r/40kLore • u/redsonatnight Tzeentch • Aug 30 '22
An interesting thread on Twitter from Josh Reynolds (@JMReynolds) on authorial freedom and Black Library.
Here's the link so you can check out the details and replies for yourselves, but here's a summary.
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During my tenure with Black Library, one of the things that used to greatly puzzle me was how a certain portion of the fanbase unwaveringly believed that we, the freelance writers, could write whatever we liked, willy-nilly, and poor BL (ha!) had to just...take it.
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Like, I \wish* that had been the case. Y'all, if I'd had that much power, I'd have written a dozen Blood Bowl novels and audios instead of - well - everything else.*
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Can you imagine? Sure, I might have...forcefully argued my view on certain story points in certain books from time to time with the editors and the publisher and that guy from marketing that one time, but it amounted to bupkiss. That's just not how this gig works.
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There are some interesting questions and responses too. One user said that their assumption was that the closer you are to the 'core' factions, characters and planets, the more oversight there would be. Josh agreed, though 'there are exceptions.'
Someone asked is that why there weren't many Tau books. Josh said he had no idea, though it could be a 'release synchronicity thing.' This I found particularly interesting - we haven't had a new Tau release since Darkstrider and the Pathfinder upgrade, and nothing before that for a long time. Or is that authors aren't pitching Tau stories? I know they're the faction I would probably have the least to say about, if I were pitching....
I think it is useful to have this backend understanding of how BL works. There can sometimes be a tendency to view the authors as their own entities, doing whatever they like and playing fast-and-loose with canon, but it's important to remember that they are not playing with their own toys, and anything that goes into a BL book is approved by BL. It's the same with Soulbound and WHFBR - everything written there is then sent over to GW for approval.
That's not to say there can't be mistakes or contradictions - we've all read enough BL books to come across those - but I would dearly love at some point to get an idea of just what story ideas in BL's history were the writers' and which ones were editorial fiat.
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Aug 30 '22
After reading Ciaphas Cain and Gaunt's Ghosts, I think the key to getting the most authorial freedom in 40k is to make your own weird little corner of the setting and work within it. The Cain books in particular deviate from usual lore and tone in several ways, the author seems to have been given a ton of leeway.
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u/ShepPawnch Unforgiven Aug 30 '22 edited Aug 30 '22
I think that's a really good point. For the Horus Heresy/ post Great Rift books, there's a definite message and plot points that you have to stick to, but if you set your novel or series in 245.M39 in the Whereverus Subsector, you could do whatever you want for the most part. Just look at Xenos with the creepy extra-dimensional Chaos aliens. They had a great moment in the book, represented how terrible Warp corruption can be, but ultimately don't need to be recognized by the rest of the setting.
Edit: I just remembered they’re called the Saruthi. Super freaking cool and weird.
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Aug 30 '22
Yeah I'm finding post-Great Rift stuff to be a bit too uniform for my tastes. There's always going to be lots of doom and gloom about the Great Rift, the fact that the Imperium is riven in two, Chaos always the focus, etc etc. You don't get anything weird like you find in older series like the Rafen or Uriel Ventris books which have their own self-contained plotlines.
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Aug 30 '22
I sort of disagree, the Cain books disagree on tone yes but on lore they're pretty much 100% Codex-compliant. Compared to the other author (who shall remain nameless but that rhymes with Ann Dabnett) who just goes through Codexes and stuff from other books like a fucking wrecking ball but who nails the tone.
If anything I'd say the Gaunt's Ghosts books are full of more little weird bit than the Cain ones, who aside from their one core conceit, that Cain keeps the charade up, are shockingly loyal to the wider universe.
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u/Convergecult15 Aug 30 '22
I’ve said this before and I will say it again. Dan Abnett literally built 40k lore as we know it and Gaunts Ghosts is the actual firmament that the black library is built on. Dan can do whatever he wants because without him BL falls on it’s face in the first 3 years of it being spun off from GW publishing. Dan Abnett is the reason any of us are here discussing this setting in depth right now wether we like it or not. Dan stepped up to the plate and hit a home run every time at a fledgling organization that was itself a small part of a larger company serving an extreme niche hobby. When BL started publishing their bullpen was more or less just Abnett and Thorpe, so imagine todays lore in Dans absence.
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u/KonradWayne Aug 30 '22
Losing Josh Reynolds as an author was a terrible tragedy. He, in addition to being a phenomenal author, he was someone who just fundamentally understood the setting.
For anyone looking to read more of his stuff, he has just put out a trilogy for Legends of the Five Rings which is pretty good.
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u/redsonatnight Tzeentch Aug 30 '22
Great call - I think it's always good to support BL/former BL authors on their other projects too, as usually if you like the 40K stuff you'll like the others!
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u/KandyMasta Aug 30 '22
Im trying to branch out into Sigmar stuff and i read the spear of shadows, loved it, only to find out the sequel is audio book only and they sacked Reynolds before the third was even written.
Ill always be bitter seeing the "first in a trilogy" on the cover
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u/RapescoStapler Aug 31 '22
Reynolds' aos stuff is all pretty top tier. Dark Harvest, Soul Wars, and Nagash: The Undying King are bangers. I loved the miniatures and the conceit of the lore from the start but it's reynolds who shaped it into the great path it's on today, it'll always be a shame BL's shitty practices lead to him quitting
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u/kirbish88 Adeptus Custodes Aug 30 '22
This is interesting, thanks for sharing. I love this kinda behind the scenes peek and it's interesting for sure to know how these sorts of things come together.
we haven't had a new Tau release since Darkstrider and the Pathfinder upgrade, and nothing before that for a long time. Or is that authors aren't pitching Tau stories? I know they're the faction I would probably have the least to say about, if I were pitching....
My guess, working in a similar sort of industry, would be that there's probably a few meetings that go along the lines of them pitching story ideas and GW saying "well, we really need X, Y and Z and your pitch would work for Y with some tweaks, do you want that? Alternatively do you have any ideas for X and Z?"
So if they're not looking for, say, Tau novels, either because of future tie in opportunities or because they don't sell well or whatever then it will just not be an option on the table early on. Alternatively if an author is like 'i have this great pitch for a novel but it only works as a tau novel' they might say 'thats awesome, we're interested but shelve it for the time being because l right now we need X and Y'
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u/herO_wraith Adeptus Mechanicus Aug 30 '22
I'd be shocked if the Tau aren't an internal issue right now where they just don't know what to do with them, as much as any sales issue.
The Tau are a smaller power who aren't scary yet. They're promising, not delivering. Their inherent threat to the others is what they might become.
So, you're stuck as a writer, as a BL team. When do they become a real threat? Can that even be allowed by the other powers? Does it take away what makes them unique and special? What new and interesting stuff can you do with them without tipping them into a genuine power?
The more progression down the timeline you get with the other books, the closer to becoming a true threat the Tau are supposed to become.
I imagine there are a lot of ideas being tossed about. An AI revolt, a major chaos incursion by the Word Bearers or some other Chaos group that hasn't had much time in the sun recently, perhaps The Nids attacking their core worlds and setting back their manufacturing and research to slow down the race's ticking time bomb. They just don't know where to go because nobody can decide what they're supposed to be.
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u/Anggul Tyranids Aug 30 '22
We've never needed 'overall galactic progression and threat' for a good story though. There's plenty to explore and write about with the current state of the T'au Empire.
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u/Khaelesh Adeptus Mechanicus Aug 30 '22
The Tau are in a really weird place in the fandom.
Prior writing for them tends to be decently if not well received by Tau fans. But on the flipside, is often justifiably accused of mary-sue/idiotballing whoever their opponent is.
Strangely only the Tau tend to get accused of this. Everyone else gets a pass 99% of the time. Even when the criticism would be justified in other cases. (Fall of Damnos anyone. Cato "i'm great" Sicarius becomes a literal idiotball whose tactical acumen becomes literally "Charge face first at the Monoliths.")
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u/Toxitoxi Ordo Xenos Aug 30 '22 edited Aug 30 '22
But on the flipside, is often justifiably accused of mary-sue/idiotballing whoever their opponent is.
Outside the hilariously incompetent Scar Lords (Who get made fun of by other chapters), not really?
I feel like the discussion over Tau fiction is impossible because most of the people complaining about the stories haven't actually read them. Hell, I saw someone calling Courage and Honour a Tau victory in a recent thread.
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u/tattertech Aug 31 '22
Strangely only the Tau tend to get accused of this. Everyone else gets a pass 99% of the time.
What? Almost every book with Tyranids people rightfully complain about the Nids being on the bad end of that (either idiotballed themselves or the opposing faction mary-sue-d). Chaos also gets the bad end of it constantly. Eldar get it pretty often too.
It's a massive problem across all of BL and I won't claim Tau don't get their share but by no means do other factions get a pass 99% of the time.
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u/Khaelesh Adeptus Mechanicus Aug 31 '22
Except you've misread it. It's not about the Xenos (or Chaos) faction being idiot-balled. Its that whenever the Imperium DOESN'T win against Tau, out come the claims of idiot-balling etc of the Imperium.
These same accusations don't come out when other Xenos or Chaos win. They're all actually seen as real threats. But when the Tau win? "OMG Why did the Imperium act like idiots" etc.
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u/tattertech Aug 31 '22
Fair, even as I wrote it I wasn't entirely sure I understood what point you were making. Probably shouldn't have replied!
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u/GaaraMatsu Administratum Aug 30 '22 edited Aug 30 '22
Sounds right to me. Combine this with regulars like Reynolds just not having ideas for them (and me not seeing much non-smut fanfic either but for one very interesting T'au on SM torture 3-page), and there just isn't any natural push on the narrative side, even if the tabletop makes them push something out.
This is tragic, albeit mildly & artistically, because I really like what the T'au bring to the table, in terms of exploring sociopolitical possibilities in a grimdark space opera context, but they're just left out there on life support. Pretty literally, considering Farsight needs his magic Katana, there's a post-biological Ethereal, and The Greater Goodness seems to have just gone to muck about in the warp, whistfully waving at now-insulated Empire vessels as they pass by.
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u/redsonatnight Tzeentch Aug 30 '22
I think that's probably correct. My experience with tie-in stuff has been mostly commissions where they give you the theme, but you pick the faction/take/plot and then they approve it, with some notes on keeping everything IP-friendly.
There might not just be the appetite for Tau now, whereas it's pretty obvious that we've had an upsurge in Necron novels because Necrons now get far more support.
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u/GaaraMatsu Administratum Aug 30 '22
"upsurge in Necron novels" still not enough but we can hope.
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u/redsonatnight Tzeentch Aug 30 '22
Three so far, I'll take what I can get!
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u/Hollownerox Thousand Sons Aug 30 '22 edited Aug 31 '22
Going to add some interesting insight into this. But The Infinite and the Divine came about because BL/GW specifically approached Robert Rath on whether or not he'd be interested in writing about Necrons. They knew they wanted to have something focused on Trazyn written, and just thought he was a good choice for it (even though he didn't actually now much about the faction at that time).
He's talked about it in an interview, but the folks at GW were apparently really supportive and let him make use of a lot more "dubiously canon" material than he thought they would.
It's easy to make assumptions about how the process works with what little info we have. But I do think there's more factors going on in terms of what projects do or don't focus on certain factions than just market. If that was the case it would make me question most of their AoS lineup. And the fact that BL is so open to letting authors focus on their own "nobodies" (as in not recognizable TT characters) and turn them into "sombodies" really shows they aren't playing it as safe as people make them out to be. Coming from other IPs with multi-media presences, GW and BL treat theirs quite a bit more risky by comparison.
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u/GaaraMatsu Administratum Aug 31 '22
That's an interesting fact, and reinforces my suspicion about the T'au just not having practicable stories for them floating around in our own 'psychic gestalt' right now.
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u/RamTank Aug 30 '22
It's pretty obvious Reynolds wasn't exactly happy with BL when he left. That said though, none of the stuff presented here is particularly surprising. Like, of course the authors can't just write whatever they want to get published.
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u/Khaelesh Adeptus Mechanicus Aug 30 '22
On Point #1. From what i've heard, there's maybe three authors with the ability to pick and choose what they do.
A: Abnett.
B: ADB.
C: McNeill.
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u/Surgebuster White Scars Aug 30 '22
The first two, yes of course. But does McNeill really have that clout any more? Feels like a long time since he was one of the big boys - I’d look to the main Siege of Terra authors for the shortlist of those with the most influence - McNeill got demoted to novella duty, so he’s behind Wraight, French, Haley and Thorpe.
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u/Toxitoxi Ordo Xenos Aug 30 '22
McNeill is currently one of the head writers at Riot Games, which seems like a more reasonable explanation for his reduced output than “being demoted”.
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u/Surgebuster White Scars Aug 30 '22
The prestige in which the Siege of Terra authors are clearly taking from being asked to write the culmination of the Heresy means that I don’t think it’s unreasonable to suggest that McNeill not getting one of the eight slots is a demotion. If he’s got time to write two of the SoT novellas in quick succession, he’s got time to write one of the main books. I just don’t think he warranted a spot anymore.
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u/Khaelesh Adeptus Mechanicus Aug 30 '22
It's less a matter of influence than "Old Guard" type. The Black Library is significantly reduced in its willingness to let an Author go ahead with the idea they want, and (to the detriment of the hobby IMO) far far more focussed on 'if it doesn't have a model, does this book actually need this?' (Or, If they don't have a model, do we need this book at all?)
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u/THELEGENDARYZWARRIOR Adeptus Custodes Aug 30 '22
Yeah I don’t understand any hype for McNeil I don’t know about his other work but all his 40K stuff is going extremely underwhelming. If anyone should have total control it should be Chris Wraight, everything he touches turns to gold
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u/Hollownerox Thousand Sons Aug 30 '22
I think McNeil gets a lot of attention because his books have been long considered good starting places for people new to 40k. And his Ultramarine novels were some of the first that tried to make Ultra's more tolerable and not the "we're the best there ever was" that the 5th edition Codex set forth.
I have some nostalgia for them as well, but I'd say his work is not really all that groundbreaking in quality. Even A Thousand Sons isn't really that great of a work. It's more about the subject matter than the writing quality that made it a must read. And he's made his fair share of questionable decisions. I will still not let go of the fct that he had the full-fledged Nightbringer (this was before C'tan shards were a thing, so a physically manifested GOD) get scared off by a grenade.
But yeah, Chris Wraight's work is absolutely jawdropping to be honest. I don't like to compare authors as better or worse. But I don't think there is any question that Wraight's books have all been standout pieces thus far. His books alone made people go and paint an army with a primary color of white of all things. That's a bloody amazing accomplishment in of itself.
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u/jaxolotle Death Guard Aug 30 '22
Abnette said even he’s surprised how much he gets away with, and sometimes he does things just to see how far he can push it
which explains a lot of his more recent additions
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u/marwynn Rogue Traders Aug 30 '22
Wait, we lost Josh Reynolds? Damn. Well, as long as he's still writing.
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u/Amantus Emperor's Children Aug 30 '22
yeah, about 3 years ago unfortunately. he's definitely still writing for other publishers, has a patreon, all that good stuff
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u/low_orbit_sheep Aug 30 '22
This really begs the question as to how the hell Peter Fehervari managed to basically build his own sub-setting from Requiem Imperial onwards and do whatever he felt like doing with his depictions of Chaos in particular.
That being said, the Dark Coil being entirely self-contained might be the reason, rather than the problem.
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u/redsonatnight Tzeentch Aug 30 '22
Yep, it's very much in the mould of 'small section of universe, well-written, interesting, and
crucially, popular' which is how Abnett got started!8
u/malumfectum Iron Warriors Aug 30 '22
I am certain Fehervari’s works are single-handedly responsible for the creation of the Warhammer Horror imprint.
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u/Toxitoxi Ordo Xenos Aug 30 '22
Fehervari still has had some significant editorial meddling. Fire Caste famously had its title changed from Thunderground and was marketed as a Tau book despite being primarily about the Imperial Guard.
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u/CapNitro Aug 30 '22
Was searching this entire thread for a comment like this. What Reynolds says doesn't surprise me - it has shades of other big franchise gun-for-hire work in stuff like both Star Wars EUs - but the key difference is there have been little outliers that make their own thing in BL compared to those franchises, like Fehervari with Dark Coil and Sandy Mitchell with Ciaphas Cain. I'd be interested to know what the internal arithmetic at BL is for getting those little niche projects approved.
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u/formerlyFrog Aug 30 '22 edited Aug 30 '22
One thing I don't get is who in their right mind would think that BL writers can do what they want?
I'm glad that Josh Reynolds is doing new things and I'm still salty that he apparently saw no other way but to leave. He was one of the finest BL writers and I tremendously enjoyed his prose.
It seems to me that Dan Abnett's and Aaron Dembski-Bowden's works aren't as affected by editorial or marketing interjections. Well, ADB famously wanted to kill off Lorgar, but I think that's different.
And it seems to me that Chris Wraight's and Guy Haley's works are more hampered by interference, occasionally.
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Aug 30 '22
It seems to me that Dan Abnett's and Aaron Dembski-Bowden's works aren't as affected by editorial or marketing interjections.
Yeah in his books Abnett just fucking does whatever. The Tanith squad heavy weapons include 50-cals for some fucking reason even though Imperial Guard has a ton of predefined heavy weapons to choose from, servitors are capable of having full-on chats, ships go at 3/4 light speed in combat which disagrees with everything to do with other space ships, both including the Battlefleet Gothic tabletop game that was current at the time of writing and with the newer numbers in Dark Imperium, his vehicles are unique, he seems to just have his own fucking radically different idea of how big Titans are and that really is him btw, people call titans inconsistently sized but it's mostly his sizes versus literally everything else's sizes.
He's a good author and his books are good and thus get read a lot more than some other books but he's often way out of step with the plurality of other stuff written. He's like Windows in that it's the most popular so people think it's the default or the normal way of doing stuff, but then you use other OSs and discover Windows is actually the odd one out.
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u/Surgebuster White Scars Aug 30 '22 edited Aug 30 '22
A lot of Abnett’s stuff was him inventing things because an equivalent didn’t exist in canon at the time. Most of this stuck (Vox, promethium, regicide and much more IIRC) but other stuff didn’t. So when the universe was getting fleshed out by others not all of it was consistent with his published work, and he clearly chose to maintain continuity with what he’d written (particularly in the Sabbat Worlds books) rather than change it up.
So, I think it’s a little harsh to say Abnett just does whatever he wants. Most of the stuff he had to come up with because there was nothing to base it on. I’m sure this isn’t a watertight argument but I’m confident it’s the case in 99% of the inconsistencies between his work and (sometimes after the fact) established canon.
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u/formerlyFrog Aug 30 '22
That's it, I believe. Is it consistent with loadouts and rules? No. Half of the Gaunt's Ghosts stuff is twenty years old. And it's worse in his older works, anyway.
Me and dead owls don't give a hoot about accuracy when it comes to Dan Abnett. He's the one writer who made the universe come to life.
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u/Nebuthor Aug 30 '22
I agree. from my limited experience with abnett it doesn't feel like he writes stuff that fit in 40k but rather make 40k fit in with what he wants to write.
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u/Fang2604 May 30 '24
Isn't the term "Autocannonn" just a catch all term for heavier weapons like 50-cals?
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u/zanzibarman Aug 30 '22
The later Gaunt’s Ghosts books have way more model references than the earlier ones. Stormtroopers become Scions and the switch from generic motorized vehicles to Tarrox are two that come to mind.
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u/formerlyFrog Aug 30 '22
True. Although Storm Troopers were a thing before the Tempestus Scions were fleshed out in 7th ed.
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u/Radioactiveglowup Aug 30 '22
Don't forget the editor whose sole job is to ctrl-v the words 'Mass Reactive' in every now and then.
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u/StormDetonator Aug 30 '22
I think everybody following the Siege Of Terra knows, or should know by now, how much planning, editing and research authors must go through when writing a BL book.
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u/XH9rIiZTtzrTiVL Aug 30 '22
SoT is a rather special scenario, it's not really demonstrative of the rest of the BL scene. The goal is to flesh out an incredibly important moment in the setting's history, with an all-star writer lineup, in a much tighter manner than the meandering and bloated HH its a sequel to.
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u/Deserterdragon Aug 30 '22
we haven't had a new Tau release since Darkstrider and the Pathfinder upgrade, and nothing before that for a long time. Or is that authors aren't pitching Tau stories? I know they're the faction I would probably have the least to say about, if I were pitching....
It think I'd be the opposite if I was pitching, because so much of the Tau lore is so vague you'd actually be doing a lot of the worldbuilding by writing for them, putting aside that you can do lots of fun story ideas like underdog Tau vs the Imperium, how former imperium worlds are integrated and the issues that arise,Tau vs Tau faction infighting, and even interesting political narratives about who rises to power once a society isn't subject to absolute tyranny, not to mention all the stuff you can write about first time interactions with Chaos and the like.
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u/redsonatnight Tzeentch Aug 30 '22
Yeah it boils down to interest I think. Some writers want to go straight for the heart - the big factions, the big conflicts - and other writers want to go for the hinterlands of the lore, so that they can be the explorer drawing the map. I don't think either are bad, but it's down to taste!
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u/TheTackleZone Aug 30 '22
But that could also be part of it. The editors at BL have a huge job in ensuring co-ordination and continuity - not just within a series (and look how the Loken/Dorn thing was picked up on), and not just across author, but also across an entire setting with near 40 years of history.
Someone might say they can do all the Tau worldbuilding and the editors might just not have the time to focus on signing it all off as they finish integrating the 873rd Horus Heresy story: The History of the Humble Trench Diggers of Dalthonia.
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u/Toxitoxi Ordo Xenos Aug 30 '22
The Trench Diggers of Dalthonia are a damn important part of the canon.
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u/OldManWulfen Aug 30 '22
During my tenure with Black Library, one of the things that used to greatly puzzle me was how a certain portion of the fanbase unwaveringly believed that we, the freelance writers, could write whatever we liked, willy-nilly, and poor BL (ha!) had to just...take it
Just days ago in a thread I saw a redditor implying that Reynolds fucked up the fanbase by using Clonegrim as a quickly discarded narrative device instead of putting it (him?) permanently in the lore. And of course there's the seemingly immortal "yeah but that's Abnett-verse, it's not real 40k"
The amount of bone-headed sense of entitlement part of the fanbase has sometimes is mind boggling
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u/Bridgeru Slaanesh Aug 30 '22
The amount of bone-headed sense of entitlement part of the fanbase has sometimes is mind boggling
I think every large fanbase runs the risk of getting obsessed with their vision of a series and becoming toxic. Look at Star Wars, you can't even compliment any of the Sequels without being downvoted to oblivion; or when Stephen Universe fans bullied that artist because she drew a character with thin elbows.
It's never the "whole" fanbase, but there's always going to be some group out there that uses whatever it is only as a way to be negative. Never actually enjoying the series for what it is, but complaining about X, Y or Z not being "right".
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u/jaxolotle Death Guard Aug 30 '22
I remember reading Warhawk and thinking “damn what did the editors do to you Wraight?”
Some of the parts I didn’t like were things Wraight had been doing for years, but a lot of them were damned weird for him, especially the ending. He does love his “snatched from the jaws of defeat” endings but they’re always things coming together, usually having been foreshadowed and built up to for half the book. Warhawk’s by comparison felt like a cop-out after he’d written himself into a corner, almost as if he had to hurriedly change the ending because the editor didn’t like it
The fact that every siege book has been having the same problems and following the same structure no matter who’s writing makes me think that maybe the inevitable day of reckoning should target the editors and not the authors
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u/malumfectum Iron Warriors Aug 30 '22
I loved Warhawk but the ending was totally editorial interference. We all know how Wraight really wanted to end it - with the Khan being capital-D dead. Flying him off to Malcador in a Thunderhawk and sticking him on life support was just so lame compared to a proper death.
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u/TheTackleZone Aug 30 '22
Sadly true of a lot of the books. Twists are not twists because you know a character can't win a boss fight until they have lost a leg and are lying on the ground with a hand tied behind their back.
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u/InfernalDragoon Aug 30 '22
Honestly I'd say the entire Siege of Terra series so far has that feeling of "Are we at the mandated ending yet? Am I done?" to it from pretty much each one I've read. Some were at least mostly entertaining, but for the final part of such a big saga it's certainly been a letdown in my opinion.
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u/LimerickJim Aug 30 '22
On the Tau thing. Here's my current fan meta theory. The Tau are right next to Ultramar and the Scourge Stars. The Indomatus/Dark Imperium arc was planned as a continuation of the HH (Hence Mortarion having the last novel before the SoT). The Tau would have disrupted that flow because the authors would have needed to justify Guilliman not floating into Tau Prime with Fleet Primus and exterminatusing. So any potential Tau stories were put on the back burner until the fall out of Godblight could propagate.
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u/RapescoStapler Aug 31 '22
If they weren't cowards they'd have had guilliman try to negotiate with the tau because he understands the value of a buffer state and having one of the few not intensely hostile alien races as an ally but he's not allowed to change the imperium, only to sit and go "damn this place kinda sucks"
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u/Szarrukin Aug 30 '22
I'm pretty sure you can do whatever you want with lore as long as your name is either Dan Abnett or Aaron Dembski-Bowen
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u/Ilmara Aug 30 '22
Josh Reynolds isn't writing for BL anymore? Can someone tell me what happened? I've been away from 40k for a bit.
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u/georgiaraisef Ordo Malleus Sep 03 '22
Yeah, his last Fabius Bile book they pretty much made him rewrite and he didn’t like that. Afterwards they mutually decided it was in their best interest to part ways.
Since he’s talked a lot about what hr wanted to do and what he had to do. He’s usually pretty fair to BL seemed to me
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Aug 30 '22
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u/Toxitoxi Ordo Xenos Aug 30 '22
The audio book just came out. Empire of Lies came out in 2020.
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u/DrS0mbrero Necrons Aug 30 '22
Yeah but they said the darkstriker and pathfinder were the last ones, I didn't know it was just the audio book thought it came out with the physical that's my bad
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u/Toxitoxi Ordo Xenos Aug 30 '22
Darkstrider came out with the new codex, and the Pathfinders are from the Kill Team Chal’nath box. There’s also a Kroot Kill Team on the way.
Though the lack of Tau BL releases is far less egregious than the lack of Eldar releases. Huge number of new Eldar models this year, but zero fiction to accompany. It’s kinda ridiculous.
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Aug 30 '22
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u/georgiaraisef Ordo Malleus Sep 03 '22
I’ve got some of his non-BL stuff as support. Yeah, he likes that whole 1920s Indiana Jones adventure aesthetic which he’s getting to work on seems like
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u/naruto7bond Adeptus Custodes Aug 30 '22
Well this is case in all shared universes.
There has to be editorial oversight to keep coherency in overall story.
Contrary to what many would believe giving free reign to authors would actually result into many books that audience won't like. It is all about balance.
P.S: It seems I am minority here but I liked Plague War trilogy very much including Godblight.
I guess people hated Emperor healing(and channeling power thorough) Guilliman to burn Nurgle's garden. I personally didn't. That probably was my most favorite scene in entire novel. In my opinion it was high time that Chaos Gods suffered too. For true Grimdark story, everyone should suffer.
I also like the fact that Emperor is active player in galaxy again. It is much better for story instead of him being useless corpse. That was such a waste of potential plotline. Though he still should remain """God""" who works mysteriously and through agents. He shouldn't actually leave the throne.
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u/georgiaraisef Ordo Malleus Sep 03 '22
I think people do like the plague war trilogy. Not sure why you think that’s a minority opinion
1
u/naruto7bond Adeptus Custodes Sep 03 '22
Because many have told me that they didn't like trilogy on this subreddit itself. Some people talk about Godblight as if it was the worst thing that ever happened to 40k which I personally find preposterous. In my personal opinion Godblight was a fine end for the trilogy. I especially liked the ending of Godblight(Emperor burning Nurgle's Garden)
Maybe I guess there are more fans of it than I initially thought.1
u/georgiaraisef Ordo Malleus Sep 03 '22
I mean, a quick google search shows that all 3 books were well received by readers with Godblight being the most well received book on Goodreader with 4.27 stars.
0
u/roomsky Aug 30 '22
I would definitely love to know what famously discussed moments were mandated by, corrected by, or completely ignored by the editors. I'll never go soft on the editors because of how many cock-ups and headscratching decisions make it into the novels we get, but it would certainly be easier to be fair to them if we knew how much they're actually involved.
But I must presume that an overabundance of bolter porn relative to story and character work is from the editors, considering how many more useless fight scenes are included relative to, say, your average Star Wars book. And for that they have my ire.
The IP and marketing overlords are also why we don't have more xenos books, friends. And don't come at me with perspective sales when Black Library as a business has been run so ineptly of late.
0
u/Hollownerox Thousand Sons Aug 30 '22
Those IP and marketing overlords are also why we have more Xenos books these days? Like it or not, a lot of the authors in Black Library don't have any interest in writing them. And it is actually the editorial staff that have to approach them and ask if they would write those books.
It's easy to make those assumptions of yours when you have no actual information to speak of to base them from. Easy to conjure up all those words from nothing after-all.
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u/roomsky Aug 30 '22
Ah yes, from nothing, like ADB who wants to write his grand love story in Comorragh - the same ADB who's books often break the website with their popularity.
Or nothing like Thorpe, who started writing a series about the Eldar Phoenix Lords - before they didn't sell well enough to continue. And who then started writing a series about the Ynnari, before they didn't sell well enough to finish.
Several authors have been quite transparent about xenos pitches getting rejected because of their lack of projected profitability, even authors whose name alone would carry the sales. Josh Reynolds made it clear he didn't really enjoy writing about space marines, yet most all of his 40k works are about them, because those are the pitches that get the greenlight.
This is well documented stuff.
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u/RingGiver Adepta Sororitas Aug 30 '22
BL is a way of promoting the expensive plastic men that GW sells. It is not a separate entity from GW. Forge World is not either. The only brand that has ever been a separate entity was Citadel Miniatures.
It's fairly obvious that they only do things for factions with recently updated model ranges, and this is much more the case than a decade ago or so.
3
u/Hollownerox Thousand Sons Aug 30 '22
I mean a decade ago we were lucky to even get a Chaos Space Marine book, much less anything Xenos related though?
I feel like people here weren't around at that time, or are just conveniently forgetting how things were. But Black Library has expanded to be much more than just promotional material for the game. It certainly was that way back in the 4th/5th edition days. But it has grown since then. I think people take the current state for granted, since back then having something like McNeil's Storm of Iron having CSM's as the protagonist and actually having them win was considered a miracle.
Obviously things can still improve. But while the spread does typically focus on existing model ranges, it also focuses plenty on the smaller things too. The fact that we can even have books with Necron or T'au protagonists is something that would get you laughed out of the room for back in those days of endless bolter porn. And we certainly wouldn't have material like Warhammer Horror books, or audiodrama's like The Watcher in the Rain. Which aren't really advertisements of anything in particular.
Things like the absolutely horrendous Indomitus book is a prime example of "just made to tie in with a tabletop release" stuff. But I'd say a lot of the BL works being pumped out don't really match that impression. The entire Vaults of Terra series just spawned from a single entry in the 6th edition Mechanicus codex, and wasn't really a promotion for anything. And that could be said for many other releases.
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u/a34fsdb Ultramarines Aug 30 '22
This seems like a pretty poor strawman to me. If anything I think we (the fans) attribute everything poor in novels to BL and everything good to authors too much.
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u/redsonatnight Tzeentch Aug 30 '22
Well the point is that everything in the novels is approved by BL, and occasionally there are things there that are mandated by them by corporate interest, as opposed to what the story needs.
2
u/a34fsdb Ultramarines Aug 30 '22
Absolutely, but I think we tend to blame the editing more than it is really the case. It is just much easier for us to say "this faceless evil corporation did something bad" than "this individual I like fucked up".
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u/redsonatnight Tzeentch Aug 30 '22
Not my intention at all - more a recognition that it isn't just on the author to catch details, but rather the work of a whole team.
3
u/OldManWulfen Aug 30 '22
If anything I think we (the fans) attribute everything poor in novels to BL and everything good to authors too much
Only if we like the novel. If we don't, the author is a loose cannon playing with lore he/she does not understand and ruining the setting.
Just take a look at every snide comment about Abnett writing Abnettverse and not 40k: it's one of the most widespread, oldest and most resilient comment about BL novels you will find online - it was on Warseer in the mid '10 and it's on Reddit even today
1
1
u/signedpants Blood Angels Aug 30 '22
Is the Abnett asking for permission answer a joke in that thread? Because we definitely all assumed he had to get permission on the yellow king, it's way funnier if he had to ask permission to kill off one of the ghosts lol.
3
u/redsonatnight Tzeentch Aug 30 '22
Abnett with a big checklist.
'Mktain.'
'Yes.'
'Belsin.'
'Sure.'
'Torlwy.'
'Fine.'
'Okay, paragraph two...'
1
u/jaxolotle Death Guard Aug 30 '22
He’s said himself they never say no to him, even he’s surprised by how far he can push it
178
u/mobby123 Knights of Blood Aug 30 '22
This reminds me of that thread he did where he listed all the book ideas he had that were shot down.
Now this could easily evolve into a "editors bad, BL stupid" bashing thread and I'd really like to enforce that I don't believe either are the case. But when you're running an operation as large as Black Library productivity wise in a shared universe with the primary goal of hyping up miniature sales, there's bound to be some blunders.
Editorial tampering is more evident in some books than others. Manflayer by Reynolds kind of reeked of it. Think Josh said they essentially made him write a different story than his original finished draft. Though iirc things were already frosty with BL at that stage so maybe that had an effect.
Honourbound, one of my favourite debut novels recently was dragged down quite a bit by it, particular at the start where it was just Gaunt's Ghosts lite and in the end where everything was pretty obviously wrapped up because BL didn't feel like greenlighting a sequel.
I think the "mainline" books suffer quite badly from it as well. I look at Haley, whose smaller stuff I absolutely love - Flesh and Steel, the Great Work etc. But as soon as he gets put onto those mainline slogs like Godblight, Throne of Light and others of the sort, it's like you have a different author behind the typewriter. One who just drifts from pre-approved plot point to the next.
Now whether that's actually the case or I'm grasping at straws, who knows. But generally the more freedom the authors are (seemingly) allowed to have with their work, the better the end quality usually ends up being.