Hello and welcome to this Rapid Fire author interview, where I’m delighted to be joined by the brilliant Dan Abnett to discuss The End and the Death Volume 1, the first instalment of the final Siege of Terra novel from Black Library. It’s been a long time coming – Horus Rising, the first Horus Heresy novel, was published in 2006, then the Siege of Terra opened with The Solar War in 2019. Book 8 of the Siege is actually going to be multiple volumes, beginning with this one, but the end is almost upon us, so I felt like I really ought to speak to Dan about this momentous novel. Whether you’ve read it already or you’re looking forward to making a start, I’m sure you’re as excited as I am about the end of the Siege.
I’ve taken a slightly different approach than usual with this interview: rather than discuss characters, settings and so on, I thought it would be more appropriate to focus on Dan’s writing process for this book. We chatted about how long it took to write The End and the Death, how it compared to writing Saturnine, what it feels like now that the end is almost in sight, how to write stories with multiple rotating POVs, and loads more.
There’s nothing here that I’d consider a genuine spoiler, but it’s worth remembering that this is the final book of the Siege of Terra – so I’m assuming you’re familiar with what’s gone before, and have an idea of what to expect in terms of the key events/moments in the series finale. If you want to avoid anything that might possibly affect your enjoyment of the book, maybe wait until you’ve read it before reading this interview.
Before we get into the interview, let’s have a quick look at the synopsis for The End and the Death Volume 1:
With that done, on with the interview.
ToW: It feels like congratulations are in order – to you, and the whole Siege of Terra team – given that we’re almost at the very end of the journey now! How does it feel for you now that The End and the Death Volume 1 is out, and fans are starting to read it?
Dan Abnett: Weird, actually. It’s taken us a long time to chart the Heresy, and a long time to get here, so it doesn’t quite feel real yet. And The End and the Death took a lot of hard work and focus… the process has left me a little shell-shocked. But I am keenly looking forward to it getting out there. I hope readers are as pleased with it as I am.
ToW: Does this feel similar to when you’ve written and published two books in a trilogy, but the third one isn’t out yet, in terms of that anticipation and waiting for it to be finished? Or is it a different feeling, given that really this is one book split into multiple volumes?
DA: It’s actually quite different. The whole novel is written and finished (it was simply too large to be mechanically bound as one volume), so it’s not like putting the first book of a series out, and gauging reaction before getting on with the next one. And TEATD Volume 1 isn’t like the first book in a series either – it’s the first part of a single book, so it doesn’t work ‘beginning-middle-end’ like a regular novel (even part of a series). All of the arcs, plotlines, threads and the ‘internal engineering’ of the novel are bigger and longer, and the real structure of some won’t be clearly visible until readers have the whole thing. It really is a massive, single entity.
ToW: Could you talk us through the timeline of writing this, and how long you were working on it for? For example, Saturnine came out in 2020 – were you already working on TEATD by that point? And I’m assuming it was a long process, given the multi-volume nature of the book!
DA: It took two years to write, almost to the day. (by comparison, a ‘regular’ novel usually takes me three to four months, and I think Saturnine took six-ish). So from the start of 2020 to the end of 2022. That’s due to the sheer size, and the huge amount of prep, reference, discussion and ongoing research. I generated vast amounts of notes before and during the writing process. The book also, understandably, had a lot of eyes on it because it is such a crucial piece of lore, so there was a fair bit of tweaking and revision as I went along, simply to make sure everything was ‘right’. I usually write in one draft (constantly revising as I go), but this went through three full drafts. I began writing just as Aaron (Dembski-Bowden) was finishing book 7, so we overlapped and spent a lot of time discussing things and throwing ideas to and fro.
ToW: At what point did you realise you were going to need to break this story into multiple parts? And are you allowed to say whether there will be one more volume, or two?
DA: It hasn’t yet been announced exactly how many parts this will be 😉 I realised fairly quickly that it was going to be epic and long (the Siege of Terra books have always been on the long side anyway). When I began to appreciate that it was going to be really long if I was going to do all the things I’d set out to do, I checked with my editor. He said there was an upper limit to what could be published as one volume (a simple production limit about book size), but advised me to ‘just write… make it as long as it needs to be to do it justice, and we’ll worry about it later”. So… I did.
ToW: How did you choose the place in the story to break it, and end this volume, bearing in mind all of the different character and narrative threads running through the story?
DA: It was a little tricky when I came to think about it, but in practice, breaking it down proved organic, as though the book knew when it needed to take a breath.
ToW: When we talked about Saturnine you said you’d done more research and planning for that than for any book previously, and that it was the hardest book you’d ever had to write. Was TEATD more of the same? Or had writing Saturnine helped prepare you for this?
DA: I meant what I said about Saturnine, but this made Saturnine seem easy. I guess it was great training for the main event! I think, apart from the scale and the level of content – and the importance of the material – the big difference was that TEATD was telling a story that everyone knows. In many ways, though it had to fit into the grander continuity of the established Siege story, Saturnine was very much a story created to fill a gap, to explain what happened during a particular period of the siege, and thus it could have its own arc, plot and finale that were all mine to control. But so very many major continuity beats fall in the endgame, I had to make sure they all happened, and happened in the right order, and connected properly, not to mention doing justice to each one, and finding ways to make well-known story beats, beats that would not come as a surprise, feel fresh and significant. That involved a lot of character viewpoint switching, and also ‘zooming in and out’ from micro to macro and back.
ToW: You’re dealing with a huge number of characters and arcs, here – did you go into this knowing who you wanted the main POV characters to be? Or did they develop over the writing process, in which case how did you go about choosing them?
DA: In many respects, the core of the book is simple, and involves three characters – Sanguinius, Horus and the Emperor. They were always the core, and rightly so. But simply to ‘stay with them’ would, I felt, not be good enough. Their struggles needed context, and the context was vast… a whole world at war. I felt it would be singularly lacking if the book didn’t also tell us what happened to other major characters like Dorn and Valdor and Malcador, or give us a look at things from the enemy perspective, or remind us what it was like at ‘ground level’; for people who had little or no idea of the major events happening elsewhere. Just sticking to the central three would have simply resulted in a grand retelling of a well-known myth.
I also wanted to offer contrasts of scale and perspective, to give some light and shade, and the chance to express different and often contradictory opinions about what was happening, and what was at stake. I wanted to find things that were significant and surprising that people didn’t necessarily know had taken place at the same historic moment. So I layered from there — the core of the central three, then the main supporting or significant characters, then a wide range of contrasting characters to show the world and the various major subplots, and then colour to give that world some life and significance.
ToW: Ever since Necropolis, it seems to have been something of a trademark for you to be able to handle this sort of story with not just lots of POV characters but also that sort of rotating series of vignettes, to get across the scale and impact of events. Do you have a system for this sort of thing – which POVs to choose, how long to stay with them and when to switch?
DA: Thank you. To be honest, it seems to be an organic ‘gut’ process, just moving with the drama and to effect contrast, or to achieve freshness by altering the character (and perhaps the way said character sees things). But with TEATD, I did keep a careful track of all the running threads to make sure I didn’t leave any accidentally dangling for too long (deliberately is fine). Some threads, though dramatic of themselves, act like pacers or interludes between larger beats. The action is relentless, and if it had just been action (three hundred pages of Horus and the Emperor smacking each other on the head repeatedly) it doesn’t matter how well I’d written it. It would have become numbing.
ToW: Out of all those vignettes and POVs, was there a minor character, scene or moment that you particularly enjoyed writing, or have a specific fondness for?
DA: Almost all of them, actually. I particularly enjoyed the desperate politics and behind-the-scenes urgency of Malcador’s Chosen, and the emotional punch of his ascension. And there are several others, which I won’t spoil by naming, that I think pay off with unexpected emotional power towards the end.
ToW: I don’t think it’s a spoiler to say that you’ve written a number of scenes in this book from Horus’ perspective, or that in some of these scenes he comes across with a surprising amount of sympathy (or at least not like a total monster), under the circumstances. Was that a deliberate decision to hark back to the earlier books and remind readers of who Horus used to be, emphasising the tragedy of his fall?
DA: Absolutely. This is a mythic tragedy. Horus can’t be ‘just’ a harrowing monster, or it becomes too simple. He was a great man, and the qualities that made him great are still present, even if they have been twisted by Chaos. In fact, it is those very qualities that make him so powerfully dreadful by the end. He is Horus magnified by Chaos. I found myself harking back to earlier books very often, and feel that, in many ways, TEATD is almost a direct sequel to Horus Rising. Horus is terrifying, and we may demonise him (literally and metaphorically) but if you don’t also see his fall as tragic, then you haven’t really understood the Horus Heresy. It’s not just an immense war – it’s an existential collapse for Mankind and everything it understands about itself.
ToW: Again, I don’t think this is a spoiler, but this book felt like it was really Malcador’s story, as much as anyone else. Was that something you were specifically aiming for, to give him his moment in the spotlight? (BTW I love that he doesn’t refer to the Emperor as ‘He’ like most characters do, but rather ‘he’!)
DA: Malcador has actually had comparatively little screen time during the Heresy series given that he is such an important character, and this really is ‘his’ moment. Thanks to his position, his powers, and his relationship with Him, he afforded me a vital and unparalleled perspective and insight, a ring-side seat, and an unprecedented glimpse into the workings of the Emperor. It is an intensely personal relationship (hence the lower case ‘he’). Like Horus, the Emperor is not without fault, but I think Malcador’s insight allows us some understanding of, and sympathy for, both. And, I hope, some empathy for Malcador too. So Malcador was an important character for me, not just because of the role he plays, but because of the viewpoint he offers. And, in different ways, that importance, almost as a (biased) commentator, is also shared by characters like Sindermann, Keeler, Horus and Fo.
ToW: There’s a real sense of scale to some of the scenes in here – things like the sheer size, grandeur and esoteric nature of the Palace, the terrible nature of what the traitors have turned into and how it affects the loyalists – and it feels like some of the language you use throughout the book deliberately emphasises that. Was it a deliberate choice to do that, to try and reinforce some of these ideas through language and word choice?
DA: Yes. This was an occasion where I thought ‘purple prose’ be damned’. I deployed language and vocabulary with deliberate abandon. This could be seen as pretension or wilfully operatic, but Warhammer 40k IS operatic, and it doesn’t get any more epic and grandiose than this. The language choices (and varying styles) were made for a number of reasons: first, to escape the trap of repetition (because so many vivid and dramatic words get used repeatedly and lose their power), second, to establish stylistic vocabularies for different parties and threads of the story for contrast; third, to be specifically and exotically descriptive to make things as richly textured as possible; and fourth… to use challenging and esoteric language, especially when dealing with hyper-intelligent characters (Malcador is a good example). His speech pattern and word choice reflects his intellect and arcane mind.
ToW: The End and the Death feels entirely appropriate as a title, but did you consider any other titles for this book? ‘The Emperor Must Die’, maybe?
DA: I did, and ‘Vengeful Spirit’, but that was taken 🙂 I like the simplicity of The End and the Death, and the sinister overtone, as it is an ominous quote, from the daemon Samus, from the very first book, Horus Rising.
ToW: What’s next for you, now that this is finished? Can you tell us anything about what you worked on next, or what you’ve got lined up (whether that’s BL-related or otherwise)?
DA: A rest and a deep breath! 🙂 I’ve got some nice comic work to do (for 2000AD, Marvel and DC), I’m working on the Darktide game, and I have just started work on my next BL novel which, though it’s shooty-death-kill in 40k, is an entirely different scale (and type of combat), with a much tighter and more personal focus, and it feels very different.
ToW: To finish off on a somewhat more light-hearted note, and I don’t think I’ve asked you this before…but if you were a Space Marine in one of the original Legions, which one do you think it would be and why?
DA: I would be a Luna Wolf… and maybe not turn. Or an Imperial Fist. Either way, I’d like to make it to the very end to see this take place (terrifying though it is).
Dan Abnett has written over fifty novels, including Anarch, the latest instalment in the acclaimed Gaunt’s Ghosts series. He has also written the Ravenor, Eisenhorn and Bequin books, the most recent of which is Penitent. For the Horus Heresy, he is the author of the Siege of Terra novel Saturnine, as well as Horus Rising, Legion, The Unremembered Empire, Know No Fear and Prospero Burns, the last two of which were both New York Times bestsellers. He also scripted Macragge’s Honour, the first Horus Heresy graphic novel, as well as numerous Black Library audio dramas. Many of his short stories have been collected into the volume Lord of the Dark Millennium. He lives and works in Maidstone, Kent.
Thanks so much to Dan for chatting to me for this interview – I’m sure you’ll join me in appreciating the time he’s taken to do this! I hope you enjoyed the interview as much as I did, too, and if you’ve got this far I’m pretty confident that you’ll be as excited about the end of the Siege of Terra as I am! I really can’t wait for the next part of The End and the Death.
For more Siege of Terra goodness, check out my interview with Dan discussing Saturnine
See also: all of the Dan Abnett-related reviews and interviews on Track of Words
The End and the Death Volume 1 is out now from Black Library – check out the links below* to order your copy:
*If you buy anything using any of these links, I will receive a small affiliate commission – see here for more details.
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You didn’t ask him about the bequin trilogy!
Dan’s a professional, he wouldn’t have told me anything even if I’d asked! This is BL after all – we’ll find out when they’re good and ready (probably a week before the third book comes out).