and Crimson Fists)

-Armillius Dynat of the Alpha Legion (while this was the AL special character I was least intrigued by in ‘Extermination’, I have to admit this model looked amazing – really hope they do an Exodus model though)

-Samus, Ruinstorm Daemon Prince

-Xiphon interceptor (Space Marine flyer)

-Stormbird (This looks really great, absolutely massive – a Rhino can fit in the back. People completely freaked out over this model.)

I'm sure there are loads of pictures out there of all this stuff, since as soon as a new slide went up, people threw up their phones for the snappy-snaps. BUT PURPLE HERESY DON'T ROLL THAT WAY, YO.

Q&A

Forge World would like to do a model for every character they write rules for in the books. All the Primarchs will be done, with some being done more than once as the traitor Primarchs change. Sadly Ferrus won’t be done again (so there’s no hope of a ‘zombie Ferrus’ model for you to recreate ‘Imperfect’ or ‘Vulkan Lives’ with). Even older characters from book 1 like Tarvitz, Rylanor, etc, would be nice to do, time and resources permitting.

There will probably be a Garro model eventually.

Rapier-style tracked platforms will come out for the Legions.

The Ultramarines will be the next to get shoulderpads/upgrades (I assume this is after the Raven Guard).

Prospero Book One (when it comes) will most likely feature both Wolves and Thousand Sons. They probably won’t be in different books. (This leaves me wondering what will be in Book Two of Prospero? Custodes and Sisters of Silence?)

There are lots of plans for the Knight range, and there are more variants on the way, along with more heavy/elite classes of Knight.

Q: Will you put out a Warlord Titan model?

A: These are about twice the size of the Reaver Titan, which is already a very big model. But maybe. Maybe.

Q: Will you put out more female models?

A: We’d like to – there may be opportunities to put out female Rogue Trader, Solar Auxilia or Mechanicum models, for example.

 Meet The Creators

The last thing that happened on Day One was the ‘Meet the Creators’ seminar. I spent pretty much a whole hour talking to Chris Wraight, who is super nice and didn’t seem terrified by my enthusiasm for his books. I’m just going to throw out the key points I gleaned from our conversation.

I got things started with the question I've rhetorically asked a few times on this blog: whether there’d be a Death Guard novel from him anytime soon, since he was so keen on Mortarion and Typhon’s stories. He doesn’t anticipate there being a full length Death Guard book in the Heresy series, apart from the one dealing with the Fall of the Death Guard in the Warp on the way to Terra, and that will most likely be near the end of the series. Since it’s so far off he’s not sure who’d write it, but he’d love for that to be one of his – and to continue dealing with the Death Guard and Mortarion in the HH in general as he sees the Death Lord as an interesting character. However, he doesn’t think he’ll be writing about Typhon anytime soon as Gav is writing about Typhon at the moment (my guess: Gav’s forthcoming Dark Angel work will heavily feature Typhon as an antagonist – see ‘The Lion’).

He normally takes five months to write a Heresy book – Warhammer Fantasy novels are shorter to write, often because the story has been planned out extensively beforehand. He’d love to take a full year to write a massive doorstop of a novel, but he doesn’t think Black Library want a book like that from him – he also finds the deadline helpful in some ways, because if it wasn’t there, he’d just keep writing and writing. For example, he wanted to follow more of the plot strands in ‘Scars’ all the way to their conclusion, but he thinks it works well with some of them being cut short.

Speaking of which, Chris has written a novella about the Space Wolves immediately after ‘Scars’ – in other words, an Alaxxes novella. It’s finished, and he hopes it’ll be put out this year. He’s also just started a novel following up ‘Scars’, and he thinks it’ll be finished this year, though perhaps not published. (He implied that Hibou Khan’s story post-‘Little Horus’ may be a significant part of it.) Once that’s done, he’d like to write a follow-up to the 40k Space Wolves book ‘Stormbringer’, and I think he may have said there’s more End Times stuff coming, though I’m not sure about that.

When asked about the upcoming release schedule for the Horus Heresy, Chris was quite forthcoming, and told me that yes, as far as he knows, ‘Deathfire’ by Nick Kyme and ‘The Crimson King’ by Graham McNeill are next on the release schedule. He also said he thought Guy Haley was writing an Imperium Secundus novel which might come out after that, though he advised I’d need to speak to Guy to get any more information on that. (Sadly, I didn’t get a chance to speak to Guy at all, but that sounds pretty cool!) He also complimented Guy’s incredible work ethic and said it’s almost annoying how prolific he is.

I asked about the ‘Librarius threesome’ of Sanguinius, the Khan and Magnus the Red. He’d explored the relationship between Jaghatai and Magnus, but how did he see Sanguinius and the Khan’s relationship? Chris said he didn’t see them as being close, as the Khan may have been a little disapproving of the Angel’s popularity/position at the centre of things. Chris is a big Blood Angels fan, though, and would love to see more books featuring the IX Legion as central characters, though he’s not sure he’ll get to write one.

He really enjoys the Forge World books and would like to help write the background when they eventually get to the White Scars – but he knows Forge World have a lot of writers already.

If he wasn’t writing for Black Library, he’d probably try writing high fantasy, though there are a few other genres he’d like to try out.

I think that’s pretty much it… Thanks Chris, it was pretty cool meeting one of my favourite authors and having them be a straight-up normal person. Whew! With that, the schedule for the first day of the Heresy Weekender was pretty much over.

Bonus round

In the buffet queue, I managed to speak briefly to Graham McNeill, and ask if there would be a lot of Primarchs in ‘The Crimson King’. He said probably not, as it would mostly focus on Magnus. However, Lucius will feature heavily – the conflict between Lucius and Sanakht is far from resolved. He compared their relationship to the Dread Pirate Roberts in ‘The Princess Bride’ – “Well, goodbye for now. Next time I see you, I’ll probably kill you.” Lucius also needs to continue his quest for answers: why didn’t he stay dead once Sharrowkyn killed him? (Following ‘The Eternal Blade’, I’m eager to see how this progresses.) I did want to ask Graham more, like “If there are no Primarchs in ‘The Crimson King’ but Magnus, why did Alpharius say that thing in ‘The Serpent Beneath’?” and also “You killed pretty much all the Thousand Sons’ power elite, are you adding some more guys?” but I didn’t get a chance – never mind.

I had a fairly bizarre situation while eating, as I sat next to James Swallow and we talked about Primarch penises. Odd.

The legendary Heresy Weekender evening entertainment was almost underway when I decided I would get an early night and fortify myself for day two. PEACE OUT, HERESY FANS - Til next time.