Warhammer 40K's story, how is it even remotely appealing?

[Not G. Ivingname]

Snip

I think the appeal lies how so far they take their story. It crosses the line of the screaming extreme of absurd in just everything they, it comes full circle to being awesome again. You have power armor? We have genetically engineered immortal beings clad in power armor running around with chainswords. War is Hell? Hell is waging war for your soul, so they can mind rape it for all time, against an armor of undead cyborg hoping to erase all life from existence. Orks are shown to be so brutally horrible, treating war as a combination of commands from God, mass migration, genocide, and pub crawl they become silly and endearing instead, the Immperium is so racist, idiotic, and such jerasses they become comical, etc.

Crosses the line twice doesn't even begin to describe this universe.

 

[Not G. Ivingname]

Double post. >_<

 

[Syzygy23]

Otherwise, to answer your question, go read the Ciaphas Cain novels. They'r the only ones that matter and/or are worth your time.

Some of Dan Abnett's Inquisitor novels are surprisingly good, actually.

Though, if you don't "get" the setting, the Cain novels do probably lay out what's going on most clearly. It's a massive, unrelenting parody of every sci fi cliche you've ever heard dreamed of. Everyone is completely insane, because it's the only way to survive, and when their insanity clashes, hilarity ensues.

Exactly why I love those books. When I first read them, I didn't even know what Warhammer, 40k or otherwise, was. They stand up incredibly well on their own.

 

[J Tyran]

Bequin makes a comeback as a major protagonist in a new trilogy, the new novels will also force a confrontation between Eisenhorn and Ravenor. I cannot wait for it, hopefully Dan Abnett will be back on form like he was for Prospero Burns. The Gaunts Ghosts: The lost series was sort of bland.

Yeah, I was aware of the general trajectory for a third trilogy in the works. And, after just savaging the Eisenhorn books, it might sound strange, but I am a fan. This is some really good tie in fiction. And I do like that, at least with the Inquisitor books, he seems to be addressing most of his shortcomings as a writer, as he progresses. I certainly wouldn't hold Eisenhorn up as the best of science fiction, but again, for tie in fiction it is shockingly good, almost to the point of being able to stand as competent material in it's own right... almost. It also makes me regret that there aren't any books from the perspective of Amberley Vail, though that's completely unrelated.

If anyone's actually wondering, the 40k in my unread pile at the moment is Ravnor Omnibus (working my way through the first novel now), Matt Ferrer's Enforcer Onmibus, and Gaunt's Ghosts: The Founding.

Dan Abnett isn't the best science fiction writer ever, he is not even the best Black Library writer either. Aaron Dembski Bowden is the best writer in my opinion, James Swallow is also very good and he writes some other good non 40k scifi and cyberpunk punk novels. Sometimes I get the sense with Dan Abnett novels that he is simply "going through the motions" and writing something either because he has contractual obligations or feels the fans want something, he does seem to genuinely care about his fans. He takes on their feedback and ideas and spends a fair amount of time having public webchats and posting videos answering fan questions, its not Black Library PR either its something he takes upon himself. He does write some awesome novels though, Prospero Burns is one of his best. His greatest strength is he can really capture and describe a scene and create some brilliant action scenes.

Your unread pile has some good books in it, Enforcer is pretty decent but it falls apart a little in the last book. The Founding is very good too, the next series The Saint is good too with the last novel having explosive plot lines.

If you want some good recommendations try the Ben Counter Grey Knights omnibus, its not as bombastic as Matt Wards scribblings and is more of a personal story about a specific Grey Knight being challenged by steadily worsening events. James Swallows Blood Angels series (spread over two omnibuses) is a decent read too. I cannot recommend the Horus Heresy novels enough, they rate from terrible to brilliant but overall the massive scope of a galactic scale civil war is amazing and contains hundreds of personal stories, tragedies and triumphs.

 

[VeneratedWulfen93]

Fulgrim punches a physical manifestation of an entire races hatred and bloodlust to death.

Seriously though, my opinion is biased as hell because I love 40k. To me Mass Effect is immature because people work together. Sometimes things don't work out. Boom. Done.

I play Eldar and game every week. The setting and lore behind the Eldar is why I play them. Their culture is kinda a mix of tolkien-esk elves and scandanavian mythology.

It's brutal, harsh and just a blast. I know 1 12 year old who plays it but most of the people at my GW are between 16 and 30. Theres even a few people over 40.

I am currently reading Horus Rising (Finally) and so far its just brilliant.

 

[Yeager942]

For me, its the scale. I love the scale of the universe and the conflict.

 

[Cananatra]

Warhammer 40k doesn't have a story, only a setting to give context to the carnage.

I say this because stories have beginnings, middles and ends. But Warhammer's main focus is a war with no ending in site. This means that individuals battles are (To me) unimportant and uninteresting. Remember the game space marine? Where the space marines try to stop the forces of chaos from getting a super secret weapon? (I don't know that for sure, but i'm willing to bet it's a fairly accurate educated guess) It ultimately doesn't matter who wins, because there's no consequence either way. Nothing any of the chaos/space marines/orcs do will bring the war any closer to an end, it is literally meaningless.

tl;dr: it's not about the story, it's about the spectacle. The "Story" is only there to give context to the bloodshed and the spectacle of watching muscly manly men in plastic armor shoving chainsaw swords into big green puffy cockney types.

And to anyone who says they like the Warhammer "Story", cool. Some people also like Twilight.

You do realise that is because warhammer 40k is set firmly in one millennium? No side wins because the point in the story we are looking at is the snapshot when everything is in fluid balance and it could go any way. The Necrons are just waking up, the Tyranids are just arriving ect. So yes no big shift will happen now if one side wins something, but in another thousand years (beyond what the story will show us) the loss of the superweapon you pointed out could mean a planet falls to the Tyranids who are now even more difficult to stop at the next world. Just to show a simplified example.

 

[J Tyran]

Warhammer 40k doesn't have a story, only a setting to give context to the carnage.

I say this because stories have beginnings, middles and ends. But Warhammer's main focus is a war with no ending in site. This means that individuals battles are (To me) unimportant and uninteresting. Remember the game space marine? Where the space marines try to stop the forces of chaos from getting a super secret weapon? (I don't know that for sure, but i'm willing to bet it's a fairly accurate educated guess) It ultimately doesn't matter who wins, because there's no consequence either way. Nothing any of the chaos/space marines/orcs do will bring the war any closer to an end, it is literally meaningless.

tl;dr: it's not about the story, it's about the spectacle. The "Story" is only there to give context to the bloodshed and the spectacle of watching muscly manly men in plastic armor shoving chainsaw swords into big green puffy cockney types.

And to anyone who says they like the Warhammer "Story", cool. Some people also like Twilight.

You do realise that is because warhammer 40k is set firmly in one millennium? No side wins because the point in the story we are looking at is the snapshot when everything is in fluid balance and it could go any way. The Necrons are just waking up, the Tyranids are just arriving ect. So yes no big shift will happen now if one side wins something, but in another thousand years (beyond what the story will show us) the loss of the superweapon you pointed out could mean a planet falls to the Tyranids who are now even more difficult to stop at the next world. Just to show a simplified example.

Flimsyjustificationsforcrappystorytelling.jpeg

Actually the planet in Space Marine is later destroyed by Tyranids and wiped from the overall story line. Stories jump backwards and forwards in time, some are centuries into the 41st millennium with others thousands of years in the storylines past. In other cases they have huge public TT games and change the story based on their outcome, there are rumors that a big change is coming too. In all the novels and codexes their has been some substantial fore shadowing how this millennium could be the worst and last with how the Golden Throne is failing and other stories placing the Imperium under the greatest amount of strain since the Horus Heresy.

Anyway your argument is invalid, would you say human history is pointless because it is obviously ongoing? Terrible things and epic things are scattered throughout human history and the individual struggles and achievements are very compelling.

There is no denying 40k is infested with bad writing and storytelling but dismissing it because its ongoing and incomplete is at best a poor argument.

 

[goose4291]

My other problem is how much of the source material and novels concepts plagurise other people ideas and do it in such a obvious way..

Ciaphas Cain is effectively Blackadder goes Forth with lasers

Gaunt's Ghosts is Sharpe in space.

Last Chancers is just the Dirty Dozen movies done again in a future setting.

Once when I was at sea and had nothing to read borrowed one from a friend of mine, it was called Fifteen hours I think It was just All Quiet on the Western Front with the Allies as Orcs.

If they came up with their own material I'd understand what the fuss is about, but seen as most of the people whom I know whom play/read the lore are of the "It's Brutal, it's Metal!" headbanging variety as long as you make it grim with Cuthulu they'll snap it up.

 

[tmande2nd]

Want a good story?
Read the books.

Ciaphas Cain, Gaunt's Ghosts, Eisenhorn, Horus Heresy.
They all show you much more depth than the Game Books offer.

Hell I am playing Deathwatch right now and it offers a more interesting look into the verse then most other things.
RPing an almost 400 year old religious soldier is quite fun.

 

[MorganL4]

If you want to get into the story of Warhammer 40k you don't play Warhammer 40k...... You play Rouge Trader..... THAT is where the story of the world exists..... If 40k was a video game ( yes I know there are 40k video games) then the tabletop would be the multiplayer and Rouge Trader would be the campaign.

How is a trader who deals in lady's makeup in any way related to Men in Red armor Chainsaw-swording orks to death?

lol typo rogue sry

but to answer your question: How do you think they get the red armor, except from the guy who sells red stuff?

 

[Paradoxrifts]

Can someone explain the appeal of this universe to me? Because to me it all seems over the top and plain stupid.

Because Warhammer 40,000 stands alone amongst modern popular fiction in it's willingness to curb-stomp the titular 'hero of a thousand faces' from Joseph Campbell's hero's journey into a life-support machine dependent coma.

And I respect that, because it is so completely different from the vast majority of fictional works that play it safe and stick to the plan. WH40K tells me instead, "You know that guy whose supposed to just show up one day and make everything better? Yeah, he came alright, and then the universe ganked the son of a *****."

 

[J Tyran]

Warhammer 40k doesn't have a story, only a setting to give context to the carnage.

I say this because stories have beginnings, middles and ends. But Warhammer's main focus is a war with no ending in site. This means that individuals battles are (To me) unimportant and uninteresting. Remember the game space marine? Where the space marines try to stop the forces of chaos from getting a super secret weapon? (I don't know that for sure, but i'm willing to bet it's a fairly accurate educated guess) It ultimately doesn't matter who wins, because there's no consequence either way. Nothing any of the chaos/space marines/orcs do will bring the war any closer to an end, it is literally meaningless.

tl;dr: it's not about the story, it's about the spectacle. The "Story" is only there to give context to the bloodshed and the spectacle of watching muscly manly men in plastic armor shoving chainsaw swords into big green puffy cockney types.

And to anyone who says they like the Warhammer "Story", cool. Some people also like Twilight.

You do realise that is because warhammer 40k is set firmly in one millennium? No side wins because the point in the story we are looking at is the snapshot when everything is in fluid balance and it could go any way. The Necrons are just waking up, the Tyranids are just arriving ect. So yes no big shift will happen now if one side wins something, but in another thousand years (beyond what the story will show us) the loss of the superweapon you pointed out could mean a planet falls to the Tyranids who are now even more difficult to stop at the next world. Just to show a simplified example.

Flimsyjustificationsforcrappystorytelling.jpeg

Actually the planet in Space Marine is later destroyed by Tyranids and wiped from the overall story line. Stories jump backwards and forwards in time, some are centuries into the 41st millennium with others thousands of years in the storylines past. In other cases they have huge public TT games and change the story based on their outcome, there are rumors that a big change is coming too. In all the novels and codexes their has been some substantial fore shadowing how this millennium could be the worst and last with how the Golden Throne is failing and other stories placing the Imperium under the greatest amount of strain since the Horus Heresy.

Anyway your argument is invalid, would you say human history is pointless because it is obviously ongoing? Terrible things and epic things are scattered throughout human history and the individual struggles and achievements are very compelling.

There is no denying 40k is infested with bad writing and storytelling but dismissing it because its ongoing and incomplete is at best a poor argument.

My argument is that it's hard to feel invested in the overarching story thus far because almost nothing of consequence has really happened. One battle amounts to about as much as the next. If the Imperium and the chaos marines have managed to last this long at each other's throats, then how important can one planet or another really be?

Warhammer 40k is choc full of planet sized battles consisting of near limitless armies biting it by the tens of thousands. How can one really care when that's all there ever is; constant battles beyond the scope of human comprehension? Does it never just come off as devalued after awhile? "oh look, another big battle over a planet containing a super weapon. How quaint. It's not like I haven't seen this a million times already..."

That said, if what you're saying is true and there's gonna be some sort of big massive finish where important stuff happens to vital places/characters? Well, I guess i'll withhold further judgement till then.

As its just rumors I cannot claim its true, but even then you probably wont think it amounts too much. GW will never kill several of their most important TT money spinners, the IG and Space Marines are hugely popular. So even if the massive changes happen at best it will probably break up the Imperium a bit, maybe Ultramar will become more important (my god no, Matt Ward... fuck maybe the rumors are true) and make some of the other factions like the Tau own a bit more of a map.

You are kind of looking about it the wrong way though. In the storyline the battles are not important its about the people who are fighting them.

 

[Augustine]

Ciaphas Cain is effectively Blackadder goes Forth with lasers

Just a correction:
Actually, Cain is a direct sci-fi remake of Harry Paget Flashman http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Paget_Flashman

 

[Starke]

Bequin makes a comeback as a major protagonist in a new trilogy, the new novels will also force a confrontation between Eisenhorn and Ravenor. I cannot wait for it, hopefully Dan Abnett will be back on form like he was for Prospero Burns. The Gaunts Ghosts: The lost series was sort of bland.

Yeah, I was aware of the general trajectory for a third trilogy in the works. And, after just savaging the Eisenhorn books, it might sound strange, but I am a fan. This is some really good tie in fiction. And I do like that, at least with the Inquisitor books, he seems to be addressing most of his shortcomings as a writer, as he progresses. I certainly wouldn't hold Eisenhorn up as the best of science fiction, but again, for tie in fiction it is shockingly good, almost to the point of being able to stand as competent material in it's own right... almost. It also makes me regret that there aren't any books from the perspective of Amberley Vail, though that's completely unrelated.

If anyone's actually wondering, the 40k in my unread pile at the moment is Ravnor Omnibus (working my way through the first novel now), Matt Ferrer's Enforcer Onmibus, and Gaunt's Ghosts: The Founding.

Dan Abnett isn't the best science fiction writer ever, he is not even the best Black Library writer either. Aaron Dembski Bowden is the best writer in my opinion, James Swallow is also very good and he writes some other good non 40k scifi and cyberpunk punk novels. Sometimes I get the sense with Dan Abnett novels that he is simply "going through the motions" and writing something either because he has contractual obligations or feels the fans want something, he does seem to genuinely care about his fans. He takes on their feedback and ideas and spends a fair amount of time having public webchats and posting videos answering fan questions, its not Black Library PR either its something he takes upon himself. He does write some awesome novels though, Prospero Burns is one of his best. His greatest strength is he can really capture and describe a scene and create some brilliant action scenes.

Your unread pile has some good books in it, Enforcer is pretty decent but it falls apart a little in the last book. The Founding is very good too, the next series The Saint is good too with the last novel having explosive plot lines.

If you want some good recommendations try the Ben Counter Grey Knights omnibus, its not as bombastic as Matt Wards scribblings and is more of a personal story about a specific Grey Knight being challenged by steadily worsening events. James Swallows Blood Angels series (spread over two omnibuses) is a decent read too. I cannot recommend the Horus Heresy novels enough, they rate from terrible to brilliant but overall the massive scope of a galactic scale civil war is amazing and contains hundreds of personal stories, tragedies and triumphs.

I've actually got the Grey Knights omnibus sitting at home somewhere, I took a wild stab at it a year or two ago while I was waiting for a flight to either LA or Vegas a year or two ago. At the time it didn't impress, but it hung around in the pile until I pulled it for the Abnett stuff.

As for the whole "best of scifi thing" that was in response to this:

There is no finer science fiction out there, in my opinion. No superiors at all, only peers.

And, while I agree Abnett is very talented, he does show the signs of someone who is just pumping material out on a deadline. There's nothing inherently wrong with that, and what he does on that timeframe is really good. But there are also issues, as a result, which again, I mentioned earlier.

I would say that the primary reason the 40k material, usually as a whole, fails to get out of the tie-in ghetto, and into the range of truly great sci-fi is simply because it isn't working with any substantial themes beyond the simple ones that propel the setting itself. But, that could just be me getting into "pretentious prick" territory.

 

[doodger]

It's so over the top it can be played for comedy (Ciaphas cain, so good it's bad dawn of war voice acting), for awesomness (spehss mehreens shooting aliens) or for drama. The sheer idiocy of the setting actually manages to make it work. For example, if there is a war between the local human forces and some aliens, then half the human will betray the other half and then the planet will be nuked from space just for fun. It's an amazingly crafted setting because it never makes sense.