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Sorry, but who wrote a novel that Kid Kyoto still quotes to this day for his joke stories?

Who wrote a novel which actually features an incursion into the, literal, bowels of a Tyranid Hive Ship?

Ian Watson didn't write grimdark. He really didn't. Did he write SciFi? Sure.

But his stuff is not what laid the foundation for 40k, anymore than John Blanche's halfassed "grimdark" scribblings are.

Signs of laxity were everywhere. In the continuing beautification of the cities with mosaics and fountains, in charity toward beggars, in the peace and prosperity of the planet, in regulations for the benevolent conduct of brothels, in the ever-rising standard of cuisine, in the abolition of laws allowing the torture of suspects, even in the pronunciation of the local dialect of Imperial Gothic.

Watson acerbically describes the foul work of Slaaneshi cults in corrupting the orthodox morals of an Imperial world. This kind of passage is the very essence of GrimDark.

1. GW stamp/ FW stamp
2. BL/ Dark heresy/ Non-GW companies that publish 40k items
3. Fan made believable bits of fluff that dont contradict/ break anything

And the bit with Ollionis Pious. I don't care what GW says, that's cannon to me.

Kanluwen wrote:Dan Abnett has pretty much built 40k's current canon from scratch.

By 'from scratch' do you mean 'from a massive volume of already written information'.

Dan Abnett has developed the world very much, and offers in many cases a much more sensible, sympathetic and well-thought-out view than many BL authors, but he didn't create much of the universe 'from scratch'. The background to 40k has been embellished and explored a lot since 2ed, but it hasn't really CHANGED much.

When Watson wrote, there was literally no information to start from...

ArbitorIan wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:Dan Abnett has pretty much built 40k's current canon from scratch.

By 'from scratch' do you mean 'from a massive volume of already written information'.

Dan Abnett has developed the world very much, and offers in many cases a much more sensible, sympathetic and well-thought-out view than many BL authors, but he didn't create much of the universe 'from scratch'. The background to 40k has been embellished and explored a lot since 2ed, but it hasn't really CHANGED much.

When Watson wrote, there was literally no information to start from...

Very well said. I'm a massive Dan Abnett fan and have enjoyed his writing for a long time. What sets him apart for me is that I find his writing style a lot easier to get behind than a lot of other BL writers. But I never felt that he created the setting for his novels. Merely helped flesh it out a lot more. Other writers might go deeper into the bleak, grimdarkness. But when I sit down to a new Abnett book I know kind of what to expect. Well written action sequences and a plot that when you think you've got it figured out can throw a curve ball when you least expect it. As well as narratives that make me want to know exactly what happens to integral characters and care on some level when they get killed horribly or something evil befalls them. These are what hook me in with him. He takes a setting and fleshes it out. Giving you a taste of what the lives of some of those billions of people in the universes seemingly small, insignificant lives. And how fleeting their lives are. As well as showing the bigger field with the important characters in the storyline.