Welcome to this instalment of Rapid Fire, my ongoing series of quick interviews with Black Library authors talking about their new releases. These are short and sweet interviews, with the idea being that each author will answer (more or less) the same questions – by the end of each interview I hope you will have a good idea of what the new book (or audio drama) is about, what inspired it and why you might want to read or listen to it.
In this instalment I spoke to Alec Worley about his new Warhammer Horror audio drama, Perdition’s Flame, which is available to order right now! It’s Alec’s first Black Library audio drama, and one of the first few Warhammer Horror releases to land, so I’m really excited about this one.
Without further ado, let’s get straight to the questions and Alec’s answers.
Track of Words: What’s the elevator pitch summary for Perdition’s Flame?
Alec Worley: A disgraced Vostroyan Firstborn realises that a dreadful presence haunts the ship carrying him to the Penal Legions. Now he must convince his captor – the sceptical Captain Brandon – to take action before ancient horrors consume them all!
ToW: Without spoiling anything, who are the main characters and what do we need to know about them?
AW: Our hero is Marko Vossk of the 86th Vostroyan Firstborn. He’s a deserter bound for the Penal Legion and narrates his tale before a guttering campfire directly to YOU, his rescuer! I wanted the story to have that classic set-up of someone telling a ghost story as wind howls outside and the rain rattles at the window like bony fingers…
His story involves Captain Brandon, a Praetorian Guard Captain and Vossk’s jailer. She’s this iron-willed, stubborn, by-the-book straight arrow who believes in loyalty and duty above all else. Essentially, she’s Vossk before he was broken by his experiences. She detests selfishness and cowardice, and so despises Vossk from the get-go.
Then there’s the eccentric Inquisitor Herryn, who I imagined as Hannibal Lector as played by either Tilda Swinton or David Bowie!
ToW: Where and when is it set?
AW: The story’s set right now in M42, though it’s isolated from all the current events like Vigilus and wotnot.
ToW: Why this story? What made you want to write this in particular?
AW: I wanted to write a scary audio drama, something really creepy and unnerving. I’ve done this sort of thing in comics and prose, which both employ very different techniques when it comes to creating suspense and spookiness. I wanted to see what I could do with audio in terms of sound effects and such. Because it’s a non-visual medium, you get to play with different techniques, like holding back information, whispering in the listener’s ear, and creating a more sensual kind of texture to the whole thing. It’s so much more intimate and immediate. I also wanted to dig into some of the more obscure 40k lore – the kind of weird, off-beat stuff I’ve always loved.
ToW: What were your main influences when writing it?
AW: A lot of classic ghost story writers, specifically J. Sheridan Le Fanu, M.R. James, E.F. Benson, Shirley Jackson and F. Marion Crawford. (The ship is named after a haunted steamship in Crawford’s short story The Upper Berth). I wanted to try and employ their techniques in building atmosphere. I also drew a lot on my favourite David Lynch movies like Eraserhead, Lost Highway and Fire Walk With Me. Oh, and there’s this Swedish band called Desiderii Marginis, which I found on Spotify who’ve got this amazingly weird and atmospheric sound. I put a lot of samples from these guys and Lynch’s Eraserhead soundtrack into the script as reference.
ToW: What are your thoughts on the new Warhammer Horror range that this is part of – how do you think Warhammer (whether 40k or Age of Sigmar) and horror fit together?
AW: It’s bringing a whole new focus to the universe, I think. Deepening it and exploring it from a different, more intimate angle. Gothic and Lovecraftian horror is already baked into the fluff, for sure, but the vast majority of Black Library stories are designed to be Wagnerian action sagas not small-scale Wes Craven-type scarefests. Warhammer Horror gives the opportunity to view the universe as if you were living in it. The grimdark is an utter hellhole, we know. But what would it be like to actually live there, a vulnerable human being with all these horrors waiting round the corner to slurp your face off and wipe their bum with your soul!? For me, it’s about viewing the material from a different angle. You’re playing a different tune on the same instrument.
ToW: How did knowing that this was going to be a Warhammer Horror story change the way you approached it, compared to previous 40k stories?
AW: I didn’t actually know it was going to be a Warhammer Horror story! I don’t think they’d even announced the series when I wrote it. I wanted to take a stab at writing an audio script and I tend to gravitate towards horror and the spookier side of things – either that or swashbuckling fantasy – so I figured I’d write a ghost story.
ToW: How does the final product compare to your original concept? Has anything changed much from your first ideas?
AW: I’ve got the CD, but I haven’t listened to it yet. Terrible, I know. I will do, but not for a while. I’m the same with comics. It’s weird. I don’t know what I’m afraid of, as Black Library’s audio team and the performers are always phenomenal! I was blown away by what they did with Guy Haley’s Prophets of Waaagh! and David Annadale’s Judge of the Wastes, which I heard months after handing in the script to Perdition’s Flame and is a way better ghost story than I could ever write. So simple and suspenseful. Just brilliant!
ToW: How does this story compare to the rest of your work? Is it a familiar style, or a departure?
AW: I’ve written a lot of horror and had just come off a super-hardgore blood and gore horror project and wanted to do something a bit more subtle. In terms of characters maybe, I don’t know. I don’t think I’ve written anything before where I’ve had such an immediate relationship between two characters, the two of them in each others’ faces the whole time. But that’s the beauty of writing audio, I guess. I’ve just finished another audio project that dispenses with narration altogether and the characters’ back and forth is even more intense. Setting up characters like that, winding them up and then just letting them crash into each other is just great.
ToW: What do you hope 40k fans will get out of this by the time they’ve finished it?
AW: I hope they get a little spooked and a little… surprised!
ToW: Do you have plans to continue any aspects of this story, or is it a standalone piece?
AW: Ooooh! Can’t say… But thanks so much for having me on here, Michael!
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Massive thanks to Alec for taking the time to answer these questions! I don’t know about you but I think Perdition’s Flame sounds brilliant, and I can’t wait to listen to it. I’ll try to get a review ready as soon as I can.
Click here to order Perdition’s Flame on Audible.
Click here if you fancy taking a look at some other Rapid Fire interviews. If you’ve got any questions, comments or other thoughts please do let me know in the comments below, or on Facebook or Twitter.