David Annandale writes Doctor Doom, Arkham Horror and Legend of the Five Rings fiction for Aconyte, and Horus Heresy, Warhammer 40,000, Age of Sigmar and Warhammer Horror fiction for Black Library. Among his recent novels are Reign of the Devourer and The Harrowing of Doom. He is also the author of the horror novel Gethsemane Hall and the Jen Blaylock thriller series. By day, he is Senior Instructor in the Department of English, Theatre, Film & Media at the University of Manitoba, Canada, where he specialises in genre film and video games. He is also a co-host of the Hugo-nominated podcast The Skiffy and Fanty Show. I got the chance to chat with him about his story, 'Crossing Stars' in the new Arkham Horror anthology collection Secrets In Scarlet.
Were you a fan of Lovecraft or the Arkham Horror games before coming to work on the books, and if so how did you get into it?
Though I’m a newcomer to the board game (though not to the role-playing incarnation of games set in this universe), Lovecraft had a big impact on me when I first read him in my teens (much longer ago than I care to think about). The cosmic horror of his stories has had a huge influence on my own work, and I’ve written about and taught Lovecraft over the years.
This isn’t your first time writing an Arkham Horror title, having previously written the recently released In the Coils of the Labyrinth, and having contributed a short story to The Devourer Below anthology book. Having written both short stories and novels in this universe, which format do you prefer?
I very much enjoy both, though I suppose the novel is ultimately the form that gives me the greatest satisfaction, as it gives me the space to really get stuck in to a world and its characters, and to explore particular themes and ideas at greater length.
Yours if the first story in the book, and kind of acts as an introduction to this world of opposing secret organisations and the search for ancient artefacts. Were you aware that your story was going to be the first, and did that shape the way you went about writing it?
The first I knew about the story’s placement was when I received my author’s copies of the book. If the story does work as a kind of introduction, then I’m very pleased, but I can’t take credit for having planned it that way!
Your story focuses on the character of Qiana Taylor, a character that I really loved, was she a character that has appeared in the games at all, or were you given free rein to create someone new? And if so, what drew you to writing about her?
She’s one of the characters created for the game. What drew me to her was the aura of rather dangerous power and authority that surrounds her. She struck me as someone you really, really, really do not want to cross, and so I had enormous fun pitting her against someone who makes that mistake.
Each story in the collection builds up a smaller piece of the larger story, of these rival organisations, how much freedom did you get, or were you given instructions as to the kinds of stories you needed to write?
We had a lot of freedom with the stories. I had the background for the characters and the broader context of the game narrative they play a part in for reference. But then I was free to come up with ideas for a story.
There’s a lot of pre-exisitng lore in the Arkham Horror series, and your story definitely adds to that in new and interesting ways. Is it ever daunting to go into an established property like this to create new stories and new characters?
It definitely can be, especially as I want to do justice to both characters and setting. The amount of pre-existing lore for a given property can certainly feel intimidating, but at the same time, it’s also a sign of the huge richness of the world the character. So I do the research as best I can, and then dive in. I always have fun, and being able to add new characters to an existing universe is a wonderful privilege.
Your Doctor Doom books have a lot of horror themes to them, and the second book especially is one of my favourite horror books from Aconyte. Is horror a genre that you particularly enjoy?
Thank you so much! Yes, horror is my great love, and has been for most of my life. It’s what I did my doctoral thesis on, and it informs, in one way or another, a great deal of my work, whether for Aconyte, for Black Library, and in my non-tie-in books. This is also true if the novel is explicitly identified as a horror novel (like In the Coils of the Labyrinth) or if I have the chance, as with Reign of the Devourer or Curse of Honor, to take a book that might nominally spring from a different genre into the realm of horror.
I really loved to read about Taylor, and was a little sad that our time with her was as short as it was. Is she a character that you’d be willing to come back to in the future? And can you tell us about any upcoming projects of yours we should keep an eye out for?
I would very happily do more with Taylor, so we’ll see what the future brings on that front. My next book for Aconyte is my third Doctor Doom book, The Tyrant Skies, in which he battles the Red Skull.
Make sure to check back all this week as I chat with more of the authors from Secrets in Scarlet.
No comments:
Post a Comment