Gotrek & Felix occupy a unique place in the Warhammer canon. Always outsiders, always taking a slightly wryer look at the world they inhabit than any other set of characters could get away with, their story has, over the two decades since Trollslayer, become the story of the Warhammer World. As the world evolved Gotrek & Felix were there to see it and grudgingly move along with it. They passed from Bill King and into the care of Nathan Long, went through the Storm Of Chaos and out the other side. And when the End Times befell what we now call the World-That-Was, there of course, were Gotrek & Felix, getting on with business as though the end of the world was just another chapter in their tale.
It was during the End Times that I first got to wield the famous axe with the novels Kinslayer and Slayer, given the invidious task of doing justice to 12 novels’ worth storylines as well as finally granting the Slayer a worthy doom. If no more words were to have been written about Gotrek’s adventures, then Slayer would have been a perfectly fitting final act for an iconic Old World hero. But even though I’d never heard the words ‘Age Of Sigmar’ at that time, I’d be lying if I said that I hadn’t had half an eye on their return.
The idea for a comeback was first put to me by the editors of Black Library at the David Gemmel Awards ceremony in 2016, where we were cheering on the nomination of Slayer . But it wasn’t until 2017 that the timing was right for managing director Nick Kyme to approach me about writing another Realmslayer. Never mind that I was in the middle of writing another novel. When Gotrek Gurnisson puts that ham-sized fist to your door, you drop everything.
The decision to write an audio drama rather than a novel was partly to put clear blue water between what had become before and what would follow, but also an opportunity to take advantage of the production expertise that Black Library has been developing in recent years, and produce something really singular and outstanding.
Having the chance to hear your own scribblings read out by actors is one of the guilty pleasures of the author-recluse. In fact, I used to joke that at least that way I would know someone had read the story. I was given the opportunity to be more involved in the casting of this story than I have been in the past, and Black Library have been able to give me everything I asked for.
Brian Blessed as Gotrek Gurnisson? I’ve not heard the final recording yet, but I don’t think I’ll believe it’s true until I hear it for myself. A special mention, too, to Penelope Rawlins, who I heard in Titan’s Bane and immediately fired off an e-mail to insist she be Maleneth.
Seeing a project of this ambition through to completion proved to be a lot more like hard work than I’d imagined at the outset, but I’d do it all over again. Quicker than you could extract an oath from a drunken poet in an Altdorf tavern.
