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I think if I had read different BL books instead of his and the early Warhammer fantasy ones I wouldn't have gotten hooked. His 40k books were a far better distilling of the setting than 99% of what followed.

I think a lot of people fail to credit a core of artists and writers that accidentally gave an edge for GW over other companies.

I've been reading Harlequin and it's very different from the typical 40K fluff. And that's why I'm loving it so much.

Thanks for sharing. Interesting obituary. A novel originally published in French based on how women were exploited on 70s Japan sounds too weird not to get

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
Thanks for sharing. Interesting obituary. A novel originally published in French based on how women were exploited on 70s Japan sounds too weird not to get

Yeah that's definitely going onto my to-read list. I was interested in the connection between him and Brian Aldiss via AI, what with them both having contributed to the gw lore I grew up with.

 KidCthulhu wrote:
I've been reading Harlequin and it's very different from the typical 40K fluff. And that's why I'm loving it so much.

The thing is, when he was writing his 40K novels? 40K didn’t really know what it was yet.

I think I’ve got Space Marine kicking about somewhere, but haven’t made the time to read it, but just from the era? It was a time of everything and not just your kitchen sink, but your neighbour’s one as well.

So it’s yet another part of the rich primordial soup of sheer creativeness which as the years went on would be refined and redefined into the 40K setting we know today.

The trope is called "Early-instalment Weirdness" and if you scroll down, there's a great rundown of what 40k had going on in those early days.

Ian Watson,

What a great writer.

Don't forget 1,000 Year Reich, and A.I. Ian has an extensive body of work out there.

Keep reading, keep him in your thoughts.