But as one gets older and gets that not too plesant experience, stories consisting only of black don’t appeal that much anymore. And that’s where WH40K is different from many other stories – there is a brighter side. Despite all degeneration, all that death and misery, people still have hope and there is still something greater and bigger in the world rather than ‘you work 25 hours a day at the foundry your whole life and then you die’. After all, soldiers making their final stand, make it for someone – be it Emperor, their family back hope or something else.

Or maybe I’m just imagining things.

So…thank you.

Another aspect of 40k I particularly enjoy is that anyone can create their own little piece to the universe by fighting battles (with miniatures basically) and writing stories which for some turn out to be great novels.

Your works are particularly fantastic (The first heretic, which you signed for me so thanks for that, soul hunter, which I can’t wait to continue with when blood reaver is released and Helsreach, currently reading).

Keep up the good work and all other authors of novels/codex who fill this universe with much more stories for people to read upon to get inspiration and/or to enjoy some good old action

I’ve only just picked up Horus Rising after years of thinking ‘tie-in? Hpmuh, no thanks’, and am kicking myself for waiting this long. well, no, not true; I now have a dozen novels to be read one after the other. No waiting between books for me!

Sir, you are a talented writer and I, among the others here, love your work and share your passion. Write on, good man, write on.

Big fan of your novels, currently building up a Night Lords warband after reading Soul Hunter for the 3rd time.

I quite like your overall view of the 40k universe, it’s great. I guess it really shoves the fact in your face that this story of the galaxy is hostile, and no matter how much you want your favorite army to win, it will probably die almost unremembered in the gritty, bleak existance of humanity.

I’d love for you to shoot me a message sometime, if you don’t mind. Just to discuss things such as existing novels and all (obviously not what you have in mind as that would be a breach of your job).

Thanks for your time! Hopefully you read this!

Looking forward to your new NL novel! As well as potential books in the future!

Aye there was alot of it in the heresy books, after all the intention of those was to flesh out the background. I simply found it interesting as I still maintain that its not often done.

The BL authors already invent new characters and fit them into the existing fluff. In many ways they’ve taken over from the codexes in being the main way for new fluff to be introduced.

Hell 90% of the Horus Heresy line is newly invented stuff or retconned such as Fulgrim’s story. I don’t really think Aaron has done anything out of the ordinary.

Besides everyone knew that Curze had died, otherwise his final words would have been utterly pointless. The doubt was put there in classic 40k style just to create a debate

jack: Read my comment again.
I’ve read soul hunter -_-

My point was ADB gave his character a sizeably important part of the fluff, and I was wondering how he felt about making a character he created have an important role in the estalished 40k background. Up until recently it was left somewhat up in the air as to if even curze had been killed or the fate of the assassin. Authors in the black library don’t often do that – plenty have their stories not impact of the history of the chapter or legion.

Read Soul Hunter again. Talos Title is explained

I’m an avid Iron Warriors collector [although I dabble with small Night Lords squads hence my interest in your books] and the sort of battles they engage in are in the vein of WW1 siege and trench warfare which we don’t really see these days.

I think the finest point in your books so far was when it was noted that the night lords in their drop pod were now so few in number and their armour scavenged in pieces which showed that Chaos are suffering the same sort of decay as the loyalists, if not worse.

N.B not sure how it works in terms of ‘oh ADB has monopoly on night lords, mc neil has monopoly on iron warriors etc’ in the Black Library/Lenton, but it would be nice to see you tackle some other chaos legions too.

Also, how did you feel about tackling serious fluff that had remained untouched, for example, without giving any spoilers away, why the title ‘soul hunter’ was given by kurze. Somewhat brave to give one’s own character such a prestigious honour. Then again whoever dreamed up Zho Sahal was also content to make them head of 1st company and the inventor of assault squads I guess. Thoughts?

I dont. I love Aaron’s hatefull in-you’r-face ravings. Not that this was’nt spot on 🙂

Nothing like a heroic last stand to stir the blood.

I take that first sentence back, with apologies to the people behind this website – I thought this was AD-B’s blog. This is the most mature post by AD-B I’ve read, and I hope he can keep this up.

Commissar Ploss

(It probably says something that the other games I’ve recently been re-immersing in are SLA and Dark Conspiracy, which also share the air of crushed dreams and rearguard actions against destroyed hopes.)

And then there’s that other retcon – the complete switch of the Tyrannids from the squishy odd things of the Big Blue Book ™ to the Giger-esque creatures of later editions. One of the BL authors at the recent SFX Weekender alluded to others during the session on “Tie-in novels”.

“Kids like it, sure. It’s got war in it, and it’s a developed, cool setting. The ties to the game bring in a lot of younger readers, though it’d be a lie to say I – and, I assume, my colleagues – are writing for that age group.”

Mr ADB’s spot on. As a studio games developer of 8 years and an author and freelance rpg writer for the last 2, I can say I’ve always written for myself, and that’s always been the brief. The thing is, when we were kids, we didn’t want to play or read what the cool kids were playing or reading – we read above our reading age and aspired to what we perceived as cooler, more adult pastimes. For me, that’s what made Rogue Trader so cool, and hopefully the tradition will continue for many more years to come.

No longer is it just something that churns out tie-in books to sell off the back off the tabletop game but it’s attracting large numbers of people that don’t and never will play the game.

@irregular_Joe 40k isn’t adverse to some fairly bad retcons at times. The fate of Fulgrim is one that springs to mind but on the whole you’re right. It certainly hasn’t reached the silliness of comic book retconning or Star Wars.

You and your colleagues at Black Library keep doing an excellent job fleshing out and giving breath to the 40K universe and history.