Games Workshop’s release schedule is something of a mystery, certainly from the outside looking in. While many releases will traverse the hardback-to-paperback pipeline in fairly predictable order, others at times appear to have gotten lost in the warp.
Take today’s book, Luther: First of the Fallen by Gav Thorpe, which just recently released in paperback. Following a limited edition release in 2020, the standard edition hardcover hit the shelves in April of 2021. While given the story’s temporal shenanigans it’s tempting to say that it’s a case of life imitating art, it’s curious that it had such a lengthy amount of time in limbo. What does seem likely is that the timing of its release is no coincidence, but rather tied to the launch of the newest edition of Horus Heresy.
Thorpe has been one of the Black Library’s most steady and prolific writers; aside from a small two-year break in 2007, his work has appeared in print every year since he started in 1997. His first novel for the Horus Heresy was Deliverance Lost, the eighteenth book in the mainline series and published in 2012. To date he’s contributed more than thirty stories to the Heresy, most recently System Purge in the recent Siege of Terra anthology Era of Ruin.
This background is important, because when you’re looking to try something unconventional it helps to have a body of work to stand upon. And Luther is nothing if not unconventional.
Framing the Fallen
Luther: First of the Fallen is less of a story and more a series of connected narratives, with the story (such as it is) serving as a framework much like the chain that holds a string of pearls. Thorpe’s Luther is the narrator in his own “interrogations,” which in practical terms means the book is primarily a set of character monologues told entirely in Luther’s voice and perspective. Much of this focuses on life on Caliban, but as it unspools you delve more closely into Luther’s life- and his eventual undoing.
“It’s partly an origins story/biography,” noted Thorpe in an interview at the time with Track of Words1, “and partly a dissertation on the nature of Chaos and humanity… Not every Dark Angels story has to be about the Fallen, but as readers we understand that shadow is always there. The Dark Angels’ ‘flaw’ is self-inflicted by their past decisions and the consequences of those decisions, and so their internal conflict is one of the best for exploring because fundamentally it defines who they are and why they cannot ever confront it. That’s a key part of Luther’s tales here.”
As Thorpe relates on Warhammer Community2, the idea for the book’s construction gelled almost immediately. “It was a very pleasant surprise when Black Library editor Jacob asked if I’d be interested in writing a book on Luther for the Horus Heresy Character series,” he shared. “We sat down to discuss what that meant and within 30 seconds ideas were already bubbling through my head for the overall structure (interrogations by a parade of different Supreme Grand Masters), what sorts of scenes and arcs I wanted to include, and how we’d tie it up with interstitial sections.”
So now that we know what he was after, how well did Thorpe pull it off?
A Luther’s Luther
There was once a pulp fiction writer who had a rather ingenious method of padding his stories out to the appropriate word count on those occasions where they fell short.
Within the story itself he would have a character pick up a newspaper or similar periodical and read the article aloud to a companion, with whom they’d then engage in a conversation about the event or happening they’d just read about. The news article wouldn’t have anything to do with the tale at hand, but the conversation between them would go on for whatever length the author felt was sufficient. Then, they’d put the newspaper down and resume the story.
While the name of the writer escapes me- aging is ever a thief of the mind- he came to mind early in the course of reading Luther: First of the Fallen. In fact, I can even pinpoint exactly where it happened- when, during the course of one of his monologues, he mentions riding a horse before pivoting with, “let me tell you now a little more about our mounts.” I may have actually groaned aloud.
This ambling, dissembling tale was hardly the experience I’d hoped for when I first picked up the book, hoping instead to learn more about a character and chapter I’m somewhat less familiar with.
But then a funny thing happened as I continued to stroll through Luther’s monologues, a dawning realization that perhaps that was exactly what I was getting. If I’d wanted definitive, unambiguous insight to Luther’s soul, I wasn’t going to get them here. But isn’t that more true to life?
Things seldom wrap up into tv-show-sized resolutions, clean and tidy and clear. We often talk about the essence of the stories of Warhammer 40,000 having a certain amount of unreliable narration at their very heart. This is in part a pragmatic recognition that you are going to be hard-pressed to have factual fidelity when the body of content spans hundreds of books. But it also allows for greater freedom on the part of the writers, freedom that Thorpe takes full advantage of here. Luther’s story doesn’t have to be objective truth, it just has to be objectively Luther. From lies he tells to lies he believes and every shade of truth in between, it’s all fair game here.
Once that’s understood, the book becomes considerably more interesting- if, perhaps, a bit more niche. A deep dive into one of 40K’s more notable villains as he slowly comes undone over the course of millennia, taken out of time-stasis only to be prodded and prompted by an ever-rotating cast of only briefly-visible interrogators is not everyone’s cup of tea.
But these are precisely the kinds of books that make the body of the Black Library a much richer experience. “Everything pertinent is related in first person by Luther so you only have his view and opinion of events,” said Thorpe1. “This is Luther telling us about Luther, and we make of that what we can.”
Footnotes
- As part of the Rapid Fire series of quick interviews with writers, Thorpe had a few interesting perspectives on the character you can find here.
- The WarCom piece- barely more than a snippet, really- can be found here.
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