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 Alec Worley about his new Warhammer Horror audio drama The Watcher in the Rain, which is available to pre-order now from Black Library. It’s Alec’s second BL audio drama, and promises to be a gripping listen!
Let’s get straight to the questions and Alec’s answers, to find out more.
Track of Words: What’s the elevator pitch summary for The Watcher in the Rain?
Alec Worley: In order to escape a haunted city, an Imperial Agent must cooperate with the very woman he was sent to capture.
ToW: Without spoiling anything, who are the main characters and what do we need to know about them?
AW: The story’s a two-hander between an Imperial Interrogator called Steffan Crucius and a lowly Munitorum scribe named Greta Vern. In designing the characters, you’re trying to build in all those contrasts that will push the story along. So with Crucius, he’s this creature of ruthless logic who believes nothing is beyond his reach, while Greta is this highly strung desk jockey who’s cracking up under the pressure of working for the Administratum.
I kinda saw Crucius as this Patrick Bateman-like executive, swaggering through life like the untouchable son of a CEO. He’s apprenticed to a legendarily cruel Inquisitor, who’s taught him a lot of nasty – and yet entirely necessary – habits. Poor Greta, on the other hand, has been driven to despair by the grinding monotony of her duties. Imagine having a live-in data-entry job for over ten years with no free time, no friends or family, and no hope of escape!
ToW: Where and when is it set?
AW: It’s set in current 40k on an Administratum world where it’s peeing down with rain the whole time. And to make matters worse, it’s about to be cut off by an approaching Warpstorm. The exodus ships leave Steffan and Greta behind by mistake and they now have to find their way out before they’re stranded forever. But there’s something following them… something neither of them want to admit is even there…
ToW: What appeals to you about horror stories in particular to write?
AW: Horror’s one of my favourite genres. Always has been. So I watch and read a lot of this stuff and am always picking up new ways in which to make the reader or listener feel creeped out. This is really hard to do, I think. It takes a real mastery of technique to pull off, say, a movie like The Shining or a book like House on the Borderland. So trying out those techniques or adapting them to another medium, or putting a new spin on them is always a big draw for me.
I guess it’s a good creative outlet if your head is somewhere in that space anyway. I’ve always felt the world is chaos, we’re only one meal away from anarchy, etc. So horror’s a great place to explore those thoughts, to put those ideas into characters and set them off against each other.
ToW: Why this story? Of all the possible stories you could have written, what made you want to write this one?
AW: What I really love about writing audio is that there’s such an emphasis on dialogue, even more so than in comics. I guess it’s more akin to something like theatre where the characters can just gnaw at each other’s psyches. Having solid, well-designed characters is the backbone of any story, and I’m really enjoying doing these where you can just take two or three people and spend the whole time getting inside their heads. It’s especially so with horror as you get that lovely download spiral as everyone falls to pieces. Bwahahahaha!
For this too, I wanted to do something where you personify an element, in this case rain – the way in which it wears things down, seeps into everything until it rots. Creating an entity that ambiguous like that feels more interesting than writing a straight vampire or werewolf story where you already know what the ‘cure’ is. That’s just not as scary, and the effectiveness of a horror story hinges on the unknowable, how much control the characters have, etc.
ToW: When we spoke for Perdition’s Flame you said that you didn’t write it knowing it would be part of the Warhammer Horror range. Presumably that wasn’t the case for this audio, so did it change anything in your process this time around?
AW: Perdition’s Flame was more of a straight fireside ghost story. This is more about building these two characters and then just watching them pull each other apart. I guess it’s more like an Edgar Allan Poe-type ‘descent into madness’ story. I certainly wanted to push the grotesquery and be a little more overt with the horror this time around.
ToW: Can you talk a bit about the influences you drew upon while writing this?
AW: Poe was a big one, this time around. That kind of gothic opera fits really well with 40k, I think. Also, M.R. James again; all that ‘is there something there or isn’t there’ stuff. For me personally, there’s Lynch and Gilliam, who are hard to beat when it comes to creating these nightmare worlds. Gilliam’s Brazil, which is basically ‘Administratum: The Movie.’ I guess Warhammer Horror itself is more about drawing on those horror writers that have already influenced 40k, like Kafka or Lovecraft.
ToW: This is your second Black Library audio drama – did you learn anything writing Perdition’s Flame that subsequently informed the writing process for this one?
AW: In terms of technique and just getting the job done, definitely. Just organizing myself better and designing the scenes properly before you start writing. Like, figuring out what everyone wants, where they are emotionally, etc. Plus, the editors at BL are just the best! They are so helpful and you can feel yourself just getting better and better with every story. You learn so much for their feedback and they really know what they’re doing.
ToW: What do you hope 40k fans will get out of this by the time they’ve finished it?
Hopefully a good creepfest! I hope as well they get a cool view of what it’s actually like to live in the Imperium, to live there as a civilian. Honestly, I think I’d rather be cannon fodder on the front than a quill-pusher for the Administratum. You’re so used to seeing this world from the warrior’s perspective, that you don’t always get that deeper sense of it being a dystopia. Not just because it’s awful to live there, but because there’s that bone-deep sense of hopelessness, and the inside of everyone’s head is just as horrible as what’s out there on the front lines.
ToW: Is this a standalone story, or do you think you’ll come back to these characters, or the world upon which it’s set?
AW: This one’s a standalone for sure. 😉
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Thanks so much to Alec for taking the time to answer these questions. I’m really looking forward to listening to this audio, so keep an eye out for a review once I’ve got hold of it!
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.