Welcome to this instalment of Rapid Fire, my ongoing series of quick interviews with Black Library 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 Gav Thorpe about his new Warhammer 40,000 audio drama Death’s Mercy, the second part of his ongoing Heirs of the Laughing God series. You can order this audio in CD or MP3 formats right now.
Without further ado, let’s get straight to the questions and Gav’s answers.
Track of Words: What’s the elevator pitch summary for your new audio drama Death’s Mercy?
Gav Thorpe: A Harlequin Death Jester expresses her thoughts on the nature of Death and Fate, by killing lots of people in artful ways. But when confronted with the persistence of life, what does that mean for her role?
ToW: Without spoiling anything, who are the main characters and what do we need to know about them?
GT: Adroniel Bladewish, Death Jester: taking upon herself the role of Death, Adroniel Bladewish is the devil’s advocate of the group, taking apart the arguments and fallacies of her companions with wry wit and ruthless insight. Barely a word passes her lips that is not the unvarnished truth, stripping bare the souls of those around her even as her shuriken cannon shreds the flesh from the bones of her enemies.
Duruthiel ‘the Red Swan’, Great Harlequin: leader of the troupe, Duruthiel aspires to embody the uncaring nihilism of his patron. He purports to be aloof and otherworldly, happy to be the carefree leaf drifting on the currents of the river of life. Yet for all his pretensions to be a pawn of fate and whim, he cannot escape his intrinsic empathy and compassion for other living creatures. This leads to him frequently second-guess himself, getting the troupe into scrapes from which he must then extricate them as conscience takes hold.
‘Echo’, Shadowseer: as much as the Red Swan aspires to become the Laughing God, Echo takes on the role of oracle to Cegorach. It is his dreams that shape the actions of the troupe, his quest to recover the Cup of Truth so that he might gain insight into the destruction of the Great Enemy. Prone to speaking in metaphor, obscurities and riddles, Echo must often remind the carefree warriors around him that they have a duty to confound and fight the Great Enemy, to free others as they have been freed.
ToW: Where and when is it set?
GT: The action takes place during a battle against Imperial forces, alongside warriors from the Yme-Loc craftworld. I imagine it is set in the current Dark Imperium era but it isn’t tied to any specific events.
ToW: Do fans need to have listened to the first Heirs of the Laughing God audio drama – A Deadly Wit – before checking this one out, or do they work as standalone stories?
GT: It is set after the events of A Deadly Wit, but isn’t connected in any other way except for the same characters.
ToW: Why this story? Of all the possible stories you could have written about these characters, what made you go for this one?
GT: Ever since seeing the art for the first audio it became my goal to have a story centred on each of the three main characters. Seeing their relationships and personalities through the prism of each other’s perspective sits nicely with my idea that trilogies should be more than just three sequential stories. A bit like my Path of the Eldar series, each story should hopefully layer on our understanding of the characters and the Harlequins.
ToW: What appeals to you about Harlequins as characters to write about?
GT: The Harlequins are the literal personification of drama! Characters are always at their heart a cypher for something else, be it an emotion or a theme or idea, and the Harlequins embrace that concept. Writing about a character that sees herself as the embodiment of Death is a great opportunity to look at the universe in a different way to that seen by humans.
ToW: Did you draw from any particular influences when writing this, whether for the plot, the characters or the sound direction?
GT: While the first audio was very much influenced by Shakespeare, there is a bleaker, darker humour at work with Adroniel. In a strange way it makes me think more of the War Poets like Wilfred Owen, seeing the lyric of battle and devastation, though I’ve not consciously tried to channel any particular poem. It’s the gallows humour of soldiers wrapped up in philosophical clothes.
ToW: What sets a story like this, which you wrote specifically for audio, apart from something you might write as a prose story?
GT: In general the Black Library audios have been moving towards an FX and dialogue-only approach, like a radio play. However to keep with the first instalment of the series I have retained some narration, though much pared down from my earliest stories. That has helped, because a lot of Harlequins weapons are quite outlandish, and just having a swish of a monofilament weapon or zip of shuriken wouldn’t convey very well the violence being unleashed!
ToW: What do you hope eldar/aeldari fans will get out of this by the time they’ve finished it?
GT: There’s bits of Harlequins cosmology in there, but mostly it’s about Death and Adroniel’s fixation with being its deliverer. The Harlequins are supposedly free of the curse of Slaanesh, but they can become just as prone to obsession as their forebears, and in some ways they are very much like the cults that predated the Fall. We see something of that mindset in Adroniel.
ToW: What can you tell us about the next instalment in this series?
GT: All I know is that Echo, the Shadowseer, will be the lead character. Given that he moves between vague, stoner-like declarations of ‘wisdom’ to Merlinesque insight and prophecy, that’s going to be an interesting one…
***
As always, huge thanks to Gav for the great answers to these questions. I had a blast listening to the previous part of this story, so I’m really looking forward to listening to part two – off the back of these answers I’m sure I won’t be the only person!
Click here if you fancy taking a look at some other Rapid Fire interviews. If you’ve got any questions, comments or other thoughts please do let me know in the comments below, or on Facebook or Twitter.