Love in the year 40,000: a Literary Examination

[aa.logan]

The discussion over in the Flesh and Steel thread has really got me thinking. I’m certain other folk can expand on this and make far more erudite points. I’m going to stick the next big in spoiler tags so the wall of text doesn’t scare folk off. No spoilers are in there though.

 

Since we most commonly experience the universe of the 41st millennium through the Imperium’s perspective, perhaps it isn’t surprising that the most commonly encountered emotion is hate. While some folks might argue about the semantics of whether the Imperium is fascist or not, I’m pretty sure that everyone will agree that it is fuelled by hatred- hatred of the heretic, alien, mutant and witch is explicitly universal and embedded. The cultural effect of 10,000-odd years of permanent war footing is going to leave deep unhealable scars.

 

This is even more pronounced when we consider the fact that most stories are set in warzones- Chaplains boost morale through ‘litanies of hate’ and whilst they revere their primogenitors and the battlecry of “For the Emperor” is near-univesal across the armies of the Imperium what effect this has on them is unclear. Do the forces of Cadia continue their fight because they love their homeworld or because they hate the enemies of mankind? Is the almost-universal supplication in the face of a primarch adoration or transhuman udread at it’s most extreme?

 

The Imperium of Man is still made up of people, however. It’s institutions may be monolithic, but it’s people aren’t. Hatred may well be the overriding emotion from above, but the citizenry still will experience a range of emotions.

 

Which brings us again to love.

 

The shift away from the frontlines with stories being told more in a domestic setting in 40k seems to allow more nuanced and rounded takes on emotion and relationships. Love is the motivation for so much human endeavour, and when we do see it portrayed in 40k it just lifts the setting.

 

In a previous life, I taught RE. One of the concepts that students found hardest to grasp was that biblicaly, love has different definitions. As I understand it (never said I was any good at teaching RE…), when translated from Ancient Greek into English a lot of the nuance was lost. Eros, philia, storge and agape all became ‘love’. Whether or not this is a source of the emotional constipation in the anglosphere that StrangerOrders bemoans, I don’t know, but I do know that this notion of many types of love tended to blow the minds of so many of my students. Oddly enough, I suppose those were BL’s main target demographic, and maybe that could be a reason why love as a subject is rarely broached.

 

Love goes beyond the four classic strands. Love is a many splendored thing. Love lifts up where we belong. All you need is love.

 

‘Positive’ emotions *must* have a role to play in a universe where ‘negative’ ones can physically manifest. I think love, in it’s many and varied forms, may be one of the things that lifts the best 40k stories above their peers.

 

Man alive, this is long.

 

The TL/DR version: hate gets top billing in the setting. What role does love play in the grim darkness of the far future?

 

So. BL books that feature good portrayals of ‘love’, however defined?

 

I’ll start with Rachel Harrison. That her two novels are so good is in no small part down to her writing about love. Her main characters in both books are guided by their belief in/love of the Imperium and the God-Emperor but also they are motivated by the bonds of family.

 

In Honourbound, we have

Raine’s shame over her sister’s (percieved) actions

whilst in Mark of Faith, the Soritarias sisterhood is literal in terms of storge, or familial love, and also there is

the Inquisitior being motivated by her relationship with her sister and most heartbreaking of all there is the moment at the end of the book where the Thosand Son voices how much he misses his brothers who were taken by the Rubric.

so family relationships are perhaps more heavily represented in her output than any other BL authour. These relationships feel real to me, in a way that most depictions of Astartes aren’t, however often they call each other ‘brother’. Is this because human characters can be more nuanced than psycho-indoctrinated marines, or is it down to the quality of Harrison’s prose? I’d say a mix of the two, but mainly the latter.

 

Family, both bio and ‘logical’, underpins so much of the good Necromunda stories- The Birth of Hunger, Road of Redemption and Terminal Overkill amongst others make good use of familial ties as motivators and show good family and inter-personal relationships generally. To exist in the Underhive I suppose one would need a reason to endure the horrors and love is as good a reason as any. We see characters hoping for and acting to achieve a better future for their loved ones and this gives their stories their resonance and are every bit as important as the tense stand-offs, gunfights and visceral horror to the stories. Why does [x] endure [a], and [c]? is convincingly answered with ‘love of their family’.

 

Anyway. I’ve got too much time on my hands right now and needed to put these thoughts out there.

 

Anyone else?

[aa.logan]

Not quite sure why this has been moved over here- I started this as a discussion of the portrayal of love in Black Library books. Apologies if the thread title suggested otherwise.

[Brother Lunkhead]

I'll give it a go. Going to my old standby, Dan Abnett's Titanicus has two story threads that touch on this subject. The relationship between the characters adds poignancy and and some light humor that help give this epic novel some depth.

 

The first thread involves husband and wife, Stefan ('Stef') and Cally Samtag. He's a certified munitions cargo handler and she's a tertiary reservist Orestean PDF trooper sent to the front. There's not much interaction between the two, but just enough to set up the relationship before Cally goes off to war and Stef goes off to the warf (oooff.... sorry, couldn't resist) and their story threads seperate, but tie back together in the end.

 

Stef's devotion to Cally and his fear over her situation eventually lead to tragedy, while Cally's thread leads to unexpected (and unwanted) glory. The two threads meet at the end of the novel leaving us with a poignant moment.

 

The second thread is between Etta Severin, Imperial liaison to Legio Invicta and Major Gotch, her assigned body man.

 

The relationship is a mildly flirtatious one that doesn't go much beyond the surface banter.

 

The relationship adds some needed levity to the story thread and some depth to what would otherwise have been two cookie-cutter characters. Mr. Abnett sets the flow very nicely in this relationship, so that it seems uncontrived. I'd put this in the category of eros lite, so it counts 

 

Both relationships flow naturally into the overall plot of the novel. The first is affecting and tragic, and adds depth to the story, while the second adds some depth to the characters and some light moments to the story.

Edited October 28, 2020 by Brother Lunkhead

[Brother Lunkhead]

Someone moved it while I was writing my post. I'll check on it and see if I can move it back.

[Sword Brother Adelard]

Gaunt had a romantic liaison in Necropolis, and Trooper Caffran developed a relationship with a hive girl and her two adopted orphan children.

Edited October 28, 2020 by Brother Adelard

[Dark Shepherd]

Dead Men Walking by Steve Lyons features a love angle between the main protagonist, PDF soldier, and his gal

 

It is also one of the best BL books ever

 

Warhammer Old World had a lot. 40k wise, familial love plays a big role in the excellent Forges of Mars trilogy, some romamtic love too.

 

Nightlords series has a tacit love angle. Quite a few have these tacit or unrequited love angles with pariahs, navigators etc. Obviously are more common/prominent the less augmented the humans are

[Scribe]

I still thi k the Fabius books may be a love story. Have to see how the 3rd one goes.

[Ranulf]

Argel Tal and Khârn shared a bromance that will echo throughout the ages.

 

-Ran

[Jings]

Dead Men Walking by Steve Lyons features a love angle between the main protagonist, PDF soldier, and his gal

 

It is also one of the best BL books ever

Saw the title and came to talk about this too. It really is the perfect 40K romance - hopeless, never meant to be and tragic. It both provides the main character something to fight for, and also leaves him, in the end, content with his fate.

 

There was a Reddit thread a month or so ago on this very topic - romance in 40K. Sadly it was prompted by weirdo slash fiction so the discussion offered very little of value outside of sex perverts. Did make me think about the role of romance in 40K though, and it brought me right back to Dead Men Walking.

 

Romance shouldn't be the end in a 40K work. That's not to say there shouldn't be love or romance, far from it. Rather it should be there to sweeten a sour moment, or to set up future bitterness. The best 40K lit is always a tragedy, while the focus is on war and death and violence (and, rightly, should be), love can give a nice little piece of hope, a chance of future happiness for a beloved character, that can be taken and stepped on to bring them lower than they could have been through war alone. It personalises the tragedy.

 

Gaunt's Ghosts, Helsreach, Eisenhorn and, funnily enough, Dead Men Walking all use romance in such a way. A vehicle to more hurt. And it's great.

Edited October 29, 2020 by Jings

[nanosquid]

Do you think love can bloom on the battlefield?

[Brother Lunkhead]

Do you think love can bloom on the battlefield?

 

Yes

[b1soul]

Jaghatai does strange things to his ships.

 

Fulgrim does strange things to his men.

 

Freaky love

[Scribe]

Helsreach.

Man, did that one get me good.

[Sword Brother Adelard]

 

Helsreach.

Man, did that one get me good.

Yeah, that one gets you right in the feels.

[aa.logan]

Argel Tal and Khârn shared a bromance that will echo throughout the ages.

 

-Ran

So what is the deal between these two then? It’s been a while since I read Betrayer, so can’t recall specifics; they are written with a warmth between them for sure.

 

How do folk read them as they relate to each other- friends? Brothers? Comrades? Something else?

 

It’s been even longer since I read Dead Man Walking; all I can clearly remember is

troopers being instructed to throw their meltas away if shot, as they were more valuable than their lives

which stuck with me as absurdly, brilliantly bleak. I’m pretty sure I’ve got it an anthology somewhere- there is enough in this thread to convince me to go for a re-read.

[DukeLeto69]

Slightly off topic but is Dead Men Walking really good? Been on my shelf for years but never got round to reading it!

[byrd9999]

Graham McNeill's a big fan of incest, the House Devine sideplot in Vengeful Spirit and The Devine Adoratrice, but this is puerile nonsense. McNeill's other work features romance between remembrancers in Thousand Sons, I think. There's also a trite 3 page subplot about some tired female police officer's home life in (i think) Vengeful Spirit. Most of McNeill's "relationships" are cliched and painted with very broad strokes.

 

I got the feeling there was more than soldierly comradeship between Ultramarine scouts Oberdeii and Tebecai on Sotha in Guy Haley's Pharos. They were basically snapping towels at each other in the locker rooms like a scene from Top Gun.

 

But for "domestic" 40k, the relationship between Zidarov and his wife in Bloodlines is well done.

[Gederas]

The Ciaphas Cain novel series touches upon the romance between the titular 'hero' and the Inquisitrix Amberly Vail several times, but doesn't go into detail (to my knowledge, I'm about to start Omnibus 3 so it might?) outside of Amberly being a slight clingy jealous girl when editing Cain's memoirs in the footnotes.

Edited October 29, 2020 by Gederas

[StrangerOrders]

Jaghatai does strange things to his ships.

 

Fulgrim does strange things to his men.

 

Freaky love

Well, its either an implied death threat or accusing your brother of incestuous abuse of power.

 

Its a bit freaky but its also about the norm of sibling love by Primarch standards.

 

Granted, they are also literally by far worse fathers than the Emp (given the ease with which they kill their own sons) so their capacity for fatherly love is also a bit freaky in its near-total absence. 

 

If we are talking about how love is portrayed, does anyone else remember that Mechanicum is also a young adult romance novel in part? I always forget about that until I get to that point in the reread.

Edited October 30, 2020 by StrangerOrders

[b1soul]

Love can be unconventional in the grim darkness of the far future

[Dark Shepherd]

Slightly off topic but is Dead Men Walking really good? Been on my shelf for years but never got round to reading it!

Yes. Not to overhype it but yes.

If its still available its in a Guard omnibus called Honour Imperialis

 

One downer is the rest of Steve Lyons' stuff doesnt live up to it

[DukeLeto69]

 

Slightly off topic but is Dead Men Walking really good? Been on my shelf for years but never got round to reading it!

Yes. Not to overhype it but yes.

If its still available its in a Guard omnibus called Honour Imperialis

 

One downer is the rest of Steve Lyons' stuff doesnt live up to it

Thanks. Looks like this will be coming off my shelf and into the reading pile - many years after buying it!

[Sandlemad]

Two quick things on Haley's Titandeath that relate to this and make it an interesting book despite its flaws:

 

1. One of the core plot points is the brief and largely physical relationship between the legio Solaria princeps Esha and the legio Vulpa princeps Harrtek. It's a fling but it results in a daughter. I bring it up because "doomed romantic relationship between two people who end up on opposite sides of a conflict" is a pretty well-worn trope but curiously isn't something that really appears all that much in 40k.

 

I think this is largely because of the absolutist nature of so many of the conflicts and also the focus on space marines. There are a lot of "brother, how could you have turned your back on the imperium?!" moments but very few that are romantic.

 

2. The familial love between three generations of women in the legio Solaria. Mohana, the grandmother and matriarch of the legion. Esha, her daughter, more of a protagonist and senior princeps. Abhani, her daughter, up and coming princeps. They have disagreements, their professional duties bump up against their familial relations (having your mom be your commanding officer is one thing, having both your mom and your grandmother in charge is another, and also you largely know your grandmother as that intimidating figure in the bacta tank), but it's a pretty genuine and ok portrayal of mother-daughter love in a sci-fi thriller with giant robots. Again, this isn't groundbreaking stuff in literature or even sci-fi but fairly unique for 40k.

 

As an aside, I'd also point people in the direction of volume 3 of 28, the digitial Inq28 magazine. Besides having just some of the absolute best and most creative modelling and conversion work anywhere (and an interview with Josh Reynolds!), it has an essay titled "Love Among Angels" about romance, the lack of it, and the emotional lives of space marines. "What does it mean to be a man who lives a life forever denied the intimacy of true human affection?" It's thoughtful and well put-together essay that goes miles beyond the usual jokes about Slaanesh and similar.

[Indefragable]

Two quick things on Haley's Titandeath that relate to this and make it an interesting book despite its flaws:

 

1. One of the core plot points is the brief and largely physical relationship between the legio Solaria princeps Esha and the legio Vulpa princeps Harrtek. It's a fling but it results in a daughter. I bring it up because "doomed romantic relationship between two people who end up on opposite sides of a conflict" is a pretty well-worn trope but curiously isn't something that really appears all that much in 40k.

 

I think this is largely because of the absolutist nature of so many of the conflicts and also the focus on space marines. There are a lot of "brother, how could you have turned your back on the imperium?!" moments but very few that are romantic.

 

2. The familial love between three generations of women in the legio Solaria. Mohana, the grandmother and matriarch of the legion. Esha, her daughter, more of a protagonist and senior princeps. Abhani, her daughter, up and coming princeps. They have disagreements, their professional duties bump up against their familial relations (having your mom be your commanding officer is one thing, having both your mom and your grandmother in charge is another, and also you largely know your grandmother as that intimidating figure in the bacta tank), but it's a pretty genuine and ok portrayal of mother-daughter love in a sci-fi thriller with giant robots. Again, this isn't groundbreaking stuff in literature or even sci-fi but fairly unique for 40k.

 

As an aside, I'd also point people in the direction of volume 3 of 28, the digitial Inq28 magazine. Besides having just some of the absolute best and most creative modelling and conversion work anywhere (and an interview with Josh Reynolds!), it has an essay titled "Love Among Angels" about romance, the lack of it, and the emotional lives of space marines. "What does it mean to be a man who lives a life forever denied the intimacy of true human affection?" It's thoughtful and well put-together essay that goes miles beyond the usual jokes about Slaanesh and similar.

 

I have to backup @Sandlemad with TItandeath. A completely unsought after nor expected bit of romance and even a scene between the sheets (be still, Puritan censors!). What makes it quite well done is how organic it is to the story being told: the characters who "interact" form an attraction of arrogance, if you will. Think of Maverick in Top Gun and that level of cockiness displayed by fighter pilots....not make them pilots freakin' titans. When two such pilots of the opposite gender meet off duty...it makes perfect sense how a sense of competitiveness can lead to......a baby. 

 

That's the second part that Titandeath wondrously includes though no one asked for it. It has an absolute gem of a moment describing pregnancy, (natural) child birth, and the bond between mother and child simply not found in the rest of the BL portfolio. It is all the more compelling due to the circumstances: the AdMech at war, and now there's a natural childbirth involved. 

 

Another one that comes to mind, though again brief, is ​Vengeful Spirit: it has the Perpetual on Molech (can't recall her name, Aliea-something?) who has come to get married with a simple dockworker, have a few kids, grow a garden, et al while on her eternal vigil on that world. There's some good stuff in the brief moments its covered, but like many a Graham McNeill story its a kernel of a great idea that's just not explored enough for my tastes. 

[MegaVolt87]

Titandeath? still a better love story than twilight.