RAPID FIRE – Gav Thorpe Talks Luther: First of the Fallen

Welcome to this instalment of my Rapid Fire series of quick author interviews, in which I’m talking to Black Library author Gav Thorpe about his new novel, Luther: First of the Fallen. This is the second (short) novel in the Horus Heresy Character Series, after 2019’s Valdor: Birth of the Imperium, and is available to pre-order today as a Limited Edition hardback ahead of its standard release in a few months’ time. It promises to be an in-depth exploration of the Dark Angels through the eyes of Luther himself, and coming from Gav – who’s done a lot of work with this Chapter/Legion over the years – it should be a fascinating read.

Here’s Gav to tell us more about the book!

Track of Words: How would you describe your new novel Luther: First of the Fallen?

Gav Thorpe: It’s partly an origins story / biography and partly a dissertation on the nature of Chaos and humanity.

ToW: I’m assuming Luther is the main character, but could you tell us a bit about what we need to know about the key characters overall?

GT: It does revolve around Luther, he’s the centrepoint around which the other characters are introduced and explored. We see him in various roles throughout his life and so the people he is with changes too – family, knights, as well as appearances from Calas Typhon and Erebus. We also see a succession of Supreme Grand Masters of the Dark Angels as Luther’s interrogators.

ToW: Where and when is it set?

GT: It is set on the Rock, in the Tower of Angels, but Luther’s narration is mostly focused on Caliban. The framing story spans ten thousand years of Chapter history, while Luther’s narration covers events before and after Caliban’s compliance and the Horus Heresy.

ToW: Is there anything you’d suggest fans check out before reading this? Is it important to be familiar with the Heresy and the Dark Angels’ role in it beforehand, for example?

GT: It would help to know some of the context, if only to see how reliable you think Luther is as a narrator. I’ve tried to draw on other existing references with regard to Dark Angels history so there are Easter eggs in there rather than needing to know all of the details. Certainly Angels of Caliban is a useful novel to have a deeper sense of the context of some of Luther’s story.

ToW: Over the years you’ve written a lot about the Dark Angels – what is it about this Legion/Chapter that keeps you coming back to them and getting excited about writing new stories?

GT: I think it is because the Dark Angels really encapsulate that idea of being a single narrative stretching from the Horus Heresy to the present, and unfinished business in stasis along with most of the Imperium. The Blood Angels have their own repercussions from those times, for instance, but they are trying to overcome them rather than denying them internally. Not every Dark Angels story has to be about the Fallen, but as readers we understand that shadow is always there. The Dark Angels’ ‘flaw’ is self-inflicted by their past decisions and the consequences of those decisions, and so their internal conflict is one of the best for exploring because fundamentally it defines who they are and why they cannot ever confront it. That’s a key part of Luther’s tales here.

It’s partly what we see a lot of in discourse today, of people doubling down on their opinions in the face of opposition or even provable facts because our identities are so tightly bound to our view of the world. Threaten that view and you threaten every core value we hold. The Dark Angels operate in a totally different paradigm to their peers because of their past and that’s what the Fallen represent.

ToW: You talked in your WarCom interview about Luther being “the living continuity between the Legion of old and the Chapter of the present”. What opportunities does a character like that give you as a storyteller?

GT: Mostly he is a figure of contrast. He gets to experience the Dark Angels across a time span nobody else does, as seen through the actions of the Supreme Grand Masters. Even through his growing insanity and temporal dislocation he is the sole entity (apart from the Lion…) capable of bearing witness to events that shaped the Chapter. It would be like the Pope being able to have a conversation with Judas. Not only would he have knowledge lost to antiquity he would see how time has wrought massive changes on Christianity. Despite his misgivings, Luther encountered the Imperium at the height of its great rationalism and experienced first-hand a downfall into mysticism and regression, but does so in stages from outside the usual time stream which makes each change starker.

ToW: Unlike the Primarchs, Luther is a character who fans of 40k and the Heresy will have heard a lot about, but not actually spent much time with. Did that change the way you approached this book, compared to your Lorgar novel for example?

GT: With Lorgar the idea was to keep the points of view external to continue that unknowable, prophet-like air of mystery. With Luther it’s the opposite! Everything pertinent is related in first person by Luther so you only have his view and opinion of events. This is Luther telling us about Luther, and we make of that what we can.

ToW: What made you decide to tell Luther’s story this way, in the form of interrogations? Was it an intentional choice to almost mirror the way you told Angels of Darkness, only from the perspective of the Fallen this time?

GT: There was an element of that, because it takes place over two time spans in the same way as Angels of Darkness. It came to me as an idea fully-formed really, because it allowed me to pick and choose eclectic episodes from Luther’s life yet string them together with a sense of narrative progression. Without the interrogators this would be a slightly odd anthology of short stories, but with them providing a foil for Luther it all hangs together.

ToW: What do you hope Horus Heresy fans will get out of this by the time they’ve finished it?

GT: There’s a couple of parts that fill in gaps in the Calibanite story and also follow on from established events in the Horus Heresy series. Nothing essential to chunky plot-based stuff but layers of characterization and nuance beneath those events or preceding them.

ToW: Do you have any further plans to explore the character of Luther, or the Dark Angels in general?

GT: Nothing at the moment, Black Library have too many other things for me to think about! I’m sure something will come up sooner rather than later though.

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Thanks as always to Gav for taking the time to give us the lowdown on this book! If you’d like to check out more interviews with Gav, or reviews of his work, just click this link.

Luther: First of the Fallen should be available as a standard edition hardback/ebook at some point in early-ish 2021.

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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.

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