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 Black Library author John French about Divinations, the latest book in his Horusian Wars series. This time it’s a short story anthology (about which I’m very excited – I love short stories), featuring no fewer than 11 stories. It’s available to order right now in hardback and ebook formats!
Let’s get straight to the questions and John’s answers.
ToW: What’s the elevator pitch summary for Divination?
John French: What kind of people serve the Inquisition and why do they do it? Here are some answers. Truth and nobility of purpose may vary.
ToW: Without spoiling anything, can you talk a bit about the main characters featured in these stories?
JF: The stories are really about Inquisitor Covenant’s retinue and associates, and giving you close insight into a few of them: Viola Von Castellan, the efficient mistress who runs her family’s trade dynasty; her brother Cleander Von Castellan, who is a laughing rogue with a devil-may-care mask and something much darker beneath; Glavius-4-Rho, the disgraced and guilt-ridden tech priest; Severita, the Sister Repentia whose only peace is her skill at arms; Mylasa, a psyker who eats the memories of others but is supposed to have no memories of her own; Koleg, a specialist soldier, who can remember his past but feels nothing; Preacher Josef, whose faith manages to somehow stay true in a universe that is coming apart; and Idris, an Inquisitor who has seen what it is to be a saint.
ToW: The title of this anthology – Divination – and the titles of the short stories all refer to the Imperial Tarot, is that right? What was the thinking behind that?
JF: They do! I’ve always been fascinated by the Imperial Tarot, and its many variations. It’s probably because of Ian Watson’s original Inquisition Wars trilogy and the role and appearance of the tarot in those stories. I just liked the idea of looking at the characters as if they were an archetype, an expression of a subtle principle in the universe of Warhammer 40,000: the Maiden of the Dream, the Blessing of Saints, the Son of Sorrows. It also goes back to the Inquisitor game and retinues where the base type of characters were supposed to be archetypes. Art also played a role; a lot of the stories and their titles were inspired by John Blanche’s art.
ToW: How have you planned out these stories? Did you know what you were going to write about each of the characters before you wrote the novels?
JF: In some cases I knew absolutely what I wanted to write about a character, Mylasa in The Maiden of the Dream for example; I knew that her own identity was a patchwork quilt of other’s memories. With other characters I was discovering more about them as I wrote the story. That’s what happened with Cleander Von Castellan in The Knave of Stars; I didn’t know about his family, and what his past meant to him until it started coming out into the story.
ToW: Are these primarily character pieces, designed to help readers get to know the cast better, or do they contribute to the ongoing narrative of the series?
JF: They are mainly character pieces, though there are threads of plot and motifs that lock into the main narrative in the novels: Inquisitors Argento and Idris, the nature of saints and the Emperor, the Desolate City… there are things in here that point to where the story will conclude in Abomination. A few of the stories also give connective tissue between the novels and other series. The Thief of Chalices tells you about some of what went on between Resurrection and Incarnation. The Purity of Ignorance gives you an origin story for Ianthe from the Agent of the Throne audio drama series.
ToW: What will readers get out of these stories that they won’t get if they just read the novels?
JF: Another way of looking at the main characters and why they are the way they are, not changing what happens but how you might look at the story, particularly if you re-read the books and stories. It’s a thing that I’ve been trying to do with the series as a whole: it’s about layers and levels and connections that change the deeper you go.
ToW: Did you write any of these stories specifically to go into the anthology, or have they all been collected from previously-published stories?
JF: I wrote The Thief of Chalices, The Father of Faith, and The Knave of Stars specially for this anthology, and to round out Covenant’s associates.
ToW: Do you have a favourite character out of Covenant’s warband, or a specific story you’re particularly proud of?
JF: Mylassa and Viola Von Castellan are such fun to write – the first because she is an enigma who walks in thoughts and dreams, and the second because there are just so many angles and contradictions about her. I think I might be most proud of The Mistress of Threads, in part because the technical challenge of doing a gothic epistolary tale set in the far future was really fun and I think it came out well.
ToW: How do these stories fit in with the timeline of your Horusian Wars series? Do you have a recommended reading order for all of them together?
JF: Almost all of them are set before the events of Resurrection and Incarnation, and can be read in almost any order. I did a few different arrangements of the story order in Divination, and you get slightly different effects from different juxtapositions. I settled on one that I thought gave the most interesting contrasts between characters. The only story that happens further along in the timeline is The Thief of Chalices which is placed in between Resurrection and Incarnation.
ToW: Will these be the final Horusian Wars short stories or do you think you’ll write more in future?
JF: There will be more. There are a couple of characters I think deserve their own card in the deck, and I’m sure their time will come when I get into rounding off the series with Abomination.
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Thanks as always to John for taking the time to answer these questions and talk about Inquisitor Covenant and his companions! If you haven’t already, you can find links to all of my reviews for stories in the Horusian Wars series right here. Keep an eye out for my review of Divination just as soon as I’ve been able to get hold of a copy.
Click this link to buy Divination.
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.