Triumff and Angry Robot
by danabnett on Jan.27, 2010, under Dan Abnett and Graham McNeill
I think Angry Robot’s statement is pretty accurate in terms of intent, Morgan: they are ambitiously and enthusiastically pursuing some great material that would be hard to pigeon-hole in traditional ways. I think a cocky mission statement like AR’s simply serves to remind everyone how excitingly broad the possibilities contained within the category “SF and F” really are. And I think that genre writers have always been prepared to take those giant risks, but it’s a lonely life at the keyboard, and sometimes you want your ground to be safe rather than new. It’s energising to find an imprint like Angry Robot that happily wears its awareness of those risks on its sleeve, and is eager to see them being taken. It’s about attitude.
Big’s comments yesterday about Triumff were very nice to hear. Tsar Boris asked about ongoing series versus finite stories: some things (like Gaunt) have always been open-ended, in that I’ve always felt that I’d recognise when it was time to stop when I got there. Others (like Eisenhorn) were going to be finite trilogies from the get go. I think I try to govern how these things grow using a mix of flexibility and quality control. I don’t, for example, know how many Triumff books I’d like to write, but the number is not set. Right now, I’ve written one and I have a great idea for the sequel. Maybe there’ll be a billionty-one. Maybe there’ll be two. There certainly isn’t a neon rule in my head flashing “Triumff = a maximum of four books.”
The Gaunt’s Ghosts series is planned out in three or four book arcs (each arc has a sub-title). All the while I’ve got fresh and exciting ways of continuing the series, I’ll keep going. The moment, and I mean the very moment, I feel I’m just churning out Gaunt stories for the sake of having a new Gaunt book, I’ll stop. It occurs to me that it may be surprising for some people to hear that tie-in series, which are supposed to be driven more by consciously commercial concerns, have creative discernment involved in their production.
Embedded, my next book for Angry Robot, is a return to the hard combat SF that I’m best known for. Freed from the constraints of someone else’s universe, the combat is going to be harder than usual, and I’ve been having wild fun creating a setting that will be unpredictable yet credible. The premise is this: on the frontline of a future war, a journalist is covering the action ‘chipped’ into the head of a serving trooper. When the soldier is killed, the journo - unable to eject his consciousness - has to take control of the body and get home again, reporting live feed all the way.
See? You want to read it already, don’t you?
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- England, my England The universe of my novel Triumff existed in my head for about two decades before I got it into a printed form. It didn’t take that much longer to reach publication than my 40K books because the universe took so much more time to design, but the contrast is useful...
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January 27th, 2010 on 9:47 am
All sounds quiet fun and sensible. When will Embedded become available?
January 27th, 2010 on 10:04 am
Dan - loved Triumff, looking forward to Embedded. And the Bequin trilogy. And more Ghosts. And Prospero Burns. And a Double Eagle sequel;). And… and… and.. y’know. Anything else you write.
Anyway, fanboi-ism aside, question time. You talked yesterday about doing research for your novels, approaching your 40k stuff as historical fiction and then ’skewing’ that research so it fits 40k. What form does this research take? Sounds obvious, maybe, but my assumption is that you flit around the interweb, go down the library, read some books, talk to some knowledgeable types etc. Would that assumption be correct? If so (or even if not), typically how much research do you do for a novel. Take, for example, Double Eagle and Riders of the Dead. Two very different settings and subject matters. Can you give us an insight into the research process for these two (or any others that might provide better examples)?
Cheers matey!
Oh, and on behalf of Tzar Boris - Zing!
January 27th, 2010 on 10:17 am
Thanks JOhn!
January 27th, 2010 on 10:25 am
You and Neil spoke yesterday and the day before about structures in Novels, and I wondered if there are any differences beetween a full outwritten book and a shortstory ( like in Ravenor Omni or the Founding).
Also the third Omnibus The Lost is comming up, will there be an shortstory included?
January 27th, 2010 on 12:16 pm
Hi Dan,
I can tell from your blogs that you really like Sir Rupert Triumff. What I was wondering was how do you feel about your other major creations like Gaunt, Ravenor, Eisenhorn, Sinister/Dexter? Do you like them in different ways, or are you indifferent with some as they may be characters that you have had to create for a specific commission?
Also, I never like to find out what you’re writing until I start reading a published book (I don’t even read the blurb), but I was wondering about one character. I’m reading Blood Pact (a great twist to a normal ghosts book by the way), and I was pleasantly surprised to see Gaunt’s old mate Blenner pop up. You don’t have to tell me if he’s going to make a reappearance as I like to be surprised, but are there some sorts of characters that you only use lightly in your books, say a lord general, primarch etc. Which leads me to the question, will you ever use the Emperor in a HH book or will he only be talked about by the other characters? Also, will you be writing the ultimate title fight between the Emperor and Horus? The only answer I want to hear starts with ‘y’ and ends in‘s’.
Cheers, and take it easy
Tom
January 27th, 2010 on 4:55 pm
I loved triumff and even though a sequel was hinted at in ‘the extras’ section at the end its good to have its release confirmed, ive chuckled to myself while reading books before but triumff is the only one ive ever laughed out loud at particularily the assasination attempt in the public baths an hilarious scene, so weve heard about your literary influences on here and your own blog so i was wondering about your comedic influences i.e. what makes you laugh and has this influenced the humour in your own books, cheers and heres to more triumff and more bloody awful and at the same time brilliant puns
January 27th, 2010 on 9:13 pm
AAAUGH i can’t wait for triumff to come out here!!!
and yes, i DO want to read embedded already!
January 28th, 2010 on 4:53 am
I’ll second the request for more info on how you do your research. Do you get provided with an encylopedia from the editors, or do you have to do your own research? It seems like it could take months to fully research some genres, given the volume of previous material.
Embedded does sound good. The fact that the soldier’s body is dead might create some interesting issues (how long can it keep going?) and the fact that the chip can keep the body going after death might be interesting to the military (so he might have to avoid being captured and dissected!). Rogue Trooper meets Ross Kemp meets Universal Soldier meets The A Team!
And I’m just about to read Triumff.
January 28th, 2010 on 5:30 am
John - I want you to know I’m writing as fast as I can.
You’re pretty much right about the nature of my research. Books are the first line of attack - I own quite a lot, as you can imagine, and I often buy books and put them to one side because I think they’re going to be useful somewhere down the line (in terms of months or years) for an idea I’ve had. Not all of these books are new - I love trawling second-hand shops. Libraries too. Then it’s the interweb, and the old ‘quiz a friendly expert’ thing. Sometimes it’s just watching a few movies or TV episodes that intersect the subject, or even just put you in the mood. Sometimes (hi, Ilmarinen!) editors and companies supply reference, but not always.
Double Eagle is about SF air combat, but I wanted it to have the feel of the Battle of Britain. Now, I know a fair bit about that (I live in Kent, and a lot of the battle took place in Kentish skies), so I augmented that enthusiasm with a little additional research. And I paid a visit to Forge World (the part of games Workshop who make the large scale models like the aircraft) and they were kind enough to explain how THEY thought the planes worked.
Riders of the Dead is a Warhammer novel about Kislevites and Chaos. It’s about cavalry, and it’s still a favorite of mine (if I was being crass enough to pick a book of my own). ANYWAY, I realised that Polish lancers were the closest real world analog I could get to the Kislevites, so that’s what I researched. Unlike the Battle of Britain, I knew nothing about them, so it was a real (and really interesting) learning curve.
So, good examples, John, well picked. Sometimes I write about what I know and then supplement that knowledge, sometimes I write about what I don’t and build knowledge.
And sometimes I just make s**t up because, you know, that can work too.
Leif - I think structure is almost more important in short stories than it is in novels. The wrong structure shows up far more in a short story. If the story is like a…well, pick an analogy… a fishing rod, a baseball bat, a spear, then if you weight it poorly with the wrong structure, it just doesn’t feel right. A novel, because it’s much bigger, can absorb much more lumpy structural stuff, and can be more forgiving of it. A novel is a bigger beast with more going on in it than a short story. It has multiple purposes. A novel can sometimes even benefit from the sort of ornate, complex structure that would kill a short story dead on the page.
A novel tends to let me know what kind of pacing and structure it needs: the Horus books, for example, are dense and embroidered and entangling, yet with bright ‘hits’ of action and adrenalin; the Gaunt books are leaner, faster… they’re action thrillers, where you’re meant to be turning the page rather than lingering on a thought or idea. The chapters in a Gaunt book are, for instance, deliberately much shorter than in a Horus book. For me, the physical structure of a Gaunt novel resembles a Biggles book, or something by John Buchan.
Tom - I’m very fond of all my heroes (though Eisenhorn is perhaps a difficult child to love, and Triumff keeps getting into trouble). It sounds stupid, but I know them as people. Gaunt, in particular, has a real physicality. I’ve written before about how characters began to, as it seems to me, actively determine the course of one novel, as if they had taken control. I’d heard other authors talk about that kind of dynamic and scoffed at it, but it’s true. Characters walked into a novel and took over. And yes, there are some like Blenner I use sparingly, for deliberate effect.
I think both your questions regarding the Emperor can be answered with “yes, if I can find a way”.
Cor - Comedy influences? A lot of BBC radio comedy, such as the Burkiss Way, I’m Sorry I’ll Read That Again and I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue; Python; Hitchhiker (again, radio more than anything); Woody Allen; Alan Coren; Bill Hicks; Tom Lehrer; Fawlty Towers; Spinal Tap; Eddie Izzard; Mighty Boosh… (that’s quite enough comedy influences - ed)
January 28th, 2010 on 6:39 am
I love the concept of Embedded, that is sheer brilliance!
I still haven’t managed to get my hands on a copy of Triumff. I tried ordering it through a popular online retailer in Canada (name removed to please Borders), and after a few weeks they dropped my order. Bah! I might have to get one shipped over from the UK.
January 28th, 2010 on 8:25 am
Good god but Embedded sounds sexy. Hurry the hell up, Abnett.
January 28th, 2010 on 4:43 pm
It’s taken a while for me to get over here from your blogspot, and a pity I missed alot of the fun so far.
Glad to hear your doing a follow up to Triumff. A book I enjoyed immensly.
And as for Embedded. Hmmmmmm (strokes chine).
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