DukeLeto69

I always wondered why GW allowed him to be 2nd Company. Is there some lore reason why only the 2nd Company Captain is “cool”?

Indeed his volume of output alone would secure him best selling BL author status but pretty sure some of his novels are individually the biggest sellers too.

More than 10yrs ago they were claiming Abnett had sold over a million books

Actually I can say with total confidence that THE best selling author for BL is Dan Abnett. By a country mile. That is why he gets a pass so often to do his thang!

I’d like to think you were right but I suspect this overplays how important Black Library is to Games Workshop. My understanding of ADB’s role at GW (which he might have on Linkedin = I should look) is something like Head of Lore or some such. I think the significance of this role comes into play against the background of the Amazon deal and ensuring the “writer’s room” are not playing fast and loose with the lore. That is worth significantly more to GW than a novel by ADB. Also, and this is totally understandable, I think you are overplaying the importance of being a “best selling author” because the reality is that this amounts to small beans. Back when the HH landed several entries on the New York Times Bestseller List it created a bit of buzz. However, somebody did some analysis and the reality was to get a top ten position on that list only required c.10,000 units to shift in a week. That is in the USA, the World’s largest market. Basically what I am saying is ADB generated less income for GW than we might think and Senior Mgt are probably more keen on tapping his brain to ensure we get the best outcome from the Amazon deal.

Oh oh you don’t think BL will rebrand ADB’s Black Legion books as The Scouring do you? I mean time-wise and if a setting!!!! They shouldn’t! Personally I would prefer The Scouring to be a setting not a sequential series but looking at HH it will be the latter I bet. Of course they could do both! Bit of sub-branding and books like the Black Legion and the Flesh Tearers start to fit in timeline wise. Then have a core series also.

Aha I had it in my mind Bobbie was last man standing in realspace (apart from Vulkan as per The Beast Arises and the others disappearing off into the warp or webway) but I was wrong.

You may have hit that nail on the head! This makes sense (within BL/GW) because it pretty much (yes exceptions) finishes the “story of the Primarchs) started in the HH books and leaves the “cliffhanger” ready to be picked up with Era Indomitus and Robbie G’s revival. Hmmmmm?

Whoah is that “not going on too much” ha ha P.S. I am joking. Good (long) post!

So a sample of one! Why is it “weird” that people have different tastes to you?

Great concept (monthly serialised novels) but poorly executed (no surprise there). They should have had the entire series written with enough time and editorial oversight to ensure no contradictions or repeated ideas. Instead I believe at most half had been written and the rest were chasing preset deadlines.

I suspect the length of the series will be totally dictated by how popular it is and whether there are milking opportunities. The Scouring “era” lasted far longer than the HH itself. Personally I’d rather they had the Scouring as a “setting” rather than a sequential series but that allows us to more easily opt out or pick n choose the books to buy!

You see NOW I am intrigued by… And I am perfectly capable of ignoring what i don’t like and sticking to my head canon anyway!

I will wait for the paperback and reviews before committing to any more potentially long running BL series. And even then I will kick my collector habit and just buy the books that sound interesting/have best reviews. The HH burned me (despite some fabulous books, many were meh!)

If this is going off topic (as not about changes to the setting) then apologies and just nuke it… The discussions about the nature of the Warp and by extension the Warp “Gods” is where the lore is (deliberately?) confusing. At times it feels as though the Chaos “Gods” exist purely because of the emotions and actions of humanity. Yet that would imply only humanity would be impacted by it? Yet the Eldar pre-date humanity and created their own Chaos “God” so cannot therefore be a uniquely human “creation” and surely it is all sentient species? Confess to being rusty here! If the Warp/Immaterium is a realm generated by emotions then it cannot only manifest what we consider negative emotions/actions and be subjectively “evil”. There MUST be “Good” Chaos “Gods” too due to the power of “positive” emotions. ie Love is as powerful as Hate (wrong example but hopefully you get my point). I wrote “Evil” and “Good” in inverted commas because the perception of something being one or the other is subjective not objective and the Chaos “Gods” likely have no perception or perspective of what constitutes good or evil because they just are what they are. They do not place themselves or their “followers” on a linear scale from good to evil because they simply exist because the emotions/actions exist. If all wars, killing, martial prowess etc just stopped then Khorne ceases to exist right? That is why, for me, the way some authors portray the “bad guys” as evil moustache twirling villains is simply wrong (and comical). They are not “evil” in their own minds. They are not the “bad guys” in their own minds. In fact it would be reversed for them no? For me it would be far more sinister if these “bad guys” were/are portrayed as normal to our 21st Century eyes. Far scarier if what we perceive as evil is shown through their actions rather than their physical manifestation. The casual disregard for the life or wellbeing of others while from the outside being perceived/seen as “normal” is what feels really “evil”. Which means of course that the IoM is in fact “evil” and there are no “good guys” which for me is the heart of Grimdark and the nihilism that was always at the centre of the setting.