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Hi everyone, thanks for your comments. As expected from Dakka, some are more relevant and well informed than others :p I will do my best to respond to some of the points raised...

kodos wrote:

Warhammer 40k universe is huge. And I mean, seriously huge. The Horus Heresy series – the key saga that sets the context for the “present day” universe – spans some 54 books, with a further ten books mapping out the series’ conclusion. This is arguably the biggest single collective literary undertaking in all of science fiction. The series started in 2006 with the novel Horus Rising, and has now reached its conclusion, with just the final few books awaiting their paperback release.

in all of SciFi?
I guess the author don't know a lot of SciFi as 40k isn't even in the top 3 here

I literally have a PhD in science fiction and philosophy and have published numerous peer reviewed papers on the topic. I am confident I know a lot more about SF than you do.

Inquisitor Gideon wrote:Calling it sci-fi at all immediately dismisses the discussion.

So what it is then? Do you even know what SF is?

Nevelon wrote:40k is more properly science-fantasy then science fiction, but if you are going to find it a bucket or space on a labeled bookshelf, sci-fi fits it well enough.

Yes, I agree to an extent. That's certainly how it *started* (John Blanche talks about this in the interview I did with him). However, my argument is that it has grown far beyond that.

Overread wrote:
Yep even a lot of the tech in Star Trek is closer to magic than anything else.
There's always this line where some people feel a need for sci-fi to always be defined as what most would consider "hard" sci fi. That is real space physics*; real tech concepts; real this and real that.
That's certainly one kind of sci-fi, but its not all sci-fi.

There are also a good many sci-fi-fantasy stories that walk the line between the two and it gets a bit fuzzy and some can be classed as both. Eg Dragonriders of Pern is technically a full sci-fi story; even if many of the contents of early books is basically a fantasy setting and type powers/display.

Thank you so much for your comment. As ever, you are the voice of reason in this forum. From the comments in this thread it does seem that a lot of people here have some quite strong (and dare I say, misinformed) views on what SF actually is. It doesn't have to be hard SF to be SF. Ursula Le Guin is widely considered to be one of the greatest SF authors of all time, and yet there's not a lot in her work about technology. If anything, she is anti-technology.

JNAProductions wrote:It's fun. Not sold on it as high-quality, but it is fun.
And that's enough for me. There's definitely stuff worth studying from it too.

Thanks for your comment. The heading was very much provided by the Conversation and not by me. (As is so often the case with the press.). My argument mainly was that it's time for people to start taking WH40k more seriously as a work of SF, as ultimately it's far more interesting and influential than its American cousins.

It's fantasy in space. It doesn't extrapolate on science as we know it, it just makes stuff up.

Kind of depends upon what you mean by a great work of science fiction. There are certainly aspects of 40K which equal Star Wars and Star Trek. But are those actually great works? To my knowledge, the only thing in Star Wars or Star Trek which might have sufficient artistic merit to rival Ursula Le Guin, Philip K Dick, Stanislaw Lem, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Alien, Blade Runner or Tartovsky's Solaris is Knights of the Old Republic 2 - The Sith Lords.

Cyel wrote:
It's fantasy in space. It doesn't extrapolate on science as we know it, it just makes stuff up.

You can say that of a vast majority of sci-fi. That it makes stuff up.

Even some of the great hard-scifi still make a load of stuff up. New elements, new technologies, alien stuff etc...



Scifi isn't one definition with one single point, just like fantasy isn't one single style of fantasy.
There is fantasy which is almost historically accurate barring a few minor elements; then there's fantasy so chock full of magic and gods and imagination that its got no reflection on reality
There's sci-fi which is grounded in reality and might even be only set a few years in the future; then there's stuff that's got pewpew lasers in space and FTL travel and more.


Basically sci-fi is a generalist catch all term, just like fantasy; in fact they are so generalist that there's a good number of series that straddle the line between the two. You have to add other phrases to start drilling down into specific types of fantasy/scifi.

Trying to push hard-science sci-fi as the only true form is as missleading as trying to push epic fantasy as the only true style of fantasy.

Cyel wrote:
It's fantasy in space. It doesn't extrapolate on science as we know it, it just makes stuff up.

Hi Cyel, am I to gather that you used to go by the name of Karol on these forums?

SF doesn't have to extrapolate on science as we know it.

 Samsonov wrote:
Kind of depends upon what you mean by a great work of science fiction.

It's what makes something a "great work" I guess. I do think the Horus Heresy books in particular accomplish something that's not really been matched anywhere else in terms of scope. Other tie-in universes match it (the Star Trek litverse from A Time To... to Coda is a good example) but those are much more wedded to their source material than Horus Heresy is. I guess in way the difference is that while they're all media tie-ins (Dr Who, Star Wars, Gundam, Trek) those book series are all tie-ins to other storytelling mediums. Whereas Horus Heresy (and 40K in general), the actual books make up the majority of the storytelling in the setting and *are* the defining works. They're still tie-ins, but they're tie-ins to a game. The game does have some narrative elements sure, and there's narrative in codexes so it's still fuzzy, but it feels different.

Or looked at another way, you could read the vast majority of the Horus Heresy and it'd feel complete in and of itself, it assumes no prior knowledge. Whereas if you tried the Star Trek tie-ins without knowing who Picard was, or the Star Wars novels having not watched the films, you'd be lost in most cases.

40K is a pretty odd beast.

For all its rich background, developed over decades? It’s marvellously permissive, with only very, very few canonical no-nos.

For all the stick it got at first, the Blood Angels and Necrons calling a truce to see off a Tyranid splinter fleet isn’t, and has never been, canon breaking. Even if we work solely from the old “logic first” Necron background, a unified front with the enemy you can negotiate with in the face of the enemy that cannot be negotiated with makes sense, when the alternative is a war on two fronts.

Craftworld Eldar could, potentially, assist a Chaos force if the outcome of doing so provides advantage or prevents a tragedy further down the line.

Orks mostly just want a fight, and it’s possible to buy them off by giving them guns and choppas and pointing them to a better fight. Sometimes, they won’t even check the guns work first by shooting you before going off to find that Much Bigger And Therefore More Fun Fight.

A Genestealer Cult could well provide unseen and certainly unflagged assistance to an Imperial effort to eradicate a Chaos Cult, as it may be its own interest. Just…hide the hybrids and Purestrains, relying on Brood Brothers. Maybe intercept Cult patrols that might collapse a flank, and make it look like the Cultists fell out (which legit happens all the time)

The face of the Galaxy itself is largely unexplored in any official way. We know the names and boundaries of Segmentums, but next to nothing about the majority of the systems, worlds and resources within those larger areas. And the overall history is…murky. Because the background is largely written as a mythology, with plenty of contradictions for us to chew on.

And so, we as fans and players have a pretty free rein of it. We’re also given hundreds if not thousands of tiny wee snippets here and there in the various sources which might spark our imagination and encourage a campaign.

deano2099 wrote:
Whereas Horus Heresy (and 40K in general), the actual books make up the majority of the storytelling in the setting and *are* the defining works. They're still tie-ins, but they're tie-ins to a game. The game does have some narrative elements sure, and there's narrative in codexes so it's still fuzzy, but it feels different.

Yeah, no, disagree with this. As someone who has little interest in Space Marines, the Horus Heresy offers me nothing interesting and doesn't define 40K at all. For many of the different factions in 40K, you get basically no novels of your own, and just have to make do with being on the receiving end of some bolter porn for Space Marine protagonists.

If casting fireball is called magic, its fantasy.

If casting fireball is called a psychic power, its sci-fi.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

deano2099 wrote:
Whereas Horus Heresy (and 40K in general), the actual books make up the majority of the storytelling in the setting and *are* the defining works. They're still tie-ins, but they're tie-ins to a game. The game does have some narrative elements sure, and there's narrative in codexes so it's still fuzzy, but it feels different.

Yeah, no, disagree with this. As someone who has little interest in Space Marines, the Horus Heresy offers me nothing interesting and doesn't define 40K at all. For many of the different factions in 40K, you get basically no novels of your own, and just have to make do with being on the receiving end of some bolter porn for Space Marine protagonists.

Which faction do you mean? While none are as lovingly-covered as the Space Marines, there are well regarded “classics” for each of the other factions (at least the pre-8th edition factions. I have no idea if there’s a Voltan novel or some gak.).

The impact of 40k on the genre as a whole is undeniable. That alone merits it some study.

Great science fiction has themes, thesis or messages around which the entire setting and story is built around.

Asimov and robots, and latter "what if we could scientifically predict people" Foundation.

The Xeeleeverse and "what if we follow relativity and FTL is time travel".

Star Trek is an extremely optimistic look at the future and space exploration.

Even Star Wars which I don't really consider great sci-fi is still built over blatant political messaging (well OT and PT are, I'm ignoring the ST)

But 40k? Maybe once upon a time it had consistent themes and messages. Nowadays it is little more than a sandbox to sell and smash plastic.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

deano2099 wrote:
Whereas Horus Heresy (and 40K in general), the actual books make up the majority of the storytelling in the setting and *are* the defining works. They're still tie-ins, but they're tie-ins to a game. The game does have some narrative elements sure, and there's narrative in codexes so it's still fuzzy, but it feels different.

Yeah, no, disagree with this. As someone who has little interest in Space Marines, the Horus Heresy offers me nothing interesting and doesn't define 40K at all. For many of the different factions in 40K, you get basically no novels of your own, and just have to make do with being on the receiving end of some bolter porn for Space Marine protagonists.

Which faction do you mean? While none are as lovingly-covered as the Space Marines, there are well regarded “classics” for each of the other factions (at least the pre-8th edition factions. I have no idea if there’s a Voltan novel or some gak.).

The impact of 40k on the genre as a whole is undeniable. That alone merits it some study.

Depends what you class as a classic. I haven't read any books for the Tau that I'd give that accolade to.

And what impact do you think 40K has had on the genre as a whole?

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

deano2099 wrote:
Whereas Horus Heresy (and 40K in general), the actual books make up the majority of the storytelling in the setting and *are* the defining works. They're still tie-ins, but they're tie-ins to a game. The game does have some narrative elements sure, and there's narrative in codexes so it's still fuzzy, but it feels different.

Yeah, no, disagree with this. As someone who has little interest in Space Marines, the Horus Heresy offers me nothing interesting and doesn't define 40K at all. For many of the different factions in 40K, you get basically no novels of your own, and just have to make do with being on the receiving end of some bolter porn for Space Marine protagonists.

Which faction do you mean? While none are as lovingly-covered as the Space Marines, there are well regarded “classics” for each of the other factions (at least the pre-8th edition factions. I have no idea if there’s a Voltan novel or some gak.).

The impact of 40k on the genre as a whole is undeniable. That alone merits it some study.

Depends what you class as a classic. I haven't read any books for the Tau that I'd give that accolade to.

And what impact do you think 40K has had on the genre as a whole?

The Tau had Firestarter, which has its flaws to be sure, but it also had one of the best running gags in 40k, every time it introduced a new character….
They also come across well in several Ciaphas Cain novels, although they are not the protagonists.


I’ve seen a big uptick in Grimdark space opera since 40k started becoming mainstream. The aesthetics have influenced a lot of games, tabletop or video. A lot of granular bits also seem to have been stolen by other writers, but it’s hard to say whether those writers were stealing from 40k or from the sources 40k raided.

I think most people would regard it as sci-fi, regardless of how soft the actual science is.

Where I think it falls flat in terms of being a great of the sci-fi world is:

1. Consistency - it's largely all over the place depending on what book you read. Like terminator armour that can withstand a volcano, but genestealer claws opening it like butter, but in a SM based book a regular marine can plow through GS like nothing.

2. Literary quality - I enjoy the books, but most aren't that well written. It's improving though.

3. Creativity. It's hard to hold up Murderfang from the planet Murder who has Murderlust and Murderclaws, as being some kind of innovative story. It's like something a 10 year old drew in a school book.

4. Scope. With the whole super grimdark only war thing, coupled with pretty poor story telling, there's very little sense of actual drama in anything. The story never really advances, risks never really come or go, and often any sense of danger is just dealt with by "and then the eagles came and took them away". There's rarely any will they won't they concern against any foes, or any plot twists you didn't see coming.
It doesn't really introduce any new concepts, leave the reader wondering about anything from a moral standpoint and so on, that you get from stuff like Asimov or Heinlein.

Given Space Marines are virtually immortal and the gene seed can usually be recovered, that demons return to the warp, that Orks, tyranid, guard are all essentially infinite, it doesn't really matter what they do. A Marine chapter can be virtually wiped out defeating a million tyranids, and the story is pretty much still where it is. Even the destruction of Cadia didn't really change the setting beyond Cadian guard becoming guard who wear Cadian armour. The Imperium still had countless planets to recruit from to defend itself against countless enemy. It makes sense from a gaming perspective because you can fight battles between any forces without any real concern about plot.

The only race that actually seems at risk of extinction is the Eldar, who, typical to space Elves, are long lived (but not as long lived as Space Marines), technologically advanced but undergoing a gradual decline.

5. Expandability. It's really hard to introduce any new concepts without it seeming forced, being that the Imperium is stagnating and no-one understands the technology, so introducing stuff is usually lore breaking like Centurions that suddenly already existed. You can introduce new races, but given the power imbalance they'd almost certainly be wiped out immediately, or they'd become another infinite horror.

There's a lot of depth to lore within the 64 HH books, but from a high level view it's pretty samey. Different legions besieging other legions on a pretty regular basis doesn't really leave much scope for any kind of deep academic analysis.


I can buy a lot of the 'science doesn't make sense' stuff on the basis that it's all declining civilisations that are totally lost in history. But so many bits of it still don't make sense on most levels.

I can still enjoy reading them, but compared to some proper book series I can't regard them as masterpieces. And that's ok.
As an analogy; Sharknado is one of the worst regarded films made from a quality perspective, but people love it all the same.

My favourite bit of 40K writing is still the time Creed and the Grey Knights defended the psychic wasp monster population of Fifteen against the Chaos forces who had their stronghold about thirty feet away.

Forge that narrative GW!

 Overread wrote:

Cyel wrote:
It's fantasy in space. It doesn't extrapolate on science as we know it, it just makes stuff up.

You can say that of a vast majority of sci-fi. That it makes stuff up.

Even some of the great hard-scifi still make a load of stuff up. New elements, new technologies, alien stuff etc...



Scifi isn't one definition with one single point, just like fantasy isn't one single style of fantasy.
There is fantasy which is almost historically accurate barring a few minor elements; then there's fantasy so chock full of magic and gods and imagination that its got no reflection on reality
There's sci-fi which is grounded in reality and might even be only set a few years in the future; then there's stuff that's got pewpew lasers in space and FTL travel and more.


Basically sci-fi is a generalist catch all term, just like fantasy; in fact they are so generalist that there's a good number of series that straddle the line between the two. You have to add other phrases to start drilling down into specific types of fantasy/scifi.

Trying to push hard-science sci-fi as the only true form is as missleading as trying to push epic fantasy as the only true style of fantasy.

Still, there's a difference between
-FTL travel is possible through a hypothetical future discovery of hyperdimensional wormholes
-FTL travel is possible through a realm of dreams and daemons

The latter is pure fairy tale fantasy magic stuff. The former - fiction based on science, even loosely.

Not really. Discovering wormholes and discovering that dreams and daemons come from said wormholes really isn't all that different. Marvel wormholes mostly contain tyranids after all and no one would consider them magic, though the ones that smell like brimstone people do?

The Prophets from Star Trek are considered aliens who live in a wormhole by the Federation.

To the Bajorans they are gods who reside in the celestial temple.

It's all about perspective and a lot of in-universe 40k explanations for Daemons are "extra-dimensional Xenos" which they technically sort of are.

Cyel wrote:

 Overread wrote:

Cyel wrote:
It's fantasy in space. It doesn't extrapolate on science as we know it, it just makes stuff up.

You can say that of a vast majority of sci-fi. That it makes stuff up.

Even some of the great hard-scifi still make a load of stuff up. New elements, new technologies, alien stuff etc...



Scifi isn't one definition with one single point, just like fantasy isn't one single style of fantasy.
There is fantasy which is almost historically accurate barring a few minor elements; then there's fantasy so chock full of magic and gods and imagination that its got no reflection on reality
There's sci-fi which is grounded in reality and might even be only set a few years in the future; then there's stuff that's got pewpew lasers in space and FTL travel and more.


Basically sci-fi is a generalist catch all term, just like fantasy; in fact they are so generalist that there's a good number of series that straddle the line between the two. You have to add other phrases to start drilling down into specific types of fantasy/scifi.

Trying to push hard-science sci-fi as the only true form is as missleading as trying to push epic fantasy as the only true style of fantasy.

Still, there's a difference between
-FTL travel is possible through a hypothetical future discovery of hyperdimensional wormholes
-FTL travel is possible through a realm of dreams and daemons

The latter is pure fairy tale fantasy magic stuff. The former - fiction based on science, even loosely.

I agree there is a difference, but both are still sci-fi.
You might call one "hard scifi" and one "Science fantasy" or any one of a number of other terms to separate the two, but they are still both generally Scifi. Again Sci fi is a huge huge huge catch-all term that encompasses a whole range of science fiction stories. It's the umbrella it all sits under and within that you've a huge myriad of different styles and types of story. Each one might criss cross another or even jump into full fantasy etc...

I love 40K and think the fusion of themes that it has mostly by accident due to the material circumstances of it's creation (being forced to include fantasy figures and work in some of Ansell's games) along with it's inspirations in Dune, 2000AD and late 70s early 80s Sci Fi films really created something special.

But a great work? Nah, that's going too far. It's a pastiche, and a great one. It rips off everything cool and twiddles the dials up to 11 and it's got some fun ideas and concepts. Some of the novels are even decent, but most are utter dreck.

The HH series has about 10 novels out of 54 which I would consider good reads, which is a pretty low hit rate.

It's not really worth comparing with the actual great works of Sci Fi in my opinion, and OP having a PhD in the topic doesn't really impress me or change my mind.

40k is so intensely derivative I find it very difficult to call it a great work of any genre it has taken its concepts from.

The general argument from Dr. Ryder seems to be that 40k is worth consideration because it is epic in scope, has a lot of lore, put the name to grimdork, and that it managed to attract a bunch of 40k fans to make an academic conference on 40k. But above all because it is big.

I am not sure any of these are especially good arguments for 40k to be called a great work of anything.

It doesn't exactly disqualify it as being worth consideration either, but to be honest, the vast majority of Cthulhu Mythos books aren't great works of horror or scifi. From Lovecraft on, they're often pretty sloppily written. And the Mythos is epic in scope, has a lot of lore, was grimdork before any 40k writer was born, and has been written extensively on by hundreds of academics over the years.

I think the 40k universe would be a very interesting and spot on case study for the style of often very derivative fantasy/sci fi franchise that over the last 40-50 years have grown out of fandom and made it big. Kind of like how Fifty Shades of Grey started out as a Twilight Fanfic, but on a whole other level and (to put it mildly) appealing to another group of people..

 MJRyder wrote:
I literally have a PhD in science fiction and philosophy and have published numerous peer reviewed papers on the topic. I am confident I know a lot more about SF than you do.

first of all, I didn't realised that this is your Dakka account and thought the article is from someone different so my wording might have read different than intended
yet if you are aware of most other works in SciFi and Fantasy (and as you don't know me assuming your academic title makes you know more, given that most US/English based aren't aware of foreign works at all, doesn't really impress me here), the article is bad wording at best

"among the biggest", "one of the bigger" ore similar would be something very different as "the" biggest" among SciFi and given that the 54 books of the HH series aren't all follow up story books but have a lot of fillers and a 2nd story arc not relevant to the main arc, you have 10-15 novels out of 54
and I don't see how the Horus Heresy in that case is "the biggest" over Battletech (with a 100 novels and less fillers) that is going for a longer time with a similar take as HH (and here I would even argue that GW copied the concept of the Civil War that ended the Golden Age causing the dystopian grimdark setting for the main plot from Battletech given that BT had it as a central part of the sitting from the beginning were 40k added that later) or Star Wars EU were individual series are also ~10-15 novels but link to each as well creating a similar world as the HH

and that still ignores Perry Rhodan because it is not really known or famous in the US or english speaking world, and all those "youth" or "light" SciFi books because they have a very different tone to HH (that is still more military porn rather than SciFi) and are therefore lesser know to adults (but given the style of writing of the 40k novels would still be considered if we talk about "biggest" as purely in numbers rather than quality in writing or story)

HH is still a good read if someone likes this style of books and "epic" story lines over the lighter more positive ones but is not unique in that case
and 40k as a franchise itself is big with a lot of content similar to Star Trek or Star Wars, that is getting more and more popular in the USA also among people who have had not contact to the tabletop game itself

I would certainly say 40k is "great" in the quantitative sense due to the fact that it is by far the largest wargame in terms of models and revenue, and it has many official books.

I wouldn't really call it great story-wise because the entire setting is open-ended and stagnant in order to support customer's creativity and narratives. Not to mention the whole setting is deliberately ridiculous & derivative.

As far as I'm aware, there isn't an official canon of "Great Science Fiction". Maybe if the author provided that, we could debate better if 40k can be included in such a list.

Cyel wrote:
It's fantasy in space. It doesn't extrapolate on science as we know it, it just makes stuff up.

By your definition, the only SciFi in existence is "The Martian."

To say a genre centered around gene-altered superhumans, starships with faster-than-light travel, guns that fire exploding mini-rockets, and goddam laser swords is not SciFi is laughable.

I'm laughing. At you, specifically. I hearty laugh. Like, I just saw an old lady slip on ice laugh.

I'm going to disagree with some definitions posted here.

I went back to the source materials for the positions I'm going to make.

First, George Lucas has described Star Wars as a space opera rather than traditional science fiction. While it incorporates many elements commonly associated with science fiction, such as advanced technology, space travel, and alien species, Lucas emphasized that Star Wars is more about myth, adventure, and the hero's journey.

In interviews, Lucas has often pointed out that Star Wars draws heavily on mythological and archetypal storytelling, influenced by the works of Joseph Campbell and others. He aimed to create a modern myth that resonates with universal themes of good versus evil, heroism, and redemption.

So, while Star Wars contains science fiction elements, Lucas himself prefers to categorize it as a space fantasy or space opera, focusing on its mythological and narrative aspects rather than strictly adhering to the conventions of science fiction.

Second, in the book The Making of Star Trek by Stephen E. Whitfield and Gene Roddenberry, where Roddenberry discusses the themes and intentions behind the series. Roddenberry says, "I think of Star Trek as a moral play with a veneer of science fiction."

His Wagon Train to the Stars concept allowed him to tell stories that you normally couldn't tell, especially on broadcast television in the 1960s.

Much like the scantily clad women were used, so "The censors could say no to something," the outer space setting was simply a setting for the stories Roddenberry wanted to tell.

well, just because it is Fantasy in Space, doesn't make it SciFi
a setting were FTL travel is possible because of "space magic" is science fantasy at best

in addition, GWs official advertising is "the best fantasy miniatures in the world"

so either, 40k models do not belong to the best models in the world, just the AoS ones, or they themselves don't consider it SciFi

Even a large amount of "hard scifi" is fantasy science.

 kronk wrote:

Cyel wrote:
It's fantasy in space. It doesn't extrapolate on science as we know it, it just makes stuff up.

By your definition, the only SciFi in existence is "The Martian."

To say a genre centered around gene-altered superhumans, starships with faster-than-light travel, guns that fire exploding mini-rockets, and goddam laser swords is not SciFi is laughable.

I'm laughing. At you, specifically. I hearty laugh. Like, I just saw an old lady slip on ice laugh.

Your frustration is not my problem.

I don't understand where this "Science-Fiction must be realistic" idea came from. Even the earliest science-fiction stories were ridiculous Pulp tales or epics or were otherwise very unrealistic. Essentially any story involving space empires or futuristic technology or aliens or robots or speculation about the future is Science-Fiction in some way.

Using the definition some here use, there hasn't been a popular science-fiction franchise in a long time since everything is actually "Science-Fantasy" or something else.

It's mostly Cyels interpretation that requires sci-fi to be an extrapolation of science as we know it, which then in turn requires it to be realistic.


I should note most of us are debating against that stance and that what he's after, what many might call hard sci-fi is just one of many.

Sci-fi is a generic catch-all term just like Fantasy. The two criss cross over each other and both have dozens of sub-genres (that also criss cross over each other).

Indeed many works can often be interpreted as having elements of multiple sub-genres.