Sabbat Worlds Anthology

Graham needs little introduction to Black Library readers. The author of the Ultramarines series and of Horus Heresy epics including the New York Times bestseller A Thousand Sons, he is the master of 40K hugeness and fury, and a writer I unfailingly refer to as ‘mighty’ when I talk about him in my blogs. Graham and I have evolved an enjoyably close way of working in tandem for the Horus books, which he described as me ‘knocking shots into the air for him to smash’. This seemed to pay dividends with Horus Rising and False Gods, and will again with the parasitic twins A Thousand Sons and Prospero Burns.

Graham has taken as his starting point Double Eagle, the air combat novel I wrote a few years back. I had a splendid time writing it, and it was something I’d wanted to do for a long time. Unashamedly, I set out to do a sort of ‘Battle of Britain’ in 40K terms. It has earned a lot of fans (including, I’m delighted to say, some Luftwaffe crewmen, from whom I have a standing invitation to visit a German airbase – must get around to doing that), to such an extent that I’ve been planning a sequel for a long time. I know what it’s called (Interceptor City, since you asked) and I know what happens, I just haven’t had the time to write it yet. It keeps getting pushed back. When Graham said he wanted to write something involving the characters featured in Double Eagle, I was all for it. I think this story will go some way towards soothing the jonesing of Double Eagle fans.

Double Eagle principally featured the Phantine XX squadron, flying Thunderbolts in defence of the Sabbat World Enothis, but we also met the elite, privileged squadron of combat aces called the Apostles. Larice Asche, once of the Phantine, managed to win a place in this exclusive club. But exactly how long will she last? And how much glory is there when battle honour and status comes with approximately zero life expectancy?

Dan Abnett