RAPID FIRE: Gav Thorpe Talks The Red Feast

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 Gav Thorpe about his new pre-Age of Sigmar novel, The Red Feast, which is available to order right now! It’s pleasantly surprising to see a book like this which explores an earlier point in the Age of Sigmar setting, so read on to find out more about what you can expect…

Track of Words: How would you describe your new novel The Red Feast?

Gav Thorpe: An epic fantasy based in the Age of Myth that came before the Age of Sigmar charting the rise of one of the most infamous warlords of the new setting.

ToW: Without spoiling anything, who are the main characters and what do we need to know about them?

GT: The primary character is Athol, representative of the Khul, a warrior tribe allied to the Aridians, one of the great peoples of the Flamescar Plateau. We follow Threk too, belligerent son of the Ashen King of the Skullbrands, and also an insane figure living in the wilderness known as the painter.

ToW: This is set in the time before the Age of Sigmar – what do we need to know about this time, and how is it different to the ‘current’ period of the setting?

GT: Yes, this is the Age of Myth, before Chaos invaded the Realms and forced Sigmar to eventually retreat to the Celestial Realm. The Chaos Gods are trying to gain a foothold in the mortal realms, unable to act directly and so forced to subtly influence potential mortal followers. Sigmar’s reign holds sway over the humans of the realms, allied to the other gods.

ToW: Why this story? What made you want to write a pre-Age of Sigmar story about one of the big baddies of the setting?

GT: It was a great opportunity to delve into the earliest times of a character [Korghos Khul, FYI] well established in the contemporary setting, whose exploits have been mentioned but never covered since the arrival of the Stormcast. As with Malekith for The Sundering in Warhammer, this is a way of looking at some of the oldest events that shaped the world as it would become, in particular how one of the greatest villains came to be how they are in the present day.

ToW: Is there anything that you’d recommend fans read – either beforehand or afterwards – to get the most out of this book?

GT: Nope, this is the start of a brand new series and it should be self-explanatory.

ToW: It’s a little unusual to have a Warhammer story set so far back from the main timeline – what were the challenges or benefits in exploring a time before all of the familiar factions and characters are around?

GT: The biggest challenges came from the timing – both the Age of Sigmar book and the Blades of Khorne battletome were being rewritten as I was working on the novel. This meant that my initial plans had to be adjusted as the history of the Great Parch was fleshed out, and some events and characters were presented in a slightly different light. Basically, we went from almost nothing at all to a cool bunch of history that I had to fit the story into.

ToW: What did you draw from for influences when planning and writing this?

GT: There are a few ideas thrown into the Khul as a nomadic, militarised culture, with elements of a vassal/ally people. So I drew from the Spartans, Huns, Mongols and a few others. The remarkable thing is that in Age of Sigmar the Bloodbound have no cavalry (you can get allied horsemen, but no mounted equivalent of Blood Reavers) so I took that as a cue and created this roaming culture that, unlike most in our world, doesn’t have horses. The greatest inspiration for that was pre-horse Plains Indians culture from North America. There’s also a nod to the idea of the Varangian Guard (Norse mercenaries in the Byzantine army) with this alien society slowly being incorporated into the political sphere of the Aridians, and Flamescar Plateau culture in general.

ToW: Your last Age of Sigmar novel – Warbeast – won the Gemmell Award. Does that give you additional confidence coming into this project? Or pile on the pressure?

GT: It’s a very different beast… Age of Sigmar was very shiny and new and Warbeast was very focussed on the Stormcast. Although the series was tied to the Realmgate Wars narrative I was given a lot of freedom – Stormcast fighting Pestilens over a realmgate, but that was it. In contrast, there has been quite a bit written now about Korghos Khul and the Great Parch. Despite that, it feels like I have a much bigger canvas to play with for this series. An arc that stretches back through the Age of Chaos to the Age of Myth gives me plenty of elbow room, even if certain key events have been firmly established. It’s really to explore the story between those well known incidents that I took on the series.

ToW: What do you hope Age of Sigmar fans will get out of this by the time they’ve finished it?

GT: More understanding not only of the Khul and the rise of the Bloodbound but a window onto the wider coming of Chaos. A bit like the Horus Heresy or the Sundering, the series is underpinned by this tragic sense of knowing where things are headed. I hope also that the slightly monolithic, image-driven view of the Bloodbound will be broken up a little, with some texture and nuance (not too much, they are all bloodthirsty Khorne worshippers, after all!).

ToW: The cover describes this as ‘Book One of the Khul’ – what can we expect from the series as a whole?

GT: I’m not entirely sure yet! I had an original plan that took us right up to the moment the Stormcast arrive, but given how The Red Feast has fleshed out, that may be a stretch in three books. There’s a war that’s been set up in book one, and a bunch of historical stuff that is detailed in the Age of Sigmar and Blades of Khorne books, and there’s also a sub-plot storyline for Threx Skullbrand in particular, but how it all fits together is something to be worked out…

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Thanks Gav! As always I’m hugely grateful to Gav for taking the time to answer these questions, and I can’t wait to read The Red Feast. My copy is on order, so as soon as I’ve got my hands on that and found time to read it, I’ll get a review written and ready to go.

Click here to order The Red Feast.

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