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For example, the Tau, pretty popular and well selling army. Despite this, the only full novel with a tau POV was Fire Warrior and that was a video game tie in. Aside from a handful of short stories, that one shadowsun short mini book and the Damocles apocalypse book which was really a collection of short stories focusing on the Imperials fighting the Tau. Basically the BL shoe horns in xenos races as secondary antagonists to the Imperial POV characters. Even then, they absolutely love doing the Imperium versus chaos. In fact they started a huge book series called the Horus Heresy where they could just have the Imperium versus chaos over and over again. Even with the release of all the Horus heresy books GW still pushes that formula on its 40k novels.

Now I know what you're thinking. "Space Marines sell so the books focus on them". True, but that doesn't explain why Imperial Guard get that much attention and whilst marines are the biggest sellers they don't make up that high a percentage to justify almost every book having to have Imperial POV. To put it into perspective, Tau have one book (Fire Warrior) whereas Sisters of Battle have had two novels. Pretty sure tau sell more models than sisters of battle and at least as many if not more than the Imperial Guard. If these books are meant to push model sales then how does neglecting a significant proportion of your range in favour of Imp and chaos make any sense? Never mind making novels about armies that don't sell and won't without a significant update.

And no, making them the antagonists doesn't count. The antagonists don't get anywhere near as much attention as the protagonists and it doesn't help that BL insists on putting human characters in with the tau. In that Damocles book, one is told completely from the perspective of a gue vesa, another is from Kor Sarro a white scar, another is an Ultramarine and only one is a joint white scar/Shadowsun pov. Even then, I would say that the preferred antagonist is always chaos.

This is before you even consider that some xenos races have never even had a single novel, such as orks and necrons.haven't had a single bit of lore.

Only elder have had a limited number of novels and even that's pretty appalling considering that they're a very popular army.

The black library has really neglected the lore of a significant number of very popular armies in favour of a deluge of content focusing on the Imperium versus Chaos. I mean it is getting ridiculous.

Gotta have that bolter porn, man. Can't have a good 40k novel without a good amount of marine spank.

 TheCustomLime wrote:
Gotta have that bolter porn, man. Can't have a good 40k novel without a good amount of marine spank.

You're telling me you can't make twenty foot tall gundams and mecha cool or appeal to teenagers?


Plus, the number of Imperial Guard novels. Hell the number of Sister of Battle novels compared to xenos ones.

The amount of times chaos is the main antagonist rather than a xenos race. Remembering that we already have the Horus Heresy where its nothing but this over and over again.

Nerp. It has to be spess muhreens defeating the enemeh. Or Guardsmen being individually heroic.

The answer's simple, and it's bigger than 40k: Most authors, editors and publishers seem to be under the bizarre impression escapist fantasy literature needs human protagonists, even though some of the fiction I've most enjoyed broke out of that restriction.

Whether throwaway pulp or genuinely good literature, an alien perspective can make for a fun and memorable read. Depressingly few providers though.

It's the human condition. We find it hard to understand other races and societies, let alone an entirely alien species and their drives and aspirations. So writing a book based around those alien desires, drives and thought processes is going to struggle to engage any large audience, making xenos books a bit of a waste of ink.

changemod wrote:
The answer's simple, and it's bigger than 40k: Most authors, editors and publishers seem to be under the bizarre impression escapist fantasy literature needs human protagonists, even though some of the fiction I've most enjoyed broke out of that restriction.

Whether throwaway pulp or genuinely good literature, an alien perspective can make for a fun and memorable read. Depressingly few providers though.

But all of the alien races are basically humans and often based on human cultures. I don't see what would be difficult about making them the protagonists.

Only tyranids would be totally alien and difficult to write.

Plus they have done this before, they just adamantly refuse to write more than a token amount of material.

Also, their goal is to make books that sell models or books that people who buy the models will buy. So making books for Sisters of Battle but not popular armies like elder, tau and necrons doesn't make any sense.


Still it is sad that the BL produces more material in a month (week?) than comprises all tau products.

 Totalwar1402 wrote:

changemod wrote:
The answer's simple, and it's bigger than 40k: Most authors, editors and publishers seem to be under the bizarre impression escapist fantasy literature needs human protagonists, even though some of the fiction I've most enjoyed broke out of that restriction.

Whether throwaway pulp or genuinely good literature, an alien perspective can make for a fun and memorable read. Depressingly few providers though.

But all of the alien races are basically humans and often based on human cultures. I don't see what would be difficult about making them the protagonists.

Only tyranids would be totally alien and difficult to write.

Well, look at the Path of the Eldar novels, for example. They present a very alien society, culture, psychology... Even alien senses. Very little of the protagonists is human... But it's still fairly possible to identify with them. Why? Because under it all, people are people.

Human, near-human like Elves or Dwarves, Eldar or Ork or Tau, dragon or self aware robot or small pastel horse or vampire or shapeshifting blue centaur with a scythe for a tail... All people, under it all. Hopes and dreams, feelings and experiences.

Tyranids are indeed different. You might be able to write a Swarmlord novel as he's a semi-independent intelligence repeatedly reincarnated as a field commander for the hive mind... But individual Tyranids generally aren't people and the hive mind itself is of such a vast scale you'd need to use abstraction and metaphor to relay it's perspective.

...Oh, a Genestealer Hybrid could perhaps serve as a protagonist.

it might be the scarcity of xenos races actually reading the books. I dont mean xenos players but actual xenos
People are usually most able to identify with humans so thats usually what they are able to read and "understand where they are coming from.

Alien races are just that, alien. The stories written about them describe them in human patterns and ideals. All of that makes us understand to a degree whats going on but its "fake" because it is from a human perspective.

All stories featuring xenos as main characters are generally baaaaaad, because they just re-use the Imperium as the antagonists. Ignore them. Unless BL spill out a good novel where I see Tau killing Necron or Chaos, I am not looking at anything space Communists-Chinese related.

 EVIL INC wrote:
it might be the scarcity of xenos races actually reading the books. I dont mean xenos players but actual xenos
People are usually most able to identify with humans so thats usually what they are able to read and "understand where they are coming from.

Alien races are just that, alien. The stories written about them describe them in human patterns and ideals. All of that makes us understand to a degree whats going on but its "fake" because it is from a human perspective.

I could say exactly the same thing about one human culture reading stories about another human culture, written by an author from the reader's culture. Or about a protagonist who is a clinically diagnosed psychopath, written by an author who is not for an audience who is not.

It'd be a less extreme example, but so long as the alien or other fantasy creature has emotions and wants, it's still doable to write for them. Same procedure as researching the other culture, but with more making stuff up because they don't exist.

Regardless, the other cultures and psychopaths ARE human. The emotions are the same and the world history is the same.
The physiology is the same.

The alien races from other planets possibly do not have the same emotions or politics or wants or desires. Wen we write from their "perspective", it is fake or from their perspective as a human would see it.

Look at stories about a squid (probobly less alien that a creature from another planet) unless we gave it's story from a more human perspective, it would be a documentary of it describing it and it's actions so a human could have a rough understanding of the physical needs and actions but no way to know it's "mind"


Automatically Appended Next Post:
That is not to say that readers wouldnt want to read them anyway of course. The point is, we as humans can more easily identify with human characters and 'get into" books from their perspective more. not to mention that most people will want to live vicariously and see themselves as the heroes (or villians in the case of the books about bad guys) and books about "humans make that easier. This is why they sell better and sales go a long way in terms of what writers/publishers will want to do.

 EVIL INC wrote:
Regardless, the other cultures and psychopaths ARE human. The emotions are the same and the world history is the same.
The physiology is the same.

The alien races from other planets possibly do not have the same emotions or politics or wants or desires. Wen we write from their "perspective", it is fake or from their perspective as a human would see it.

Actually, a psychopath is specifically defined by aberrant brain chemistry. Emotions and thoughts that don't work the same way as those of others. Empathy absent not because they're a jerk, but because they're incapable of it.

Look at stories about a squid (probobly less alien that a creature from another planet) unless we gave it's story from a more human perspective, it would be a documentary of it describing it and it's actions so a human could have a rough understanding of the physical needs and actions but no way to know it's "mind"

A squid would be massively more alien than something of human-analogue levels of intelligence. A squid doesn't have a sophisticated enough mind to be a "person" the same way a species with language and culture does.

Like I said earlier, and as a big fan of Xenofiction, people are people.

A person with four legs and four wings as their full complement of limbs, the size of a barn with eight senses, only three of which are shared with a human and all at higher or lower sensitivity, no grasp of emotional empathy and with a complex set of meditations used to access ancestral memories and overpower it's feral instincts... Can still, at it's core, be a person.

It's really easy to overestimate how much all those differences actually matter.

Its also really easy to underestimate them. of course, even psychopaths share human history, emotions and such with the rest of us. Altered possibly, but the same root.

But, hey, ya never know. Produce an actual tau, kroot or eldar for us and we could discuss it with them. Otherwise, it is all just talk leaving us with the concrete fact that humans in general emphasize most easily with other humans and this leads to books with humans as the hero villains in the case of books with them as the main characters selling better and a company usually releases what sells best with the rest catering to those who are wanting to try something different. In this case, humans in alien bodies (books with heroes being eldar or tau and so forth).

I want to hear a story about a Zerg...I mean Tyranid as the protagonist!




and when they get to the zerg section
http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/312932

... because authors for BL novels struggle with plot and character development for human characters. There's no way they can believably put themselves in the shoes of a Xenos race and carry out a narrative people will enjoy.