Have the 30k stories ruined the 40k stories?

[Captain Juan Juarez]

Some clearly prefer the cake of bombastic heroism, others like the cookie of raucous humour up to 11, and others prefer a deeper slice of grimdark pie.

 

You compared writing styles to food.. Much respect.

[Darkchild130]

Personally i feel the HH books give 40k an awesome new angle to look at, i love the irony and thinking "now i know why that happened" from things i have been reading for years.

 

Sure there are a lot of mediocre books, but thats to be expected with any popular franchise. I dont believe the HH books are a detriment to 40k in any way. If anything, i cringe slightly when reading some HH stuff as it is so diametrically opposed to the world of 40k.

I guess i'm saying i feel more comfortable reading 40k fiction than 30k, as there is more focus.

 

sorry for my disjointed post but im at work and only have a few minutes break!

 

Darkchild

[Valkyrion]

I think Khestra's got it right about the information thing. It is subjective, and I suppose I'm a bit of a 'but why though?' kinda guy when it comes to understand the minutiae of things. There isn't any of that in the non HH books really.

 

The battles series could easily have been a collection of short stories though - maybe it's my gripe with that particular series that prompted this thread.

 

ADB has a knack of making the bad guys very likeable and human - you can identify with Argel Tal and Talos.

Similarly, Dan Abnett managed to make Ironside and Sherlock Holmes in space with the Eisenhorn and Ravener trilogies, characters that kept you interested.

Garro and the mournival are good characters that make you want to read more about them and so on.

 

The other books haven't done that with genuine, established space marine legends - like Kantor and Cortez, or even Dante - almost as though they've been written as though 'everyone knows who they are anyway, so why bother' - compare that to Grimaldus in Helsreach, where the hero isn't even liked initially and is given a cruddy assignment he doesn't really want to do - a brand new aspect to his personality that no one would have known about.

 

I would imagine it is easier to write about someone and something you've entirely invented than a character that will have half of the people cheering and the other half booing as their perceptions of him are changed, though.

 

I enjoyed the character of Honsou much more than Sarpedon or Rafen, for another example. I've liked the majority of the short stories that appear in Heroes and Legends.

I don't know, the more I read on this thread the more I realise that it's just my tastes - but my point was that I didn't know I had those tastes until I read what are, IMO, the 'proper' books.

[Captain Juan Juarez]

ADB has a knack of making the bad guys very likeable and human - you can identify with Argel Tal and Talos.

 

Uniquely amongst all 40k Universe fiction, the HH doesn't really contain "bad guys" in my opinion.. Just points of view.

[Pavement Artist]

ADB has a knack of making the bad guys very likeable and human - you can identify with Argel Tal and Talos.

 

Uniquely amongst all 40k Universe fiction, the HH doesn't really contain "bad guys" in my opinion.. Just points of view.

 

I'd argue that the Word Bearers would always fall under the bad guys category. The emperor failing them aside, i quite like their earlier appearances in the series where you knew that they had already gone over to the evil side.

[Darkchild130]

Uniquely amongst all 40k Universe fiction, the HH doesn't really contain "bad guys" in my opinion.. Just points of view.

 

surely this is true of all fiction?

 

Darkchild

[Pavement Artist]

Uniquely amongst all 40k Universe fiction, the HH doesn't really contain "bad guys" in my opinion.. Just points of view.

 

surely this is true of all fiction?

 

Darkchild

 

Nah, Look at Lord of the Rings. I think it's pretty clear that Sauron is evil. Not misguided, not unloved as a child, not angry because no one gave him the last rolo. Just evil.

 

Buffy's tv series finished with the embodiment of evil as the primary villain.

 

I'd be very upset if you tried to portray my Dark Eldar as anything but evil. Tragic fall from grace aside, they completely unforgivable, murderous, arrogant b`stards. Thats how i like them.

 

There's plenty of Evil knocking about.

[Captain Juan Juarez]

Uniquely amongst all 40k Universe fiction, the HH doesn't really contain "bad guys" in my opinion.. Just points of view.

 

surely this is true of all fiction?

 

Darkchild

 

Not really.. In most fiction there's that vibe of "They're the big bad who want to destroy the world... Why? Er.. Because?", meaning that the villian is the villian and that's that.

 

With the HH series it's obviously from the perspective of the Great Imperium of Man, but there is no sense of "You must hate this guy, for he does bad things..." beyond what the characters themselves emote.. It's more a case of each party going their own way and seeing the evil in the others actions.

 

Obviously, they are still stories at their heart but they don't try to focus your thoughts.

 

I'd be very upset if you tried to portray my Dark Eldar as anything but evil.

 

Evil is a matter of perspective; to the Dark Eldar anything that prevents them achieving their aims is evil.. But is it really evil?

 

Perspective kids, perspective.

[Pavement Artist]

Well they'd probably view those who are in opposition to their aims as inconvenient more than evil. That's what makes the Dark Eldar the true evil race in the game, just the sheer contempt they hold for every other race (including half of their own.) The fact they dont go around with business cards saying "Evil INC." Doesnt mean that they arent. It isnt a prerequisite for evil to be announcing it every five minutes.

 

They caused the extinction event of most of their race. Thats tragic stuff right there. They could be penitent, sorrowful creatures merely trying to survive after a horrendous self caused cataclysm. The key thing is they arent. Even after Millenia of debauchery caused the birth of a God that hungers for their living essence, they havent changed a damn thing about themselves. The craftworld eldar are the ones that have forced themselves to live a life of austerity and discipline and it was barely their fault.

 

It's just that sheer arrogance and the fact they nuked most of their race and just decided to carry on like it was just a bit of an iffy hangover. The traitor legions are looking to overthrow the emperor, that looks positively noble when compared with "Just going to murder these people to keep myself alive."

[Khestra the Unbeheld]

It's just that sheer arrogance and the fact they nuked most of their race and just decided to carry on like it was just a bit of an iffy hangover. The traitor legions are looking to overthrow the emperor, that looks positively noble when compared with "Just going to murder these people to keep myself alive."

 

That seems less "evil" than it does "hungry". :)

[Darkchild130]

Nah, Look at Lord of the Rings. I think it's pretty clear that Sauron is evil. Not misguided, not unloved as a child, not angry because no one gave him the last rolo. Just evil.

 

Never really get to hear Sauron's side of the story though do you

 

Buffy's tv series finished with the embodiment of evil as the primary villain.

 

Embodiment of somebody's interpretation of evil

 

I'd be very upset if you tried to portray my Dark Eldar as anything but evil. Tragic fall from grace aside, they completely unforgivable, murderous, arrogant b`stards. Thats how i like them.

 

unforgivable, murderous, arrogant btards that were fashioned that way out of learned behaviour developed as a result of falling from grace. They do nasty things as they know nothing else, (and to stay alive, basically making them selfish, rather than evil) silly goth elves!

 

There's plenty of Evil knocking about.

 

Nope, it's ALL perspective, see?

 

I'm pushing this because i dont believe in concepts such as good and evil, every event in history has more than one perspective. Life's just more interesting that way.

 

Darkchild

[Yogi]

Since I couldn't finish mechanicum because it was so uninteresting I say no OP. I really tried..

 

 

 

Bad guys? No one in the Imperium is a good guy. Id say there all bad guys, cause if you refuse to bow down to any part of the Imperium, its solution is varying degrees of violence.

 

I love to read about a space marine that understood what a jerk he was.

[Captain Idaho]

Always makes me laugh when people say the fluff of 40k isn't black and white, then go on to say everyone is a bad guy! Not directed at you Yogi, just reminded me of a common opinion I noticed online lately!

 

40k is written from humanities perspective, usually the Imperium. The people who write the novels and fluff do so often by creating a empathetic link between the story's perspective and the audience, for obvious reasons. You'll notice most BL novels have caracters who share our own morals, so if when you notice a character is upset because Erebus feeds a newborn to a Daemon, you can bet you're bolter that the good guy is the one who opposes the baby killer, regardless of motives...

 

This means the good guys and bad guys are actually fairly easy to identify, unless you put yourself in the shoes of a different race or faction (which people often do). I think people throw too much weight behind the "excuses" of those of a murderer etc.

 

How many times do we hear that Lorgar is not a bad guy because his motives were initially innocent and misguided, but ultimately our world is filled with bad people who started out as innocent. 40k authors are members of our society so share our morals. We can't forget a terrible crime just because someone had a raw deal years ago.

 

***quick edit so people know what I'm going on about***

 

Of course many authors write from the perspective of their characters, much like method actors. The First Heretic is a great example of this. A successful author will do this and you will suspend your ordinary morals without noticing. This is part of the fun! But we need to remember that our own morals haven't changed and if we take a step back we can see that, no matter how Erebus ended up feeding that baby to a Daemon or why, at the end of the day he is feeding a defenceless baby to a Daemon...

[Captain Juan Juarez]

Always makes me laugh when people say the fluff of 40k isn't black and white, then go on to say everyone is a bad guy! Not directed at you Yogi, just reminded me of a common opinion I noticed online lately!

 

Idaho you blinkered fool! - ^_^ - There is a difference between "Everyone is a bad guy!" and "There are no good guys."

 

 

I believe the Manic Street Preachers said it best - I attribute this knowledge to a former, female thank you very much!, Geography teacher whom I fancied:

 

"We are all guilty of the good we didn't do."

[greatcrusade08]

its all perspective, of course there are good guys, of course thier are bad guys, and there is the many levels of 'sheep' inbetween that usually get killed on page two (ensign whatshisface from star trek on the away team... good luck fella)

who the good guys are is usually defined by the position you take as the reader, who do you root for?

i like authors who blur the lines between the disney versions of good and evil, you need to aply real life morals to make the story reach someone on a deeper level and no-one is whiter than white and its unusual to come across the 'devil'.. shades of grey and all that ^_^

 

there are no good guys? thats silly, even riddick was a stone cold killer yet we all rooted for him, rambo? heres a guy that broke the vagrancy laws and caused death and injury to many law enforcement officers, yet we consider him the good guy.

They are good guys becuase we deem them to be, in story telling the author directs us to make these judgement calls about whos the good guy and whos the arch villain.. in 40k the lines blur becuase we all have our favourite legions and primarches, there are more 'camps' than in the times of attilla the hun.

So the authors have to tke a 'view point' and leave it to the readers to establish who to root for.

 

getting back to topic for a minute, im of the opinion that we cant begin to compare 30k stories to 40k ones, part of me is in agreement with ADB about his points.

some writers are simply getting better, alhough i disagree that this only shows in HH books, the later ultramaines books are much better than the first couple (which were ok)

the horus heresy is such a point of interest for 40kers that they could release a big pile of rubbish and we will still read it.. our hunger for more backstories and canonical information is driving the HH series IMO, and we will like them becuase they are new and shiny and its unexplored territory.

i honestly believe its harder to write 40k stories becuase of the pre-concieved notions behind the subect matter, the ultramarines books were debated at some length becuase they didnt fit with peoples opinions and pre released canonical information.

this really shouldnt factor into whether we like these books.

 

when im judging a story, the only pre-requisiute for me is whether i want to put the book down again ten minutes later.. its very hard to keep my attention so when i find myself hooked i know im onto something good.

the ultramarines books, despite some bad reviews i enjoyed reading. whereas the blood angels series took me weeks to get through.

im a big fan personally of david farlands runelords books.. ive only read the original four, but ill get round to the rest.. i encourage people to try them out.

 

again back on topic, i actually found half of the HH books so far to be dissapointing from a pure story telling perspective, the other half however blew me away.. the first couple of books took me mere days to read cover to cover.

[Pavement Artist]

Since I couldn't finish mechanicum because it was so uninteresting I say no OP. I really tried..

 

 

 

Bad guys? No one in the Imperium is a good guy. Id say there all bad guys, cause if you refuse to bow down to any part of the Imperium, its solution is varying degrees of violence.

 

I love to read about a space marine that understood what a jerk he was.

 

Id say that the Marines Malevolent are probably quite aware of how their attitude is perceived by the Imperium. I find them to be a fascinating chapter. One of the few that not only recognises their detachment from humanity but also believe themselves to be far superior.

 

That's what i like about the Alpha Legion, just that uncompromisingly pragmatic attitude. They really had no pretensions about their role within the greater machinations of the imperium. The Emperors children and Blood Angels were largely playing at fostering an enriched and cultured society that they could never have a place in. I'd love to see more Marine literature focussing on a chapter that recognises that essentially they are gene crafted tools of war.

[Kitchen Knife]

IMHO the HH has one big overall story. Plus it describes, why the (human) empire is pretty :P up.

 

In some 40k novels (the HH is 30K), well we have chapter X fighting against some ork-waaagh lead by the ork Y and planet Z, which is absolutely important for the empire although we haven't heard about this floating dust ball in all the fluff.

Don't get me wrong, some of this stories are very entertaining but compared to the complexity and fluff-importance of the HH they are somewhat shallow. ;)

[kharn_the_betrayer]

I think it enhances a lot of what we know in the 40k stories to read the 30k ones. My thing is that this is part of the stories that we kind of "know" to be and the truth. It is adding wrinkles to that with almost every book. The story of the Hersey is a massive tragedy and that tragedy is slowly unfolding before us.

The fall of Horus as written in the first 3 books is a tragedy, from the brightest star to a fallen angel.

 

 

 

I feel that each of the stories told about the fall of the traitor primarchs is a tragedy that involves a personality flaw. Each of these is something that involves them and their one human personality flaw and it being exposed and twisted. Fulgrim and his drive for perfection and pride was exploited and twisted by the Dark Prince. These make us feel differently about them and not just feel oh its a villain. Also I'm enjoying how the Imperium is also being portrayed in not necessarily the most positive light and things are a little gray how they are portrayed.

 

This is my opinion and my opinion only.

[Captain Idaho]

I do think it's time we had a Primarch who was just out and out bad. Maybe even more than one! We got plenty of fallen heroes, now we need a monster unleashed. The Primarchs of the Night Lords and maybe Iron Warriors could fit that bill? From what I've seen of Angron and Mortarion I'm not too sympathetic to their pain either.

 

Though to be fair, I'm coloured by my own morals, so have a strong sense of loyality and honour etc, so kinda lean against being sympathetic to someone who commits heinous crimes even if they WERE abused as a child.

[Chapter Master Ignis Domus]

I agree. I mean, they can't all be the traditional 'abused as a child, now has intense personal problems, and the self-esteem of a dejected prisoner'. I wouldn't think Iron Warriors, but Curze seems like the ideal candidate, especially considering his brief appearance in The First Heretic.

[Dave the Twisted]

After reading Horus Rising and False Gods, and I've only gotten that far because I haven't opened Galaxy in Flames yet and don't have money for more books, I think that what really gives the HH series its stylistic flavor is the Remembrancers. I mean here you have the biggest military undertaking in history. Supersoldiers and their god-like generals stomping across system after system in the name of their even more god-like Emperor, aliens, magic, demons, and you get to see it from the standpoint of a mere human with absolutely no military training and just enough knowledge to get by. I don't think it'd be much of a stretch to say that the [first two] HH novels wouldn't at all be what they are without the Remembrancers, and I think that's what makes them so different from the straight up Space Marines novels.

[NightrawenII]

Nah, Look at Lord of the Rings. I think it's pretty clear that Sauron is evil. Not misguided, not unloved as a child, not angry because no one gave him the last rolo. Just evil.

Never really get to hear Sauron's side of the story though do you

True, but we (or I) know the story of his master, Melkor. And from whatever angle or perspective you want to look, he was still evil. Enslave and Destroy.

[Aegnor]

And we get some insights into his attitudes - he was attracted to Melkor's majesty in the days before Arda's creation. He recanted and threw himself on the mercy of the Valar at the end of the War of Wrath. Eonwe declared he would have to return to Valinor for judgement and Sauron, either due to fear or pride decided he wouldn't do so, and escaped. He then swiftly fell back into evil. He was loyal to his master - when he corrupted Numenor, 1000s of years after Morgoth's banishment, it was the worship of Melkor, not of Sauron, he instructed them in.

[Khestra the Unbeheld]

Melkor didn't start as evil, unless you count being greedy as evil; that greed blossomed into his desire to create his own world, and his need to corrupt what Iluvatar had made was revenge-driven. Even during his first imprisonment and his probation, the Valar never addressed the core issue with Melkor in that unlike the others, he had no actual purpose for being and apparently Iluvatar had never set one aside for him after the creation of Arda; Melkor was an outcast before he ever rebelled (he's like the reverse of Horus in that regard). Sauron worked for another Vala completely before falling under Melkor's sway and never really pulled out of the spiral from there (his forging of the Rings of Power was him hearkening back to his days of being a Maiar of Aule the Artificer). What I never really got about Sauron was how he watched Melkor's fall and thought he could possibly succeed at doing the same thing without getting the same Valar curbstomp; even at his strongest, he would never be a match for even the lowest of the Valar, much less all of them. I theorize Sauron was either not really fleshed out well for motivation, was doing it all out of pure spite, or was simply so depraved that he was blind to the possibility that what he was doing might draw attention to himself. In that sense, even Abaddon's motives are clear-cut compared to Sauron's.

[Bulwyf]

Uniquely amongst all 40k Universe fiction, the HH doesn't really contain "bad guys" in my opinion.. Just points of view.

 

surely this is true of all fiction?

 

Darkchild

 

Nah, Look at Lord of the Rings. I think it's pretty clear that Sauron is evil. Not misguided, not unloved as a child, not angry because no one gave him the last rolo. Just evil.

 

Buffy's tv series finished with the embodiment of evil as the primary villain.

 

I'd be very upset if you tried to portray my Dark Eldar as anything but evil. Tragic fall from grace aside, they completely unforgivable, murderous, arrogant b`stards. Thats how i like them.

 

There's plenty of Evil knocking about.

 

 

I have take exception with your categorization of Sauron. Sauron is not evil simply because he twists his moustache in a nefarious manner and ties down young Elf maids to rail road tracks. Sauron wants to control Middle Earth because he wants to give it order and direction. It is the same reasons why his master Melkor, the first Dark Lord, went "evil". He wanted to have order and control and he felt his was the best rule to give. What makes them "evil" is how they try to bring that to being. They use any means possible to terrorize or exterminate those who won't agree with them.

 

Look at the Night Lords. They believe in fear because it is through fear they are able to control others and instill order. They learned that from their Primarch just as Sauron learned it from Melkor.

 

If you look at most high fantasy or most science fiction settings the "bad guys" usually follow the same process: they want to bring order to the world/galaxy and they are ready to do whatever is necessary to do it. The ones who seem to delight in chaos or destruction for its own sake are treated as barbarians or nutbags. The latter is frankly the only thing I would consider truly "evil".