A new wave of Warhammer Horror is coming your way, and it starts in time for Halloween with The Reverie, a new novel by Peter Fehervari. We caught up with Peter to find out more about the book, Warhammer Horror, and the Space Marines around which the story revolves.
Warhammer Community: The Reverie is your first Warhammer Horror novel for Black Library. Can you tell us a bit about the story?
Peter: The novel is set on Malpertuis, the home world of the Angels Resplendent Chapter, long before ‘contemporary’ events in the Warhammer 40,000 universe and preceding the brotherhood’s transformation into the Angels Penitent. I was keen to explore the Chapter’s ‘bright’ aspect because it obscures some very dark truths. While Resplendent culture is utopian by Imperial standards, the ‘Shining Ones’ are not the flawless scions of Sanguinius they would have us believe. Yes, they have freed themselves from the twin curses of the Black Rage and the Red Thirst, but not without a price.
The key to the Chapter’s ‘Ascendance’ is The Reverie, a snow-choked forest that borders its citadel. Bound by a perpetual winter – and something far stranger – this ambiguous realm might take a traveller anything from days to years to cross, if they can traverse it at all. This is the trial that Resplendent aspirants must face, along with those who seek the Chapter’s wisdom. Beginning and ending with this enigma, the novel delves deep into the brotherhood’s customs and lore, unravelling the restless, voracious secret at its heart.
WarCom: Without giving the game away, who are the characters and what would be good for us to know about them?
Peter: There are three key players, each with a very different voice and capabilities, but all driven by the same compulsion to make sense of the Angels Resplendent. As always with my protagonists, they are troubled figures, harried by doubts and haunted by shadows… of both past and future.
The first act is told from the perspective of a young scholar who has travelled to Malpertuis to seek an audience with the brotherhood. Intense, idealistic, and obsessed with ‘fixing a broken galaxy’, he is entirely unprepared for the challenges ahead. On reflection, I think I was channelling my younger self here, albeit a bolder incarnation. I’m not sure I’d have ventured into The Reverie myself! Opening the story through the eyes of an educated, but somewhat callow outsider let me reveal the Resplendent world gradually, along with some wider Warhammer 40,000 concepts (Space Marines, primarchs, etc.) that will be familiar to Warhammer fans, but not necessarily to the broader audience that the Horror line hopes to reach.
The narrative scope widens from the second act, where we meet a Knight Exemplar (the Angels Resplendent equivalent of a Company Captain) and his Muse, a human poet who serves as his spiritual companion. Both are deeply immersed in the Chapter’s traditions, but neither fits comfortably into the hierarchy. Despite their status, they are perennial outsiders who can’t help scratching at the surface of things.
WarCom: Can you describe the genre of horror that The Reverie most closely falls into?
Peter: Structurally and stylistically, it’s closest to Gothic horror, with a pervasive atmosphere of paranormal dread, but the substance is cosmic horror. The plot is multi-layered and twisty, winding through secrets and lies, where nothing is quite what it seems to be and nobody can be trusted. As with some of my other work, such as Requiem Infernal, the mystery becomes more dangerous the more you engage with it. The underlying threat here is metaphysical in nature – a force beyond rational comprehension that can only be approached obliquely. We might frame its manifestations in dark words like ‘phantoms’ or ‘daemons’ in an effort to quantify and contain it, but the reality is far more ambiguous and insidious.
The novel’s horror leans more towards suspense and the uncanny than outright violence or gore, though it doesn’t shy away from those when events spiral out of control. The underlying theme is change, so there’s a fair amount of body horror. Or might it actually be body glory? Damnation or transcendence? An interesting aspect of Gothic horror is its underlying strand of romanticism. There is often beauty reflected in the darkness, as alluring as it is deadly. This has always appealed to me so I’ve consciously tried to tap into the tradition. After all, the great unknown is terrible, but also wondrous.
WarCom: What was the reasoning behind writing about Space Marines – who famously know no fear – in a horror setting?
Peter: The first wave of Warhammer Horror mostly focused on human viewpoints and relatively low-key situations that made the perils easily relatable. My first short story for the line also follows this eminently sensible approach, but for the novel I wanted to embrace Warhammer 40,000 horror wholeheartedly, Space Marines and all. Moreover, I was intrigued by what horror might mean to a transhuman who is incapable of feeling fear, let alone full-blooded terror.
Dread and horror are intimately connected, yet distinct experiences. While the prospect of suffering or death will rarely unsettle a Space Marine, there are other hooks that can find a purchase in their souls and bring them down (and arguably horrify them) as we’ve seen in myriad stories. The Adeptus Astartes aren’t emotionless automatons – pride, ambition, and fury are hard-wired into them alongside the psycho-indoctrination that drives them to martial excellence. Consequently there are many ways to wound their souls – dishonour, ignorance, perceived weakness, merely a lack of excellence… Such failings are often magnified in the Space Marine psyche, leading to irrational or unstable behaviour, possibly even madness. Some Chapters are far more vulnerable to this than others, especially those that are already off-balance.
WarCom: What drew you to the Angels Resplendent/Penitent?
Peter: Both these Chapters were blank slates when I researched them, but their names were evocative and there was a catchy synergy between them. Rhythmically they sounded similar, yet their connotations were vastly different. Almost opposite... That’s where the idea for combining them into two incarnations of a single Chapter originated. Once that clicked they caught fire in my imagination.
The Angels Resplendent are a brotherhood that falls from grace into extreme dogma rather than Chaos. As the Angels Penitent they are an inversion of themselves, rejecting the pursuit of knowledge, art, and personal enlightenment in favour of puritanical nihilism. I regard them as a reflection of the wider Imperium’s decline, their grand (or merely grandiose?) aspirations tarnished then gone to rust. And yet they fight on, like an unquiet corpse that refuses to lie down and rot away. I feel their complexity and fatal flaws make them a perfect Chapter for a horror piece.
I’d already tested this with ‘The Thirteenth Psalm’ (a Space Marine haunted house story featuring the Angels Penitent), so I felt ready to attempt it in a novel, but decided to switch focus to the Angels Resplendent since they are more attractive and relatable. Hopefully I’ve pulled off the delicate balancing act of making them psychologically complex without crossing the line into ‘too human’ territory.
WarCom: How does The Reverie connect to your other Warhammer 40,000 work?
Peter: All my stories are written to work as stand-alone pieces, while also forming threads in a wider tapestry – or more accurately web – that is informally called the Dark Coil. Characters, places, events and lore often carry over from one tale (or strand) to another, occasionally in a non-linear fashion. Familiarity with one story might shed fresh light on another, perhaps answering a lingering question or prompting a new one that might otherwise have gone unasked. Naturally The Reverie connects most directly to my Angels Penitent stories, but its implications will ripple through the entire web, with unpredictable repercussions.
The Coil has evolved organically so there’s an inherent – essential – chaos to it, as befits the twisted firmament of Warhammer 40,000. It’s an ever-shifting, forever-expanding puzzle without an absolute solution. I usually approach the Coil stories as a process of discovery rather than planned construction, but as its form has become clearer I’ve tried to crystallise some vital strands. Without doubt the Resplendent Chapter is one of its prominent mysteries, and one that readers speculate about often so felt it deserved attention. By finally tackling them head-on, The Reverie slots a crucial – and hopefully disruptive – piece into the puzzle. Of course, that will throw up as many questions as it answers!
WarCom: What new opportunities does the Warhammer Horror imprint offer for your writing?
Peter: Virtually everything I’ve written has been horror in theme and tone, even when the plot has ostensibly been Military SF. Horror is where my passion lies. Not the guts-and-gore splatter side of the genre, but rather the uncanny, sanity-unravelling stuff – the sense of creeping wrongness just under the surface of things.Looking back on my decade with Black Library, it almost feels like I’ve been writing horror by stealth, twisting my stories into stranger, darker forms than their synopses strictly speaking implied. For example, at the surface level, Fire Caste is about an obscure conflict between the Imperium and the T’au Empire, and the cynical conspiracy behind it, but what it’s really about is the slow-burning hell of a fungal death world and the growing madness infesting the forsaken souls condemned there. This resonated with some readers greatly, perplexed others and infuriated quite a few, which is why it remains a divisive book.
Requiem Infernal was the first story I openly pitched as horror, though it preceded the official line by a few months. That openness was an immense relief. Unlike my previous commissions, I didn’t need to worry about wandering off the road I’d staked out in the synopsis and getting into trouble, as I’ve done occasionally. My editors, particularly Lindsey Priestley, have been very patient with me through the years.
With the Horror imprint, Black Library is actively championing the kind of stories I love to read and tell. To me that’s immensely liberating and exciting. I believe it’s an inspired step towards broadening the appeal of the IP well beyond its traditional base.
WarCom: How has other horror literature inspired you?
Peter: Almost certainly in the same way it’s inspired so many others – by informing, stimulating, challenging, and hopefully sharpening my own creativity. I’ve said this elsewhere, but I can’t phrase it any better – it’s a love of stories that engenders the desire to tell them, or at least attempt it. Whenever I read something that truly moves me I have a compulsion to capture that lightning and express with my own voice, then pass it on. Whether I succeed is not entirely the point. As the Angels Resplendent might say, artistry lies in the attempt as much as the work itself. More specifically, I’m drawn to horror fiction that possesses a strange, yet undeniable beauty interwoven with the darkness.
WarCom: As The Reverie is released on the spookiest date of the year, do you have any fun Halloween experiences you can tell us about?
Peter: I wish I could offer you an authentic ghost story, but the closest I’ve come to a spooky Halloween was watching the BBC’s ‘Ghostwatch’, a pseudo-documentary from the early nineties, back when the format was rare enough to be surprising. Along with many horror fans of a certain generation I almost believed I was watching real events, which was thrilling. I’ve never watched it since. The magic lay in the timing, which is often the way it is with spooky things.
WarCom: In one sentence, why should people read The Reverie?
Peter: Everything preceding this will testify that I’m not a one-sentence kind of writer… but I’ll give it a shot.
Embark on a twisted journey into the dark-bright heart of a tormented Space Marine Chapter that soared too high and gazed too deep, but be wary, for the revelations ahead might grow teeth and come after you.
Thanks, Peter! The Reverie will be available to pre-order from Saturday the 24th of October, and will hit store shelves on Saturday the 31st – the perfect Halloween reading. It will be followed by more Warhammer Horror in early 2021, including the intriguingly titled The Deacon of Wounds and The Harrowed Paths. Sign up to the Black Library newsletter to make sure you’re among the first to know about these and other new releases.