Welcome to this instalment of Rapid Fire, my ongoing series of quick interviews with 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 Mike Brooks about his first Black Library novel, a Warhammer 40,000 book called Rites of Passage which delves into the murky world of the Navigator Houses. It’s available to order in ebook, hardback and audiobook formats right now.
Let’s get straight to the questions and Mike’s answers.
Track of Words: What’s the elevator pitch summary for Rites of Passage?
Mike Brooks: A sarcastic old lady with a dodgy hip tries to solve murders and prevent planetary disaster while fending off heretic psykers, daemons, and her in-laws.
ToW: Without spoiling anything, who are the main characters and what do we need to know about them?
MB: The main character is undoubtedly Lady Chettamandey Brobantis, wife of the recently-deceased Novator Azariel of Navigator House Brobantis, and also the person who secretly orchestrated his death courtesy of a bribed Goliath pit-fighter during a visit to Necromunda. She’s highly intelligent, and politically ruthless when it comes to the shadow wars between and inside Navigator Houses, but she’s also a loyal Imperial citizen. She’s helped in her endeavours by her aide, Deshelle DuVoir, who as much as anything else helps to smooth over any friction caused by Chetta speaking her mind.
The antagonist is Radimir Niklau, a man who has a very particular set of skills, and a burning desire to cause harm to the Imperium.
ToW: Where and when is it set?
MB: It’s set in the Dark Imperium: the 13th Black Crusade has been thrown back and Guilliman is striding the stars again; and it’s mainly set on Vorlese, an affluent world just finishing its recovery from Abaddon’s attacks, and on which several Navigator Houses have mansions.
ToW: Is there anything that you’d recommend readers check out before starting this?
MB: My short story A Common Ground introduces Chetta, and documents exactly how she persuaded the Goliath Jaxx to kill her husband.
ToW: What appeals to you about Navigators as characters to write about?
MB: They’re not combatants.
I don’t mind writing combat: I’d be a poor fit for Black Library otherwise, and I feel that one of my strengths as a writer is action sequences. However, the appeal of Chetta is that she’s quite old and rather frail. She’s not a super-soldier: she’s basically got one chance to take a cheap shot at you, and if that misses then you or I could take her down. So when she’s dealing with the various perils that the 41st Millennium throws her way, she needs to have options other than leaping heroically into combat to save the day single-handedly. I found it really intriguing to write a Black Library story with a main character who has to succeed through intellect, not martial prowess.
There’s also the fact that Navigators are fascinating in terms of their influence and being almost omnipresent. There is virtually nowhere that humanity has been in the galaxy that Navigators have not been as well: that’s how the Imperium gets around! So the Navigator Houses are truly vital, and their reach is everywhere, but they try to keep that well-hidden. They’re shadowy figures who control an awful lot more than most people realise.
ToW: Why this story? Of all the possible stories you could have written about these characters, what made you go for this one?
MB: That’s a difficult question to answer without giving too much away, but because of the nature of the protagonist I needed a story that involved intellect, so political manoeuvring and an almost murder-mystery feel was the obvious choice. However, I still needed to have my main character out of her element, so she’s stuck raging against the system at points: she’s hugely influential, but a lot of that is through bribes, blackmail, political alliances and economic pressure. She can’t just demand that something be done and it happen.
In the same way, Radimir Niklau isn’t an all-powerful enemy. He has certain talents that make him a very, very dangerous man in some respects, but if he doesn’t find ways to stack the deck in his favour then he’s still vulnerable. One of the things I enjoyed most is that he aligns himself with a cult, but the cult is… not exactly what he was hoping for.
Some of Mike’s other great Black Library stories.
ToW: We haven’t seen much from the perspective of Navigator Houses before, so did this give you the opportunity to really develop the background to these intriguing characters?
MB: Yes! I made up one or two things that Black Library just waved through, and so I guess they’re part of Navigator canon now. One of the aspects of writing in this sort of environment was that there was so little extant lore (and some of what there is was Rogue Trader-era, and didn’t necessarily still fit), so I had a lot more free rein than I’d have had if I was writing Space Marines, or Astra Militarum.
ToW: Where do you look for influences when writing this sort of book, which is away from the usual 40k battlefields?
MB: I initially pitched it to Black Library as “Game of Thrones in space”, and while it’s a) shorter, b) finished, c) less complicated, and d) has less incest (read: none, just to be clear), that’s the sort of feel I was going for. There’s death, and murder, but it’s less about open warfare and more about knives in corridors.
ToW: What do you hope 40k fans will get out of this by the time they’ve finished it?
MB: Something a bit different to usual, I guess! Maybe an insight into some of the stuff that can be going on away from the battlegrounds, and that even the choices of more ‘ordinary’ people can still have a huge impact on how events unfold.
ToW: Do you have plans to continue any aspects of this story, or is it a standalone piece?
I’m not currently under contract to write anything further featuring any of these characters (although if I was, I couldn’t tell you because I’d be under a non-disclosure agreement…). However, it’s fair to say that not everyone dies in this novel, and while this novel is a standalone in that the main thread of this story ends in the final chapter, I’m certainly not averse to the idea of picking up with one or more of the survivors at some point in the future. However, recently I’ve been busy with [REDACTED] for Black Library and also writing an epic fantasy trilogy of my own for Orbit! No rest for the wicked, and all that…
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I’d like to say a big thank you to Mike for taking the time to answer these questions! I’m sure I won’t be the only one to be very excited about getting hold of this book and exploring such an intriguing story – I’ll make sure to get a review ready as soon as I can.
Click here to buy Rites of Passage.
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.
Listening to the audiobook now. It’s everything the author said. Bravo!