Introduction It seems I can add world builder to my CV.

Actually, that comes as no great revelation to me. Anyone who works in w hat s loosely known as genre fiction (ie SF, fantasy, horror, comics, a great deal o f gaming etc. etc.), is used to the process. What s basically meant by the phrase is the deliberate and artful construction of a consistent fictional background, setting or milieu for your story or stories to operate in. There are some singul arly achieved examples (Middle-earth, Arrakis, Gormenghast) and there are some s pectacularly piecemeal yet inclusive examples too (the continuity of Doctor Who, the Marvel Comics Universe). I ve personally done it many times, often without ev en consciously realising I m doing it, as I create the background for a story or s eries of my own. This happened with the city of Downlode in my 2000AD series Sin ister Dexter, and it happened every time I invented a planet setting for a Star Trek or Legion of Super-Heroes story. Sometimes it means literally inventing a w orld, sometimes it means something more figurative. What you re basically setting out to do is establish a playing field that is logical and stable and doesn t star t suddenly contradicting itself. When I was first asked to write for Warhammer 40,000 (as memory serves, this would have been around about 1996), the basics of the world I would be workin g in were already well built. Like many popular and long-running intellectual pr operties, 40K is a shared universe lots of individuals work within, and contribut e creatively to, the whole. But the universe was truly vast, and there was a gre at deal of room for micro-invention within it. I don t mean this to sound like a criticism of Warhammer 40,000 at all: th e inclusion of huge scope for individual development was a deliberately designed aspect of the universe. This was an adventure you were being invited to join in with, and contribute to. As anyone who s played the game or built his own army (a nd its mythology) from the ground up will testify, that s the appeal. There is roo m for that invention. As I ve written novels for the Black Library, in excess of thirty and coun ting, I d like to think I ve contributed in two particular areas of the world buildi ng process (maybe it s not really my place to review this but, hey, I ve got the mic right now). The first area is what might be called small-scale texture or domes tic detail. With various books, but particularly the Eisenhorn trilogy, I wrote about the 40K universe away from the front line of eternal war. I created a lot of words, phrases and ideas that have been adopted as part of the basic vernacul ar (vox, anybody? promethium?) and used by other writers, by players, and by gam e designers alike. That gives me a huge warm feeling inside. The other area is an actual area. It s called the Sabbat Worlds. One of the first (not the very first, but one of the first) short storie s I wrote for the Black Library s Inferno! magazine was about a bunch of Imperial Guard called the Tanith First and Only. Along with their commander, Ibram Gaunt, they have gone on to feature in fourteen novels. They have a vast, dogged and d evoted fanbase, and they represent my most monumental creative achievement (even if you simply measure it in words). I had no idea how far the Gaunt s Ghosts stories would take me when I wrot e that first tale (or the handful that followed, or even the first few novels, i f I m honest), but I did know I wanted some kind of backdrop. I wanted Gaunt and h is men to be fighting in a particular campaign, and so I created names (in a loo se and scattershot way) for the small corner of the vast 40K galaxy that they we re fighting in. I called it the Sabbat Worlds. I don t know where that name came f

rom (I don t know where any of the names came from, actually, except that I delibe rately went for Celtic names for the Tanith). The Sabbat Worlds sounded exotic and a tmospheric. I made reference to events that had happened just prior to the first story, and mentioned other places. It gave the stories a little meat, a little context. As the novels took off, the background developed. It grew flesh over its bones. By the fourth book, Honour Guard, we had a real sense of what the Sabbat Worlds were all about and why they were important. These elements have become m ore and more significant as I ve progressed. I find it very satisfying that those early, almost throwaway references to places and events are becoming increasingl y important. The series as a whole is broken down into discrete story arcs (the first three novels form the first arc, The Founding; the next four form the seco nd arc, The Saint; the next four form the third, The Lost). The latest arc, the fourth, is called The Victory, and only the first of its four novels has been pu blished at the time of writing. Even in this book, Blood Pact, readers will see how the setting is coming to drive the action more and more. Those flyaway bits of colour text I decorated the story with in 1996 are now monolithic parts of th e epic. So partly through my own deliberate efforts, and partly through a sponta neous creative process, the Sabbat Worlds have evolved. At one point, we produce d a wallchart of them, and a campaign overview book that is now rarer than hens t eeth. I never imagined that this corner of space (called, by the cheeky BL edito rs, the Daniverse ) would get so big. But there are, as I said, thirteen Gaunt book s, plus the air combat novel Double Eagle and the Titan novel Titanicus, both of which are set in the same crusade. All told, that s something over a million and a half words worth of Sabbat adventuring. I suppose the real test of a piece of world building is how well it stan ds up to the visits of guest creators. In late 2009, just as I was due to begin work on the sequel to Blood Pact, I was pole-axed by late-onset epilepsy. It was a freaky time, not least because it took a while for the condition to be diagno sed, and there were a good couple of months where the seizures could have been t he consequence of something... how can I put it? Final. When I discovered at last it was just epilepsy (there s a phrase you don t ima gine yourself saying) I was incredibly relieved. I ve been picking myself up since , learning what I can do, and what I can t. There is a period of adjustment while you get your meds balanced, for example. I m now settling down to a new lease of l ife that I m very content about. But while the crisis was happening, boy did some deadlines get screwed. The Gaunt novel, Salvation s d autumn slot. There was just no way ditor Christian Dunn got chatting to of Sabbat Worlds loveliness for the Reach, had to slide back and miss its expecte it was going to happen. But Black Library e me to see if we could devise a stonking hit readers to tide them over.

This book is the result. I ve invited other Black Library writers whose wo rk I admire to contribute stories set in the Sabbat Worlds, perhaps even touchin g on strands or characters established in or suggested by the storylines in my b ooks. I ve also added a brand new Gaunt s Ghosts novella to round things out. I am blown away by the stories various writers have given back to me, by the sheer creative energy they ve poured into bits of my haphazard world building . It is a great honour and privilege to commend them to you, the reader. So, join me for a Sabbat Worlds road trip. I call shotgun. Believe me, w e re going to need one.

Dan Abnett Maidstone, May 2010