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UberJumper posted:Is Fear to Tread readable? Its James Swallow and i am worried I was checking through the Horus Heresy books the other day, saw it, and cannot remember any of it at all, nor can I remember ever reading it. However, it is on my kindle, and when I open it, it is past the last page of the book. This is weird, because I like Sanguinus and I think he is pretty cool. When I checked the last few pages I saw something about a red angel demon thing which triggered my gag reflex. I still cannot remember what happens in that book at all. Take of that what you will.
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Nov 12, 2013 17:43
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I liked it, if only because it's one of the first major interactions between the Imperium and straight-up Chaos. There's been plenty of brother-against-brother action going on with hints of the chaos underneath up to this point, but nothing as straight up as the stars being blotted out and daemons manifesting en masse and Blood Angels falling into frenzy and all that. Plus I really liked the interactions between the two greater daemons of Khorne and Slaanesh as they plotted towards (sorta) the same thing. And from some of the HH illustrations I've seen, a major (ish?) chaos player is introduced/turned in this book, so it's definitely worth a read if only because some pretty significant Heresy events take place in it.
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Nov 12, 2013 19:49
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UberJumper posted:Is Fear to Tread readable? Its James Swallow and i am worried Is James Swallow the same one who wrote the Blood Angels books? I hated those. But, Fear to Tread was actually a pretty fun read. Sure, it gets a bit melodramatic with Sanguinius and his love for his sons, and a few eye rolling moments like that, but it's an enjoyable book. Way, way better than the Blood Angels Omnibus I tried, and failed, to read all the way through. And, other than the above mentioned melodrama, Sanguinius does have a few kick rear end moments in the book.
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Nov 12, 2013 20:24
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Mr.48 posted:So I was reading some more standard bolter-porn and thought to myself for the nth time: gently caress, even I could write better than this. Not to stop you, but I'm pretty sure someone posted in this thread that the call for submissions is a charade, BL is quasi-nepotism all the way down, and occasionally, when we're lucky, it intersects with an actual good writer. 
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Nov 13, 2013 03:21
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JerryLee posted:Not to stop you, but I'm pretty sure someone posted in this thread that the call for submissions is a charade, BL is quasi-nepotism all the way down, and occasionally, when we're lucky, it intersects with an actual good writer. It was me initially and a bunch of others point it out. I'll read your fanfiction though, dude.
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Nov 13, 2013 03:38
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VanSandman posted:Raise your hand if you've written 40k fanfiction. *raises hand* Guilty. Of course, MY stuff is gonna be so good they actually will take a previously unpublished fiction writer. I'll pop into #acolyte some time and beg for people to read my fanfic.
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Nov 13, 2013 05:45
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I will read then subsequently mock all fanfiction submitted to me... then I will offer up my bad writings in response. The ASOIAF thread does it, why not us?
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Nov 13, 2013 05:49
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Everyone write good 40k fanfiction. GO
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Nov 13, 2013 06:25
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VanSandman posted:I will read then subsequently mock all fanfiction submitted to me... then I will offer up my bad writings in response. The ASOIAF thread does it, why not us? No, we smush our writings together, publish them, and make mad money.
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Nov 13, 2013 06:29
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My lovely fan fiction won me two grand courtesy a college writing contest. It was based off of my concept for my 30k Legion. Something tells me there weren't many entrants.
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Nov 13, 2013 07:01
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Honestly, given that GW refuses to advance the 40k setting, I could easily see a fan-association that could curate (in terms of quality not content) fanfiction aimed specifically towards advancing the overall 40k storyline. And by fanfiction I dont mean fiction about existing characters, I mean brand new material.
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Nov 13, 2013 07:21
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Mr.48 posted:Honestly, given that GW refuses to advance the 40k setting, I could easily see a fan-association that could curate (in terms of quality not content) fanfiction aimed specifically towards advancing the overall 40k storyline. And by fanfiction I dont mean fiction about existing characters, I mean brand new material. That sounds like a recipe for awful. In fact, I'm pretty sure I've seen it before for other IPs/franchises.
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Nov 13, 2013 07:35
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Yeah, the sounds pretty horrible. As much as we may want the storyline to advance, it won't be 40k if it does. There is grim darkness, there is only war. Who knows, one day GW may decide to push forward a bit but as it is, there are 10,000 years of war that span the entire galaxy- there are acres of room for new characters and stories. Of course people want to read about primarchs returning and kicking rear end, Abaddon actually winning a crusade, the emperor dying, or the greatest waaagh ever that involves giant orks riding heirophants into battle. I'm honestly kinda hoping there's some sort of Dark Age of Technology spin-off because poo poo would just be insane.
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Nov 13, 2013 08:30
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Lincoln`s Wax posted:Yeah, the sounds pretty horrible. As much as we may want the storyline to advance, it won't be 40k if it does. There is grim darkness, there is only war. Who knows, one day GW may decide to push forward a bit but as it is, there are 10,000 years of war that span the entire galaxy- there are acres of room for new characters and stories. Of course people want to read about primarchs returning and kicking rear end, Abaddon actually winning a crusade, the emperor dying, or the greatest waaagh ever that involves giant orks riding heirophants into battle. Games Workshop slowly backed themselves in the Old World of Darkness problem where the Final Days/Endgame build-up was a major part of the franchise for years until they reached the point where they had to end it. GW is now just treading water and pushing the HH novels and not bothering with world wide game campaigns. The 6th codexes seem to be upsetting some people by retconning a lot of classic fluff. Launching a separate product line focusing on crazy Dark Age Tech would probably do gangbusters for them because tournaments could run campaigns where the 40k races meet an advanced STC culture and fight. Every time I read in the HH series about Space Marines finding another human civilization who refuses to submit I think about crazy awesome it'd be to see that in miniature.
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Nov 13, 2013 09:09
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pentyne posted:GW is now just treading water
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Nov 13, 2013 10:22
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Just re-listened to The Butcher's Nails and yeah, I have no idea how I forgot those were Dark Eldar. Also, I just realized something hilarious about Betrayer: Kharn is far and away the most loyal major character to survive the book.
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Nov 13, 2013 10:59
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Arbite posted:Just re-listened to The Butcher's Nails and yeah, I have no idea how I forgot those were Dark Eldar.
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Nov 13, 2013 11:49
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The fact that Kharn is the only person NOT to betray someone in that book is the reason why ADB has to now make posts on his blog about how "Master of Mankind" is actually about the Emperor, or "The Talons of Horus" is actually about the Black Legion, no, he's not trying to fool you this time.
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Nov 13, 2013 11:57
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Anonymous Zebra posted:The fact that Kharn is the only person NOT to betray someone in that book is the reason why ADB has to now make posts on his blog about how "Master of Mankind" is actually about the Emperor, or "The Talons of Horus" is actually about the Black Legion, no, he's not trying to fool you this time. This is something I don't understand. Did GW just get lucky it signing ADB to write for them? Other then Abnett or Watson almost everyone else they've paid for material is mediocre to terrible (C.S Goto is a special kind of terrible I can't believe got a paycheck) In Watson's 2004 preface to Inquisition War he said that other prominent writers used pseudonyms to write their bolter porn at the time as writing for GW was seen as whoring themselves for a paycheck.
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Nov 13, 2013 12:14
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pentyne posted:This is something I don't understand. Did GW just get lucky it signing ADB to write for them? Other then Abnett or Watson almost everyone else they've paid for material is mediocre to terrible (C.S Goto is a special kind of terrible I can't believe got a paycheck) Probably, the way I see it they have learned from their mistakes when it comes to authors and their quality and stopped trying to outsource them or looking for the cheapest alternative. As far as I can see it Goto's case was pretty much just him getting signed for a contract for three (or so) books and then give him a simple brief about 40k and let him do whatever. Only for them to go "Eeeh maybe that wasn't the best idea to do" after noticing the hate and ridicule those books got and they wasn't up to snuff to the level of quality they perhaps wanted to see. And then they tried a different approach with Henry Zhou only for that to fail spectacularly when it turned out that he had ripped off another book pretty much wholesale and probably just let his contract run for two books before they ended it. If you listen to the Independent Characters interview with Guy Haley he mentions he has a background in writing sci-fi so they are probably starting to scout after people with a lot more experience in that field than earlier. As for whoring themselves for a paycheck I think that stigma has kinda dropped away these days I think which means less authors really bother doing it. I mean a whole bunch of authors have gotten some fame writing franchise books if you look at Halo Expanded Universe and such.
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Nov 13, 2013 12:37
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Someone mentioned that the Imperium keeps on paying Cain even after he was really dead because he kept on being pronounced dead and coming back with an army. What's to stop some clever upstart from saying "I'm totally Cain" down the line because he wants the fame and thinks it's a cushy gig?
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Nov 13, 2013 14:20
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Azubah posted:Someone mentioned that the Imperium keeps on paying Cain even after he was really dead because he kept on being pronounced dead and coming back with an army.
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Nov 13, 2013 14:38
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An impostor would be a pretty amusing twist for a Cain book, honestly.
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Nov 13, 2013 14:43
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Arquinsiel posted:He won't match the propaganda picture? Isn't that basically a nonissue given the sorts of surgery/sorcery available in the setting?
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Nov 13, 2013 14:45
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And if a saint can come back in a new body, why can't "Cain"?
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Nov 13, 2013 14:53
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Yes but then he would get sent off into the worst hellhole warzone moral threat imaginable. Cain didn't have an easy gig because his fame meant he kept on getting sent into situations he did not want to be in.
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Nov 13, 2013 14:58
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Dravs posted:Yes but then he would get sent off into the worst hellhole warzone moral threat imaginable. Cain didn't have an easy gig because his fame meant he kept on getting sent into situations he did not want to be in.  Clearly our new hero would think it's all hyperbole.
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Nov 13, 2013 15:03
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I withdrawn my objection. This concept sounds AWESOME.
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Nov 13, 2013 15:55
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Arquinsiel posted:I withdrawn my objection. This concept sounds AWESOME. Especially since Cain might take pity on a man trying to get a cushy way out of the warzone and help the poor dumb bastard.
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Nov 13, 2013 16:04
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This is how fan fiction starts, doesn't it?
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Nov 13, 2013 17:17
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I write short fiction things for my Dark Heresy group to establish settings and characters for campaigns I run, but never in a million years would I let anyone outside of that circle read them.
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Nov 13, 2013 17:50
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pentyne posted:This is something I don't understand. Did GW just get lucky it signing ADB to write for them? I don't know how they got him initially, he didn't have anything published as far as I know. It probably helped that he wasn't new to the setting and was already a big fan. What I'm saying is that ADB is a fan-fiction writer turned Black Library author.
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Nov 13, 2013 18:02
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ADB was, I believe, a WoD sourcebook author before he started doing the 40k, so it's not like he was just some guy writing fanfic at home before he got hired.
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Nov 13, 2013 18:06
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Lincoln`s Wax posted:Yeah, the sounds pretty horrible. As much as we may want the storyline to advance, it won't be 40k if it does. There is grim darkness, there is only war. Who knows, one day GW may decide to push forward a bit but as it is, there are 10,000 years of war that span the entire galaxy- there are acres of room for new characters and stories. Of course people want to read about primarchs returning and kicking rear end, Abaddon actually winning a crusade, the emperor dying, or the greatest waaagh ever that involves giant orks riding heirophants into battle. All that stuff you mentioned would be pretty cheesy. Instead, what I have in mind is to push for changes to how the factions work and look individually rather than making one of them "win" or "lose". Something that I would personally like to write about is a worsening of the schism in the Imperium between the church and the adeptus mechanicus, leading to a low-grade civil war.
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Nov 13, 2013 21:52
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Mr.48 posted:All that stuff you mentioned would be pretty cheesy. Instead, what I have in mind is to push for changes to how the factions work and look individually rather than making one of them "win" or "lose". Something that I would personally like to write about is a worsening of the schism in the Imperium between the church and the adeptus mechanicus, leading to a low-grade civil war. Why would this be a good thing and what is stopping you from just setting up the same situation in some as yet unseen backwater of the galaxy.
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Nov 13, 2013 21:54
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Azubah posted:This is how fan fiction starts, doesn't it? Nothing wrong with fan fiction if it's actually good. The problem being that a lot of people who write fan fiction aren't very good at writing (which is fine since writing is a skill you need to learn). But often they want to make fan fiction because they want things the established writers don't do for technical reasons, or because they want to try and patch up their own technical deficiencies by borrowing work done by others. The classic one, especially in sci-fi, is mistaking scale for impact. The death of a single well-written character is more impactful than the destruction of an entire planet, this being fiction and all, but people who can't manage the former somehow think that doing more of the latter will somehow suffice. Or they want to latch onto the characters and settings created by other writers because they know they aren't as good, but want to give their own stories borrowed impact by borrowing or even wrecking them. A good writer uses tension to draw the reader into the work and keep them reading. A lot of fan-fiction writers are drawn in by this tension, but they want the tension to be resolved, so they write stories which relieve all the tension that forces them to keep coming back for more, and often do it with a minimum of complication or fuss. For instance, a show like the X-Files which is driven by mystery in some overcomplicated mythos and also the sexual tension between characters will often spawn a lot of fan stories which try to resolve all the mysteries and/or have Mulder and Scully finally gently caress. OXBALLS DOT COM fucked around with this message at 22:31 on Nov 13, 2013 |
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Nov 13, 2013 22:27
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Cream_Filling posted:Why would this be a good thing and what is stopping you from just setting up the same situation in some as yet unseen backwater of the galaxy. Nothing is topping me, but I'm saying that in order to be endorsed by GW it seems that any story must always return to the status-quo, and can never impact the Imperium as a whole. Maybe its just me, but I personally find the inner workings of the Imperium far more interesting than the shooty-bang lasers of the wars against chaos and various xenos.
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Nov 13, 2013 22:46
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Mr.48 posted:Maybe its just me, but I personally find the inner workings of the Imperium far more interesting than the shooty-bang lasers of the wars against chaos and various xenos.
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Nov 13, 2013 22:59
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pentyne posted:This is something I don't understand. Did GW just get lucky it signing ADB to write for them? Other then Abnett or Watson almost everyone else they've paid for material is mediocre to terrible (C.S Goto is a special kind of terrible I can't believe got a paycheck) Apparently ADB really likes writing franchise fiction. He has a post on his blog somewhere about it, about the difficulties of talking with other writers because franchise fiction is generally looked down upon (for good reasons both from a creative and business standpoint) but he actually really likes it. He got started with Cadian Blood, which actually isn't that great, but when they let him loose on Chaos he really stepped it up. Also, you can really see the improvement in his ability over the years, comparing his earlier stuff to his more recent stuff Fried Chicken fucked around with this message at 23:08 on Nov 13, 2013 |
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Nov 13, 2013 23:05
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Mr.48 posted:Nothing is topping me, but I'm saying that in order to be endorsed by GW it seems that any story must always return to the status-quo, and can never impact the Imperium as a whole. Except how does being unable to make huge sweeping changes for change's sake in the continuity somehow preclude you from exploring the inner workings of the Imperium? The subject you just mentioned - a schism between the Mechanicus and the rest of the Imperium - was already the plot of Abnett's book on titans. Similarly, a lot of books such as the recent Emperor's Gift deal specifically with infighting between different power groups in the Imperium. What is the point of making massive changes to the game universe beyond ego and trying to drum up drama without getting people invested in your own characters/settings/ideas? Even aside from looking at it as a writer, within the fluff itself, the galaxy is already written as massive, incredibly diverse, seriously isolated with only limited communications, and backed by a fundamentally hyperconservative series of institutions. Massive change just isn't going to sweep the galaxy short of the astronomicon going out or something. Even the Horus Heresy took decades in fictional time (and hell real time) to actually come about
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Nov 13, 2013 23:18
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