Warhammer Crime

[DukeLeto69]

I find it hardest when I get an anthology like the Inferno series where they jump from W40K to AoS and back again. Which is why I'm looking forward to the Crime anthology title. At least I know the setting will remain constant regardless to where the author takes me.

 

While I understand that some authorial styles may not gel very well, I would blame that on the editor. Isn't that one of the things they are supposed to sort out?

 

Totally agree with you on this. I am NOT a fan of anthologies mixing the 40k and AoS setting, mainly because I am not interested in AoS at all. Has made me only buy Inferno or the Horror anthologies if they have a couple of stories from authors I really like.

[theSpirea]

I'm on the opposite side. Reading AoS short stories in Inferno and Horror got me in the setting and these days I read more AoS than 40k.

 

What I'm most curious, whether the short stories/novels are going to be interconnected. Just like it seems they are doing with the Horror.

[DarkChaplain]

I generally concur. It also helps that Horror had some stellar AoS stories (and novels) so far, which are easy to recommend to absolute newcomers to either setting (been there, done that). The tricky part with AoS in anthologies is, in my eyes, that the whole mortal realms thing is still not well defined and so full of copyrightable terminology, it takes more suspension of disbelief and a willingness to engage and figure out where what is happening and why. If you read a 40k short in Inferno, you can usually see a general ruleset for the setting, recurring terminology etc, even if some terms are nebulous upon first encounter. With AoS, the author needs to put a good chunk more work into painting the setting, and that they went ahead and called dwarves duardin and trolls troggoths and heck, orks orruks... It's much more opaque to new readers unfamiliar with the miniatures / general faction art already. In a way, 40k is way more relatable despite its whacky stuff like Obliterators or warhound titans.

 

But, at least when it comes to the Horror imprint, if you are willing to engage with the short stories on their own terms, they're usually pretty satisfying, even if you have no further interest in AoS. That's kind of a cool thing to me. From that angle, I'm slightly disappointed that AoS is completely out of the picture for the Crime imprint... although it makes sense, considering how ill-defined law enforcement and what not are in that setting. 40k simply has better established tools and perpetrators, from gangs in the underhive to arbites. It's a more natural fit, with 40k's sprawling, disastrous bureaucracy.

 

Varangantua, despite the awkward name, should be a pretty good stage for the Crime imprint. I wonder if it'll give birth to a sort of second Necromunda or Inquisitor, in a sense. I could see the hiveworld inspiring a new specialist game / board game setting for GW, giving birth to new special characters people want to use in their games. If sketched out well, Varangantua could turn out to be a real gem in BL's and GW's portfolio.

[Felix Antipodes]

God help me, I just had a vision of Cluedo IN SPAAACE!!!

[DarkChaplain]

The first novel and audio drama for Crime are going up for preorder on Saturday, so WarCom had interviews with Chris Wraight and Alec Worley today

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2020/07/27/warhammer-crime-authors-interviewed/

 

Truth be told, going by the interviews, I'm hugely more interested in the audio than the novel. Alec simply sold his drama series way better, where Chris was all "it's 40k... but a little different!" with little to actually speak on the work itself, or its characters. Alec's duo seems very entertaining right from the outset, and he gave just enough of a glimpse in how their dynamics work, and why the setting itself is interesting, than I got from the info on Bloodlines.

[Jareddm]

I just wish there was one syllable removed from Varangantua.  I don't even care which one!

[DarkChaplain]

Completely with you on that. It'd probably annoy me less if Archaon didn't live in the Varanspire and was keeping his Varanguard over in Age of Sigmar. I just can't detach the two concepts anymore.

[byrd9999]

I just wish there was one syllable removed from Varangantua.  I don't even care which one!

lol, it seems a little awkward to me too.

 

I'd remove the first 'N'. Varagantua flows better.

[theSpirea]

I've been reading it Vargantua from the moment they announced it and will stick with it. Let's just hope the novels are good and the writers did the research on how to write at least a decent crime story. The horror entries were good but far from what I would call horror.

[DukeLeto69]

Name of city apart I am really looking forward to these books. Chris Wraight did a more interesting interview with Track of Words.

 

Also the covers for Bloodlines and Flesh & Steel are excellent. Why they went with the 60s graphic look for the anthology I don’t know!

 

Really hope WH Crime is a success because I have wanted these kind of away from the battlefield little people stories for ages. For me they will totally enrich the setting.

[b1soul]

Would be cool if Warhammer Crime were rebranded as a border Warhammer Mystery, so it could some mystery elements outside of crime investigations or whodunits.

[DarkChaplain]

New Audible listings for Crime are up. Both Dredge Runners and Bloodlines available to download from August 8.

 

Dredge Runners 58 minutes (audio drama, involving Kelly Hotton, Emma Noakes, Paul Putner, Jon Rand, David Seddon and Andrew James Spooner

Bloodlines clocks in at 8h32m, read by Charles Armstrong

 

No audio samples yet.

 

Dredge Runners clocks in at the lower end of 1-CD audio dramas. For comparison, the first Warhammer Horror audio, Perdition's Flame was 20 minutes longer - a third of Dredge Runners' runtime on top. The Watcher in the Rain had 15 minutes on top, about the same as Rachel Harrison's The Way Out. Both Perdition's Flame and The Watcher in the Rain were also written by Alec Worley.

I wonder if the acting just resulted in a denser production or if the script itself was noticeably shorter this time.

 

Bloodlines on the other hand is a trick longer than most Warhammer Horror novels, by about 30-60 minutes on average. The exceptions being The Wicked and the Damned as well as Dark Harvest - which was about standard full novel length, compared to WHH's generally shorter pagecounts. But again, the pace of the narrator contributes a lot to the runtime, so take it with a grain of salt.

 

Charles Armstrong, by the by, I don't believe has any other BL credits to his name than a role in the Ragnar audio box set. BL is continuing to rope in "new" narrators from the wider industry with this imprint, it would appear.

[theSpirea]

I wouldn't really go by the audio length. It doesn't reflect the actual length of the book and it's very misleading, just like the page number.

 

Dark Harvest 81K words, 11.5 hours, 368 pages

The House of Night and Chain 80K words, 7.8 hours, 288 pages

Sepulturum 57K words, 7.1 hours, 243 pages

etc

Edited July 30, 2020 by theSpirea

[DarkChaplain]

I never argued that it did. It does, however, help to indicate the pace of the story (with action scenes often being quicker on the narration, for example) and the narrator's approach, when comparing runtimes of comparably long books.

 

I would, however, argue that the page number is a fairly decent indicator for relative length when it comes to a single publisher and same format releases. From your examples, The House of Night and Chain and Dark Harvest both released in the same B-format paperback type, whereas Sepulturum was a hardback. Font sizes and page margins are the same for both paperbacks, while Sepulturum was handled differently, thus taking up more room.

 

The length of the audiobook or audio drama does however matter - and in terms of the drama in particular, I'd argue the length of the produced work is more important than the length of the script in raw text. Even if the story itself isn't "smaller" in scope or quality, there's a difference between having a story to listen to for an hour or 80 minutes, especially when you use them to commute. It's also often hard to stomach spending an Audible credit on a book that's over within an hour when you could instead be listening for 12. While money-per-hour generally isn't a good indicator of value in entertainment (especially video games...), it still matters especially for short runtimes.

[Xisor]

For my tastes, many short stories are worth a lot more than many novels.

 

Where it comes to my favourite authors, many of their sentences are worth a lot more than some novels.

 

---

 

Again, I'm pretty certain there's an adage or truism or some other sort of relevant quip about this. My old fishwife is muttering something about covering judges in books, but that can't be right.

[theSpirea]

I never argued that it did. It does, however, help to indicate the pace of the story (with action scenes often being quicker on the narration, for example) and the narrator's approach, when comparing runtimes of comparably long books.

 

I would, however, argue that the page number is a fairly decent indicator for relative length when it comes to a single publisher and same format releases. From your examples, The House of Night and Chain and Dark Harvest both released in the same B-format paperback type, whereas Sepulturum was a hardback. Font sizes and page margins are the same for both paperbacks, while Sepulturum was handled differently, thus taking up more room.

 

The length of the audiobook or audio drama does however matter - and in terms of the drama in particular, I'd argue the length of the produced work is more important than the length of the script in raw text. Even if the story itself isn't "smaller" in scope or quality, there's a difference between having a story to listen to for an hour or 80 minutes, especially when you use them to commute. It's also often hard to stomach spending an Audible credit on a book that's over within an hour when you could instead be listening for 12. While money-per-hour generally isn't a good indicator of value in entertainment (especially video games...), it still matters especially for short runtimes.

 

Even if it's by the same published and same format release, the page count is still very misleading.

 

I have checked my copies as it turned out various eshops provide different page counts.

 

Sepulturum - 243 pages, 57K words

The Oubliette - 249 pages, 70K words (that's 13K words, over 20%, extra and the page count is pretty much the same)

Castle of Blood - 224 pages, 62K words

 

With the paperbacks the situation is very similar.

 

Personally, I don't really care about the length of the book; quality over quantity. It's just something I believe people should be aware of and the reason writers are asked to write e.g. 10K/80K words, rather than 30, 120, 500 pages.

 

I wish Audible would let you use one credit to get at least two short audio dramas or offer bundles.

[DarkChaplain]

Bloodlines and Dredge Runners are up on Audible now! Time to dig in.

[DarkChaplain]

Am a few chapters into Bloodlines (would've been more had my neighbors not decided to go nuclear in front of my door, which I had to get involved in to try and calm :cuss down again....) and so far, I'm loving it.

 

If you've been asking for more "Domestic 40k", then this should be right there for you. The second chapter in particular somehow puts Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep in mind, even if the parallels in plot are superficial / minimal. But it's exuding a similar sense of atmosphere, the grime and strange mundanity feel oddly familiar. Really cool.

[Knockagh]

I listened to Dredge Runners this afternoon. Nice little listen, plenty of humour and two interesting characters. Quite like necromunda, could have easily fitted in alongside a necromunda tale. Some great interludes with announcements to the population which were excellent.

I’m always left feeling a little ripped off with the dramas, too short particularly when I don’t know the characters. But I will keep an eye out for more tales from these two, plenty of promise in them.

[DarkChaplain]

I've listened to the first 15 minutes before going back to Bloodlines, and I dearly wish for Baggit and Codde to be a long-running audio series. I had more than a few good laughs with that much, and there's something about an Ogryn saying stuff like "I'm just trying to comprehend the transcendent nature of silence. Shh, have a listen" that just does it for me.

Lots of potential right there, and the acting is on point.

[Knockagh]

I definitely wasn’t expecting a philosophical ogryn. The pair bounce off each other very well. It’s the kal Jerico of Varangantua.

[DarkChaplain]

Just did some cooking and figured I'd put on the headset and listen to Dredge Runners in full.

 

My god, even if the story and characters had been mediocre/dull - which they are not, quite the opposite! - the entire listen would've been worth it for the epilogue/last broadcast alone. I had to laugh so hard, I almost dropped some of the ingredients onto the floor. Worley really played this one well, and the radio broadcasts peppered throughout run the gamut between utterly grimdark and unusually comedic.

 

And Clodde is simply a DELIGHT! His overly well-spoken socio-philosophical ramblings are incredibly fun and a rather unique way of approaching the setting, and Domestic 40k in particular. There is so much about the script that would be quotable on its own and would still make folks chuckle regardless.

 

As far as audio dramas go, I think Dredge Runners might be the most fun I had in years. There've been more compelling ones, dramatically, or tenser ones in terms of story and atmosphere - but this is an incredibly entertaining mix of action flick, comedy, commentary on 40k as a setting, wonderfully high production values and just plain fun to listen to.

 

If Worley can maintain this level of momentum, I can see Baggit and Clodde becoming a new mainstay duo for Black Library. And you know what? I hope they will be.

[DukeLeto69]

@DC well that’s done it! I don’t buy a lot of audiodramas. Not sure why but several remain on my shelf unopened as I focus on books but...

 

Looks like Dredge Runners is a buy for me now!

[Noserenda]

Fully love Dredge runners :D 

[Knockagh]

Just in for lunch there and read chapter one of Bloodlines which arrived this morning. Flip I had to drag myself away from it to go back outside. Wraight is a master. If it stays like this its exactly what I’ve been craving from Black Library for years and hoped this series would provide.

As nice an aside as dredge runners was Bloodlines looks like it’s the main course.