Warhammer Novels

[Tower75]

I thought that the war was a tool for keeping the masses under control by focusing outward to a common enemy.

Sort of, but it's also just about keeping your head above water. There isn't just one war, but rather thousands of 'em. The fluff spans 10,000 years and it's a constant war across the galaxy to fight off the myriad alien species that want to enslave or eat humanity, and the never ending war to fight off Chaos, which will devour the universe one day...

I always get the impression that most of the Imperial Guard and the Soviet army in Enemy at the Gates would be pretty evenly matched, although each guardsman does at least get his own gun. That said, in recent times the fluff has changed slightly to suggest that they're at least competent soldiers.

True, one thing that I do like is that some Imperial Guard, or Astra Militarum as they're called now, are on par with Royal Marine Commandos who actually have training and decent kit, like the Cadians, and some are issued wind-up lasguns and boots and told to go and drown the enemy in blood.

As I say, the only real issue for me is this: Get men: Fling men to Space: Die routine.

It would make more sense for me, at least, to have regiments do tour of duties, to return home every now and then and basically become a standing regiment, etc. In WH40K, regiments are raised and die in a single campaign, unless they happen to survive, in which case they die in the next.

 

[VALIS13]

It's so wasteful. Horus and the Emperor should have a winner-takes-all game of quoits.

 

[Toby Frost]

I always had the feeling that the Imperial Stormtroopers were effectively commandos (IIRC, the miniatures used to look like WW2 commandos) and the Cadians were moderately well-trained soldiers (and the space marines were Knights Of Olde), but as I say, the fluff seems to be creeping towards everyone being increasingly deadly. I'm surprised that they don't have more rebellions, Commissariat notwithstanding. But then 40k people don't really seem to have families to go back to anyhow.

 

[BAYLOR]

It's so wasteful. Horus and the Emperor should have a winner-takes-all game of quoits.

In Horus Rising does a hell of job setting thing up. All in all it's pretty good space opera.

 

[Bick]

Reading this thread on Warhammer books is fascinating to the uninitiated. There appears to be a whole language in play that I don't get. What's this 'fluff' everyone keeps mentioning? And wasn't Warhammer a table-top role playing game from Games Workshop, out about 30 years ago? I'm sure I played it in a past life; dwarves and elves and such. Is Warhammer 40K dwarves with laser guns? It seems a bit of a leap to me to go from a jokey role playing game to a SF novel franchise. I looked them up on Wikipedia out of curiosity - it turns out there are over 300 titles! Are they actually any good? (Toby's excepted of course, I'm sure that's terrific ) I'm a bit flummoxed by the whole notion. They don't appear to win awards or get mentioned whenever people produce lists of good SF (or even inhabit the shelves of my local bookshops), but perhaps I'm missing something??

 

[BAYLOR]

Reading this thread on Warhammer books is fascinating to the uninitiated. There appears to be a whole language in play that I don't get. What's this 'fluff' everyone keeps mentioning? And wasn't Warhammer a table-top role playing game from Games Workshop, out about 30 years ago? I'm sure I played it in a past life; dwarves and elves and such. Is Warhammer 40K dwarves with laser guns? It seems a bit of a leap to me to go from a jokey role playing game to a SF novel franchise. I looked them up on Wikipedia out of curiosity - it turns out there are over 300 titles! Are they actually any good? (Toby's excepted of course, I'm sure that's terrific ) I'm a bit flummoxed by the whole notion. They don't appear to win awards or get mentioned whenever people produce lists of good SF (or even inhabit the shelves of my local bookshops), but perhaps I'm missing something??

Ive read about 38 Warhammer novels so far, Ive found the writing to be quite good. As for recognition, the Horus Heresy books are best sellers. That counts for something . What might give Warhammer a boost , is if they can get a good live action feature film done.

 

[Bick]

... the Horus Heresy books are best sellers. That counts for something

Yes, it does for sure. I'm wondering how I've not managed to see them in the shops. Perhaps its a US thing? (Because you'd never see Weber or Bujold here either, and they're as popular as anything but mainly in the US). Maybe its like the Star Wars franchise books. I thought they'd be really mediocre as they're a franchise thing too, but I read a few and they were actually not bad. One observation with the Franchise books I've read though - they tend to be commissioned from established authors who can actually write pretty well, but because of the constraints of the universe they are set in and its history, you rarely get the new big ideas that I like from my SF. I can't comment on whether these suffer at all from that as I've clearly not read them, but maybe someone else could comment on that?

 

[VALIS13]

There is one event than defines the Warhammer 40K universe: The Horus Heresy, when Warmaster Horus was corrupted by Chaos and turned against the Emperor sending Space Marine fighting Space Marine and plunging the galaxy into civil war.

At the time, this kind of fluff was unprecedented and allowed a deeper immersion into the games than just "my chap shoots at your chap for no real reason other than entertainment". People began to become attached to "their" Space Marine Chapters.

Not sure how this actually translates to fiction as I've never read any of the stuff. It seems as though I could be missing out based upon some of the Chrons' comments.

 

[Tower75]

Yes, it does for sure. I'm wondering how I've not managed to see them in the shops. Perhaps its a US thing? (Because you'd never see Weber or Bujold here either, and they're as popular as anything but mainly in the US). Maybe its like the Star Wars franchise books. I thought they'd be really mediocre as they're a franchise thing too, but I read a few and they were actually not bad. One observation with the Franchise books I've read though - they tend to be commissioned from established authors who can actually write pretty well, but because of the constraints of the universe they are set in and its history, you rarely get the new big ideas that I like from my SF. I can't comment on whether these suffer at all from that as I've clearly not read them, but maybe someone else could comment on that?

Warhammer started as a tabletop game, yes, and still is arguably the most popular tabletop game around.

In the 1980s they released Warhammer 40,000, which is set 40,000 years in the future and in the most dystopian, grim dark world you can think of.

All tongue and cheek has been removed with a scalpel

In the 1990s Games Workshop started to produce tie-in novels, this proved very popular so much that they had to create their own publishing arm: Black Library.

The "Fluff" is the lore, or cannon of the Warhammer world. There's a few staples in the lore, but as it's been around for 30 years, and every author puts their own spin on it, the lore of Warhammer is a mess.

In my opinion, the novels range from borderline fan-fiction all the way up to chart-topping, New York Best sellers.

The trouble with WH40K novels is that there's no particular order to them. Authors all write their own stories, some author do write series, but one author's series could be different in "fluff" to another author's work.

There's no starting point really, it's just a case of picking one and throwing yourself in.

Baneblade by Guy Haley is a new novel from the WH40K, and isn't that heavy, that might be a good start.

 

[Toby Frost]

I think your comments are pretty right, Bick. Warhammer 40,000 (40k) does ultimately come from the background to the wargame, which itself is the space version of Warhammer Fantasy Battle. Probably the best (very, very rough) description of 40k is that it’s a bit like Dune, except that the main influence is Medieval Catholic rather than Islamic, and that the Emperor is comatose and on a life support system. Also, there are lots of aliens, some of which are like fantasy races in space, and some of which are just, well, aliens. It’s very willfully miserable, and there is a lot of violence and no sex. Also, technology is described as having stagnated, so don’t expect a realistic depiction of how future combat is likely to look (in a lot of cases, human technology seems to be more primitive than today).

Some of the stories are pretty good, exciting fun. Dan Abnett, in particular, is very good. But of course the authors are writing in a (broad) setting and (more importantly, I think) to a certain tone (I had to fight down the urge to make jokes). Obviously, the sort of big ideas you mention are much harder to do, because the setting is already there, and killing off all the orks, say, is obviously going to be impossible in the same way that killing Luke Skywalker would be impossible in a Star Wars story.

 

[Rodders]

Bick, PM me your address and next time i think of it i will send you Dan Abnett's "The Founding" (It's an omnibus of the first three of the Gaunts Ghost books.)

We'd be interested to see how you get on.

 

[BAYLOR]

I would love to see David Weber , David Drake or R. A. Salvatore write a Warhammer 40,000 novels. It would be fun to see their take on that universe.

 

[Tower75]

I would love to see David Weber , David Drake or R. A. Salvatore write a Warhammer 40,000 novels. It would be fun to see their take on that universe.

David Webber would have a field day. He'd fill 900 pages with Imperial politicking.

 

[Darkchild130]

I've read just about every 40k novel that exists, minus anything by Nick Kyme and all the heresy ones apart from vulkan lives. Never read a fantasy novel.

My personal favourites would be the night lords series by ADB and Imperial Glory. For me that one novel sums up everything I like about 40k in one book. Utter, utter pointless warfare and hopeless despair.
It's perfect.

 

[BAYLOR]

I've read just about every 40k novel that exists, minus anything by Nick Kyme and all the heresy ones apart from vulkan lives. Never read a fantasy novel.

My personal favourites would be the night lords series by ADB and Imperial Glory. For me that one novel sums up everything I like about 40k in one book. Utter, utter pointless warfare and hopeless despair.
It's perfect.

I think the Warhammer universe could do with a bit of humor , like in Caiphis Cain.

 

[Darkchild130]

The novelty wore off for me after the first novel. I like my 40k with extra GrimDark.

 

[BAYLOR]

The novelty wore off for me after the first novel. I like my 40k with extra GrimDark.

Not me, I like Cain and the humor he brings to this rather grim place. .

 

[BAYLOR]

As much as i Like The Grim Dark thing , I think it's becoming a bit cliche . One thing I would change is I would give it at least the possibility of hope, just to keep things interesting.

 

[Darkchild130]

Hope is the first step on the road to disappointment. I am the epitome of Grimdark!

It's very British, born out of Thatchers bleak, grey Britain like the comic 2000ad. The only problem is over the years they sort of lost the "in joke" aspect of the whole thing and started playing it far too melodramatically.

Old school Ian Watson novels, the compilation Deathwing and most of Gav
Thorpe's early stuff really captures the weird aspects of early Grimdark.

 

[BAYLOR]

Hope is the first step on the road to disappointment. I am the epitome of Grimdark!

It's very British, born out of Thatchers bleak, grey Britain like the comic 2000ad. The only problem is over the years they sort of lost the "in joke" aspect of the whole thing and started playing it far too melodramatically.

Old school Ian Watson novels, the compilation Deathwing and most of Gav
Thorpe's early stuff really captures the weird aspects of early Grimdark.

I think ILL probably tackle Henry Zhou's Bastion Wars omnibus next.