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 Steve Parker about Shadowbreaker, his latest 40k release and the sequel to his much-loved novel Deathwatch. It’s available to pre-order right now, so check out the interview and get ready for another slice of epic Deathwatch action!
Without further ado, let’s get straight to the questions and Steve’s answers.
Track of Words: What’s the elevator pitch summary for Shadowbreaker?
Steve Parker: A direct sequel to my 2013 novel Deathwatch, Shadowbreaker is about the ultimate special forces and the shadowy figures that get to pull their strings. It’s about brotherhood and the struggle to balance personal honour, Chapter honour, and dark, often distasteful duty. It’s also about a missing Inquisitor, a planet under alien occupation, a dangerous secret project, and a lot more.
ToW: Without spoiling anything, who are the main characters and what do we need to know about them?
SP: The main characters are the Deathwatch Space Marines of the kill-team known as Talon Squad. Leading them is Talon Alpha – the troubled Death Spectres Codicier, Lyandro Karras – who always has his hands full dealing with the combat prodigies assigned to him, missions that are borderline unsurvivable, the unwanted interest of a powerful Warp entity, and his obligation to serve the Inquisitor handler known as Sigma, for whom he has little trust.
Everything you need to know going into Shadowbreaker is in the first book, Deathwatch [which you can read my review of here]. I strongly urge anyone reading this to dive into that before tackling the second book.
ToW: Where and when is it set?
SP: This story and its prequel are set in the last century of M41, just prior to the Imperium’s response to Hive Fleet Jormungandr. Most of the story this time plays out on a former Imperial world which was, centuries prior, isolated from the greater Imperium by a warp storm and is now part of the expanding t’au empire.
ToW: Is there anything that you’d recommend fans check out before reading this?
SP: I’ve mentioned the first book, of course, but there are also two short stories which readers might want to check out: Headhunted and Exhumed. Ultimately, these two shorts ended up not quite fitting into the official Talon Squad timeline as represented in the novels, but they were, for me, a great way to get to know my characters better before I started writing the first book.
ToW: It’s been a while since your last story featuring Talon Squad – how did it feel returning to these characters for another novel?
SP: I never left these characters, to be honest. Not really. Even before Deathwatch was published in 2013, I had verbally agreed to pitch at least one sequel. About one-quarter of the way through writing the first draft, however, I fell into very dark times in my personal life. In the three years that followed, I did my best to keep working on the book, but I was in no way able to give it the effort and attention it deserved, and I frequently faltered. Eventually, having fought and won my own personal battles, I was again able to devote myself properly to Talon Squad’s. I’m so happy that readers of the first book won’t have to wait any longer.
ToW: Why this story? What made you want to write this narrative in particular?
SP: I write the books that I want to read. It really is as simple as that. With my Deathwatch stories, I’m able to blend my love of spec ops/black ops, my love of the 40k milieu, and a writing style that has evolved naturally since my first story sale over ten years ago.
ToW: What were your main influences when writing this novel?
SP: The biggest influence for this one was a bit unusual: watching the preview trailer for the movie Zero Dark Thirty… with the sound off.
Not something I did deliberately.
I had been looking for Shadowbreaker’s story for a while, but nothing had jumped out at me. I was getting a bit worried by this point. I had some ideas, I’d even made a few attempts at opening chapters, but nothing was really hitting home. I just hadn’t had my “F***, yeah!” moment yet.
I know I don’t have a book until I’ve had that moment.
One day, while getting ready to watch a movie I’d rented, I let the trailers run on mute, half-watching, but not paying much attention to them. Suddenly, one of them jumped out and grabbed me. I was locked in. As I watched, the rest of the world dropped away, and the main thread of Shadowbreaker hit me in the face like a power fist.
My partner at the time, sitting next to me, asked, “What’s wrong? What happened?” and I told her, “I just got the story for the second book!”
It was like watching that trailer on mute somehow uploaded the story I was meant to write straight into my head. I can’t remember anything about the movie that followed. I just remember that moment.
ToW: How does the final product compare to your original concept? Has anything changed much from your first ideas?
SP: It’s about as close to the original concept as any of my work gets, which is to say pretty close. There were things I had to omit due to word count and pacing issues, but the book is better for that. By the end of the writing process, the final draft was still way over the agreed-upon word count, but there was nothing else that could have been cut without hurting the book, and my editor was very understanding. I did have to tone down a torture scene and rewrite a suicide bombing as something else due to editorial request, but neither edit hurt the story. Being censored makes me snarl a bit, but it’s part of the deal when you’re writing in someone else’s sandbox. I get that. Nevertheless, I still prefer to test the boundaries and be called out on it than to self-censor and write safe by default.
I guess that, at a few points in the course of the story, things did come up that I hadn’t foreseen, but that’s typical of my process. Writing for me is mostly a planned journey with occasional unexpected detours along the way. As I write, the characters will show me if there are places I didn’t know I needed to go.
ToW: What do you hope 40k fans will get out of this by the time they’ve finished it?
SP: I hope they read the last page and fall back in their chairs totally exhausted, but deeply satisfied, like I just smashed them in the gym for two hours straight then fed them a delicious, highly satiating meal.
ToW: Have you got plans for more Talon Squad stories to come?
SP: I think I’ll let the book answer that one for me.
***
I’d like to say a massive thank you to Steve for taking the time to answer these questions! I’m a massive fan of the Talon Squad stories, so I can’t wait to get hold of the new novel – I’ll do my best to get a review ready as soon as I can.
Click here to order Shadowbreaker on Amazon, or here to order the audiobook 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.