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I'm intrigued enough to want to read these books.

Any other oddballs you recommend?

 Lathe Biosas wrote:
I'm intrigued enough to want to read these books.

Any other oddballs you recommend?

For 40k? I wish.
Other sci-fi though?

Recently read The Left Hand or Darkness by Ursula Le Guin. That's about a genderless society and is well regarded. It's kind of a slow burn, but I liked it quite a bit. Excellent worldbuilding.

I also read Semiosis by Sue Burke. A human colony on a new world builds a relationship with a self aware plant over generations Really great read.

More recently, anything by Adam Roberts. I have read his explorations of "what if the world was a big wall" (On), "what if humans could photosynthesise" (By Light Alone) and "what if two groups of fundamentally opposed cultures were forced to colonise a planet together" (Salt). I found all of them to be really interesting.

I also think the Ian Watson books are worth reading. I mean the Draco and Meh'lindi relationship addresses issues such as balance of power, unrequited love/lust, fundamental change of self, life experience clashing with deep-seated training/indoctrination and how people cope with life changing events. The sex is really not the important bit.

I mean one of the Marine characters compulsively melts the flesh of his hand away so he can inscribe the names of fallen brothers on his bones... I don't think any of the characters are entirely there..

 Flinty wrote:
I also think the Ian Watson books are worth reading. I mean the Draco and Meh'lindi relationship addresses issues such as balance of power, unrequited love/lust, fundamental change of self, life experience clashing with deep-seated training/indoctrination and how people cope with life changing events. The sex is really not the important bit.

I mean one of the Marine characters compulsively melts the flesh of his hand away so he can inscribe the names of fallen brothers on his bones... I don't think any of the characters are entirely there..

I concur with this. Inquisition War is a trippy journey into the 40k setting when the setting was still finding itself. This means many of the things within the series may not be canon to what the setting has evolved into but it still makes for an interesting read imo. However, I am a fan of Inquisition related 40k stories, so that opinion is admittedly biased.

 Flinty wrote:

I mean one of the Marine characters compulsively melts the flesh of his hand away so he can inscribe the names of fallen brothers on his bones... I don't think any of the characters are entirely there..

Honestly that was awesome. What a way to show feelings of both guilt and honour, in combination with the chapters rituals and his transformed biology.

Games, like most licensed media (novels, comics, etc.), tend to be considered part of the broader Warhammer 40K universe but not necessarily core canon. That said, GW isn’t exactly consistent with what’s "official," so unless it comes straight from a codex or rulebook, it’s up for interpretation.

As for the C.S. Goto novels, well, let’s just say they’re not the gold standard for 40K lore accuracy. If you want something closer to GW’s vision, Black Library books from authors like Dan Abnett or Aaron Dembski-Bowden tend to align more with the "true" 40K setting.

But at the end of the day, 40K is all about what you make of it. If you want a Blood Ravens-inspired Imperial Knight, go for it. If you’re into other games too, StealthCore has some interesting resources that might be worth checking out.

 Flinty wrote:

I mean one of the Marine characters compulsively melts the flesh of his hand away so he can inscribe the names of fallen brothers on his bones... I don't think any of the characters are entirely there..

He was having PTSD survivor guilt as he was the only one of the trio that made it out alive from their last mission, and he felt emotionally numbed and unable to make the spiritual connection during prayer to Dorn. Inflicting that on himself was equivalent to somebody tattooing the names of his brothers after their death, only in a more extreme fashion. It did explain his rationale, saying that his hand could be reconstructed so it would not cause lasting harm to the Chapter (that would be selfish and a sin). When he did so, he had a moment of spiritual epiphany and once again could feel a connection to Dorn.

Everything with the warhammer 40,000 logo is canon, and just as canon as anything else with the logo. This is what Marc Gascoigne, who was GWs head of IP at the time, said.

There's no "licensed stuff is less canon"
There's no "Newer stuff is more canon than older stuff"
There's no "BL stuff is less canon than a codex"

Everything. Is. Canon.
If it has the logo, it exists in the 40k universe, but it might exist as a story, or a rumour, or a word of mouth retelling of another event. A Christmas Carol is canon to our world, it exists, but that does not mean Scrooge and the ghosts of Christmas are real, literal facts in our world.

That is what's meant by "everything is canon, not everything is true"

And don't ever trust a chatbot.

Charax wrote:
And don't ever trust a chatbot.

After all, we know what happens to them in the end.

[

Charax wrote:
Everything with the warhammer 40,000 logo is canon, and just as canon as anything else with the logo. This is what Marc Gascoigne, who was GWs head of IP at the time, said.

There's no "licensed stuff is less canon"
There's no "Newer stuff is more canon than older stuff"
There's no "BL stuff is less canon than a codex"

Everything. Is. Canon.
If it has the logo, it exists in the 40k universe, but it might exist as a story, or a rumour, or a word of mouth retelling of another event. A Christmas Carol is canon to our world, it exists, but that does not mean Scrooge and the ghosts of Christmas are real, literal facts in our world.

That is what's meant by "everything is canon, not everything is true"

And don't ever trust a chatbot.

Good, this makes me happy that the works of C.S. Goto cannot be ignored.

But does this mean that Simon Jowlett's mistake, calling Rubinek a Primarch of the Iron Hearts Space Marines is canon too?

 Lathe Biosas wrote:
[

Charax wrote:
Everything with the warhammer 40,000 logo is canon, and just as canon as anything else with the logo. This is what Marc Gascoigne, who was GWs head of IP at the time, said.

There's no "licensed stuff is less canon"
There's no "Newer stuff is more canon than older stuff"
There's no "BL stuff is less canon than a codex"

Everything. Is. Canon.
If it has the logo, it exists in the 40k universe, but it might exist as a story, or a rumour, or a word of mouth retelling of another event. A Christmas Carol is canon to our world, it exists, but that does not mean Scrooge and the ghosts of Christmas are real, literal facts in our world.

That is what's meant by "everything is canon, not everything is true"

And don't ever trust a chatbot.

Good, this makes me happy that the works of C.S. Goto cannot be ignored.

But does this mean that Simon Jowlett's mistake, calling Rubinek a Primarch of the Iron Hearts Space Marines is canon too?

"everything is canon"
"ok, but what about this? Is this canon?"

The second half of my post covers this. Yes, it is canon. It is canon that there exist some accounts of the events of Hell In A Bottle that refer to Rubinek as a Primarch. That is not the same as him being a Primarch, it just means that canonically at least one account calls him a Primarch.

Have I inadvertently left any further ambiguity?

Nope. That pretty much covers it.

It's all about perspective. My story varies from your version of the tale, but it's all canon.

There are some things which CAN'T be canon though - the Blood Ravens victory and Imperial Guard victories in Dawn of War: Dark Crusade cannot both be canonical, for example (only the Blood Raven one is, according to later games).

There are also plenty of instances of the omniscient narrator simply stating contradictory information (for example the two accounts of how the Crimson Fists received their Primaris reinforcements from different issues of White Dwarf). Both cannot be what actually happened, and so one must be non-canonical (even if just by virtue of retcon).

It absolutely can be canon, in the context of canon meaning "something that exists as a story in the setting" rather than "absolute cold hard historical fact"

Here's the full quote from Marc, with bold for emphasis:

"Here's our standard line: Yes it's all official, but remember that we're reporting back from a time where stories aren't always true, or at least 100% accurate. if it has the 40K logo on it, it exists in the 40K universe. Or it was a legend that may well have happened. Or a rumour that may or may not have any truth behind it. Let's put it another way: anything with a 40K logo on it is as official as any Codex... and at least as crammed full of rumours, distorted legends and half-truths."

- Marc Gascoigne

Is it possible that, in the vast array of planets in the galaxy, among the Imperium's million worlds, there's a rumour or legend out there that either the Blood Ravens or the Guard conquered Kronus? Or to put it another way, is it absolutely impossible that anyone believes they did?

People want canon to be a rigid, immutable, unchanging, absolute thing, and that's fine for personal headcanon, but it's simply not how GW operate, nor is it how they have ever operated, so trying to force the amorphous, ever-changing blob of 40k lore into a neat little box of absolute facts will drive you insane.

History is messy, there are lots of historical events where we have multiple competing theories for what happened, and even modern, proveable events have conflicting theories to contend with.

Is the moon landing canon? Of course, we've set up instruments on the moon, we can take readings off them, there's a mirror on the surface we bounce lasers off sometimes, it definitely happened.

Is the moon landing being fake canon? It can't be! "moon landing happened" and "moon landing was faked" are diametrically opposed, just like the different Dark Crusade endings, they cannot both be true, so one must not be canon, right?

So therefore nobody on the planet can possibly believe that the moon landings were faked, correct? Because that's GWs definition of "canon". A rumour or legend or account that exists in the setting, so if only one of the two can be canon, nobody can believe the landings were faked.

Is that how the world works?

Yeah, but Gascoigne's definition of canon is stupid.

Not everything is an in-universe source, nor presented as such.

The definition of canon being used here isn't truth or fact. Something can be canon because the concept existed in the setting without it actually being objectively true.

It's no different to people 1000 years ago all having different ideas about what was over the atlantic ocean, claims of sea monsters etc. Or even that two different factions won the same war, without ever knowing one of them was objectively wrong.

They were all real things that were said, but they weren't all true.

40k treats canon not as truth.

I'm not a big fan of the concept as it's being said like it's a clever thematic decision that provides depth and nuance to everything, when it's really super lazy editorial decisions to avoid having to actually fact check anything.