Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

 MJRyder wrote:
It's a bit unfair to call all GW fiction 'trash' I think. Sure, the quality can be a bit hit and miss in places, but really, the better novels really do stand up awfully well compared to other SF / military SF out there.

They're papermill churned commissioned pieces generally by authors who have little experience writing anywhere or anything else ( either professionally or independently). There are very scarce few writers at BL with the chops to describe themselves seriously as quality authors (Abnett for example). Most of them are self taught on the job and consequently turn out an absolute mishmash of quality. Some get better with time and experience, some are seriously inconsistent (I'm looking at you Gav Thorpe) and some have sufficient natural talent that it shines through (Dembski-Bowden). At the end of the day though, none of it is thought-provoking, none of it is particularly original, virtually every book is at least 40% bolterporn fight scenes, and very little is independent or cleverly written.

I love reading it and I love the Universe and the characters. I own the first fifty Heresy books for Christ sake. But I don't make the mistake of taking it for quality literature. The Eisenhorn series is probably the only thing I've ever read from them which -might- fit that description. There might be one or two other pieces out there which I haven't read on the same level, but when I pick up the latest Primarch based version of Eastenders, I'm not really expecting something as good as a Pratchett book.

They are not coming anywhere near Pratchett!

I think Horus Rising had some pretty good ideas and might be worth looking at as a sci fi novel on it's own, non-franchise related merits. I was really surprised and impressed when I read that the first time. By Flight of the Eisenstein or whatever by Ben Counter I was like "Oh, they have no intention of maintaining any kind of quality on this series, I see."

ADB has done some good stuff too. I like the Night Lords trilogy, but it is hardly high literature. It is above a lot of fantasy novels and on par with a lot of Sci Fi.

Abnett is very patchy. Some of his stuff is good (Horus Rising and the Inquisitor books have a lot of good moments) and some of it is schlocky pulp. Not that there is anything in particular wrong with schlocky pulp!

My main issue is when the quality of the prose is so low. I literally could not get through Fear to Thread because the prose was so god awful.

 MJRyder wrote:
It's a bit unfair to call all GW fiction 'trash' I think. Sure, the quality can be a bit hit and miss in places, but really, the better novels really do stand up awfully well compared to other SF / military SF out there.

Oh, it isn't. Sure some content is, but as a whole the 40k setting obviously isn't. In a lot of fandoms we see some individuals who want to put themselves 'above' the subject by dismissing it all as trash, the implication being that they are refined enough to see it as such.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Da Boss wrote:
Hmmm, not sure I'd agree with that actually. The stand up well compared to other sci fi written for a franchise, definitely. In terms of franchise sci fi they are some of the best, I would say.

But they aren't holding a candle to decent sci fi bar MAYBE a couple of exceptions.

What is "decent" sci fi though? What defines quality for fiction in the first place?

 NinthMusketeer wrote:

What is "decent" sci fi though? What defines quality for fiction in the first place?

If you're going to look at it from a basic literary standpoint, there are fairly consistent bars.

-How multifaceted are the characters?
-Is the plot well constructed and convoluted enough the reader doesn't know what's going to happen, but still simple enough to follow without issue?
-How original is it in terms of content?
-Is subtext present? And is it efficiently communicated?
-Does the author have a notable writing style of their own, or are they just duplicating someone else's?

I could go on. There's a reason why Creative Writing is an entirely respectable degree by this stage of the game. None of these are particularly complex criteria to meet and many are quite technical and objectively verifiable. It only starts getting subjective when it starts wandering into the fields of 'high' literature (for want of a better phrase). Then all the award bodies have the trouble of trying to sort out what to class as the 'best' from a massive stable of very competent professional writers with little choose from between them.


The problem that BL has is that most of the authors don't really have either the training or freedom of writing to produce to what I would call a competent professional authorial standard. Characters are usually one dimensional as hell, plots paper thin, combat exaggerated to hell and back, and writing styles severely derivative of other more competent professional authors. Now that's not their fault, most started with BL and have never written anything else. I suspect the studio encourages internal imitation as well to try and maintain consistency of characters - after all, Guilliman might be written in a dozen different books by a dozen different authors. But it severely limits authorial writing independence. This combines with lots of other limitations (no sex, has to be focused on WOR and BATTEL, etc) to really cripple their professional writing development and scope for experimentation.

At the end of the day, you learn writing by doing. And if all you ever do is turn out the same style of book on the same type of characters aimed at the same audience? It hamstrings your potential, however good that may have been in the first place. A good writer spends years reading different genres, practicing different styles, flirting with controversy (they all have that stage), working for different employers, and generally learning what is essentially a craft. It takes much time, much study, and much experimentation. I remember reading an article by David Eddings preaching how every Fantasy writer should spend at least a year studying Arthurian Legend. Whether you agree with that specifically or not, the wider point remains.

Unfortunately, this is why I regard the Warhammer sci-fi that I read and love so avidly as trash literature. It's nothing to do with being snobbiness or being refined. I look at the work on a technical level and find it wanting for the most part. It doesn't mean I don't enjoy it, and it doesn't take away from the hard work that so many of them put into their books. Seriously, I have mad respect for anyone who sits down and writes a book. But at the end of the day, Black Library churns out simple pre-dictated sci-fi aimed at 15 year olds who like guns and aliens. And so that's all most of the authors ever write, and probably all they'll ever learn to write so long as that's all they do.

Can you provide some examples of non-trash sci fi? 40k excels in all of the categories you listed so I am unsure what you actually mean.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Can you provide some examples of non-trash sci fi? 40k excels in all of the categories you listed so I am unsure what you actually mean.

Just so that I can clarify if you're being argumentative for the sake of it or not, when you say 40K, what are you talking about? 40K is just a setting/IP. It's in codices and computer games as much as it is books. I'm talking about the regular commissioned sci-fi literature books of a relatively consistent length pumped out monthly by the in-house stable at BL. And they certainly don't 'excel in all of the categories'. Sometimes some books do in areas, but more often than not, many of them are sorely lacking in a lot of technique.

Good Sci Fi I would see as being stuff like the Culture novels of Iain M. Banks, Dune by Frank Herbert, War of the Worlds by HG Wells, Slaughterhouse 5 by Kurt Vonnegut. You've also got a lot of stuff from Arthur C. Clarke or Isaac Asimov.

If you want a set of criteria for good sci fi:
1. It should have something to say about the state of humanity
2. It should be creative and interesting
3. It should have the qualities of a good novel in general (good prose, dialogue and characters and a solid plot)
4. It should be thought provoking.

40K novels are entertainment. They are set in a setting that is a hodgepodge of stuff other people created. They rarely have anything meaningful to say. The majority of the books are some form of cathartic power fantasy.

They are fine, but I just don't consider them on par with the best stuff in Sci Fi. I barely consider them Sci Fi at all, actually, since for me one of the things that defines Sci Fi as a genre is some degree of plausibility in the science. But I accept that that may be too narrow a definition, it is just part of what for me makes something good sci fi.

40K is more like space fantasy in that regard. And the fiction is fine. I read a fair bit of it and it is entertaining. But I rarely have much to think about afterwards.

@Ketara That is a pretty big movement of goalposts. You said 40k is trash, that means 40k as a whole. If you meant 40k novels are trash that is a completely different argument that I have a completely different opinion on. But that isn't what you said, and specifically calling it out as a wargame eliminated any ambiguity as to what was being discussed. You completely sidestepped the point of the thread, criticism of a specific setting elements, and instead said that one should not look to 40k for depth as an excuse for why a lack of depth is detrimental to the overall quality. YOU started this entire senseless line of discussion and now are trying to bow out and paint me as the instigator.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
@Ketara That is a pretty big movement of goalposts. You said 40k is trash, that means 40k as a whole. If you meant 40k novels are trash that is a completely different argument that I have a completely different opinion on. But that isn't what you said, and specifically calling it out as a wargame eliminated any ambiguity as to what was being discussed. You completely sidestepped the point of the thread, criticism of a specific setting elements, and instead said that one should not look to 40k for depth as an excuse for why a lack of depth is detrimental to the overall quality. YOU started this entire senseless line of discussion and now are trying to bow out and paint me as the instigator.

Given the extent to which I've been specifically discussing authors and literature and Black Library (and given the fact the entire thread was about a specific plot twist in a specific book series), I think it's been quite clear what I'm talking about (i.e. Black Library 30k/40k written book series literature). If you misunderstood, I'm happy to have now corrected that misapprehension for you and thus resolved the problem. Communication is a wonderful thing, and pointless fights on the internet are not.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Da Boss wrote:
Good Sci Fi I would see as being stuff like the Culture novels of Iain M. Banks, Dune by Frank Herbert, War of the Worlds by HG Wells, Slaughterhouse 5 by Kurt Vonnegut. You've also got a lot of stuff from Arthur C. Clarke or Isaac Asimov.

If you want a set of criteria for good sci fi:
1. It should have something to say about the state of humanity
2. It should be creative and interesting
3. It should have the qualities of a good novel in general (good prose, dialogue and characters and a solid plot)
4. It should be thought provoking.

Certainly all good scifi and points. My partner took creative writing for her degree many years ago and I spent some time flicking through the texts. Before that, I'd never really realised just how much time and effort people put into planning these things before even setting pen to paper.

40K novels are entertainment. They are set in a setting that is a hodgepodge of stuff other people created. They rarely have anything meaningful to say. The majority of the books are some form of cathartic power fantasy.

They are fine, but I just don't consider them on par with the best stuff in Sci Fi. I barely consider them Sci Fi at all, actually, since for me one of the things that defines Sci Fi as a genre is some degree of plausibility in the science. But I accept that that may be too narrow a definition, it is just part of what for me makes something good sci fi.

40K is more like space fantasy in that regard. And the fiction is fine. I read a fair bit of it and it is entertaining. But I rarely have much to think about afterwards.

I remember reading all the various Star Wars extended sci-fi verse books when I was younger (and they were still canon) and I was shocked by the variation in the quality. Lucasarts exerted far less executive direction than the BL ever did, and it really shows. There's some complete and utter crap in there, yet also some pretty solid stuff. Certainly far more variety in plot,style, and subject it feels than the 40K verse gets.

But then, I kind of preferred that. I think if the IP is wide enough, there's scope for real exploration. It's one of the reasons Eisenhorn worked so well, it really latched onto the gritty background of the 40K verse so much better than your average bolter porn. I'd love to see more stuff on the home front. Governors fending off Dark Eldar raiders without any Guard or Marines around, a plant supervisor with spiralling depression at the futility and inhumanity surrounding him, an Arbites officer who gets relocated and turned robocop style, whatever. More variety and more adult themes and more room for the authors to move around in and develop their own little worlds within 40K

I'd agree. Re-reading Eisenhorn got me enthusiastic about 40K again a while back.

I also think that GW do a good job with their franchise novels of keeping things in line these days. I wish they would cultivate a better stable of writers, but I guess there is a fairly limited amount of writers who can put a novel out to deadline that also feel okay with working with the various constraints writing for the BL must entail.

It is pretty impressive that they manage it at all really. If you compare it to the lines of fiction for Star Wars as you've said or some of the Dungeons and Dragons fiction, it is of a better quality for sure.

I'm not sure it's better as a whole (that's a value judgement), but it's certainly consistent. Putting out books factory style to a standardised format is a challenge in itself. And heck. They know what their fans like. I just long for them to take that extra step. To take it from cheeseburger literature to something with a little more of an adult punch. Maybe even a book with no fight scenes at all, heaven forbid! It may be that there's some more independent talent in that stable in other directions and styles of writing. People like Bowden give me the impression they have more they could give if given opportunity. I just wish they'd let them spread their wings a little in terms of format.

Or perhaps I'm wrong, and it is all the writers. But if that is the case, you'd think they could afford to hire some top scifi author talent with their pockets.

Or perhaps I'm wrong, and it is all the writers. But if that is the case, you'd think they could afford to hire some top scifi author talent with their pockets.

Its also a matter of reputation. 'Factory-style' books for a gaming franchise doesn't attract successful authors (unless they started there). The big names tend to avoid that sort of thing as beneath them, something their agents and regular publishers encourage.

Plus, books don't pay well, unless you get really lucky. Dividing the too-small payoff with a company like GW just inherently isn't attractive.

 Ketara wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
@Ketara That is a pretty big movement of goalposts. You said 40k is trash, that means 40k as a whole. If you meant 40k novels are trash that is a completely different argument that I have a completely different opinion on. But that isn't what you said, and specifically calling it out as a wargame eliminated any ambiguity as to what was being discussed. You completely sidestepped the point of the thread, criticism of a specific setting elements, and instead said that one should not look to 40k for depth as an excuse for why a lack of depth is detrimental to the overall quality. YOU started this entire senseless line of discussion and now are trying to bow out and paint me as the instigator.

Given the extent to which I've been specifically discussing authors and literature and Black Library (and given the fact the entire thread was about a specific plot twist in a specific book series), I think it's been quite clear what I'm talking about (i.e. Black Library 30k/40k written book series literature). If you misunderstood, I'm happy to have now corrected that misapprehension for you and thus resolved the problem. Communication is a wonderful thing, and pointless fights on the internet are not.

I am glad we agree your wording caused an ultimately pointless fight, and thank you for correcting it. I would advise in the future to say what you mean in direct terms, instead of saying one thing and expecting others to interpret that you meant something else.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Eh. I think anyone who looks for any significant 'meaning' or inspiration or a place in the world from their tabletop wargame would be better placed looking elsewhere. Even when it comes down to the best stuff, 30K or 40K , it's effectively reading the equivalent of a McDonalds cheeseburger. Sure, sometimes it really hits the spot, but sometimes you ingest it because there's no better option at that moment. Either way, it usually doesn't fill you up properly, and it's all trash at the end of the day, good or bad experience. Great culinary/literary input it is not.

Emphasis mine. Just in case someone wanted to say he was only ever talking about novels. Even the best stuff is trash, according to a page ago.

NinthMusketeer wrote:Emphasis mine. Just in case someone wanted to say he was only ever talking about novels. Even the best stuff is trash, according to a page ago.

Sure guv. Chalk another win on your internet fight CV or whatever it is you're looking to do. Anyway, moving on to the interesting stuff...

Voss wrote:

Or perhaps I'm wrong, and it is all the writers. But if that is the case, you'd think they could afford to hire some top scifi author talent with their pockets.

Its also a matter of reputation. 'Factory-style' books for a gaming franchise doesn't attract successful authors (unless they started there). The big names tend to avoid that sort of thing as beneath them, something their agents and regular publishers encourage.

Plus, books don't pay well, unless you get really lucky. Dividing the too-small payoff with a company like GW just inherently isn't attractive.

That's a really good point. If you've got a solid reputation and a contract with a good publisher, what need do you have of GW? Although that being said, I'm sure there are plenty of talented professional writers not in that position who would happily take a paycheque?

I suspect the reason they don't do that might tie into the hiring culture and policy more generally. They do have that whole 'hire for attitude rather than skills' thing marked out on all their job applications. I know a lot of their authors came from other parts of the company first. They're much easier to control that way. Then again, perhaps there's another reason? I suppose only the head honchos at GW know the real factors at play.

No. The point you were trying to make this whole time is valid-the 40k novels are the equivalent to fast food where it is generally bad but we love it anyways. My disagreement is moot because it was to a point that you were not advocating in the first place. My only frustration is that this is somehow my fault for dating to assume someone actually meant what they wrote. But I will make a note so as to avoid a repeat occurance.

Though really, all fiction is just nonsensesical vomit and a skilled writer can bundle up the pieces so it tastes less like vomit. Trash or treasure is subjective to the reader, and high quality just means a lot of readers subjectively find it good. Because eating reprocessed vomit is still a big step up from the real world.

Ok, so a few thoughts to add to this discussion:

Science fiction itself is a contested definition. There is no universally accepted definition of what SF is, or what it means. SF has changed greatly through time, and continues to change an adapt. Indeed, you could well argue (as I have in a book chapter coming out later this year [I hope]), that SF and reality became irrevocably blurred from the moon landings in the 1960s.

To respond to Katara's point... I'm sorry to say your criteria for what makes something 'literary' or 'good' are a little bit misguided. Just to take each of your points in turn...

-How multifaceted are the characters?
Have you ever read Philip K Dick? One of SF's most renowned and respected names, but his writing itself was never 'good'. Indeed, most of his characters are incredibly generic.

-Is the plot well constructed and convoluted enough the reader doesn't know what's going to happen, but still simple enough to follow without issue?
Lots of good sf has predictable outcomes. Doesn't make it any less 'good'.

-How original is it in terms of content?
Many works of classic literature aren't exactly original. Originality isn't a good marker of quality. It's also a bit unfair in terms of your criticism of 40k (and indeed AoS) as the writers are operating within a pre-defined universe, so they're never going to be 100% original (whatever that means!)

-Is subtext present? And is it efficiently communicated?
Is subtext always necessary? Not sure it is.

-Does the author have a notable writing style of their own, or are they just duplicating someone else's?
Very few writers of any genre have a 'unique' writing style. I certainly wouldn't say you need a distinguished writing style to be classed as 'literary'. (NB: what is a 'unique writing style' anyway?)

 MJRyder wrote:
Ok, so a few thoughts to add to this discussion:

Science fiction itself is a contested definition. There is no universally accepted definition of what SF is, or what it means. SF has changed greatly through time, and continues to change an adapt. Indeed, you could well argue (as I have in a book chapter coming out later this year [I hope]), that SF and reality became irrevocably blurred from the moon landings in the 1960s.

To respond to Katara's point... I'm sorry to say your criteria for what makes something 'literary' or 'good' are a little bit misguided. Just to take each of your points in turn...

-How multifaceted are the characters?
Have you ever read Philip K Dick? One of SF's most renowned and respected names, but his writing itself was never 'good'. Indeed, most of his characters are incredibly generic.

-Is the plot well constructed and convoluted enough the reader doesn't know what's going to happen, but still simple enough to follow without issue?
Lots of good sf has predictable outcomes. Doesn't make it any less 'good'.

-How original is it in terms of content?
Many works of classic literature aren't exactly original. Originality isn't a good marker of quality. It's also a bit unfair in terms of your criticism of 40k (and indeed AoS) as the writers are operating within a pre-defined universe, so they're never going to be 100% original (whatever that means!)

-Is subtext present? And is it efficiently communicated?
Is subtext always necessary? Not sure it is.

-Does the author have a notable writing style of their own, or are they just duplicating someone else's?
Very few writers of any genre have a 'unique' writing style. I certainly wouldn't say you need a distinguished writing style to be classed as 'literary'. (NB: what is a 'unique writing style' anyway?)

I'd like to caveat first that I'm certain that a more skilled author/educator in creative writing theory would be able to give better responses here than I. I can talk historical theory all day, and general rules of good academic writing, but that's ultimately footnoted and grounded in fact rather than imagination.

That all having been said, there's clearly some objectivity here beyond correct grammar (suspending philosophical matrix style objections to objectivity), or there'd be no generally acclaimed authors or ability to teach the subject at all. A Dog called Spot would be considered a work of skill equivalent to Lord of the Rings, you know? I named some of the markers above which occurred to me off the top of my head, but as you say, no individual marker is absolutely necessary. It's more the aggregate collection of them and the ability to deploy them as/when needed. Different markers actually take on different levels of importance depending on the genre and to an extent, the author's style. The more of the right ones you can piece together for your purposes, the odds are, the better the resulting piece will be. An unskilled author can do none of those things, that's why they're unskilled and write poor prose.

That's why if you look at Creative writing courses (here's three of the country's best) :-

https://www.ice.cam.ac.uk/course/mst-creative-writing
https://www.uea.ac.uk/course/postgraduate/ma-creative-writing-prose-fiction#course-modules-1
https://www.royalholloway.ac.uk/studying-here/postgraduate/english/creative-writing/

You'll see that the courses are split three ways. (1) Effectively reading as a writer/learning to dissect other people's work and see what makes it good, (2) continual writing of your own in different forms (to get practice), and (3) the sort of underlying markers which I've been specifying above. The reason for these is not only to impart the skill to include those things in their work, but also to iron out bad writing habits. Otherwise, your average
(not every) self-taught writer in any genre, assuming that they've got a good grasp of grammar, tends to have one or more of the following impediments:-

(1) They try and ape the writing style of people in that genre which they like. If they read Pratchett, they'll aim for the same wry, slightly clever and comedic tone. If they like Phillip K. Dick, every description will be overwritten. You can see Tolkien from the Elvish singing, and so on. They know that they like these things, and so they assume that this is 'good' writing, whether they're capable of actually doing it or not.
(2) Mary Sue/Gary Stu is such a popular trope I'm not even going to explain it here.
(3) They sit down to write a book like they do an essays without much planning. The result is a story and plotline which waxes and wanes in an inconsistent manner.
(4) Flat one-dimensional characters.
(5) A difficulty moving beyond the more generic constructs of their genre. Most people only typically read a few genres which they enjoy. What this means is that the amateur might never learn how to raise suspense in the manner of a horror, or to write a decent love story in the manner of a romance; because they've never read these kinds of books and taken how they work apart. Yet all these things can be necessary depending on what scenario is happening in your story and how you want to deal with it; no matter the genre.

I could go on, but you get the idea. A self-taught author who just sits down and knocks one kind of stuff out is already quite limited. You tack on the kind of editorial oversight and direction BL gives, and it restrains it even more. I should specify here that a capable author is capable of teaching themself everything I'm mentioning, a degree programme isn't really necessary. But they ultimately have to learn it by study and doing. The more widely they read and write, the more capable as an author they then become. It's a fairly direct correlation and every professional writer I've met tells me as much.

Occasionally you run into a genius who can invent a new genre or style off their own head, but that's pretty damn rare. Most would-be professional authors simply seek to to reach a baseline level of competence that they can undertake the majority of the sorts of markers we're discussing when they want/need to (what you might call the metaphorical writer's toolkit) at will. Once they've got that, they can set about experimenting and cultivating their own way of doing things. Whatever the result is however, it tends to be infinitely better conceptualised, planned, and overall written then someone who just spent four years writing Transformers/Star Wars/Warhammer fanfic.

For whatever reason however, Black Library shows an obvious desire to hire people as writers who did the latter. Go through their biographies, and you'll see that scarce few in the BL stable were working authors before BL got them. Some were people who submitted fiction to open request, some were working in the design/game studio, etcetc. Most aren't professionally trained or experienced (like I said, degree is shortcut - not vital) as writers. Some of them clearly work to improve their craft as they go. But not everyone has the time, energy, or desire to do that and it shows in the average type of books which emerge. There's a reason the phrase 'bolterporn' exists.

 Lord Damocles wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

 Llamahead wrote:
It also dehumanised Ollanius Pius and so the Emperor.

Not in any meaningful way to the setting.

He still dies, inspires sacrifice, yadda yadda yadda. It's just that he knows he'll come back.

It's not really a sacrifice if he doesn't expect to die.

I'm rather confused by this entire Ollanius Pius complaint.

The Emperor and Ollanius Pius are both Perpetuals. Perpetuals can be Final Deathed by the right forces. Horus is charged up with power from the four Chaos Gods and can presumedly Final Death the Empreror, then the only thing needed to make Ollanius Pius's death heroic is for him to know this.

Aren't we 4 novels from knowing the answer?

mrFickle wrote:
I see a lot of comments about how the introduction of perpetuals in the HH series was really bad and has spoiled the setting to some degree. I hit a brick wall with the HH series when I got one particularly bad novel, so I only know of three perpetuals:

The emperor
John grammaticus
Vulkan

The idea of immortals, true immortals that can’t be killed, isn’t the craziest idea in the 40K universe (or is it?). The emperor has always been thought of as being around “forever”. The exploitation of John grammaticus by the cabal is good story telling, each time he does for them he prays it’s the last one. And for vulkan, well of the emperor is immortal it makes sense that one of the primarchs inherits the power.

I’m not defending the concept but from the above I haven’t seen anything that I think is that bad.

Who are the other perpetuals, are there only human perpetuals? Do we know why they are perpetual.

Personally I’ve never liked the perpetuals or the whole Kabal story. It hugely detracts from the Horus Heresy series for me.

Basically:

- Why is humanity the only species that has unkillable Mutants? How come the Necrons and Eldar, far more ancient and powerful can’t cheat death? With Chaos this is rare and due to the Gods intervention. Same with Celestine.

- You couldn’t keep something like that secret for thousands of years. It’s never been mentioned before and we’re to believe human history is the same as our own to the present day. It’s like all those marvel shows where the secret order of sorcerers maintains the balance. It’s not very believable.

- It answers the question of whether the Emperor is a God (in the same way Khaine or Isha are Gods) or not. This renders moot any theorising or discussion on the subject.

- Making the Emperor just some mutant that superstitious people think is a God undermines any character who thinks he is. It’s like “of course there’s all a perfectly rational explanation behind this”

- It’s a copy paste of the Illuminati.

- Death should be final. I am not even a fan of Daemon Primarches being immortal. Demons as a force of nature to be overcame like Khabanda is passable but it gets silly very quickly.

- There’s too many question on how this immortality works. Does the body just reappear? Does it regenerate? How is Cruze able to keep Vulkan prisoner if he’s reappearing after every cell gets atomised. It’s actually very out there.

- They’re constantly depicted as edgelord chaotic good antiheroes poking fun at how silly everything is and being able to kill space marines because they’re smart and using outside the box thinking.

- The Alpha Legion taking the Kabal at its word from one vision.

- The whole plan to let chaos win, destroy humanity and save the galaxy is absurd. It’s, just throwing it out there, way more likely the Chaos Gods would jut consume reality; like Sanguineous sees in his visions. Since the Gods did the End Tines in fantasy they are very much playing to win. So helping them win is not smart. At all.

- The miraculous should not be depicted as mundane.

Well said!