Welcome to this instalment of my Author Spotlight series of interviews, which aim to give an overview of each author’s background and approach to writing, and a slightly more detailed look at one of their books in particular. In this instalment we’ve got Nate Crowley talking about his early inspirations, writing for all sorts of publishers, and his new 40k novella Severed (which is available to buy right now). Read on to find out more about some intriguing, off the wall stories and an exciting new voice in Black Library fiction!
Without further ado, let’s get straight into the interview.
Track of Words: Tell us a little about yourself as an author – who you are, where you’re from, what you like to write, etc.
Nate Crowley: After growing up in London, I moved to Walsall in 2016, and now I live here with my wife, my daughter, and a cat called Turkey Boy (actually, I just got the French translation of Severed [Nate’s new novella – more on this later] through, and in my bio it calls him “Monsieur Dindon”, which is amazing). After a grim decade working in financial journalism, I’m now reviews editor for PC games website Rock Paper Shotgun, as well as writing fiction of course!
Outside of Black Library, I’ve written weirdo maximalist SF-horror (The Death & Life of Schneider Wrack), gaming comedy (The 100 Best Video Games (That Never Existed)), satirical fantasy (Notes from Small Planets, coming out next year with Harper Voyager), and…um…children’s non-fiction about natural history, which I’m doing with Puffin Books. I’ve also written for video games, including the upcoming Zombie Army 4: Dead War with Rebellion. It’s…a lot.
ToW: Can you remember a defining moment when you were growing up, or a particular book or author, that steered you towards science fiction and/or fantasy?
NC: I mean, there’s the obvious “I read LOTR as a kid and it blew my mind” answer, but I’m going to say it was The Time Ships, by Stephen Baxter. It was an authorised, hard-ish SF sequel to The Time Machine by H.G. Wells, and it was a massive book that I read in chunks before school when I was 10. It might not stand up brilliantly now, but at the time I thought the ideas were completely wild – Baxter writes SF on a brutally large scale, and it was like TNT compared with the mild, comprehensible stuff I was used to from watching Star Trek. Of course, the year after that, I discovered Warhammer 40k, and my fate was sealed…
ToW: What would you say your strengths are as a writer? Alternatively, what do you enjoy writing the most?
NC: I love writing sheer spectacle – massive, mind-crunching scenes that would be pure sensory overload if you were there; that’s one of the reasons I love writing GW stuff. I guess what I do well, or at least so I’m told, is find moments of humanity in inhuman situations. I take a lot of time to think about how people feel when faced with these huge, mad, sci-fi situations, and how they relate to each other in the midst of it all. Basically, I try to find poignancy and humour in everything, because those are the things that anchor us to impossible worlds. I hope that makes sense!
ToW: You’ve written books and stories for various publishers, in all manner of styles. How did you come to write for Black Library?
NC: It was at…FantasyCon, I think? In 2017. There was someone from BL there, and I was a couple of ales past sensible, so I just motored over to them and basically begged to write a short story for them. Turns out they had read and enjoyed Schneider Wrack, and they said I could send them a pitch – that would end up being The Enemy of My Enemy.
ToW: Do you have any key pieces of advice for anyone wanting to write professionally, whether in terms of pitching, writing or generally just working with editors and publishers?
NC: I suppose if I had one piece of advice, it’s keep your summaries and synopses short – whether you’re pitching via email, in person, whatever. When you’ve got an idea that you love, it can be tempting to really spill your mind at length, but editors/publishers/agents are swamped in other people’s ideas, and with the best will in the world, they will want to know quickly why they should care about the story. Can you say what your story is about in just a sentence? If you can’t, it might be a sign that you’re not quite sure yourself.
ToW: Can you talk a little bit about your first few Black Library stories and what readers can expect from them?
NC: So…now I have to put that advice to the test myself, don’t I? OK. So The Enemy of My Enemy examines the desperate circumstances in which the Astra Militarum might ally with orks (yeah, you heard me), and then asks how the hell that would play out in practice. It’s a sort of…black comedy. Empra, meanwhile, examines the refit of an Imperial cruiser from the very literal ground up – taking the perspective of a girl whose stone-age feral world has been turned into a makeshift manufactorum for ship parts. It’s sad and wistful, and was partly inspired by Horizon Zero Dawn, of all things.
ToW: Your latest big release for Black Library is your first novella, Severed. How would you describe this story?
NC: Severed takes on a Necron POV, to really get stuck into how our favourite robot space skeletons see their nightmarish place in the universe. So often, necrons are faceless antagonists, who just march about providing something for Astartes to mow down. But with the development of their lore, they are ripe for some emotional exploration. I mean, they’re basically terminators with Alzheimers’, aren’t they? They’re incredibly sad. I wanted to write a story about just how sad they are.
ToW: Without spoiling anything, who are the main characters and what do we need to know about them?
NC: It’s told from the perspective of Vargard Obyron, the tireless bodyguard and companion of Nemesor Zahndrekh – a necron lord who, although a tactical genius, is quite mad, to the point where he is convinced that he and his people are still flesh and blood, and are fighting wars against other noble necrontyr. Obyron is grim and hypercompetent; Zahndrekh is whimsical and vulnerable – in fact, they’ve got a bit of a Jeeves & Wooster energy to them. I wish I was joking.
ToW: Where and when is it set?
NC: It’s set on the Galaxy’s Eastern Fringe, as Imotekh’s wars of expansion and consolidation are in full swing. Zahndrekh and Obyron have been fighting a campaign against the Mechanicus, but the Stormlord sends them off to the far Northeast – the region known as the Ghoul Stars – to tackle an emerging threat which they are uniquely equipped to handle.
ToW: Is there anything that you’d recommend fans check out before reading this?
NC: Well, there hasn’t been much Necron POV fiction – at least not a whole story’s worth, I don’t think – so this is kind of new territory! So… why not read some Jeeves & Wooster?
ToW: Why this story? Of all the possible stories you could have written about these characters, what made you go for this one?
NC: Without spoiling it (the clue’s in the name of the novella anyway), the situation that they encounter out in the Ghoul Stars is one that gets right back to the roots of old school necron lore – and it’s one that presents a unique crisis for Zahndrekh, because of his particular set of delusions. It’s a crisis for the Nemesor (and therefore his long-suffering Vargard too), but more than that, it’s a crisis that challenges one of the central questions of necron existence: how can one function without a soul?
Empra, Nate’s 2nd BL short story, is featured in Inferno! Volume 3
ToW: What do you hope 40k fans will get out of this by the time they’ve finished it?
NC: Apart from anything else, it’s a chance to see shedloads of necron hardware in action, from literal millions of lowly warriors, to some goodies from the Forge World range. Beyond that, I hope it offers some glimpses of who the Necrontyr were before biotransference, and gives some real insight into how their suite of strange techno-sorceries get used. Obyron pulls off some… pretty intense combat tricks.
ToW: Is it a standalone story, or can we expect more from these characters in future?
NC: This is a standalone, but I think it’s safe to say that if I do take on more necron stories, it would be extremely hard to resist including a cameo from these two lads.
ToW: What else can you tell us about what you’re working on, what else you’ve recently had released or what you’ve got coming out over the coming months?
NC: I mostly answered this one at the start, whoops! However, I can confirm I have a full-length novel in the works with Black Library, for release next year. Also, I really really want to write a story about the head cook at an Imperial governor’s palace, and what happens when they find themselves suddenly having to cater for a company of visiting Space Wolves. It’s gonna be amazing, I just need to find time to write it.
ToW: When you’re not writing, what might we find you getting up to?
NC: Well, due to the nature of my other job, you’ll find me playing a lot of PC games – I’m really into my strategy/tactics stuff. Otherwise, I’ll either be in the kitchen cooking (not for Space Wolves, alas, although my daughter has the appetite of Russ himself), or looking after my menagerie of land crabs, mantises, shrimps and geckos.
ToW: If someone wants to keep up with what you’re doing, how’s best to do that?
NC: Despite the fact it is a horrible website, I still live and breathe Twitter, where you can find me as @frogcroakley. I love talking about 40k and my work (still can’t believe I get to do this), so I love it when people shoot me questions. Come say hello!
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Thanks so much to Nate for chatting to me for this interview! If you haven’t already, do check out some of Nate’s Black Library stories, and if you’re on Twitter head over there and follow him to keep up to date with all his writing news! Make sure you have a read of my reviews of The Enemy of My Enemy and Empra, and keep an eye out for reviews of more of Nate’s stories coming soon.
