Upcoming BL Stuff - 2022

[cheywood]

25 minutes ago, phandaal said:

Audiobook narrators change their voice to portray different characters. One would think an accent would be a helpful way to distinguish different cultures in an audiobook.

Asians are more likely to laugh at Uncle Roger and Steven He than get offended over an accent. Someone would have to actually know Asian people to understand that though.

Pun intended?

Your tone comes off as extremely condescending and I don’t think anyone’s said anything that merits it

Here’s an idea: when you have an audiobook that requires a lot of Asian accents then use a voice actor of Asian heritage. 

Asian people aren’t a monoculture, plenty of them find Asian stereotypes offensive. 

Edited October 4, 2022 by cheywood
More condescending than aggressive

[Ubiquitous1984]

37 minutes ago, Petitioner's City said:

Isn't it also nice to have more diversity in who voices the heresy and BL in general?

I love Keeble's voice, but it's nice to have more people involved, especially if it diversifies the "who" people imagine in Warhammer.

 

 

That's interesting as I have the opposite view.  I love continuity of narration within the setting.  I find it very jarring when one character is voiced by one narrator in audiobook A, only for a completely different voice to narrate it in audiobook B.  For example you wouldn't expect an animated TV show to change narrators voicing main characters between episodes.

Thankfully, BL seemed to identify and agree that this was an issue halfway through the heresy and went from having a stable of narrators (Longworth, Armstrong, Banks, Keeble et al) to having a fully consistent approach by appointing Keeble.  IIRC he has performed the last twenty of so instalments in the series by himself (Born of Flame and anthologies being the exception).  This IMO greatly enhanced the narration of the setting, especially because Keeble is such a fine narrator.

If BL are now going to change this approach, they are going to have to re-record an awful lot of audiobooks to get rid of the 'problematic' narration.  I will be disappointed if this has the knock-on effect of delaying the ongoing project to make audio versions of the BL backlog, which has been coming along at an encouraging pace this year.

 

26 minutes ago, cheywood said:

Asian people aren’t a monoculture, plenty of them find Asian stereotypes offensive. 

This is a fair point.  Perhaps it is now time to retire the White Scars chapter altogether as the rampaging mounted hoard stereotype is rather problematic?  

Edited October 4, 2022 by Ubiquitous1984

[phandaal]

1 minute ago, cheywood said:

Your tone comes off as extremely aggressive and I don’t think anyone’s said anything that merits it

Easy there cowpoke! No aggression intended - as with much of the written word, "tone" is what we choose to see. GW chose to make this change and people here are only discussing it.

3 minutes ago, cheywood said:

Here’s an idea: when you have an audiobook that requires a lot of Asian accents then use a voice actor of Asian heritage. 

The person's voice should really be the only thing that matters. Keeble is awesome. If the new guy is awesome too and was chosen for his talent as part of a larger project, then more power to him. If he was chosen to portray a stereotype based on his ethnicity then that is more problematic.

8 minutes ago, cheywood said:

Asian people aren’t a monoculture, plenty of them find Asian stereotypes offensive.

That does not match my experience.

[cheywood]

8 minutes ago, Ubiquitous1984 said:

This is a fair point.  Perhaps it is now time to retire the White Scars chapter altogether as the rampaging mounted hoard stereotype is rather problematic?  

Hahaha I don’t see too many people conflating modern day Asian cultures with the  nomadic hordes of Mongolia, but maybe I’m just not hanging with a deranged enough crowd.

[cheywood]

6 minutes ago, phandaal said:

Easy there cowpoke! No aggression intended - as with much of the written word, "tone" is what we choose to see. GW chose to make this change and people here are only discussing it.

The person's voice should really be the only thing that matters. Keeble is awesome. If the new guy is awesome too and was chosen for his talent as part of a larger project, then more power to him. If he was chosen to portray a stereotype based on his ethnicity then that is more problematic.

That does not match my experience.

Sorry, like I said in my edit ‘aggressive’ was the wrong word, but saying ‘someone would have to actually know Asian people…’ is pretty inarguably condescending. You might consider that you’re missing the way your remarks come across.

So we’ve had very different experiences. It’s almost like anecdotal experience is of extremely limited relevance when discussing broad cultural realities! 
 

 

Edited October 4, 2022 by cheywood

[phandaal]

6 minutes ago, cheywood said:

So we’ve had very different experiences. It’s almost like anecdotal experience is of extremely limited relevance when discussing broad cultural realities! 

True, although my experience is probably much broader and more relevant than most people discussing the topic. Not willing to share info to prove it, so my source is "trust me bro!"

Really we do not know the reason for changing the narrator. Some here are assuming it is for a certain reason and praising that reason and other people are questioning if that would be worthy of praise.

Personally I would hope they are not spending time re-recording something for the reason some people are praising. Would be better to have more books narrated than to have old books redone for questionable reasons.

[cheywood]

12 minutes ago, phandaal said:

True, although my experience is probably much broader and more relevant than most people discussing the topic. Not willing to share info to prove it, so my source is "trust me bro!"

I’m totally happy to believe you know many Asian people who find cultural stereotypes funny and inoffensive. However I think if you look at the news or do some research you’d see that there are also many Asian people who don’t appreciate the way their cultures are portrayed. After all there’s billions of people with Asian heritage, it would be unlikely for them to all agree!

Personally I dedicate little time to being outraged, but I’m perplexed when people don’t understand why companies are being culturally sensitive like GW is here. It’s a sensible response to the politics of the day.

Edited October 4, 2022 by cheywood

[aa.logan]

2 hours ago, caladancid said:

This is so strange to me. I tried a little google to see if folks were complaining about this. No success. Then I listed to the samples, did not have the accents. So I’m left wondering how the accent choices make you personally uncomfortable if you haven’t heard them and it’s not on a preview. 
 

Also based on this I’m assuming you’ve never lived in an Eastern country. Their ideas on this stuff would probably surprise you. 

I can assure you the audiobook of Scars is full of Keeble’s “velly solly” accent. 
 

Speaking on behalf of only my pasty self, who has only lived as far East as the wrong side of the Pennines, Keeble’s performance in this makes me uncomfortable- I’ve purchased the audiobook, but not listened to more than a couple of chapters. I can’t be the only one to feel that way; it’s poor business sense to alienate potential customers surely, so why wouldn’t they re-record?
 

Keeble is an excellent narrator of audiobooks, and I’ll continue to enjoy other titles read by him, but I’m really glad that BL are broadening the range of performers used- the recent Catachan novel whose name escapes me, Steel Tread and The Wraithbone Phoenix are all read, I believe, by first-time BL narrators, and their respective performances are as good as any I’ve heard. 

I fear this is veering off-topic though.

[aa.logan]

That said…

Another (big) issue with Keeble’s Chogorian accent is just how *silly* it sounds; it undermines Wraight’s great writing. Overall, it was a bizarre editorial choice.

[phandaal]

3 minutes ago, cheywood said:

Personally I dedicate little time to being outraged, but I’m perplexed when people don’t understand why companies are being culturally sensitive like GW is here. It’s a sensible response to the politics of the day.

No one disputes that some people are offended. Clearly that is the case, and even extends to people getting offended by proxy on behalf of someone else's ethnicity or culture.

In general, people do understand why a company would want to please its customers rather than offend them. The debate comes in because not everyone agrees that certain things were in need of changing to avoid said offense.

In this case, we do not even know if GW did in fact get a new narrator for that reason.

[cheywood]

3 minutes ago, phandaal said:

No one disputes that some people are offended. Clearly that is the case, and even extends to people getting offended by proxy on behalf of someone else's ethnicity or culture.

In general, people do understand why a company would want to please its customers rather than offend them. The debate comes in because not everyone agrees that certain things were in need of changing to avoid said offense.

In this case, we do not even know if GW did in fact get a new narrator for that reason.

You and caladancid both said that Asian people aren’t offended by stereotypical depictions of their culture, so forgive me for thinking the point needed to be made!

Regardless, you’re right. It’s entirely plausible GW re-recorded this book for another reason. 

[phandaal]

Just now, cheywood said:

You and caladancid both said that Asian people aren’t offended by stereotypical depictions of their culture, so forgive me for thinking the point needed to be made!

Everyone on the Internet speaks in absolutes. 

[Mechanicus Tech-Support]

nvm unnecessary

Edited October 5, 2022 by Mechanicus Tech-Support

[Noserenda]

Yeah the "comedy asian" accents used in some of the books definitely made me cringe in whichever HH book had the Nikea trial in, i honestly havent listened to any other books with particularly bad ones that i can recall but i also typically read rather then listen to HH novels which are the only time White scars turn up really.

I absolutely welcome more people narrating the books though, consistency be damned if it also means Cawl and some Nurgle greater daemon also have the same voice, because thats much more distracting personally.

Its a good thing to go back and improve stuff that may be wonky or unintentionally racist in your back catalogue, im sure the old voice actor isnt exactly weeping into their cereal at the news and probably doesn't need defending  :D 

[phandaal]

55 minutes ago, Noserenda said:

Its a good thing to go back and improve stuff that may be wonky or unintentionally racist in your back catalogue

It is also a good idea to keep things in perspective. We are not talking about old school Tarzan pulp or HP Lovecraft here.

55 minutes ago, Noserenda said:

im sure the old voice actor isnt exactly weeping into their cereal at the news and probably doesn't need defending

No doubt he is not hurting for work, but most people would not appreciate having their work casually referred to as racist when it is not.

[Noserenda]

2 hours ago, phandaal said:

It is also a good idea to keep things in perspective. We are not talking about old school Tarzan pulp or HP Lovecraft here.

No doubt he is not hurting for work, but most people would not appreciate having their work casually referred to as racist when it is not.

Thats why i called it unintentionally racist, ive no reason not to give them the benefit of the doubt but you dont need intent to look bad or cause upset, its how you deal with problems when raised thats important. 

Unless something else comes to light it certainly seems like GW agrees with that too.

[Fedor]

I salute people that can listen to audio books for fiction. They're a form of existential horror to me, like the spectre of my old man returned to shame me for my hobbies. Just the thought of listening to a middle aged englishman reciting the Horus Heresy, complete with bad accents and silly primarch and space marine voices....it's giving me pains in my chest.

Edited October 5, 2022 by Fedor

[DukeLeto69]

My two pence...

There is zero reason for Scars to have Asian accents or Salamanders to have African accents etc etc. They are 21st century proxies that are unnecessary in a fantasy setting based 38,000 years in the future.

Anthropologically speaking, a galaxy spanning space faring human race would be unrecognisable to our present day baseline. Millennia of exposure to different environmental conditions on a million worlds would dictate the evolutionary direction of the human race, eg a planet with low gravity (or voidships) would result in tall lithe beings, high gravity would result in squat robust beings, high solar radiation would result in increased melanin etc etc

[Ubiquitous1984]

2 hours ago, DukeLeto69 said:

My two pence...

There is zero reason for Scars to have Asian accents or Salamanders to have African accents etc etc. They are 21st century proxies that are unnecessary in a fantasy setting based 38,000 years in the future.

Anthropologically speaking, a galaxy spanning space faring human race would be unrecognisable to our present day baseline. Millennia of exposure to different environmental conditions on a million worlds would dictate the evolutionary direction of the human race, eg a planet with low gravity (or voidships) would result in tall lithe beings, high gravity would result in squat robust beings, high solar radiation would result in increased melanin etc etc

You best inform BL in that case, because they've appointed an asian narrator to voice the White Scars 

[cheywood]

Renegades: Harrowmaster by Mike Brooks is up for preorder on the 22nd: https://www.fnac.com/livre-numerique/a17426726/Mike-Brooks-Renegades-Harrowmaster#omnsearchpos=1

Fnac’s also delisted the Kasrkin book. No idea if that’s a delay or an attempt to keep it secret because it’s a Kill Team tie-in. I imagine we’ll find out more this weekend. 

[Fire Golem]

Fancy editions of War of the Fang, the Dark Imperium trilogy and Cadian Blood coming. 
https://www.warhammer-community.com/2022/10/05/three-black-library-warhammer-40000-masterpieces-are-back-and-better-than-ever/

 

[System Sound]

Why does Plague war have a different spine? It looks so off now! 

[aa.logan]

I’m not sure it means anything, but they only showed signatures on War of the Fang…

Am I going to throw money after special editions of books I already own? Probably.

[Tolmeus]

I really love "Battle for the Fang" and reread just 2 months ago. So this is a must have for me.

And since I am collector of the these expansive Limited Editions, I well surely also get the other ones. 

It is just a bit stupid, to buy the Dark Imperium triology for the third time, since I got the original LE's, the retconned Hard backs and then the retconned LE's 

Throwing away my money at BL at this point

[Felix Antipodes]

9 minutes ago, aa.logan said:

I’m not sure it means anything, but they only showed signatures on War of the Fang…

Am I going to throw money after special editions of books I already own? Probably.

Since I prefer HB format to MMPB I will definitely be throwing cash at books I already have in other formats.  Especially considering who the authors are 

The hard question is whether I do the same for the Dark Imperium box set as I got those already in my preferred format.  It does look pretty though … 

On a separate note:

As @Chapter Master Valrak posted in N&R on a possible return of the Lion soonish, will BL have something already commissioned to release along with the model?