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So, I was just wondering why there is so much (and I use this term rather lightly) "hate" against most of the space marine books with the SM being the main characters? (sure, sometimes the other guys are poorly portrayed and seem incompetent) but otherwise are the SM SUPPOSED to be able to do all this awesome stuff the others guys can't?

Because space marines are bland, chunky and their guns are too small And i hate reading about armies of rambo like dudes.

The Imperial Guard ones are a bit better than the Space marine ones because at least there are hundreds dying in terror and anguish among others who are just as scared and fighting for survival. But There are still the typical rambo ish characters in it.

Thats why i just stick to non fiction history books really.

I don't really have any hate towards the Space Marine books, as like you said, Space Marines are supposed to do it; I also tend to love stupidly overpowered progatonists in sci-fi which is something I tend to be fairly embarassed by.

I suppose it's a matter of personal taste.

On the one hand, these are the genetic exemplars of humanity, out to do great and terrible things to other great and terrible things.

On the other hand, the superhuman novelty wears off after a while, and it can feel repetitive sometimes.

Personally, I love a lot of the Space Marine stories across the board, but I do wish there were more that had non-Chaos antagonists.

Because fans of other factions are jealous of Space Marines.

Well written Space Marine novels are great. Those that portray them as the slightly scary monstrous inhuman freaks that they are, and amp up the disconnect they feel with normal humans while playing to the genre strengths of having super powered protagonists.

The bad space marine novels are the ones where they are written like any other hero and have no disconnect or interesting character traits, and just run around being brave and noble and killing piles and piles of enemies with no feeling of threat or tension.

Unfortunately the latter outweigh the former!

Space Marine hatred is just another form of "mainstream" backlash. It's in the same vine of hatred as Call of Duty haters, Halo haters, Django Unchained haters etc.

It depends on the author and the narrative. I've read some very cool stories (particularly short stories), but the majority seems to follow a rather shallow approach that contains little aside from overexaggerated action with little personality. I understand it may be a "guilty pleasure" for some, but still we probably all have our own individual threshold of how much we can bear and where it just becomes boring or even offensive, especially once a book delves into the portrayal of other factions or seems to de-synch with the Marines' own role in the setting.

It is of note that such issues also exist in 40k novels about other armies, or even novels from entirely different franchises, but with 40k we have the Space Marines both acting as the most popular faction (and thus the "poster boys" of the franchise) as well as being one of the most powerful soldiers, and both factors contribute to a certain risk to just "overdo" it with their portrayal.

There exist many slightly different, overlapping interpretations of the Space Marines and their capabilities in the fluff - the one I find most interesting is the genetically enhanced monastic warrior, who is still flawed and vulnerable even to small arms fire. Not only because this ties in best with what I'm reading in GW's own books (with which I've grown up) but also because I have a distinct dislike for exaggerated heroics and invulnerable protagonists in any book I'm reading. It is the flaws much more than the strengths which truly make a character interesting.

With a Space Marine, their unique culture and identity can make them difficult to portray without falling into either the "cardboard cutout" or "too human" traps, the same issues also challenging the portrayal of other fanatical human characters or aliens - and I think most authors fail in this regard.

So, in closing, I wouldn't say there is a particular "hate" on Space Marine novels ... but there certainly exists a stigma, and a certain amount of prejudice based on a lot of books further exaggerating a character archetype who should already be powerful enough by nature, and a certain tendency for 40k authors to feel a need to "one-up" each other when it comes to "coolness" and "Epic".

[edit] The "mainstream backlash" mentioned by BlaxicanX may indeed also play a large role in this, in that a segment of the playerbase may prefer some more varied treatment. Compare the amount of Marine novels to anything else and it's not hard to see why some readers may be disgruntled, focusing their disappointment into an automatic resentment of these products. It's a bit like with the amount of Codices.

 ThePlaguedWarsmith wrote:
I don't really have any hate towards the Space Marine books, as like you said, Space Marines are supposed to do it; I also tend to love stupidly overpowered progatonists in sci-fi which is something I tend to be fairly embarassed by.

Honor Harrington fan? Feth that woman.

Depends who's writing, that's what it all comes down to. Space Marines are, by definition, kind of bland. They're Big Damn Heroes and they have unwavering faith in the Emperor, the Imperium, and give up much of their humanity to defend it. A lesser author will write them as such, and at best you'll get a perspective character in the Guard to let you kind of see through mortal eyes. A good author, however; like Aaron Dembski Bowden or Dan Abnett, will write them as interesting, flawed, and very human characters. They may still be staunchly faithful and stubborn as hell, but their values will be challenged by the story and they may develop as a result. Confronting personal daemons leads to more interesting character development than facing the tangible and gribbly kind.

I would like for them to have flaws (character flaws not "in world" weaknesses such as dies to las gun.) While still struggling to maintain noble look and being able to beat the feth put of things. this is one reason I really enjoyed the BA omnibus 1. Rafen among others had fairly human flaws in there personalities IMO. I see SM as genetically engineered super soldiers. (With varying degrees of monastic warrior/ warrior monk vibes)

Some novels like Wrath of Iron are really great, but in many others the characters are nothing more than mary sues doing heroic stuff and beating up all the bad guys, which is something that really gets boring after a while.

I think it's for a variety of reasons (many mentioned above) that make SM books so hated. To begin with, it's a backlash. Let us look at the number of Space Marine books released last year. Now, compare that to the focus on Chaos. Okay still have quite a couple but, taking away Horus Heresy, you'll notice that without that one thing it gets chunked down to very little. Now then, let us look at Guardsman. Now we notice a distinct drop in numbers. Furthermore, look at the number of books centered upon Necrons, Nids, Eldar, Tau, Dark Eldar, etc.... It drops drastically heck the only books I can think of that write these characters are as a target to be killed.

Then, you have the problem of enemy portrayal. When you have 10 marines slaughtering 10000 orks, 10000 CSM, 1000 Eldar, 1000 DE, 1000 Necrons, etc whilst IG and/or SoB die to 100 it grinds people's gears (keep in mind that this is true for IG books as well. It's just that SM are most common and when fighting tend to slaughter foes in droves). Not all of us regard SM as our favorite faction and even the ones that do don't always enjoy the ease at which they slaughter their foes only losing 1-2 dudes sometimes. For example, I liked playing SPACE MARINE. That being said, I would hate to read it. A squad of 3 SM that frequently goes to the main character going solo and slaughtering thousands of orks, hundreds of daemons, and then slaying a pseudo-daemon prince in the warp would be irritating to say the least regardless of the interesting fact that he consistently says screw the codex.

And then we have the finicky nature of 40k. As you notice, there are certain individuals that observe marines as genetically modified human beings. How much so is heavily debated. Some look at SM (and to a lesser extent CSM) as capable of going 100v10000000 on a fair fight and win with minimal losses walking around like tanks whilst others will point to the codices and the fact that whilst SM are genetically enhanced, a lasgun can still fell them. And then you have people that merge the two in an odd mix. All of these look to books expecting something slightly different.

Then there is the fact that many of the books can feel empty filled with violence but little depth (yet again this is for all it is just lumped on SM since they are the poster boy and most common).

Finally, a problem comes from the fact that SM in and of them self are inherently bland and require good writing to really make them intriguing and appealing and even then there will be dissent due to the contradictory fluff that is the setting 40k.

Space Marines are just uninteresting characters.

They have no emotional growth, no depth of personality, no doubts, no fears, and very few other emotional or spiritual hardships to overcome.

Thus it's almost impossible to create or complete a story arc for them.

Thusly, Space Marines do one of two things in novels. They are either:

A, Not Space Marines. This is fairly common. The Space Marines in the story have personality traits that Space Marines wouldn't have. They doubt, or fear, and have other motivations that a long-lived, engineered for war being wouldn't have. The author compromised to give the Space Marines human motivations so they'd be easier to write. Or possibly, just didn't really understand Space Marines and wrote them as giant human protagonists.

or

B: The book is bolter porn. The Space Marines do what it is that Space Marines do. They blow a lot of things up, and then live or die. They might even deliver some morbid humor, or stern jawed quips. But, as characters, they're flat as a board, and uninteresting. The antagonists are either going to be big enough to kill the Space Marines, or the Space Marines will be hard to kill, heavily armored space badasses. This is fine. That's what Space Marines are. But there's obviously no conflict or tension.



The people who get angry at the Space Marines being too awesome in the books just are confused about the lore of the universe. Space Marines are mediocre on the tabletop because that way you need to buy more Space Marines. If Space Marines were as good as the fluff described them (able to survive obscene wounds and carry on, were wrapped in the equivalent of light tank armor, were extremely strong, extremely accurate), then you'd need like 15 of them. Worse, how many people would play as Imperial Guard or Tyranids if you had to buy over 100 of them to play against those 15 guys, lol.

40K, the game, has never been an accurate depiction of the 40K universe. It's just a set of rules, that fluctuates with every edition, designed to sell plastic toy soldiers and create unrealistic but fun battles with evenly matched sides, on even terrain. Space Marines do what they do. They conquered an entire galaxy in 200 years. That's serious business, lol.

 ThePlaguedWarsmith wrote:
I don't really have any hate towards the Space Marine books, as like you said, Space Marines are supposed to do it; I also tend to love stupidly overpowered progatonists in sci-fi which is something I tend to be fairly embarassed by.

This.

The best space marine novel I've read was Legion, and for the majority of it the Space Marines were nowhere to be seen and not the centre of attention. Infact some of the best parts of the Horous Heresy novels are the parts that don't deal with the space marines. I look at the problem with space marine novels to be boring not through a fault of the author but through a fault in the source material. I'd imagaine it's a bit hard to create a gripping, suspenful story when your main characters are perfect with no faults or fears. You can't write flaws into a character who by the nature of the lore isn't allowed to have flaws. Not the perfect warrior? Than you're not good enough to be a space marine. Questioning your faith in the Emperor's divine will than you're a threat that needs to be dealt with.

But if all you're after is bolter porn than you're set.

 Swastakowey wrote:
Because space marines are bland, chunky and their guns are too small And i hate reading about armies of rambo like dudes.

The Imperial Guard ones are a bit better than the Space marine ones because at least there are hundreds dying in terror and anguish among others who are just as scared and fighting for survival. But There are still the typical rambo ish characters in it.

Thats why i just stick to non fiction history books really.

i agree the imperial guard books are way better. the sm books tend to be; look space marines... space marines win battle. Ohhh look something that could never possibly be destoryed... space marines destory it.... both typically working at the same time with the authors feeling justified for having them be instawins because hey they are space marines.

ig books even about ig heros who never die almost always come up with a believable way for them to get out of their seemingly impossible situation thats not oh he won becasue hes a space marine. its he won becuase he arranged the battle in x and y way to take advantage of z and q weaknesses of enemy p.

Those dirty imperial guard peasants are just envious of the Master Space marine Race.

Jokes asides there are lots of good books on the Space marines, the horus heresy has som gems, but there are also a lot of crappy ones