Welcome back to the dark future of Warhammer 40,000 and welcome back to the life of Gregor Eisenhorn, Imperial Inquisitor.
Gregor's adventures began in the novel Xenos, published last year for a French-speaking audience by the Bibliotheque Interdite. They are quite dark and murderous stories, for the cosmos of Warhammer 40,000 is not a forgiving place. Heretics and cultists lurk, miserably plotting galactic overthrow, and their infernal masters, the daemons of the Warp, are never far away. For this very reason, inquisitors exist. Inquisitors are driven, brilliant individuals who, - granted extraordinary autonomous powers by the Imperium - devote their lives to combating the forces of darkness and chaos. Sometimes, they get too close to the very evil they are fighting. Sometimes, the darkness overwhelms them before they even know it.
The Inquisition is divided into three 'ordos' or divisions, each one dedicated to the prosecution of one of the three branches of evil catalogued in the 40,000 cosmos. These are the Ordo Xenos (dealing with alien menaces), the Ordo Malleus (dealing with witchcraft and psyker madness) and the Ordo Hereticus (dealing, as the name suggests, with heretics and disbelievers).
Gregor Eisenhorn, like many potent inquisitors, reassigns himself to the different ordos as work demands. He is a dedicated soul, with a trusted band of followers. The things he and his loyal retainers are obliged to face are often horrendous. One day, all there will be left for him to face is himself.
Looking back on Malleus, which I wrote in early 2001, I am struck by many things, not the least of which being my awful presentiment concerning aircraft crashing into buildings. My work on the book was completed well before the dreadful events of 9/11, though I latterly adjusted some details that were just too remarkably, painfully similar. In fact, that wasn't the only time life mimicked art for me: in the Gaunt's Ghosts novel Honour Guard, I wrote about a terrible attack on a peaceful monastic site in some high mountains. A few days later, my wife showed me the news reports about the bloody overthrow of the Tibetan Royal household. I began to wonder if I was some kind of Jonah. What the hell else have I written about that might come true?
I am not making light of either event, of course. Coincidence is only ever coincidence, but it makes a writer of escapist fantasies like me wonder if there's anything I shouldn't write or even imagine.
The other thing that strikes me about Malleus is how crucial a book it has become. The Eisenhorn books are a trilogy (the third is called - no prizes for guessing - Hereticus) and from that trilogy has sprung the Ravenor novels: Ravenor, Ravenor Returned, and Ravenor Rogue. I completed Ravenor Rogue a few months ago, and it's due to be published in the UK next spring. More volumes are planned. Malleus is the first place that Gideon Ravenor, Gregor's protégé, first appeared as a character (though his name had been mentioned in early Gaunt novels). When I wrote Malleus, I little suspected how far Ravenor - then very much a supporting character - would take me. Nor did I realise how much life there would be in some of the supporting characters introduced in this book, especially Harlon Nayl. Of all my Warhammer 40.000 characters, Harlon Nayl developed to become my favourite, for reasons I can't really pin down. Any physical similarities between Nayl and your devoted author (shaved head, goatee) are quite accidental. When I first wrote about him here, I was, for some reason, picturing the American WWF wrestler "Stone Cold" Steve Austin (who I don't resemble either, except for the shaved head and the goatee). The plot of Ravenor Rogue actually reaches back to the incidents and characters of Malleus. For instance, when Nayl is introduced, we learn that the "...ex-bounty hunter from Loki had been injured on a mission the year before and had not been able to join us for the Lethe endeavour..." Ravenor Rogue tells us the story of that 'injury'.
But this, of course, is an introduction to Malleus, not Ravenor Rogue, so let me make the following observations: The Eisenhorn books chronicle a life and a career, so be warned that we leap forward in time from the events of Xenos. These Imperials live long, long lives. Some changes will have take place since you last read about Gregor Eisenhorn. At least one may sting as a surprise.
Secondly, the Eisenhorn books chronicle and life and a career, and that career will most likely end in blight and damnation. Pay attention, because this is where the slide begins, although I'll be impressed if anyone can actually pinpoint the moment where the inevitable becomes the inexorable. It's a sleight of hand thing, like 'find the lady'. Even Gregor doesn't spot it. And, before you ask, neither did I. I just allowed myself to get carried along.
I hope you enjoy Malleus, as I hope you will enjoy where it leads to. My thanks go again to Matthieu Saintout, of the Bibliotheque Interdite, and to my stalwart and put-upon translator Nathalie Huet. Natalie, can't imagine the burdens and horrors I've given you with this book.
Que brule la galaxie! (as we say in England)
Dan Abnett
Maidstone, August 3rd, 2006
www.danabnett.com
