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Almost all Black Library novels are about the Imperium versus Chaos. Even though they already have the Horus Heresy series, which is totally dedicated to nothing but the Imperium versus Chaos, they've continued this trend with 40k novels. Considering the sheer amount of output over several decades and the number of writers they have that's pretty ridiculous. Its not as if Eldar or Tau are unpopular armies. Are they really saying that more people play the Howling Griffons or Crimson Slaughter than Tau? Personally I feel like they're just repeating the same story over and over again with the same factions. We get it, they really like the cthulu demons and crazy magic stuff going up against speece marines and guardsmen.

They have absolutely no interest in world building or trying to develop any of the xenos races or special characters. This makes the 40k verse seem much more one dimensional and barren because only the Imperium and chaos get any development. You have to rely almost completely on whats in the codex for information about each alien factions. Compare that to, for example, StarCraft where equal attention is given to the Protoss and Zerg factions; instead of obsessing about all the human factions. Instead they 're continuing to write, what, 50, a hundred novels on the horus heresy. Which is literally just space marines and chaos. A prequel series that we already know the entire plot to and who will die in it.

Well yeah sure, but the reasoning is sound, its easier to aprechiate the human point of view, than the alien.

And there is a whole series of eldar novels.

Not sure I could stomach a novel written from an ork or nid perspective.

Tau work, I think theres a shadowsun novel too.

Whats really missing is fiction from the necron perspective. Sure they are crazy, but a good author could work with that!

The game long ago became "heroic Space Marines versus evil XYZ" to appeal to kids. Chaos happens to be the stereotypical villains. Except for Nids and maybe Necrons and Dark Eldar, they can't keep up that illusion with other races because it might show that they aren't just evil mutants that only the noble Space Marines (and those sidekick Guardsmen) can defeat.

Black Library isn't about expanding the 40k verse ( anymore? ) , its about supporting current GW products.
GW Release = BL Release.



Additionally, if you bought a 40k Rulebook and the pages there are filled with Humans, Humans and Humans, maybe it should not surprise you if the focus of most 40k publications is....Humans.

They've been writing for 20 years and have over a dozen authors. Yet they only write about those two factions. A handful of outliers doesn't change that fact.

Most of the aliens have perfectly human motivations for what they do (all elder/Tau) or are basically Saturday morning cartoons (Necrons/Orks). It is not complicated or "ohhhh mysterious". If blizzard can write stories involving Protoss and zerg then I don't see the problem in 40k.


Whereas most of the humans are barbarians whose motivations are far more alien and inhuman than elder or tau to a normal audience. Most of them are either inhuman characterless super soldiers, religious fanatics and all have racist genocidal tendencies.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 1hadhq wrote:
Black Library isn't about expanding the 40k verse ( anymore? ) , its about supporting current GW products.
GW Release = BL Release.



Additionally, if you bought a 40k Rulebook and the pages there are filled with Humans, Humans and Humans, maybe it should not surprise you if the focus of most 40k publications is....Humans.

Not true.

If it were true then Black Library would produce xenos books because those armies sell very well. As it stands, they don't. Consider the release of tau 6th edition where they sold a ton of riptides. There was not a single paperback novel released for the tau during that time. All the while they continue to release the horus heresy series and the space marine battle series which aren't tied to the release of any of their model ranges at all.

GW lore in general has become progressively worse and neglected over the last seven or eight years. To me at least. Most of my favorite GW lore was actually written well before I got into 40k. In recent memory, there hasn't been much that's really grabbed my attention in the last few years.

GW has always been of the mentality that the universe focuses on the IoM and that the xenos are basicly "third tier actors" as it where

BrianDavion wrote:
GW has always been of the mentality that the universe focuses on the IoM and that the xenos are basicly "third tier actors" as it where

Even though there are far more xenos players than chaos? Which probably means sales for those armies eclipse spiky marines and demons Hell I am pretty sure there are more craftworld eldar and tau. At my club theres at least three elder armies, two/three dark elder and three tyranids. Outside of the forgeworld Horus Heresy they simply don't touch the chaos armies at all..

Ehhhh its easier to relate to humes over Xenos.

BL book Orks: Synopsis... more dakka and WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAG.

As well Just because more people currently play Xenos doesn't mean that's what they are all into.

not even accounting the multi army collectors, attic armies, non player collectors and so on.

 Desubot wrote:
Ehhhh its easier to relate to humes over Xenos.

Pretty much this.

Plus, the classic Warhammer struggle, dating back before 40k, is Humanity vs. Chaos. Humans, Elves, Dwarves (and Halflings) good. Undead, Orcs, Chaos, bad. FIGHT!! Where is the One Ring to Rule them All?

 Talys wrote:

 Desubot wrote:
Ehhhh its easier to relate to humes over Xenos.

Pretty much this.

Plus, the classic Warhammer struggle, dating back before 40k, is Humanity vs. Chaos. Humans, Elves, Dwarves (and Halflings) good. Undead, Orcs, Chaos, bad. FIGHT!! Where is the One Ring to Rule them All?

You mean that big space butt hole that the eldars made when they goofed?

Okay sorry. How is it more difficult to relate to a person with blue skin and pointy ears?

As opposed to a human from a fascist, zealot and genocidal government; assuming they haven't been turned into half a machine or mutant space marine. You can't empathise with anyone from Imperium because they're monsters. The only good things about them is that they are heroic or powerful; which can be said of ANY faction in the game. Them being relatable or not has nothing to do with it.

Look at other sci fi. I've read EU Star Wars novels and comics where you have aliens as POV or main characters. StarCraft, where again, they have absolutely no problem with taking the "alien" Protoss and giving them their own story in Legacy of the Void. Halo 2 had the Arbiter and let you see how the Covenant ticked which VASTLY improved the lore and world building of that franchise; hes also a hugely popular character whose story in Halo 2 of betrayel and misplaced faith is very relatable.

Its really a stupid point to make that the shape of your ears or the color of your skin determines how relatable your characters are.



It also doesn't explain why the go to antagonists are chaos. You know, the totally relateable faction with their demons and their tentacles and their frothing at the mouth insanity.

It's not just about who the reader can relate to. Most writers are human. Therefore it's easier to write things from a human perspective. The xenos factions, if properly written, should seem a bit, well, alien. This makes writing things from their perspective much harder. Even a human who's a big jerk or a lunatic is still human, and therefore, easier to write. It is a shame that most xenos are relegated to stock villains, if they appear. Other sci-fi universes, Star Trek, for example, have incorporated their aliens far better into their story. Of course, back in the old days of the Inquisitor trilogy and Inferno, it seems like they tried harder. Now GW plays it very safe and easy with their fluff. The choice for xenos stories is basically one Eldar trilogy, one Dark Eldar trilogy, one or two Tau books, one of which is based on a canonically questionable video game, and a few Eldar centric-books by CS Goto if you're feeling masochistic.

 fallinq wrote:
It's not just about who the reader can relate to. Most writers are human. Therefore it's easier to write things from a human perspective. The xenos factions, if properly written, should seem a bit, well, alien. This makes writing things from their perspective much harder. Even a human who's a big jerk or a lunatic is still human, and therefore, easier to write. It is a shame that most xenos are relegated to stock villains, if they appear. Other sci-fi universes, Star Trek, for example, have incorporated their aliens far better into their story. Of course, back in the old days of the Inquisitor trilogy and Inferno, it seems like they tried harder. Now GW plays it very safe and easy with their fluff. The choice for xenos stories is basically one Eldar trilogy, one Dark Eldar trilogy, one or two Tau books, one of which is based on a canonically questionable video game, and a few Eldar centric-books by CS Goto if you're feeling masochistic.

Sorry, you're actually saying that chaos demons are more relatable than tau or elder?


Few things you and others are saying

1 - You are implying that BL is aiming to properly write its aliens and deliberately make them alien

They aren't. Their intention is very much to play to generic tolkein, anime and sci fi tropes. Space Egyptians, space elves and space gundams. You also have comic relief space orcs. All of these are firmly based on human cultures and have been written about. The amount of fantasy lore where they've written from the perspective of elves speaks for itself; because theres really nothing alien about them or if there is its not impossible to write at all. Only the tyranids are a truly and totally alien faction. Such a simple narrative means there is absolutely no obstacle to them writing stories about the xenos races.

2 -Again I still can't believe you're actually saying that chaos is relatable.

3- Even as stock villains and considering the monstrous overuse of chaos marines in the Horus Heresy they noticeably less used. Chaos is always the bad guy in black library novels.

Indeed even the protoss and Halo equivalent both have way too many humanizing features.

Now lets see them try to write a book from a nid perspective

 Desubot wrote:

 Talys wrote:

 Desubot wrote:
Ehhhh its easier to relate to humes over Xenos.

Pretty much this.

Plus, the classic Warhammer struggle, dating back before 40k, is Humanity vs. Chaos. Humans, Elves, Dwarves (and Halflings) good. Undead, Orcs, Chaos, bad. FIGHT!! Where is the One Ring to Rule them All?

You mean that big space butt hole that the eldars made when they goofed?

Hahahaha good one!

 Desubot wrote:
Indeed even the protoss and Halo equivalent both have way too many humanizing features.

Now lets see them try to write a book from a nid perspective

They already did this.

StarCraft 2: Heart of the Swarm. Kerrigan has several zerg luetenants with whom you interact with and you gain a deeper understanding of both the swarm and the Primal Zerg.

If tyranids could talk this is probably what they would say and how they would think.

 Totalwar1402 wrote:

StarCraft 2:Kerrigan

Huuuummmaananniizzzzeeeedddddddd

 Desubot wrote:

 Totalwar1402 wrote:

StarCraft 2:Kerrigan

Huuuummmaananniizzzzeeeedddddddd

The tyranids goal is to survive and to reproduce whilst living by survival of the fittest. Which is in common with virtually all life.

Give me one ounce of evidence to suggest that there motivations are not exactly the same as the Zerg in this regard? Just because they have no character like Kerrigan to allow us a glimpse into how they think does not mean that this is not what the tyranids actually are. There is nothing in any of the codexes to suggest otherwise. Again, if a Hive tyrant could speak it would probably be like Zagara.


Plus, saying about factions such as tau and elder is just. I'll be honest, completely ridiculous. Eldar are space elves, people have been writing stories involving elves for decades. They are not aliens, they are people with pointy ears. Tau are just blue people who use battlesuits. Hell, Tau are even more like a generic sci fi civilisation than any other faction and the least grim darky and weird in their motivations.



Every single codex heavily humanizes the motivations of the xenos races and how it characterises them. You are making stuff up. There is no attempt by GW to make their space elves inhuman and other worldly except in the most superfluous way; they are just another generic spin of elves. There is no reason why them having pointy ears prevents BL from making stories about them.

Also until you have, you know, met an actual alien; you really can't assume that they wouldn't be very like ourselves and as the only real reference point so far as sentient species go; well....you get my drift.

 Totalwar1402 wrote:

 Desubot wrote:
Indeed even the protoss and Halo equivalent both have way too many humanizing features.

Now lets see them try to write a book from a nid perspective

They already did this.

StarCraft 2: Heart of the Swarm. Kerrigan has several zerg luetenants with whom you interact with and you gain a deeper understanding of both the swarm and the Primal Zerg.

If tyranids could talk this is probably what they would say and how they would think.

except the Zerg have been moving away from the whole "hive mind" bit evern since zerg mission 1 of star craft 1

BrianDavion wrote:

 Totalwar1402 wrote:

 Desubot wrote:
Indeed even the protoss and Halo equivalent both have way too many humanizing features.

Now lets see them try to write a book from a nid perspective

They already did this.

StarCraft 2: Heart of the Swarm. Kerrigan has several zerg luetenants with whom you interact with and you gain a deeper understanding of both the swarm and the Primal Zerg.

If tyranids could talk this is probably what they would say and how they would think.

except the Zerg have been moving away from the whole "hive mind" bit evern since zerg mission 1 of star craft 1

The cerabites were sentient and vying for power even in the first starcraft and each had their own personality; notice how they bicker and argue during cutscenes. Hence why the Overmind sends you, one of the cerabites, to command part of the swarm. Broodmothers like Zagara are a continuation of this trend. So the overmind was never the monolithic controller of every single zerg organism; there were limits to its control. Broadly speaking the zerg seem to have one supreme psychic leader and a number of smaller and weaker nodal commanders. This is exactly how the tyranid army is organised with the larger beasts like the Dominatrix going down to lesser hive tyrants. This is the same regardless of whether it is the Overmind or the Primal Queen of Blades.

Because the Xeno races exist so the marines have something to fight, much like guardsmen exist to be slaughtered, bravely holding the line in a futile effort until the marines show up and save them and sisters exist to be slaughtered (and occasionally paint).

 Drasius wrote:
Because the Xeno races exist so the marines have something to fight, much like guardsmen exist to be slaughtered, bravely holding the line in a futile effort until the marines show up and save them and sisters exist to be slaughtered (and occasionally paint).

But there have been many, many guardsmen novels....some of which became mutli book series.

Hell they even gave Sisters of Battle two novels despite them being all but discontinued as any army. That's twice as many books as tau got and that one was a video game spin off.

 Totalwar1402 wrote:

 Drasius wrote:
Because the Xeno races exist so the marines have something to fight, much like guardsmen exist to be slaughtered, bravely holding the line in a futile effort until the marines show up and save them and sisters exist to be slaughtered (and occasionally paint).

But there have been many, many guardsmen novels....some of which became mutli book series.

Hell they even gave Sisters of Battle two novels despite them being all but discontinued as any army. That's twice as many books as tau got and that one was a video game spin off.

Tau have gotten other books. granted I think they where novellas but the fact remains

I can completely understand why they focus more on the human stories. Frankly they're just easier to achieve.

That being said, I think I'd really enjoy reading something from an Ork perspective. And rather than treating it comically, it could focus on a middle tier ork brutally handling members of different groups as well as his own as he grows towards a role higher in the pack.

Thing is, that would be really difficult to write, and certainly unrelatable. So it probably wouldn't sell well at all, and that's more or less why you're probably not gonna see that happen.

On a side note, have you read any Eldar Fan fiction? Actual Eldar novels are almost unnecessary since the Eldar fan novelists have already decided their spece Elfs are literally better than anything or anyone in the whole universe ever and real honest Eldar novels probably trample all over those dreams. Some of them are genuinely so ridiculous as to be spelled out rediculous.

BrianDavion wrote:

 Totalwar1402 wrote:

 Drasius wrote:
Because the Xeno races exist so the marines have something to fight, much like guardsmen exist to be slaughtered, bravely holding the line in a futile effort until the marines show up and save them and sisters exist to be slaughtered (and occasionally paint).

But there have been many, many guardsmen novels....some of which became mutli book series.

Hell they even gave Sisters of Battle two novels despite them being all but discontinued as any army. That's twice as many books as tau got and that one was a video game spin off.

Tau have gotten other books. granted I think they where novellas but the fact remains

Sorry, Tau have been out for nearly twenty years. Yet they got a few novellas on top of Fire Warrior?

I still count only one novella, "Shadowsun"; which was a limited edition run. If you're counting the Damocles anthology then you really shouldn't add that to the list because having read it I can tell you that its clearly a White Scars anthology featuring a guest appearance by the Tau. Alos I wouldn't count those £2 things they do and if you did you would then have to weigh up the amount of them they do for Heresy and normal marines which is staggering by comparison.

Should the Black Library try to write more stories from a non-human perspective? Yes.

Will they? No. Because Games Workshop is who decides what the authors write, and the most successful series in the BL are about Space Marines (both varieties), Imperial Guard and Inquisitors. There are some decent Xenos novels, like the Eldar/Deldar books, but it seems like very few people are interested in reading them.

 BlaxicanX wrote:
Should the Black Library try to write more stories from a non-human perspective? Yes.

Will they? No. Because Games Workshop is who decides what the authors write, and the most successful series in the BL are about Space Marines (both varieties), Imperial Guard and Inquisitors. There are some decent Xenos novels, like the Eldar/Deldar books, but it seems like very few people are interested in reading them.

So they're writing 99% of their novels about a faction which only represents 60% of 40k sales? If the purpose of black library is to sell novels that promote the game then it really doesn't make sense to simply not write books or lore about factions who are (unlike the armyless Sisters of Battle who have had novels) popular and for which there is interest.

Just because they are the only series black library writes does not mean that they are the most successful. If you're only going to get your joke writers to do the occasional one off book (CS Goto Eldar) or 60 page novella (Shadowsun) then they really shouldn't be surprised that they don't do well. Do you really think they shifted that many copies of Faith and Fire off the shelves? I don't think so at all.

 Totalwar1402 wrote:

Just because they are the only series black library writes does not mean that they are the most successful. If you're only going to get your joke writers to do the occasional one off book (CS Goto Eldar) or 60 page novella (Shadowsun) then they really shouldn't be surprised that they don't do well. Do you really think they shifted that many copies of Faith and Fire off the shelves? I don't think so at all.

You seem kinda angry about it man. *Shrugs* I'm not sure what you want people to tell you.

That being said, I like the BL writers for the most part. I don't think calling them *jokes* is really very conducive to your argument, changes, agreement, or anything else you might be making a point of here.

 Totalwar1402 wrote:

 fallinq wrote:
It's not just about who the reader can relate to. Most writers are human. Therefore it's easier to write things from a human perspective. The xenos factions, if properly written, should seem a bit, well, alien. This makes writing things from their perspective much harder. Even a human who's a big jerk or a lunatic is still human, and therefore, easier to write. It is a shame that most xenos are relegated to stock villains, if they appear. Other sci-fi universes, Star Trek, for example, have incorporated their aliens far better into their story. Of course, back in the old days of the Inquisitor trilogy and Inferno, it seems like they tried harder. Now GW plays it very safe and easy with their fluff. The choice for xenos stories is basically one Eldar trilogy, one Dark Eldar trilogy, one or two Tau books, one of which is based on a canonically questionable video game, and a few Eldar centric-books by CS Goto if you're feeling masochistic.

Sorry, you're actually saying that chaos demons are more relatable than tau or elder?


Few things you and others are saying

1 - You are implying that BL is aiming to properly write its aliens and deliberately make them alien

They aren't. Their intention is very much to play to generic tolkein, anime and sci fi tropes. Space Egyptians, space elves and space gundams. You also have comic relief space orcs. All of these are firmly based on human cultures and have been written about. The amount of fantasy lore where they've written from the perspective of elves speaks for itself; because theres really nothing alien about them or if there is its not impossible to write at all. Only the tyranids are a truly and totally alien faction. Such a simple narrative means there is absolutely no obstacle to them writing stories about the xenos races.

2 -Again I still can't believe you're actually saying that chaos is relatable.

3- Even as stock villains and considering the monstrous overuse of chaos marines in the Horus Heresy they noticeably less used. Chaos is always the bad guy in black library novels.

Dude, I NEVER said daemons were more relatable. I said HUMANS, good or evil, were more relatable. Don't put words in my mouth. If you need to make an argument into something that it's not to win, you probably don't have a very good counter-argument. I mean, how many BL books have straight up DAEMONS as the main characters?! Less than xenos! Someone getting sick of the totalitarian Imperium and lashing out in a self-destructive way? YES! THAT'S RELATABLE! We all get frustrated by some of the rules in the societies we live in at some point! Frustration! Rebellion! Mortal followers of Chaos are plenty relatable!

1- If you're just going to write the xenos exactly as humans, what's even the point of having alien races in the setting? Even elves in well-written fantasy have a somewhat different outlook do to their longer lifespans and other differences. Not to mention, it completely undermines the fluff, which mentions how Eldar feel emotions more keenly, think faster, etc. So again, if you're going to ignore any fluff to the contrary and write all characters exactly like they're human, WHAT'S THE POINT? Eldar that curse and act like gritty guardsmen? Orks gathering around a table for a pre-battle planning meeting? (actually, in the right hands, that could be pretty entertaining) I think people want their factions handled WELL, not just handled. If that were the case, we could hand them all off to CS Goto's bad touch. Multilasers for all!

2- See my first paragraph rant.

3- This is an exaggeration. Orks, Tyranids, and Necrons are all frequently used as villains. As for whining about Chaos being the bad guys in Horus Heresy novels I don't even know what to say to that. Of course they're the bad guys in the Horus Heresy novels. That's the whole point. That's what that story has always been about. All in all, the HH novels have actually worked a decent amount of xenos into a story that didn't originally have them.