Cavan Scott
About Author
Best-selling novelist CAVAN SCOTT was a 2016 World Book Day author, and his Star Wars: Adventures in Wild Space - The Escape hit number one in the overall UK book charts. He has previously written for The Black Library.
Cavan has a great deal of experience writing for children and, besides Star Wars and WARHAMMER 40,000, he has contributed to many high-profile tie-in series including Doctor Who, Pacific Rim, Vikings, Penguins of Madagascar, Skylanders, Adventure Time, Pathfinder, Angry Birds, Judge Dredd and Blake's 7.
Interview
WARPED GALAXIES: CLAWS OF THE GENESTEALER
WARHAMMER ADVENTURES
JUNE 2019
WARPED GALAXIES and REALM QUEST are two new exciting series drawn from the Warhammer worlds. The books are an exciting way to encourage children who gaming into books - as well as providing great reads for children who already love adventure, science fiction and fantasy.
The WARPED GALAXIES series started earlier this year with ATTACK OF THE NECRON. In the latest adventure, CLAWS OF THE GENESTEALER, Lor and her friends Talen, Mekki and the super-intelligent alien-ape Fleapit must do whatever they can to survive on an alien planet. A distress beacon offers some hope of rescue, but what else lurks in the ice and snow, watching them with hungry eyes..?
We asked the authors of the new WARHAMMER series, CAVAN SCOTT and TOM HUDDLESTON, to tell us more!
Q: Why has Warhammer decided to move into children's books with these new series - WARPED GALAXIES and REALM QUEST?
CAVAN: Most Warhammer fiction is aimed at adults, and can be quite gory, so the idea was the open both the Warhammer 40,000 and the Age of Sigma universes to younger readers, cutting down the violence but keeping as much of the grimdark feel as we could. The settings are the same, but they're seen through the the eyes of children, rather than the battle-hardened super-soldiers of the main lines.
TOM: I think the folks at Games Workshop were keen to get a younger audience into these immense worlds they've created. It's a natural fit - Warhammer role-play is all about epic battles and monsters and magic and spaceships, stuff kids love. I think the idea is that these books will act as a natural gateway into the wider Warhammer world.
Q: How did you get involved in writing them, and what attracted you to the project? Were you already a Warhammer gamer or did you need to research them?
A: CAVAN: I'd already written a number of stories in the Warhammer 40,000 setting and, as I'd also had experience of writing children's fiction for such franchises as Star Wars and Doctor Who, was approached to write the Warped Galaxies series. I've never played the game personally, having come to the universe through the books and audio dramas. I am slowly amassing a collection of the various figures and vehicles though.
TOM: It was actually Cavan who recommended me for the Realm Quest series, for which I'll be eternally grateful! It just sounded like a fun project from the get-go - a chance to work in these vast created worlds, and tell huge, imaginative stories. I wasn't a gamer, no - I remember the figures from when I was younger, and always thought they looked cool, but it wasn't something I'd ever got stuck into.
Q: How long have you been a sci-fi reader and author?
CAVAN: I've been a SF reader all my life, and probably a writer of it since I could first hold a pencil and scrawl stories on random scraps of paper. Professionally, I've been writing for nearly 20-years, my first commission coming in 2000 for a Doctor Who radio play.
TOM: I suppose since I was about 7, when I wrote a story about my teddies going to space and meeting aliens in the cloud-cities of Jupiter. Though it should be pointed out, my Realm Quest series is more fantasy than sci-fi - it's Cavan who writes the space books.
Q: There isn't a huge amount of sci-fi and space fantasy for younger readers - do you feel we underestimate demand for these, and how these stories can get young people - and especially young gamers - reading?
CAVAN: I think there's a massive opportunity to get young gamers reading with books like these, especially any fans who think books 'aren't for them'. Sometimes all it takes is their favourite character on the cover of a book to get them to pick it up. I started reading because of the Target Doctor Who books in the 1970s. If it wasn't for them - and author Terrance Dicks - I doubt I would have spent so much time in libraries, trying to find the latest TARDIS adventures and inadvertently discovering other fantastic books on the shelves.
TOM: Some of my happiest early reading experiences were with SF, whether it was the Star Wars tie-in novels, The Tripods by John Christopher or the Starstormers series by Nicholas Fisk. And although my Warhammer series is fantasy rather than sci-fi, I've drawn on all three influences for these books.
Q: Does the gaming side of Warhammer influence how you plan the novels - for example, the characters' special skills or powers, the settings or names etc?
A: CAVAN: Warhammer 40,000 has such a rich history that there's so much to dive into. Writing one of these books is like working on a historical novel. You have to research everything, from the language the characters would use to the types of planets they visit. Thankfully, we also have series editor Nick Kyme, who is well-versed in all things Warhammer! He has been our guiding light throughout this entire process.
TOM: It's not so much about the gaming specifically, but the vast amount of existing Warhammer lore certainly influences every page of these books. These worlds are impossibly huge - I wouldn't be surprised if Warhammer 40,000 is the biggest and most detailed fictional universe ever created, and Warhammer: Age of Sigmar isn't far behind. We had to immerse ourselves in those worlds before we could start writing - though as Cavan says, Nick and the other good folks at Black Library were always there to steer us in the right direction.
Q: The first books sets up the story - can you give us a brief description of how your series begins and where you plan to take it?
A: CAVAN: WARPED GALAXIES - Attack of the Necron begins with a planet exploding! Zelia, Talen and Mekki are three very different children thrown together when their world is destroyed by alien invaders. They set off on an adventure to find other survivors - including Zelia's mum - unaware that they're being followed by the evil Necrons. Along the way they cross swords with monsters and interplanetary criminals, leaping from one crisis to another as they try to find the refugee's mysterious new home.
TOM: REALM QUEST - City of Lifestone begins with an epic battle - of course it does! - followed by a daring escape through a realm-gate, a mystical portal between worlds that starts our heroine Kiri on a quest to find the fabled City of Lifestone. There she meets a group of children who each bear a mysterious birthmark, and sets off on a wild journey across the Mortal Realms.
Q: Can you give us a glimpse into your next book(s)?
A: CAVAN: Two books in the Warped Galaxy series are now available - Attack of the Necron and Claws of the Genestealer. The next - Secrets of the Tau - sees the kids travelling to a dangerous space station on the next part of their quest. Once there, they become embroiled in a plot that sees them turning on each other. It has rampaging robots, giant tentacled monsters and plenty of twists.
TOM: The second book in the Realm Quest series, Lair of the Skaven, is out now. This follows our intrepid heroes as they embark on a search for their master, Vertigan, who was stolen away by devious rat-creatures known as the Skaven. To find him they must journey into the Skaven warren, a labyrinth of caves and tunnels and deadly traps. The third book, Forest of the Ancients, follows later in the year - I can't say too much about it, except that it raises the stakes even higher, and puts Kiri and her friends in even more deadly peril.
Q: Do you have a favourite character in the series so far? And a top villain?
CAVAN: I love the Necrons. What's not to love about alien metallic skeletons that are virtually impossible to destroy? When it comes to the characters, I love writing Fleapit. He's a grumpy alien who looks like a bionic orangutan and can create super-cool gadgets from any pile of junk.
A: TOM: It's a cliche, but I really do love all the main characters. They're a mismatched bunch - Kiri the outsider, Thanis the warrior, Kaspar the thief, Elio the healer and Alish the inventor - but they each have their own strengths and when they're together they're unstoppable. But they all have their own fears, too, their own doubts and shortcomings, which makes them really interesting to write. And as for villains, they don't come better than the Skaven. Fanged, clawed, six-foot rats who walk on two legs? What's not to love?
Q: If you could bring back a piece of tech / magic from these worlds, what would it be and what would you use it for?
CAVAN: Oh, definitely a Servo-Skull. These are floating computers housed in humans skulls. They're fantastically creepy, complete with writhing mechanical tentacles, and can help with anything - a bit like Alexa, but spookier.
TOM: I don't think it's giving too much away to say that, a couple of books down the line, the kids get their hands on a flying machine. I'll have one of those, please.
Q: What do you think the illustrations bring to the stories?
CAVAN: They help visualise some of the more bizarre aspects of the Warhammer universe, hopefully sparking the reader's imagination and encouraging them to create their own Warhammer Adventures art.
TOM: They make the worlds we're writing about feel so much more vivid, they really bring our stories to life. I think they've really captured the look of the characters, too.
Q: What other kinds writing do you do, and what has been your favourite career moment to date?
CAVAN: Away from Games Workshop, I mostly write Star Wars, writing comics, novels and audio-dramas set in a galaxy, far, far away. At the moment, I'm part of 'Project Luminous', a top secret Star Wars publishing initiative which will be making its debut in 2020. It's all been a bit of a dream come true, flying back and forth to Skywalker Ranch in California to create something very special with four other authors - the brilliant Daniel Jose Older, Justina Ireland, Charles Soule and Claudia Gray. We announced the initiative a few months ago at Star Wars Celebration in Chicago which was both extremely exciting and utterly surreal.
TOM: I write original fantasy and sci-fi stories for young readers, starting with my first novel The Waking World back in 2013. An obvious career highlight was writing the Star Wars: Adventures in Wild Space series with Cavan, but to be honest I think the best is yet to come - my new futuristic action-adventure novel FloodWorld arrives in October this year, and I can't wait for readers to get their hands on it.
Q: What are your favourite escapes from writing?
CAVAN: Most of them involve hanging out with my kids and building LEGO. Lots and lots of LEGO.
TOM: I worked for nine years as a film journalist, and I still try to see every movie going (except the rubbish ones). But to tell the truth, writing is my escape - it's the perfect way to block out an increasingly noisy, fractious and unpredictable world and live somewhere else for a while.
