The shadow of Hive Fleet Leviathan looms over the new edition of Warhammer 40,000, bringing a nightmare invasion of ravenous hordes to the Imperium. The stalwart Ultramarines 1st Company stand ready to defend, but even they may not be able to hold back the uncountable swarm in Leviathan, the gripping companion novel by Black Library veteran Darius Hinks.
To prepare ourselves for the coming onslaught, we caught up with Darius to grab the intel on the xenos menace.
Warhammer Community: Without creeping into spoiler territory, what is Leviathan about?
Darius Hinks: It’s a novel set on a planet called Regium – an Imperial fortress world that’s the lynchpin of an important defensive measure known as the Sanctus Line. Regium’s tactical importance means it’s unusually well-defended with a garrison that includes mighty veterans of the Ultramarines 1st Company. It’s survived countless attacks and seems impregnable. Then Hive Fleet Leviathan arrives…
I’ve always loved those old 1940s, 1950s science fiction invasion novels where the author sets up a seemingly stable status quo then gradually reveals a horrific alien threat. You know the kind of thing – people scramble to escape the apocalypse while others try to mount a desperate, last-ditch defence.
Leviathan is a mixture of that and those disaster movies where you meet a cast of sympathetic characters, and then have to guess who might not die a horrible death by the end of the film. It’s a technicolour blockbuster of a novel in which the Imperium’s finest go toe-to-toe with the unstoppable horror of the Tyranid swarm.
WarCom: How does it feel to be writing the narrative companion to the brand-new edition of Warhammer 40,000?
Darius: Warhammer 40,000 has been a big part of my life since my early teens. I can clearly remember the day, way back in the late 1980s, when I saw John Sibbick’s seminal Rogue Trader art in the window of Games Workshop Birmingham. That image of a heroic, unwinnable fight really caught my imagination and it drew me into a fantasy world unlike any other I had encountered.
Decades later, I find myself writing the book that kicks off the latest edition of the game. That level of responsibility would probably have made a more sensible person nervous but the subject matter was just so much fun I didn’t really have time to worry. I was lucky enough to see early images of the Leviathan miniatures and bringing them to life on the page was a dream gig.
WarCom: You've written companion novels for several box sets like Dominion and Blackstone Fortress. Is anything about the writing experience different when it's intimately tied to a physical release?
Darius: These novels feel even more collaborative than the usual Black Library novels. But that’s one of the things I most enjoy about writing Warhammer fiction – bouncing ideas around with editors and other Games Workshop creatives sparks ideas I would never have dreamt up on my own.
WarCom: What sort of challenges did you face writing about an overwhelming, unknowable swarm like the Tyranids?
Darius: The fact that they're so unknowable is actually one of the things I enjoyed. I think it makes them genuinely scary – most Warhammer 40,000 antagonists have a recognisable ideology, perhaps even goals that we can sympathise with (considering how bleak and oppressive the Imperium of Man is) but there's no reasoning with the Great Devourer. No way at all to understand the Hive Mind.
Even names like ‘Tyranid’ or ‘Leviathan’ are just labels applied to them by their desperate prey. For me, that's like a childhood nightmare – being hunted by something that can't be threatened or bargained with. It makes Tyranids a foe that even the noble veterans of the Ultramarines 1st Company can’t take lightly.
WarCom: What do you enjoy most about the setting of Warhammer 40,000?
Darius: Most science fiction or fantasy settings revolve around the idea of hope. Plucky underdogs rebel against evil empires, or proud defenders fighting to maintain their way of life. But in Warhammer 40,000 there's none of that – hope is a distant memory. The worst has happened. The Imperium is being devoured. The galaxy is burning. And, even if it wasn't on its last legs, the Imperium was horrific to begin with.
And yet, amidst all this horror, there are acts of heroism. In Warhammer 40,000 we see characters with nothing left to live for who still try to do the right thing. People make incredible sacrifices knowing that their heroism will go unnoticed. To me, that's always made Warhammer 40,000 seem unique and fascinating.
WarCom: Who are you rooting for, the Space Marines or the Tyranids?
Darius: The boys in blue, all the way. The Imperium’s a mess and the Ultramarines are almost as terrifying as the Tyranids, but I generally pick the side that isn’t trying to eat me.
Thanks Darius! You’ll be able to get your hands on Leviathan at the same time as the massive boxed set of the same name, ringing in the new edition of Warhammer 40,000 with tons of miniatures and tales of the horrifying Fourth Tyrannic War. Sign up to the Black Library newsletter for more.
