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Wow, surprised at the replies to my DAoT proposal. Pleasantly surprised which is a pretty damn rate thing too i might add.

As to another book, how about a modern one revolving around the savlar chem dogs? I really would like to see a novel about how they got treated, how they were born on savlar and told they were scum because of it and ended up hating the imperium and even 'da emprah' and only fighting for themselves.

Maybe it could have the chemdogs fething both the imperium and chaos over hard, and staying on the planet after both forces were trashed because it would be a long, long time before either side could get to them and they'd finally be free of both.

No other eras, please!

As much as I would love to see what Abnett, Aaron-Dembski Bowden and co could do with it, I am happily hiding in the Great Crusade-era, which has enough empty space there to come up with my own campaigns, own ideas, without being told my marines have the wrong coloured shoe laces.

Also, seeing what has happened to the 40k timelines with the fabric and character of the game universe changed inalterably with the likes of Cawl, Primaris, and reincarnating Primarchs, I don't want that kind of stuff anywhere near the areas that I'm interested in.
Thankfully, now that the timeline is progressing forwards, there may be less need for them to look backwards at any gaps.

I’d like to see something about an earlier period.
We could go back 38,000 years and see how Terra was then.
Maybe it would just be a time of peace where people in charge did everything right and there was no problems.

Pretty sure all the suggestions have been good so far, but here's mine:

1. More peasants please. It's a strange (or not so strange) phenomenon that in much of history, characterised by grand sweeping narratives and monumental events, you find the universe turning on the decisions of 'insignificant' people just trying to make their way in life. And I think one of the things 40k does best is when we catch glimpses of ordinary people doing the extraordinary. So I'd like to see more of that. More Gaunts Ghosts, more Ollianus Pius, more of humanity brute forcing it's way through a galaxy of carnage. And I say 'humanity', but it would also be nice to have some xenos perspectives perhaps - your average eldar, caught up in the politics of the craftworld, the rise of an Ork boy to a Warlord, the growing sentience of an awakened Necron.

2. Leading on from that - politics. I've not had much time to read of late, but I recently got the audiobooks for the Talons of the Emperor novel series - and the political machinations behind Guilliman's reshuffling of the Lords of Terra was a really nice change of pace. Sure there was your standard 40k fare of titanic battles, but they actually played a backseat role to the intriguing.

3. I don't want more DAoT or Unification Wars. not because they aren't interesting, but because they are 'Dark' by virtue that we don't explore them. As soon as we do, then the mystique is stripped away, just like the HH has lost some of it's sheen.

4. Other humans, other xenos. We are told that the IoM's control is a lie, because it holds millions of worlds in a galaxy of billions of stars. We are also told that there are dozens of other xenos powers with whole areas of space which the IoM has lost or cannot access. And finally, there are other human factions out there - both seccessionists and non-aligned. It would nice to see something from their perspective - how have they dealt with Chaos, how do they deal with the IoM/Xenos? What are their intentions? How do they fit into the Emperor's scheming?

So yeah, have fun picking those apart

 Warpig1815 wrote:
Pretty sure all the suggestions have been good so far, but here's mine:

1. More peasants please. It's a strange (or not so strange) phenomenon that in much of history, characterised by grand sweeping narratives and monumental events, you find the universe turning on the decisions of 'insignificant' people just trying to make their way in life. And I think one of the things 40k does best is when we catch glimpses of ordinary people doing the extraordinary. So I'd like to see more of that. More Gaunts Ghosts, more Ollianus Pius, more of humanity brute forcing it's way through a galaxy of carnage. And I say 'humanity', but it would also be nice to have some xenos perspectives perhaps - your average eldar, caught up in the politics of the craftworld, the rise of an Ork boy to a Warlord, the growing sentience of an awakened Necron.

2. Leading on from that - politics. I've not had much time to read of late, but I recently got the audiobooks for the Talons of the Emperor novel series - and the political machinations behind Guilliman's reshuffling of the Lords of Terra was a really nice change of pace. Sure there was your standard 40k fare of titanic battles, but they actually played a backseat role to the intriguing.

3. I don't want more DAoT or Unification Wars. not because they aren't interesting, but because they are 'Dark' by virtue that we don't explore them. As soon as we do, then the mystique is stripped away, just like the HH has lost some of it's sheen.

4. Other humans, other xenos. We are told that the IoM's control is a lie, because it holds millions of worlds in a galaxy of billions of stars. We are also told that there are dozens of other xenos powers with whole areas of space which the IoM has lost or cannot access. And finally, there are other human factions out there - both seccessionists and non-aligned. It would nice to see something from their perspective - how have they dealt with Chaos, how do they deal with the IoM/Xenos? What are their intentions? How do they fit into the Emperor's scheming?

So yeah, have fun picking those apart

Have you read Abnett's "Titanicus" yet? It had no spess muhreens and mainly focused on very low level characters. There was a titan crew in it but even then the princeps was not the main one.

I hadn't, but on that recommendation I shall do

The warhammer crime books are also good on that account

I'd like to see a first-person Ork novel written in the heavily accented way they speak a la "Trainspotting". Have it be a lowly Ork Boy that krumps his way to Warboss status. Have him contemplate deep philosophical questions about violence & power, morality, leadership, etc, and self assuredly reject every single answer that doesn't involve killing something.

Edit: Just realized this thread was about time periods, not general ideas, my bad. Still stand by my excellent idea.

 Warpig1815 wrote:
I hadn't, but on that recommendation I shall do

One character in the book is a toymaker, who runs a store selling toy titans. The events in the book have various effects on his trade.

Another character is a former princeps whos brain got literally fried when his titan was blown up, he's reduced to barely being able to sweep sidewalks at a church, until the titans come.

Another character isn't even an IG or even a full PDF, she's the equivalent of the national guard.

There are some higher level characters, but there are a lot of the common folk too.

More Xenos stuff, from their point of view. Chaos would be welcome too, Lords of Silence was an amazing look at the lives of Plague Marines.

"Tell me many tales, O benign maleficent daemon, but tell me none that I have ever heard or have even dreamt of otherwise than obscurely or infrequently. Nay, tell me not of anything that lies between the bourns of time or the limits of space: for I am bored all to feth by Space Marines and the thrice be-shitten Imperium."

Second the CSM stuff but not this "noble but dark" nonsense. Give me proper bad guys who like being bad guys like Honsou or Marduk. ADB's Night Lords are cool and I love the series but for the token bad guy faction we need more Erebus's (Erebi?).

 Thumpingbear wrote:
I'd like to see a first-person Ork novel written in the heavily accented way they speak a la "Trainspotting". Have it be a lowly Ork Boy that krumps his way to Warboss status. Have him contemplate deep philosophical questions about violence & power, morality, leadership, etc, and self assuredly reject every single answer that doesn't involve killing something.

If I had to read that I would reach though the page and strangle the author.

Just saying here.

Now if the writer had them speaking normally to one other and only brought out the Ork talk for occasional, interactions with humans, I'd be down for that. Treat their incomprehensible English as the equivlent of my bad Arabic. Or my bad Hindi. Or my bad Chinese. Otherwise intelligent people just trying to speak a language they're not used to and don't have the muscle memory for.

Gert wrote:Second the CSM stuff but not this "noble but dark" nonsense. Give me proper bad guys who like being bad guys like Honsou or Marduk. ADB's Night Lords are cool and I love the series but for the token bad guy faction we need more Erebus's (Erebi?).

I'm half and half. I get that Chaos' shtick is 'pain for the sake of pain', but CSM are still human at heart. Sometimes I feel like Black Library doesn't explain their motivations enough. A daemon kills because it embodies the emotion of anger, but a CSM, especially non-aligned or sceptics, - what is he killing for? What's the end game? Money, territory, the hunt, vengeance, vindication? And as an immortal being (biologically), what use is material wealth? So yeah, some 'Blood for the Blood God' guys are needed, but IMHO, I want to know the long game...

Kid_Kyoto wrote:

 Thumpingbear wrote:
I'd like to see a first-person Ork novel written in the heavily accented way they speak a la "Trainspotting". Have it be a lowly Ork Boy that krumps his way to Warboss status. Have him contemplate deep philosophical questions about violence & power, morality, leadership, etc, and self assuredly reject every single answer that doesn't involve killing something.

If I had to read that I would reach though the page and strangle the author.

Just saying here.

Now if the writer had them speaking normally to one other and only brought out the Ork talk for occasional, interactions with humans, I'd be down for that. Treat their incomprehensible English as the equivlent of my bad Arabic. Or my bad Hindi. Or my bad Chinese. Otherwise intelligent people just trying to speak a language they're not used to and don't have the muscle memory for.

I second that. Ork dialect is amusing precisely because it's counterpoised against 'normal' English. But if the novel was featuring a lot of dialogue, with no repreive in human perspective chapters, then it might grow thin. That said, I'd love to see an author take a stab at giving each Ork clan a distinct UK regional accent. It would be a hard read, switching to each dialect, but as I write this I'm warming to the idea that the Orks are basically the British in all their regional glory. I can even imagine the Brain Boyz having an aristocratic RP accent. Ok, I'm maybe warming to this idea for a novel - I need some Geordie Orks

As Kid Kyoto has said think it would be hilarious but almost completely unreadable.

The short stories that you used to get in some of the rule books and ork codecies were manageable because they were vaguely comedic. "Ow did 'em beakies get to the top of this cliff?" (last words of Scumbo the gretchin, when encountering marine assault troops)' and stuff like that.

That's what that one Forgeworld book with the Orks, written in a semi-factual account style, was hilarious and absolutely didn't fit. "Pictured here. Vehicle 'Gutzsnagga', the off-road terrain tyres clearly visible alongside a heavy machine gun weapon. The words "zog off oomie scum" can be seen clearly written on the side of the vehicle. The ork driving the vehicle, Urg Jizzbucket, was killed by an artillery shell of the 19th Cadian regiment."

 Gert wrote:
Second the CSM stuff but not this "noble but dark" nonsense. Give me proper bad guys who like being bad guys like Honsou or Marduk. ADB's Night Lords are cool and I love the series but for the token bad guy faction we need more Erebus's (Erebi?).

I'm sorry, you say that you love the Night Lords series, but are you forgetting much of it? Have you forgotten the part where Talos almost kills (the currently pregnant) Octavia by using her as a weapon (and thus probably killing millions across the sector from the resulting psychic shockwave)? Or when Tenth Company slaughtered their way through the human populace of Tsagualsa? Or when "Nice Guy" Talos almost turned a still living Marines Errant serf into a "Blood Condor" (I'm guessing the same thing as the old Viking Blood Eagle ritual. Not a good thing), only to be stopped by more pressing matters? How are these examples, among others, "noble but dark" and not "bad guys who like being bad guys "? Tenth Company are absolute monsters in the series. Humanised monsters, with actual motivations instead of mustache twirling villains perhaps, but so is Hannibal Lector. I'll take well written monsters over the mustache twirlers any day. (For the record, I don't consider Honsou a mustache twirler either, and haven't read the Word Bearers books yet, so I can't comment on Marduk.)

They're still Night Lords, yeah but they aren't evil, Talos especially. They're more grey than most other CSM's but the distinct lack of CSM-led books means that a good chunk of them have them as dumb antagonists or basically fallen knights, bad guys but noble (the fantasy kind not the mech kind). The NL in Red Tithe are the same Legion but very much revel in the fact they are all psycho murderers who love to skin people. The Alpha Legion suffers this as well from the books I've read.

 Gert wrote:
They're still Night Lords, yeah but they aren't evil, Talos especially. They're more grey than most other CSM's but the distinct lack of CSM-led books means that a good chunk of them have them as dumb antagonists or basically fallen knights, bad guys but noble (the fantasy kind not the mech kind). The NL in Red Tithe are the same Legion but very much revel in the fact they are all psycho murderers who love to skin people. The Alpha Legion suffers this as well from the books I've read.

Really? I think you and I have very different definitions of "Evil". All of the stuff I mentioned fits my definition.

In a universe of Erebus's, Honsou's, and pretty much anyone in the Emperor's Children, First Claw's acts are pretty tame. The huge Mortis Cry they did was pretty cool though, top marks.

Of course First Claw are an absolute bunch of bastards, and are killing and maiming their way across the galaxy. Anyone outside of their own perspective would regard them as 'evil' in terms of what they do.

Where ADB's attempts differ from the much more conventional, 2D badguys of some other attempts at fallen marines, is that they actually have a rationale and motive behind their actions and why they are the way they are. They aren't cackling and throwing people onto spikes for the sake of it and because they enjoy it (well, at least most of them). Their own actions and morality they think of as being 'correct', which is why it comes across as a more mature form of storytelling.

The war in Heaven, something to give us a better sense of reference of where the Orks, Eldar and Necrons came from. I think it would be great for Orks in particular, as it presents a real chance to give some depth to a largely comic relief race.

I'd like to see a book about the rise and fall of Mars. It's colonisation, terraforming and then the subsequent wars and conflict that resulted in the Mechanicus today.

For added interest this could be told through the perspective of a dreaming void dragon.

I'm generally a fan of the not strictly war stories from 40k. Things like the necromunda books, Shira Calpurnia series and Inquisition stories. Rather then a new setting being explored I'd love some more grounded stories about the day to day machinations of the Imperium.

I don't know exactly what I want but I know what I don't want: no DAoT, no Unification Wars, absolutely nothing that old. It's not even Warhammer anymore. We have about 30, 000 years to explore already...

The Badab War.

 Marshal Loss wrote:
The Badab War.

I like this idea. I have been enjoying the Charcharodon novels that have come out and it's also a much more recent event.