Josh Reynolds no longer works for BL

[byrd9999]

I think the ToW articles are all done by email, so it makes it more premeditated than just he picked up the phone at the wrong time.

[mc warhammer]

He also said he only wrote it because all his other ideas were shot down. He said the book was only to ‘ meant to fill out space on a rack‘

Maybe there's something wrong with me, but that’s not a particularly good sales pitch in my funny old brain

no, i can see where you're coming from but he also said he was looking to write something that didn't have higher pretensions than what it was. which i think is fair.  i have colleagues who purposefully take jobs on soapies or MC events which- y'know, ain't gonna win them any oscars- but they do it for the relief of not having pressure and that those projects set an achievable bar.

 

that being said, "helsreach" (and by some accounts "battle of the fang") do a lot with the "battles" mandate.

 

what he says (and this may be intentional) is not easily categorised as slagging something or being some polyanna.

 

are ToW interviews recorded and transcribed or a questionnaire?

[mc warhammer]

I think the ToW articles are all done by email, so it makes it more premeditated than just he picked up the phone at the wrong time.

beat me to it

 

and...that's a fair assessment. i agonise over my words in those situations. and i imagine a writer of his calibre understands the power of what he does or doesn't say. and what he can or can't get away with.

 

i still don't see any issue with his twitter stuff tho

Edited May 17, 2020 by mc warhammer

[Morovir]

Reading back through the twitter thread, it seems by that point that his time writing for Black Library was already over - he refers to his time being published by Black Library in the past tense. Also, the TinyLetter that he puts out at the end of each month that had previously had Steel Soul in the Upcoming Books section no longer had it in the edition put out just after he posted these, so it seems that he formally stopped writing for Black Library sometime in March.

[mc warhammer]

what's his "deathstorm" like? is there any other 40k work of his i should know about beyond his fulgrim/fabius stuff?

[RikuEru]

A bit of an aside, what happened to McNiven?

He did some writing for sth else (Smite or so?), but also seems pretty deep into his university work currently.

Atleast that's what I could glimpse from his tumblr comments.

But I think he's still on the 40k train, in general.

[Subtleknife]

Shame I'm reading apocalypse at the moment and really enjoying it.

[theSpirea]

Not sure why people are suddenly upset and angry Josh posted his rejected ideas. It's fairly common in the entertainment industry to do so, being it books, movies, tv-shows, or music. As long as he didn't breach any NDA there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. Abnett, ABD, and others have done the same. They often talked about their ideas and BL/GW/editors not letting them do it. The only difference is they usually mentioned one or two ideas, Josh posted a whole list, which is why it probably strikes people as a something one shouldn't do and rather unusual.

 

It might help people pitching for BL for the first time, seeing that even experienced writers like Josh get rejected quite often. And as he said, it might not necessary mean the idea is bad, it might be timing, etc. And who knows, maybe new writers might tweak some of his ideas and they might end up writing them.

 

His interviews about BL stuff, mainly about 40K,were usually rather short, and might have given you an idea he's not really into 40K, which he openly admits. Yet, he manages to write one of the best BL novels. He's not that into 40K, not into SM, and not into Chaos SM, yet, his Fabius Bile work is superb. On the other, you have writers loving 40K and the lore above anything else, yet they can't produce anything above average.

 

On the topic of Apocalypse, sure, he didn't do a good job selling the novel, might have even caused the opposite, but that's the GW/BL job and they failed terribly with that one. It just appeared out of nowhere, it was a 5th book in the series of paperbacks but it was given a hardcover treat, not just a regular hardcover, but some new Special Edition, "printed in the UK" experiment, half-butt done by GW/BL. Not promoted/announced at all, they just put it up on their website and later on wondered why it wasn't selling so well.

 

We will probably never know what really happened and made him leave. We can be happy he wrote a lot and, based on the books I've read written by him, you are guaranteed it is going to be at least good or better.

[mc warhammer]

to be fair, he didn't think he'd end up putting all his pitches online. he underestimated people's requests for them

[cheywood]

 

A bit of an aside, what happened to McNiven?

He did some writing for sth else (Smite or so?), but also seems pretty deep into his university work currently.

Atleast that's what I could glimpse from his tumblr comments.

But I think he's still on the 40k train, in general.

He’s been writing for Osprey, the military history publisher, as well.

[Knockagh]

Setting aside the rights or wrongs of comments on the web, which lets be honest are open to quite a few interpretations, it is sad to loose a fairly new and popular author.

I have no idea how BL pays its authors but I hope it’s enough to ensure they aren’t frustrated by life when trying to write. Also I think we need to appreciate how difficult it is for GW to balance world building, macro scale storyline, gaming influence and keeping continuity within the sandbox of the imperium and trying to do that while having a dozen or more authors with crazy ideas boiling out of them focused . As we saw with the main heresy series it’s incredibly difficult. There will always be friction in a situation like this and with friction you will always loose people. I imagine GW will throw more resource and give more rope to firm fan favourites who are well established.

I see people criticise Guy Haley here which personally I can’t understand as I love his work but love him or hate him Guy is a genius who seems to be able to balance all of GWs concerns and write at pace. I am completely in awe of his talent

[Sandlemad]

Honestly, I think folks are reading too much into ToW interviews, that curt style is characteristic of much (not all) of what they put out and is evident in interviews with Haley and others on books without the weird history of Apocalypse. Listen to the interview Reynolds did for Combat Phase and you'll get a better idea of his refreshingly open and candid views on working as an author of licensed tie-in fiction: https://combatphase.libsyn.com/ep-219-josh-reynolds-part-2 It's a trend in his other interviews as well, check any of the ones he did with Mengel or even some of the longer interviews he's done with ToW. Chap is aware of the commercial realities.

 

Also yes, I wouldn't put anything on him about Apocalypse. BL clearly boned up sufficiently that they had to scrabble around desperately to have someone write a tie-in novel in a month. That's ridiculous. Not wildly unusual for BL, it has to be said, we can point to other similar cases, but it's still messy. There's nothing wrong with an author making the best of that situation, looking at it as a challenge and being open about what the brief was like - i.e. crank out generic SM novel #3052, never mind quality - and he's absolutely right about putting way more effort into it than it deserved or, to be frank, than BL wanted. He's always gone above and beyond.

 

You see the same with Soul Wars. Both could have been simple quality-agnostic tie-in novels but they wound up considerably better than the best efforts of half a dozen other authors. The idea that he could have been accused of deliberately tanking his own novel, a work that BL viewed as a book-shaped object at best (and yeah, commercial publishing is a thing but like so much of what BL does, it's half-assed and poorly planned even measured by those standards) is wild to me.

Edited May 17, 2020 by Sandlemad

[cheywood]

Setting aside the rights or wrongs of comments on the web, which lets be honest are open to quite a few interpretations, it is sad to loose a fairly new and popular author.

I have no idea how BL pays its authors but I hope it’s enough to ensure they aren’t frustrated by life when trying to write. Also I think we need to appreciate how difficult it is for GW to balance world building, macro scale storyline, gaming influence and keeping continuity within the sandbox of the imperium and trying to do that while having a dozen or more authors with crazy ideas boiling out of them focused . As we saw with the main heresy series it’s incredibly difficult. There will always be friction in a situation like this and with friction you will always loose people. I imagine GW will throw more resource and give more rope to firm fan favourites who are well established.

I see people criticise Guy Haley here which personally I can’t understand as I love his work but love him or hate him Guy is a genius who seems to be able to balance all of GWs concerns and write at pace. I am completely in awe of his talent

I think part of the difference between Haley and Reynolds is that Haley seemingly likes space marines and exploring them in his writing. He’s content, at least based on his output and social media, with writing plenty of meat and potatoes fiction for BL. Reynolds, on the other hand, has been very open about his preference for the weird and less popular and equally open about the fact that some of his fiction hasn’t sold well as a result. If BL wanted him to stick to writing what sells instead of what he liked (which is a reasonable if somewhat disappointing attitude), I could easily seem him walking away despite the money.

 

Fabius is a good example of this. It’s probably his most well known and highly regarded work at this point, but Josh mentioned he didn’t really like the character of Fabius Bile. His ability to write so well about things he has minimal personal attachment to is really remarkable.

Edited May 17, 2020 by cheywood

[DukeLeto69]

The posting of rejected pitches on Twitter was originally, as I saw it, a helpful reminder to aspiring writers that 1) ideas are the easy part 2) even established authors get rejected.

 

I can see it being interpreted as a dick move, especially if the author involved has some issues or axe to grind with his customer.

 

At the end of the day BL is a business and it is their IP/Sandbox so it is up to them what to commission/publish and when. We have zero idea on book sales for each BL author except we know some of the heavy hitters are more likely to get permission for their pet projects than other authors. Was Josh a big seller? I doubt very much he had the pulling power of Abnett or ADB (ie ability to drive sales beyond folks only interested in specific faction central to the book).

 

Also, generally speaking that list of pitches, while very intriguing for us customers of BL who LOVE the setting and are excited by books that steer away from “mainstream 40k”, did not focus on key target audiences and key popular factions (ie Space Marines). Whether we brothers like it or not the target audience for most BL fiction is teenage boys (Horror & Crime being experiments to see if appealing to wider/older audiences is commercially viable - BL should be applauded for that).

 

As @cheywood says (as I was typing mine hence edit) Josh clearly loves “weird fiction” if you see his own non IP work. He wanted to bring that into BL but they clearly not overly keen (I believe if he was a big seller that might be different). I think Fehervari is in a similar “weird” boat and fear he will go away too!

Edited May 17, 2020 by DukeLeto69

[mc warhammer]

as someone with zero contact with gw marketing...i have no idea how "apocalypse" was advertised. i heard about it and reynolds purely through word of mouth, which means you guys (and reddit to a lesser degree)

 

that's how i picked up the fabius books despite having a negative interest in the character. "palatine phoenix" was easier since i was dying for a decent portrayal of that primarch and i liked reynold's clonegrim.

 

and even when the boards were mostly positive about "apocalypse", i bought it and put it straight to the bottom of my read pile because the subject matter was not my thing. later i read it and kicked myself for wasting time with all the other books i put in line before it.

 

i agree that he might have weirder ideas...but really...he imbues stuff with interest. he makes me see tired old things with fresh eyes. and he does it in a way that plays well with the other author's ideas

 

he's one of two BL authors that i think can write compelling characters who only exist for a handful of pages (i still think about that sister of battle and the captain of the guard in "apocalypse") and for a dude who doesn't like chaos marines he writes them as well adb and wraight do. the debates between the word bearers were great fun and gave their religion so much more complexity

 

if BL replaced "space marine: battles" with "space marine: chats" by reynolds, i'd buy it

Edited May 17, 2020 by mc warhammer

[DukeLeto69]

Question for you brothers:

 

SHOULD I BUY “APOCALYPSE” ?

 

Anyone following my brainfarts will know that:

 

1) I prefer more thoughtful, lore enhancing, setting/world building fiction from BL (Farrer, Fehervari etc)

2) On B&C brothers recommendations I bought 1st Fabius Bile in HB and, didn’t like it (not sure if it is Josh’s style that grates but disliked it in same way I disliked Atlas Infernal - similar reasons).

 

So am reticent because Space Marine Conquests (stupid name) are by nature more bolter porn AND not sure based on a single novel whether I like Josh’s style.

 

BUT you guys do seem to rave over Apocalypse so...

 

Should I buy it?

Edited May 17, 2020 by DukeLeto69

[Roomsky]

If Black Library didn't want people getting annoyed they reject out of the box pitches, they shouldn't reject out of the box pitches. This has been well known for quite some time (ADB has spoken often about his want of a love story in Comorragh). 

 

Support the artist, always. If an artist is willing to take a smaller profit to make a better, more interesting work, that's proof of their integrity. Without a publisher and IP, an author gets less exposure. Without authors, the publisher gets nothing. Black Library should be working hard to keep their authors invested, and if an author is feeling a bit put upon its the fault of the publisher; an equal partnership is better business.

 

Is it possible its purely sour grapes on Reynolds' part? Yes, I don't know the full story. Is it likely that BL could treat their authors better? Well, between the mass exodus a few years back, rejecting novel pitches that don't involve marines, cancellations of Reynold's books, and their overall inability to edit: also yes.

[cheywood]

If Black Library didn't want people getting annoyed they reject out of the box pitches, they shouldn't reject out of the box pitches. This has been well known for quite some time (ADB has spoken often about his want of a love story in Comorragh).

 

Support the artist, always. If an artist is willing to take a smaller profit to make a better, more interesting work, that's proof of their integrity. Without a publisher and IP, an author gets less exposure. Without authors, the publisher gets nothing. Black Library should be working hard to keep their authors invested, and if an author is feeling a bit put upon its the fault of the publisher; an equal partnership is better business.

 

Is it possible its purely sour grapes on Reynolds' part? Yes, I don't know the full story. Is it likely that BL could treat their authors better? Well, between the mass exodus a few years back, rejecting novel pitches that don't involve marines, cancellations of Reynold's books, and their overall inability to edit: also yes.

I would worship at dark altars to see a BL devoted entirely to creating art and not a mix of art and commercially lucrative depictions of people hitting each other.

[Roomsky]

Question for you brothers:

 

SHOULD I BUY “APOCALYPSE” ?

 

Anyone following my brainfarts will know that:

 

1) I prefer more thoughtful, lore enhancing, setting/world building fiction from BL (Farrer, Fehervari etc)

2) On B&C brothers recommendations I bought 1st Fabius Bile in HB and, didn’t like it (not sure if it is Josh’s style that grates but disliked it in same way I disliked Atlas Infernal - similar reasons).

 

So am reticent because Space Marine Conquests (stupid name) are by nature more bolter porn AND not sure based on a single novel whether I like Josh’s style.

 

BUT you guys do seem to rave over Apocalypse so...

 

Should I buy it?

 

Apocalypse is certainly thoughtful, lore enhancing, and setting/world building (as much as is possible for Battles/Conquests. I'd rate it second only to Helsreach, which was heavier on thoughtful but lighter on world building). Your learn a lot about the Ecclesiarchy, the worlds being invaded, etc. Many chapters are just characters chatting, bouncing opinions and approaches off each other. The antagonists are Word Bearers, have a similar amount of screen time, and also spend most of it debating philosophy. It's 550 pages for an A-to-B system invasion, so there's a lot of room for such things. Callum Sheperd's review on Goodreads is a good breakdown.

 

I haven't read Bile in a while so its hard to comment on writing style. Most agree it's a bit less thoughtful than his usual prose, but if you found Bile obnoxious this may be preferable as its more straightforward.

 

Try the extract?

Edited May 17, 2020 by Roomsky

[DukeLeto69]

@roomsky @cheywood

 

You are not wrong. There is a definite skew towards books about Space Marines. IMO they are the LEAST interesting Imperial faction.

 

However, regarding your assertion re BL only commissioning SM stories (mostly true I grant you), well how does that square with the launch/investment in the Horror and Crime imprints?

 

@roomsky thanks re Apocalypse. Sorely tempted.

 

Interestingly on THAT Twitter thread Josh also talks about how he repurposed rejected pitches into stories that DID get published. Apocalypse (the Ecclesiarchy stuff) being one of those.

Edited May 17, 2020 by DukeLeto69

[cheywood]

@roomsky @cheywood

 

You are not wrong. There is a definite skew towards books about Space Marines. IMO they are the LEAST interesting Imperial faction.

 

However, regarding your assertion re BL only commissioning SM stories (mostly true I grant you), well how does that square with the launch/investment in the Horror and Crime imprints?

 

@roomsky thanks re Apocalypse. Sorely tempted.

I was just being glib there. BL publishes plenty of wonderful stories about topics other than space marines (and I love a good space marine story anyways). I’m quite satisfied with a lot of what BL publishes (crime and horror are strong additions), but I want GW to say ‘our core business is doing great and BL isn’t a huge part of our profit line, so let’s get real weird with it and let the authors write what they want’. Honestly they’ve gotten closer than ever to that ideal in recent years, but as you see with Reynolds’ pitches there’s still a strong emphasis on commercial viability and loose tie-ins to the model line.

 

Edit: too many ‘greats’, had to take a few out

Edited May 17, 2020 by cheywood

[Knockagh]

I certainly hope BL don’t reject original fiction. I have a bucket list for 40k which is a long way off from completion.

Imperial navy

More Eldar (Pre fall)

Ecclesiastical stuff

More Eldar (history of the fall)

Rogue traders

Mysterious mad stuff going on in the background (Abnetts doing this I just know it)

More Eldar (finish the Phoenix lords gav, enough is enough)

Genestealer cults

 

But then also were are the Cadian guard books I love? Inquisition books, keep going with vaults of Terra. And don’t forget I want some Psychic awakening fiction some time soon. Oh yes and I also want to know more about Gulliman and the council of terra, healing the great rift. I want stories set in the eye. I want I want I want. Dear help GW/BL, everyone wants content but we can all only read and buy so much. On top of all that we have the heresy setting a growing demand for unity wars. That’s not even mentioning AoS and a possible return to the old world. The theoretical demand is huge, are the sales there to support it? I doubt it. Every good author who leaves is a loss but if they can’t see the big picture there is no point in them hanging around.

 

Peter Fav is very different and hugely enjoyable, haven’t heard him say much if anything about GW/BL and he gets books published. Not very well publicised but does get his stuff to market.

[StrangerOrders]

Alright. Here me out on this one.

 

Space Marines are neither boring nor over-used. 

 

Now before you accuse me of madness or possession by a Greater Daemon of :cuss-Taste, hear me out on this.

 

Space Marines as a concept are actually bloody fascinating, the problem is that most of the writers have summarily done either nothing with them or frankly treats them as particularly dickish humans with a fancy fluff-only age. Kind of like stock fantasy elves which are real hard to distinguish from humans in most fantasy.

 

Lets look just at Salamanders alright? A bloodline of fire-worshipping, dragon-killing demigod-blacksmiths raised from a culture which had to adapt to a planet on literal fire. 

 

How the hell is that not interesting? Because 99.9% of their showings just have them portrayed as standard superheroes with nothing distinct about them save that alot of page-count is spent ruminating on their bravery and humanity (to such a point where it is the only thing that comes across as human). How often do we see them discussing crafts? Showing an interest in hunting or comparing other giant monsters to the ones of their home (despite it being repeatedly said to be a pretty bloody big part of their culture)? We never do.

 

Their entire concept is just treated as background dressing to exact same cast of characters we get in most war movies, modern ones at that. There is nothing interesting going on because there isnt even anything really 'space marine-y' going on.

 

Even the battles go like this, its pretty bloody generic to the point of their usually having such a bodycount that we have portions of the fanbase forgetting that they are even superhuman to begin with. That they have the exact same problem-solving across the board only makes this worse.

 

And this is to say nothing of the fact that on the macro we repeatedly have authors forgetting about most of the gene-seed or chapter-character. Of course its boring when most of your characters are basically really tall storm troopers, except with the engaging parts of their emotions shorn out.

 

Josh might hate Space Marines (something I am frankly pretty doubtful on since I hear this frequently with no accompanying source) but he seems to be one of the few writers that gets it. When you read his Space Marines you are never under the illusion that you are reading humans, they are portrayed as having such a unique thought process that seems human-shaped but will utterly break from that at the moment you dont expect it. You know, almost as if this thing hasn't been anything resembling a human-being for centuries. 

 

A few other writers get this (French in particular really gets this) but the most tiresome thing is looking at the source. Those of you that have read Bligh's Black Books know how much potential is tossed by the wayside, the campaigns that the books outline and the legion cultures are so damned interesting and yet we see absolutely nothing of it in the books most times.

 

Consider the Thousand Sons. Consider how many countless flipping times we see what is basically the know-it-all college professor get slapped for his pride? Its literally every time except maybe Khayon.

 

Do we see anything like their Campaigns from Forgeworld? Like the story of the proud-warrior queen who rebelled only to be surrendered and betrayed by her own people after a legion of seemingly precognitive monsters wage a seemingly nonsensical series of attacks that gradually tear down the psyche of an entire civilization. We never see the Sons utilized like that, as a terrifying, clever and uncannily supernatural force (as opposed to a guy that shoots alot of lightning but is more gullable than a three year old). 

 

Instead we always get them failing the tests a lab mouse can reliably pass (pattern recognition).

 

Thats just one example really, but I think it applies to all of them. Space Marines shouldn't be boring but most authors do not bother (or, going by Josh's experience, are prevented from) churning out anything but endless clones of bad scifi tropes.

 

Pardon if the post is a bit long-winded, but I have long-running frustration with this.

[DukeLeto69]

I do “speak” 1-2-1 with a few of the authors and it seems that experience of working with BL is generally positive (and very positive on an individual editor/writer basis) but the fact remains you are working for a big corporate client that have certain requirements.

 

The general consensus is that if you want to be wholly original then don’t write tie-in fiction. The authors find ways to subvert (or really insert their ideas) but are careful as writing to brief.

 

They also know that sales = clout! Bigger you are the more chance of getting a pet project green lighted.

 

I honestly think the last two years and immediate future are the most interesting and exciting BL have been. I do think GW have given BL more latitude to experiment and see/prove if different fiction can find an audience/sales.

 

If the GW expansion into moving pictures and the Story Forge is a success this would in turn probably support even more literary experimentation by BL (I hope)!

 

@strangerorders great post and totally agree. Space Marines shouldn’t be boring but 90% of the time the author execution means they are!

 

They definitely need to be “more” than human. Different. Trans-human. Have different thought processes and morality to humans.

 

Actually the most recent excellent example of this “otherness” I have read was not a Space Marine but a Custodes - Chris Wraight’s Shadow of the Regent. For me it nailed how different to standard humans these super warriors are/should be.

Edited May 17, 2020 by DukeLeto69

[Knockagh]

I do “speak” 1-2-1 with a few of the authors and it seems that experience of working with BL is generally positive (and very positive on an individual editor/writer basis) but the fact remains you are working for a big corporate client that have certain requirements.

 

The general consensus is that if you want to be wholly original then don’t write tie-in fiction. The authors find ways to subvert (or really insert their ideas) but are careful as writing to brief.

 

They also know that sales = clout! Bigger you are the more chance of getting a pet project green lighted.

 

I honestly think the last two years and immediate future are the most interesting and exciting BL have been. I do think GW have given BL more latitude to experiment and see/prove if different fiction can find an audience/sales.

 

If the GW expansion into moving pictures and the Story Forge is a success this would in turn probably support even more literary experimentation by BL (I hope)!

Has there been any suggestion to say that the new direction is paying off?

I know in my local GW store BL books aren’t really pushed at all. The guys will chat away about what books they have read but their knowledge of them is no where near their gaming or modelling knowledge. Staff are encouraged to paint or play I’m don’t know if they are encouraged to read.

I know I would hate it if BL went back to the bad old days.