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.
This time around I spoke to Black Library author CL Werner about his latest Warhammer Age of Sigmar novel Profit’s Ruin, which is the sequel to the excellent Overlords of the Iron Dragon and (impressively) Clint’s sixth AoS novel. It’s available to order now in ebook and hardback, so without further ado let’s get straight to the questions and Clint’s answers…
Track of Words: What’s the elevator pitch summary for Profit’s Ruin?
CL Werner: The quickest way I can describe Profit’s Ruin is to ask you to picture a Sargasso Sea in the sky. Now think about what would happen if the Kharadron were to find themselves trapped there and what they might find in this aerial graveyard of ships.
ToW: Who are the main characters and what do we need to know about them?
CLW: The main cast of Profit’s Ruin are largely the characters introduced in Overlords of the Iron Dragon. Firstly you have Captain Brokrin, who now has to answer to his backers as to why the Iron Dragon has come back with empty holds. As a last ditch to try and save his ship from being sold off as scrap, he agrees to undertake a perilous voyage to find the fabled Profit’s Ruin, a sky-borne jungle that has claimed many Kharadron ships over the centuries.
Along with him are the brave arkanaut Gotramm and the clever endrinmaster Horgarr. While other members of the crew are present, there are also some new faces, most notably the new logisticator Agrilo, whose glib tongue and twisted mind are always seeking new routes to turn a profit. There’s also Esmira, a strange human the Kharadron find in the lost world. There’s also a wide variety of antagonists, but it might be best to leave them as a surprise to the readers.
ToW: Where and when is it set?
CLW: The novel is set a few months after the events in Overlords of the Iron Dragon, once more in the aether-gold infused skies of Chamon.
ToW: Is this a similar style of story to Overlords… – an adventure-strewn voyage exploring the nature of the Kharadron along the way – or have you taken a different approach this time?
CLW: This time the story focuses a bit more on characters rather than on Kharadron culture specifically. Though there is quite a bit of that early on as well when the reader gets to see something of the skyhold of Barak-Zilfin. From the Kharadron city, events move ahead to the fabled Profit’s Ruin itself, a floating jungle that lurks deep within a fierce storm. It is in that weird setting that much of the story takes place as the crew of the Iron Dragon strives to learn the true nature of the place as well as survive against some unexpected enemies they find there.
ToW: Is there anything else you’d recommend checking out before reading this, to get a handle on these characters or the Kharadron Overlords in general?
CLW: I think looking over the battletomes can be useful though hardly essential to make sense of the Kharadron in general. I’ve tried to make Profit’s Ruin a book you can pick up without being required to know anything beforehand. Having said that, I would caution that if you’ve read Overlords of the Iron Dragon and some of my other Kharadron material – such as the short story Shiprats and the audio drama Guns of the Black Eagle – there are some references to those that will heighten the reader’s enjoyment.
ToW: You’ve written a few Kharadron Overlords stories now – what appeals to you about them as characters to write about?
CLW: Well, at first it was because the Kharadron felt completely new. They were the first faction that really popped when they were introduced to Age of Sigmar, showing that there were far more possibilities for the setting than people at first considered. Now since then we’ve had things like the Deepkin and the Kurnothi show up, so I think it’s a good signal that anything really is possible now.
What continues to engage me about the Kharadron is the complexity of their culture – and how different they are from the Old World’s dwarfs. You’ve got this civilization that is far more pragmatic and mercenary than the dwarfs ever were. They’re not bound by loads of tradition and codes of honour but rather by the Code, a kind of charter trade agreement that is designed to, at least on the surface, give each ship and each skyhold an even shake in procuring wealth.
Of course, in utterly un-dwarfy fashion, the Kharadron aren’t above looking for loopholes in these rules that they can exploit, with some skyholds being worse than others in this respect. You’ve also got the dramatic turn that, again unlike the dwarfs, Kharadron aren’t afraid to innovate and advance their science and engineering. Indeed, they’ve kind of taken the other route and now pay only a kind of empty ritualism when it comes to respecting gods and ancestors. The things someone leaves behind to build from are more important to the Kharadron than reciting long lineages and old glories.
ToW: Of all the possible stories you could have written about these characters, what made you go for this one for your second novel about them?
CLW: The idea of an aerial Sargasso Sea was too good not to use. The moment I had that idea, I started to think about how the Iron Dragon and her crew would deal with such a place, what they might find there, and why they’d be so ready to voyage to a place with so deadly a reputation in the first place!
ToW: What do you hope Black Library fans will get out of this by the time they’ve finished it?
CLW: I hope that readers will first and foremost find a story that they enjoy. I also hope that perhaps they’ll get a little more insight into Brokrin and his lads. The wide range of possibility within Age of Sigmar is something else I tried to show off in here, with some things that you won’t find in the tabletop game getting a chance to appear.
ToW: Can we expect to see any more Kharadron Overlords stories from you in the future?
CLW: I’m not sure, to be honest. My next two projects for Black Library don’t involve the Kharadron, but perhaps further down the line they’ll be back for another outing.
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As always, thanks so much to Clint for taking the time to answer these questions. Keep an eye out for a review coming sometime soon, but in the meantime if you haven’t yet read Overlords of the Iron Dragon you can take a look at a previous Rapid Fire interview about that book here, and my review here.
If you’d like to check out my reviews of some of Clint’s other Black Library stories you can find them all here.
Click this link to order Profit’s Ruin.
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.