RAPID FIRE: Denny Flowers Talks Fire Made Flesh

Welcome to this instalment of my Rapid Fire series of author interviews, where today I’m talking to Denny Flowers about his debut novel for Black Library, Fire Made Flesh. Denny has already written a novella and various short stories as part of BL’s Necromunda range, but this is his first full-length novel – and it promises to be a great read for Necromunda fans, not least because it explores some of the Necromundan guilds in ways we haven’t seen before! Fire Made Flesh is available to order in paperback via the book trade (i.e. Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Waterstones etc.) right now, and is due to be available direct from Black Library/Games Workshop at some point in May, in paperback and ebook formats.

Without further ado, let’s get straight on with the interview!

Track of Words: To start off with, tell us a little about your new novel Fire Made Flesh.

Denny Flowers: It’s the story of the Fallen Dome of Periculus. Though once a prosperous trade hub, a mysterious catastrophe led to the dome’s collapse. It was declared lost for centuries, until its ruins were rediscovered in the depths of the underhive. Gangs and guilds alike are drawn to it by the prospect of securing archeotech treasures and lucrative territory. But in their greed, few stop to consider why Periculus fell in the first place, and whether digging through its bones may invite a similar fate.

ToW: Without spoiling anything, who are the main characters and what do we need to know about them?

DF: Lord Silas Pureburn is a senior member of the Guild of Flame. He maintains a monopoly on the trade of heat and light in the lower levels of Hive Primus, partly by terminating thieves and rivals, and partly by his lineage. He claims an ancestry that stretches back to when the God-Emperor walked the galaxy, and preaches that the Eternal Flame mounted on his dais is a tended spark from the God-Emperor’s blade. His wares are presented as divinely blessed, and because of this he commands fierce loyalty from the fanatics of House Cawdor, who consider him akin to a saint. He uses their support to try and claim Periculus for his own. Indeed, his family held lucrative contracts there… right before the dome fell.

Tempes Sol, sometimes grudgingly known as the Light-born, is an upstart member of the Guild of Light. An enlightened pragmatist, Sol cares little for ceremony and tradition, considering both barriers to progress. But he garners little support amongst his peers, and his earthy wares are unable to compete with the divine light provided by Lord Pureburn. Driven by his obsession, Sol recruits agents of House Delaque, hoping their talents for spying and subterfuge can uncover a chink in Pureburn’s armour; some weakness or secret Sol can exploit. But too much knowledge can be a dangerous thing in the forty-first millennium…

ToW: What can you tell us about where this is set, within Necromunda?

DF: The story begins far from the Hive Cities, in a place called the Stormlands, where the Guild of Light use archaic technology to harness the power of the permastorms. Little has been written on the Guild of Light, so I enjoyed fleshing them out and showing life in the ash wastes. But the bulk of the tale takes place in the depths of Hive Primus’ underhive, far from inhabited settlements, or even the better-known wild zones. Periculus’s fall took it deep into terra incognita, beyond the hive’s limited cartography. It is a place of darkness and ruin, long uninhabited, at least by anything human. Far from their home ground, the guilders and their allies cannot easily summon assistance, and find themselves in a situation where a sharp blade is worth more than a sack of coin.

ToW: You’ve written quite a few Necromunda stories now – how does this tie in with previous stories?

DF: Fire Made Flesh is a standalone novel; it does not require prior knowledge of the characters or even the setting. That said, Pureburn and Sol have both appeared in previous short stories: Salvation’s Crucible [currently only available in the BL Events Anthology 2019/20 – Tow], and A Question of Taste. These stories provide a little background to the characters and set up the events leading into the novel, but they are not required reading.

That said, I really enjoy world building (partly because it’s easier to expand on a previous idea than start from scratch!) and I think little connections between the stories help the setting feel alive. So there may be a few other easter eggs and cameos that fans of my work might enjoy.

ToW: After a novella and a fair few short stories, this is your debut novel for Black Library – how does it feel now that the book is out there in the world for people to read?

DF: It’s awesome. And terrifying. And surreal; that’s probably the strongest emotion. Frankly, thanks to the global pandemic, it has been a surreal year. Between writing projects and caring for my five-year-old, life has been too hectic for me to really process much, and this is compounded by the gap between completion of the novel and publication. It wasn’t until my author copies of Fire Made Flesh arrived that it suddenly felt real. Seeing the cover really helped with that! I’m proud to have written it, and publication is a life goal achieved. All I need to do now is to get bitten by a radioactive spider.

ToW: Of all the Necromunda stories you could have written, what inspired you to go for this one?

DF: Necromunda stories lean towards small-scale conflicts, like a heist or shootout, where victory and death are separated by a stub round. I wanted to set these conflicts against an overarching story and greater threat, told from multiple points of view. The rediscovery of a lost dome provided a way of pulling together disparate characters with conflicting agendas. This allowed me to write from multiple perspectives, which is something I tend to avoid for short stories but really enjoy for longer pieces. I wanted to use the shifting points of view to keep both reader and characters unsure who they can trust. Plus, it means I get to play with lots of different toys, some directly from the game, others only existing in the background.

ToW: We haven’t seen all that much of the guilders before, certainly not as protagonists – what is it about these characters that appeals to you as a writer?

DF: The guilders are the merchants and bankers of the Hives. But they are not a faction; their business is conducted as individuals and their dealings make them rivals as often as allies. Their wealth grants power, but only through purchased support from others. Despite their relative high status, they are feared and hated by many underhivers and regarded as petty merchants by the aristocrats of the Spire. This complexity is what I enjoy most about them; the stark differences between them. As well as Sol and Pureburn, I’ve also enjoyed creating Virae the Unbroken, a slave turned gladiator turned Chain Lord, and Lord Credence Sorrow, a suave corpse grinder with a taste for off world cuisine.

ToW: How would you say this compares to your Caleb Cursebound stories – is it the same sort of tone, or have you taken a different approach this time?

DF: This has a darker tone, almost bordering on a horror story. The guilders deal in human lives. They charge you for the water you drink, the air you breathe, and the food you eat. When you die, they harvest your corpse, grind it into rations, and sell them to the next generation of workers. Compared to that, gangers murdering each other over scraps of territory seems almost respectable! But despite the darkness, there is still plenty of (very) black comedy, and I’m confident fans of Caleb Cursebound will enjoy the story.

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

DF: I hope when readers get to the final page they will immediately want to start over and read it again! But more than that, I hope it grants some brief distraction from the stresses of the last year. I channelled a lot of my fears and doubts into the writing of this story, and I hope I have forged a gripping tale that will provide a few smiles, an awful lot more shudders, and some brief escapism. On a more selfish note, what I would really love is to see someone convert and paint one of the characters from the novel. That’s when you know you’ve made it.

ToW: Do you have plans to write more stories featuring some of these characters, or is this more of a standalone?

DF: I start writing each story as a standalone; even when Caleb first appeared, I had no idea if he would turn up again. But by the time I get to the final draft, I’m already wondering what happens next, and planting seeds for future stories. I have some ideas for where to go next (and one story I’d really like to tell), but I suspect it will depend on how well the book is received by the fanbase. If people want more, I will happily write it, though at present I am working on another novel set far from the underhive of Necromunda.

ToW: Finally, if you had to belong to one of the Necromunda guilds, which one would it be?

DF: In my youth it would have been the corpse grinders for fashion reasons; I pretty much wore black and skulls anyway. For this story, probably the Guild of Light. I have a great deal of sympathy for Sol, and his desire to forge a better world. It’s a laudable aim. It’s just a pity Necromunda is not the sort of world that gets better.

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Denny Flowers is the author of the Necromunda novel Fire Made Flesh, the short story The Hand of Harrow, and the novella Low Lives. He lives in Kent with his wife and son.

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I’m very grateful to Denny for taking the time to answer these questions, and for giving us the lowdown on Fire Made Flesh!

See also: my Author Spotlight interview with Denny from 2019, which includes a discussion of his Necromunda novella Low Lives.

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