Welcome to this instalment of my Rapid Fire series of quick author interviews, in which I’m talking to the incredibly hard-working and prolific Guy Haley about not one but two new books – Darkness in the Blood and Astorath: Angel of Mercy! Fans of Guy’s Warhammer 40,000 Blood Angels stories – primarily Dante and The Devastation of Baal – have got lots to look forward to with a pair of new additions, and seeing as both new books are due out within a few weeks of each other I’ve asked Guy to give us the lowdown on what we can expect, and how they fit in with the existing books.
Almost a year after first being released as 2019’s Black Library ‘Mega Edition’, Darkness in the Blood will be available to pre-order in standard hardback and ebook formats as of the 31st October. Meanwhile ‘short novel’ Angel of Mercy (think Primarchs/The Beast Arises length) is due out in Limited Edition at some point in November – no word as yet on when the standard edition will land.
Over to Guy for more details on these two new titles!
ToW: You’ve got two new Blood Angels books either just released or coming very soon – could you tell us a little about each of them?
Guy Haley: Sure. Darkness in the Blood continues the story of the Chapter with special attention on Dante and Mephiston. Angel of Mercy focusses on Astorath the grim.
ToW: Without spoiling anything, who are the main characters for each book and what do we need to know about them?
GH: Besides the players named above, there’s the usual range of unmodified human and Adeptus Astartes characters you can expect in my books. Darkness in the Blood has Danakan, a high ranking naval officer suffering from PTSD, while in Angel of Mercy you’ll meet Esmera, a powerful psyker whose emergence leads to disaster, and Astorath’s advisors.
We also get to see how Teus, the boy from Devastation, gets on.
ToW: Where and when is each book set?
GH: Darkness in the Blood is set on Baal and the area north of the Red Scar. Angel of Mercy takes place on a planet called Dulcis, which is on the other side of Red Scar, close to the Great Rift.
Both take place after the Devastation and the arrival of Fleet Primus at Baal. From a Terran point of view, that would be around 10-14 years after the opening of the Great Rift. However, the disruption of temporal flow means that, from a local point of view, these events occur within months of the Great Rift appearing.
Angel of Mercy takes place slightly before Darkness in the Blood. Astorath appears in both, having recently returned to Baal from Dulcis as Darkness begins.
ToW: How do these new books fit in with your other Blood Angels stories – Dante and Devastation of Baal – and Darius’ Mephiston series?
GH: Darkness in the Blood is a direct sequel to Dante and The Devastation of Baal, and continues Dante’s story. But it is also ties in directly to Darius’s Mephiston books, which I’ve mined heavily throughout my own stories for details on the Librarius. As you know, I like my 40k to make sense!
On saying that, it can be read as a standalone story, covering Mephiston’s transformation from Firstborn to Primaris.
Angel of Mercy isn’t quite as heavily connected, although it does follow on from the short story, Redeemer, and is set against the same background events.
ToW: If Dante is a character-driven origin story for the Blood Angels’ Chapter Master, and Devastation is a broader, epic-scale action story featuring almost all of the Sons of Sanguinius, what style of stories would you say the new books are?
GH: Darkness in the Blood is primarily a metaphysical story. It deals with the flaw, and the advent of the Black Rage in the Primaris Space Marines. There’s plenty of good spooky warp stuff about the Sanguinor, the nature of Sanguinius, and the Psychic Awakening.
Angel of Mercy is more of a straight up, standalone adventure, although that too deals with the Awakening. With Astorath’s book, I wanted to move away from Chaos and Tyranids a little, and so it is about an Enslaver infestation.
ToW: Do you consider your Blood Angels books to be a quadrilogy, or rather several distinct stories?
GH: That’s difficult to say, as all Warhammer 40,000 fiction occupies the same space. Because they all reference other books and the games, it’s difficult to tease them apart. There’s a little clear space between Angel of Mercy and the others, but it’s concerned with the same themes, whereas you can read my Dante books on their own and understand them, but you’ll get more out of them if you read them all. It doesn’t stop there though, because Darkness in the Blood especially leans heavily on Darius’s books. So let’s say both!
ToW: When you set out to write Dante did you always have in mind that you would write a series-worth of Blood Angels stories, or did it grow in the telling?
GH: No, I didn’t. I ended up writing Dante by accident, in fact. The writer pencilled in to do it originally dropped out fairly late in the day. BL wanted to keep the book in the schedule, they knew I could write fast, so they asked me to step in.
When it came to writing the first Space Marine Conquests novel, I lobbied hard for Devastation of Baal. I wanted to finish the story arc begun in the Shield Worlds campaign books. It was too good a battle to ignore. Writing a book that tied in with Dante also made commercial sense for me, if I’m honest, but it was mostly because I just really wanted to tell that story.
And then, the Mephiston miniature was planned, and Games Workshop decided they wanted a book about how that happened as 2019’s Christmas special edition to release alongside it, so they asked me again.
So I didn’t plan it at all!
ToW: Dante is probably a well-known character to most readers, but for anyone unfamiliar with Astorath, could you talk a little about what his role as Redeemer of the Lost means and how you see him fit into the structure of the Blood Angels’ Reclusiam?
GH: Well, he’s the Blood Angels’ High Chaplain, what would be the Master of Sanctity in other chapters, but his role is different. Astorath spends his time tracking down Space Marines of Sanguinius’ line who are suffering from the Black Rage. Obviously, this happens wherever the Chapters of the Blood go, but there are times and places where it becomes particularly problematic, and risks revealing the secret of the Flaw.
Astorath’s predecessors started to be away from Baal so much that their duties as High Chaplain were taken up by another officer in the chaplaincy, the Sanguis Paternis.
Many Blood Angels are touched by Sangunius’ psychic gifts, and Astorath possesses a sort of sixth sense that draws him to the lost. He acts with a small group of warriors drawn from each of the chapter’s sub-orders from a ship called the Eminence Sanguis. It is a very grim role, and his character reflects that.
ToW: You’ve written about Astorath before in your short story Redeemer, but this is the first time he’s had a whole book to himself. What appeals to you about him as a protagonist?
GH: He’s no-nonsense, decisive, dark of countenance and deed, and utterly ruthless in the execution of his duties. He’s very different to Mephiston, Dante and Corbulo. He does not believe in a cure for the Flaw. He’s very suspicious of Mephiston. He’s cool, but they’re all such great characters.
ToW: How would you say Dante, Mephiston, Astorath and the Blood Angels have responded to, or been changed by, the new reality of the Imperium – the Great Rift, Guilliman’s reappearance, and so on?
GH: They had the hope of a cure, now cruelly dashed. Dante is old, exhausted, and wounded. Mephiston is evolving into one of the most powerful beings in the galaxy, which might not be a good thing. Then there’s all the psychic shenanigans going on in the warp which I won’t spoil here. They’ve got quite a lot on their plate, really!
ToW: Dante’s task has similarities with Guilliman’s – an empire on the brink; an impossible task ahead; a new crusade. Aside from the obvious (not being a primarch), what would you say is different for Dante, and how did you work that into Darkness?
GH: Although there is a strand in the book about Dante’s resolve, Darkness in the Blood is more about setting the stage for all that, and there is a discussion of his strategy. My future plans for Dante will have him taking a major role in Imperium Nihilus. We know Guilliman crosses the Rift at some point, but what about the other Crusade Fleets? How will they operate with him?
ToW: You’ve explored lots of really interesting Blood Angels lore already, from the aspirants’ trials to the Chapter’s relationship with its various successor Chapters. Could you talk a bit about which elements you looked at for these books?
GH: In Darkness in the Blood especially, there’s a lot about the psychic nature of the Blood Angels, and an investigation of the Flaw as a spiritual affliction. I examine the processes of the Rubicon Primaris a little, how the Chapters of the Blood differ from other Space Marines, and look to the future for Baal as it becomes a hub fortress from the Indomitus Crusade.
Angel of Mercy doesn’t cover that high level stuff in the same depth, but I did get the opportunity to detail the Red Wings chapter, and play with the Psychic Awakening and what that means. But I had the most fun taking a close look at the breeding habits of Enslavers!
ToW: Do you have plans for more Blood Angels stories still to come, or have you reached the end (for now at least) of your work with these characters?
GH: Right now, I have no more plans. I am very busy with Dawn of Fire and other projects, and although I expect as we advance the Crusade narrative you’ll see Dante play his part in it, for the time being I’m not down to write any more Blood Angel books. I stress though, that does not mean it will not happen…
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Massive thanks – as ever – to Guy for taking the time to give us the lowdown on both of these books! If you’d like to check out more interviews with Guy, or reviews of his work, just click this link.
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