RAPID FIRE: Graham McNeill Talks The Swords of Calth

Welcome to this instalment of my Rapid Fire series of author interviews, where today I’m talking to veteran Black Library author Graham McNeill about his new novel The Swords of Calth, the long-awaited return of Uriel Ventris to 40k. Whether you’re a long-term fan of the series or this is your first introduction, read on to find out more about Uriel Ventris, who this character is within 40k, and how he fits into the changing universe! I also asked Graham for a series reading order, so anyone who wants to check out the whole thing can do so in chronological order.

It’s been over a decade since the previous book in this series was released, so it’s great to see such an iconic character return – The Swords of Calth goes up for pre-order on the 20th February, in Special Edition hardback, standard hardback, ebook and audiobook formats.

Without further ado, check out the book’s synnopsis (courtesy of Warhammer Community) and then let’s get on with the interview.

Track of Words: The Swords of Calth is the seventh novel in your series of Ultramarines novels – for anyone who hasn’t read the previous books, could you give a quick overview of what this series is about, who the main characters are and what to expect from it?

Graham McNeill: These books follow the exploits of Captain Uriel Ventris of the 4th Company of the Ultramarines Chapter who, in his first novel, Nightbringer, had been newly-promoted to that role with the death of his former captain. From his first foray into command on a planet suffering an attempted coup, through tyranid invasions, exile into the Eye of Terror (and subsequent voyage home) and, ultimately, the desperate defence of Ultramar from an invasion by the forces of Chaos led by the Iron Warrior, Honsou, he’s certainly had plenty of adventures.

In those adventures, he’s fought shoulder to shoulder with his oldest companion, Veteran Sergeant Pasanius, and the by-the-book Sergeant Learchus. Since the invasion of Ultramar, Uriel’s been accompanied by his command squad, the Swords of Calth. As to what you can expect from the Ultramarines books, well there’s stonking great action scenes involving some of the biggest bads of the 40k universe, together with some reflections on what it means to be a hero and a warrior potentially facing half a dozen potentially world-ending threats before lunch!

ToW: Now that’s done, and assuming most people who read this will be up to date with the series, how would you describe The Swords of Calth?

GM: The Swords of Calth offered me a chance to do a number of things. It was a way to welcome new readers into the fold and refresh existing readers with a brand new arc that paid the story debt I’d incurred by leaving some threads hanging since I last wrote about the 4th Company. Given how much Uriel has changed since last we saw him, it needed to be a book everyone could pick up without feeling lost just because they hadn’t read the previous books or bogged down in backstory they already knew.

ToW: Where and when is this book set?

GM: It’s set during the Indomitus Crusade, as Guilliman’s forces push out from Terra towards the edges of known space, but before they reach the Eastern Fringe. Elements of the 4th Company are still within the boundaries of Ultramar and some are stationed close to the route the crusade is taking. Uriel and his command squad are travelling with the primarch, but when word reaches Uriel of one deployment in particular, he knows he has to leave the main crusade force.

ToW: Are you introducing any new characters here, or is it mostly going to be familiar faces?

GM: For the most part, it’s characters we’re already familiar with or who’ve appeared in a short story since the last novel. When it came time to plan out this book, I didn’t want to leave story threads I’d set up beforehand to go untold. I had a whole arc planned out before I left for the States, but the 40k universe moved on in ways I hadn’t expected back then, so a number of my ideas for the next arc had to be rethought. This seemed like a good way to tie up those hanging threads, and reset the table for the new reality of the galaxy.

ToW: Without spoiling anything, can you talk a bit about how Uriel has changed between the events of the last novel and this one?

GM: Well, the last time we saw Uriel, it was on the world of Sycorax, helping fight off an ork invasion, but, like you say, a lot’s changed since then. Guilliman has been revived, and a new breed of Space Marines are taking their place within the ranks of the Chapters. With Marneus Calgar crossing the Rubicon Primaris, it felt like a natural development of Uriel’s character for him to volunteer to do the same. In my short story, The Death of Uriel Ventris, I teased that this was what was happening to him without explicitly saying so – since by the time of its release, Games Workshop hadn’t yet revealed the news about Calgar. So I had to play it somewhat coyly, saying it without saying it.

Given that we now know about the upcoming book and the miniature, we can pretty much say openly that Uriel successfully crossed the Rubicon Primaris, and this part of Uriel’s arc will deal with how such a profound change to the very core of your being affects you. When so much of you has been replaced/upgraded, are you even the same person on the other side? What does having such a drastic overhaul on the very building blocks of your humanity and your soul do to your psyche? This is just the first step on that journey.

ToW: Are there any stories from outside of the Uriel Ventris series – in the wider ‘new 40k’ arc, perhaps – that you would recommend fans check out before reading this?

GM: Given the vast scale of Black Library’s range, it’d be hard to pin down any one story, but certainly the Dark Imperium books [by Guy Haley] would be a good start to gaining a deeper understanding of how fundamentally the axis of the galaxy has been upset.

ToW: What is it about Uriel and the Ultramarines that keeps you coming back to tell more stories about them?

GM: I love the history, characters, and tone of the Ultramarines and find them endlessly fascinating, as I have a deep and abiding love for ancient Greek and Roman history, so I relish being able to channel that into my writing of the Ultramarines. The character of Uriel and the dynamic he has with Pasanius as well as the warriors within the Swords of Calth itself greatly appeals to me. They’ve all grown in personality and in their relationships through novels and short stories, so I think I’m drawn at a deep level to the ‘heroic’ part of the genre of heroic fantasy. As much as I love writing the villains and rogues of the 41st millenium, I still crave the victory of good over evil (however broad those terms are in the Imperium…). I want my main characters to prevail, to show that – even in the far future, where there is only war – there’s still hope, still something worth fighting for.

ToW: A lot has changed, in both the real world and the 41st millennium, since The Chapter’s Due came out in 2010. How did you find going back to these characters and this story after such a long gap?

GM: That’s a great question, and, yeah, it was with some trepidation that I returned to Uriel and the Ultramarines. It has been some time since I wrote these characters, but after six novels and a whole bunch of short stories/audios, I think their voices, characteristics, and traits are etched on my soul, so it was surprisingly easy to slip back into my blue power armour. And, as I so often do with Uriel, I found it cathartic to deal with my issues with the world in general through the lens of fiction and an idealised, yet flawed, hero whose moral strength and courage I wish could be more the norm (in his world as well as ours).

I think something in the length of the gap I’ve had between this novel and the last one actually helped the writing of The Swords of Calth, as Uriel has been away from his warriors for quite some time. There’s a period of acclimatization and uncertainty to his first interactions as a Primaris that felt wholly natural given my own time spent away from the character, how much I’ve changed, and how much of my world has been upended in unexpected (and lovely) ways since I last wrote Uriel.

ToW: I remember reading your short story Do Eagles Still Circle the Mountain? back in about 2014, which finishes with “To be continued in The Swords of Calth”. Did the final novel change much from the plans you originally had back then?

GM: Very much so. I’d intended that The Swords of Calth would continue the story of the war against the orks on Sycorax, with a sting in the tale for later on. Given the time that had passed since I wrote that story, it would have felt weird to have a novel set back in time from the ‘now’ of the current era of 40k. And since our plans were for Uriel to become one of the Primaris, it didn’t feel realistic that Uriel would finish Do Eagles Still Circle the Mountain? then nip out for a bit and return a Primaris. So, yeah, while the nature of the book and the plot changed considerably, the characters and threads introduced in Do Eagles Still Circle the Mountain? (and Codex) are very much still in the mix for this tale.

ToW: What do you hope 40k fans will get out of this by the time they’ve finished it?

GM: I hope the readers will finish this and be hungry for more! I want existing readers to feel that this is a good start to a new arc, a blank slate for future adventures, and I also hope that new readers will come away liking the characters and will want to know more about the previous tales of the Ultramarines. Hopefully all readers, no matter whether they’re new to Uriel Ventris and the 4th Company or veterans of the Ultramarines, will feel this is a natural evolution of the character and be invested in reading more of their adventures.

ToW: Is this the final chapter of Uriel’s story, or do you think you’ll be back to tell more of his tales in future?

GM: Without wishing to spoil the ending of The Swords of Calth, the table is very much set for future stories. A whole new arc awaits.

ToW: Finally, do you have a suggested reading order for the whole Uriel Ventris series to date, with where all the various short stories fit in?

GM: Given how far we’ve come since Uriel’s first outings in the pages of Black Library fiction, that’s going to be a long list. But, for the completists, here’s the full chronological list of my Ultramarines/4th Company stories:

Black = novels
Blue = short stories
Green = comics

  • Black Bone Road
  • Chains of Command
  • Nightbringer
  • Leviathan
  • Warriors of Ultramar
  • Consequences
  • Dead Sky, Black Sun
  • Defenders of Ultramar
  • The Killing Ground
  • Courage and Honour
  • The Chapter’s Due
  • Eye of Vengeance
  • Codex
  • Marneus Calgar: Lord of Ultramar
  • Torias Telion: Eye of Vengeance
  • Two Kinds of Fool
  • Do Eagles Still Circle the Mountain?
  • The Death of Uriel Ventris
  • The Swords of Calth

***

Massive thanks to Graham for taking the time to answer these questions, to delve back into the history of this character and give us an idea of what to expect from The Swords of Calth. I always appreciate a series reading order too, so that looks really useful!

See also: my reviews of other Uriel Ventris stories by Graham McNeill.

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