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 legendary Black Library author Graham McNeill about his new Horus Heresy novella Sons of the Selenar, which is the first novella in the Siege of Terra series that’s concluding the Heresy as a whole. The Limited Edition hardback of this novella has been released and subsequently sold out, but whether you grabbed a copy of that or you’ve been waiting for the standard release, read on to find out more about what you can expect from the latest exploits of the Shattered Legions.
Let’s get straight to the questions and Graham’s answers.
Track of Words: What’s the elevator pitch summary for Sons of the Selenar?
Graham McNeill: The crew of the Sisypheum intercept a strange signal from Luna, and must choose between returning to their brother legionaries or investigating the signal’s potentially dire implications for the future and risk never seeing Terra again.
ToW: Without spoiling anything, who are the main characters and what do we need to know about them?
GM: It’s definitely an ensemble piece, with each of the crew members of the Sisypheum getting to shine in their own way, but I guess you’d say Nykona Sharrowkyn and Sabik Wayland are the ‘true’ main characters. Sharrowkyn is a master of stealth, evasion, and infiltration, trained by the Shadow Masters of the Raven Guard to be the very best at what he does. Wayland is an Iron Father of the Iron Hands Legion, a warrior who’s learned the hard way that in such momentous times as these, iron must sometimes flex or otherwise be shattered.
ToW: Where and when is it set?
GM: The story is mainly set on Luna, and sits between The Solar War and The Lost and the Damned, with the action picking up in the aftermath of the cataclysmic cometary event that finishes the first book and leading neatly into the beginning of the second.
ToW: Which previous Horus Heresy stories should readers check out before starting this, to get the most out of it?
GM: The obvious answer is all of them! But purely for the context of this story, I’d recommend the stories that chronicle the adventures of the Sisypheum and its crew; so check out Kryptos, Angel Exterminatus, and The Seventh Serpent. Then you’ll be ready for this…
ToW: How does this novella fit into the wider Siege of Terra series? Does it directly connect with the ongoing narrative of the siege, or is it more of a separate story that happens to be taking place at the same time/in the same sort of space?
GM: It’s a little of both, as the ‘main’ Siege of Terra arc is something larger and tightly-plotted between the books already released and the ones yet to come. I wanted to tell a tale that was able to have its cake and eat it by weaving into the threads already being spun to add shade and colour to them, while not derailing them. The story is its own distinct narrative, but I think you’d get more out of it by reading it as part of the overall continuum of the Siege of Terra and seeing the weight of consequence it has for that narrative as well as ones yet to come.
ToW: It’s great to see you involved with the Siege of Terra, after how heavily involved you were at the outset of the Horus Heresy series. What was your thinking behind choosing this story to tell in particular, as opposed to all the other possible characters or story arcs you might have covered?
GM: Thanks, fella! Yeah, I would have been gutted not to be part of the final days of this great story, given that “I was there the day…”. After the gruelling marathon that was The Crimson King and the demands of my day job, I was a tad gun-shy about trying to write such a big, consequential novel that had an absolutely concrete deadline that could not be missed at all or it would have a shunting effect to the later books down the line. At that point, I figured that the best way I could contribute to the series was to write smaller piece that would likely equate to a novel’s worth of words over time, but which would be spread out over a number of projects and years so as not to be such a monolithic weight and brain pressure at one time.
As to why I picked the crew of the Sisypheum, well I’d always had plans for those guys to get back to Terra and be part of whatever story I ended up telling when we got there. Given where my head was at by the time we got to the moment I needed to begin working on Sons of the Selenar, I still wanted to tell their story, but since I likely wouldn’t write them into a full novel, this felt like the perfect place to take their story to the place I felt was right.
ToW: Did you always have an ending in mind for the crew of the Sisypheum, or was this novella the opportunity to decide upon one?
GM: I did have an ending in mind, yeah, and fully planned to honour that as I wrote this story, but that original ending skewed to something quite different over the course of the telling. That’s not uncommon for me, having an ending doesn’t quite match my original plan after travelling the road of the story with the characters, but this one deviated quite significantly (for the better, I feel…). It ended up twisting around in a way I feel was entirely more true to the characters and their destinies.
ToW: What appeals to you about writing these characters in particular? Is there something they allow you to do, that maybe other Heresy-era characters don’t?
GM: After writing Kryptos, I fell in love with the relationship between Sharrowkyn and Wayland, and knew I wanted to write more of them. I’ve always loved the dynamic of characters who ordinarily would have little to do with one another or who would normally be terrible combinations, being forced to work together and finding that it actually works. That friction between the crewmembers supplies a ton of the drama, and when you put them in situations where they have to work together to survive, it’s that much more interesting to write and (hopefully) read.
I think having this ad-hoc band thrown together in the wake of the Isstvan V slaughter allows for a unique set of interplays that might not be as easy or natural to form any other way, so I think that’s what I find interesting in them and why I was drawn to write about them again.
ToW: Looking back on the Horus Heresy series, how do you feel now that we’re on the home straight?
GM: It’s a mixture of emotions, to be honest. I’m pleased we’re here, as who doesn’t want to tell stories in the most important epoch of the Imperium’s history? But at the same time, I still have stories I wanted to tell in the Heresy. I wanted to tell how the Knights of Taranis, Raf Maven and Leoplod Cronus, helped take back Mars, I wanted to tell more stories of Remus Ventanus, the Hero of Calth, to delve deeper into the mind of Perturabo…and a hundred more stories and events. So many stories left to tell… but all good things need to reach a conclusion, and I’d rather we end on a high note than just drag things out because we can. A good story knows when it’s time to end, and we always said we’d tell the story of the Horus Heresy for as long as we had stories to tell, as long as the readers wanted to read them, and we had a clear vision of how we wanted it to end.
It’s been a long road and has been such a big part of my career for so long, that I honestly don’t know how I’ll feel when I read the last book. I’ll probably put it down, and go straight back to reading Horus Rising for the tenth time… I have intensely fond memories of working with everyone who’s been a part of these stories, so it’ll be intensely bittersweet to read the final book of the series. And when I say everyone, I truly mean everyone; from all the other authors, all the folk at Black Library and Games Workshop who let us play with the biggest toys, and, most especially, to the readers who wholeheartedly embraced the series and stayed with us on this long and emotional journey through a time of galactic strife.
ToW: What do you hope Horus Heresy fans will get out of this by the time they’ve finished it?
GM: I hope they’ll have had an action-filled ride through the depths of Luna with characters they love, and feel they’ve been punched in the gut over and over again. In a good way, obviously…
ToW: Is this the final time you’re going to be writing about these characters, or do you have plans for more stories at some point in the future?
GM: Yeah, for the foreseeable future I suspect it will be the last time I write these characters, as Terra is now set for the Kings, Princes, and Emperors to strut and fret their hour upon the stage. But we’ll see how things shake out, as I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t seeded in a few things that might make for interesting wrinkles in the future…
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Huge thanks to Graham for taking the time to answer these questions. I don’t know about you, but I can’t wait to get my hands on Sons of the Selenar after reading Graham’s answers! In the meantime if you’d like to check out my reviews of some of Graham’s other Black Library stories you can find them all here.
Click this link to see the main Horus Heresy reviews page on Track of Words.
Click here to order Sons of the Selenar.
Click here if you fancy taking a look at some other Rapid Fire interviews. If you have any questions, comments or other thoughts please do let me know in the comments below, or find me on Twitter.