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Offline Irandrura

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Heretic tomes
« on: July 12, 2010, 05:12:16 AM »


Quote from: Black Library official FAQ
Why do some Print on Demand titles have a Heretic Tomes logo on them?

Some of the titles in our back catalogue no longer accurately reflect the fictional universes of Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000 and would require extensive rewriting to bring them up to date. Rather than keep these titles on the shelf, we’ve decided to reprint them but make it quite clear that these books are not to be considered an accurate portrayal of the Warhammer or Warhammer 40,000 universe.
Link

This is the first time I've become aware of this, but glancing through board history, it hasn't come up before.

So, in essence, what this is saying is that GW has adopted a canon hierarchy, and that hierarchy is: New is True.

Thoughts? Comments? Discussion?

It should go without saying that I am most unhappy and disappointed, but I'll save everyone a few angry rants and leave it there.
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Offline Underhand

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Re: Heretic tomes
« Reply #1 on: July 12, 2010, 05:28:58 AM »
I am definitely happy about it.

The 40k background fluff is a complete mess.  To be honest, the huge volume of contradictory material in the fluff is lazy at best and just plain incompetent at worst.  Especially from a company that values its IP so highly.

The excuse that different conflicting material comes from biased sources to try to hand wave away obvious discrepancies between one piece of writing and another has always been a lame one.  Such an excuse would be acceptable if it were written as being provided from an in universe source, but not if the information comes from a third person omniscent perspective.

I would even actually like to see GW/Black Library come out with some sort of official cannon guide.  There is so much crap that needs to get cleaned up/out.

Offline Irisado

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Re: Heretic tomes
« Reply #2 on: July 12, 2010, 07:42:07 AM »
As far as I am concerned, it does not change anything to that great an extent because most background relating to armies is to be found in codices and old issues of White Dwarf, and this change by the the Black Library will not affect such publications, so I don't view it as being a major problem.  Furthermore, it can easily be argued that a lot of old background material will not be affected by this change, because it was not published by the Black Library.

That said, I don't find the idea that new background automatically supercedes old background in any source to be a particularly compelling one, unless the new background specifically replaces a piece of old background.  I would, however, add the caveat that if this means that all new Eldar novels published by the Black Library automatically discredit everything that C.S. Goto wrote, this would be a silver lining to this policy  ;).
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Offline Sir_Godspeed

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Re: Heretic tomes
« Reply #3 on: July 12, 2010, 11:32:47 AM »
I would even actually like to see GW/Black Library come out with some sort of official cannon guide.  There is so much crap that needs to get cleaned up/out.

The problem arises when you know GW is going to keep alot of the crap and throw away alot of the gold nuggets (case in point: the new Heresy fluff. Because banning all kinds of psykery makes SOOO much sense!)

Offline Benis

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Re: Heretic tomes
« Reply #4 on: July 12, 2010, 11:53:33 AM »
Yes, I agree with the majority so far. In my opinion there isn't anything inherently bad with having each piece of fluff as a stand alone bias interpretation of the 40k universe, it helps to keep the universe open and malleable to your personal interpretation. Sure, it could be nice with some increased consistency but given the varying quality I far prefer it to be able to select what makes up my 40k universe.

Offline Gornon

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Re: Heretic tomes
« Reply #5 on: July 13, 2010, 01:30:54 PM »
I agree with Benis.  There are just somethings about GW's universe I prefer to ignore!  Would it be best to post this link up in the stickies?  Also, how prevalent are these icons?  If GW slapped them on only a few choice works, like Xenology, it would not be too bad.
« Last Edit: July 13, 2010, 01:32:42 PM by Gornon »
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Offline Underhand

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Re: Heretic tomes
« Reply #6 on: July 13, 2010, 04:36:26 PM »
They aren't prevalent at all. They relate mainly to old books that GW have just started printing again.  Ian Watson's Space Marine, and (I think) the Jaq Draco trilogy have them.  I'm not aware of any others off the top of my head, although there are probably a few.

Offline Irandrura

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Re: Heretic tomes
« Reply #7 on: July 14, 2010, 04:54:23 AM »
Yep, everything by Ian Watson for a start. (I'd almost rather everything else have the icon...) Presumably they objected to him including a prominent Squat character, for instance.

William King's Farseer has it as well. I'm not sure why.

Here's another link on their justification for it, and here's an interview about it.

Quote from: Christian Dunn of BL Publishing
However, we are branding some of the books within the PoD range as 'Heretic Tomes'. One of the great opportunities with PoD is to bring back older titles - some of which even pre-date Black Library - that no longer accurately reflect the Warhammer or Warhammer 40,000 universes. These are the kind of novels that we wouldn't want to put on the shelves of a Games Workshop or bookstore because anybody unfamiliar with Warhammer or Warhammer 40,000 might get the wrong idea and come away with an inaccurate picture of our fictional universes.

I find this attitude very worrisome. Is Space Marine an 'inaccurate' picture of 40k? Are Draco or Farseer inaccurate? If even published material can be arbitrarily labelled inaccurate or inauthentic, then we pave the way to an ever-more restrictive, straitjacketed view of 40k background.
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Offline Koval, Master Verispex

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Re: Heretic tomes
« Reply #8 on: July 14, 2010, 08:18:57 AM »
I find this attitude very worrisome. Is Space Marine an 'inaccurate' picture of 40k? Are Draco or Farseer inaccurate? If even published material can be arbitrarily labelled inaccurate or inauthentic, then we pave the way to an ever-more restrictive, straitjacketed view of 40k background.
No, just very old, and the 40Kverse apparently marches on.

That's not to say Space Marine etc. aren't enjoyable, though, because there must have been enough people wanting those books for the Print On Demand service to even feature them.

Offline Perigrine

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Re: Heretic tomes
« Reply #9 on: July 15, 2010, 09:15:27 PM »

Personally I find this troublesome as this means ben counter is given free reign to completely beslubber up the 40k verse with his illogical poorly concieved drivel he dares call literature. Personally I say they should stamp a heretic tome mark on his head and break his hands with a old heavy typewriter.

Offline neverXmore

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Re: Heretic tomes
« Reply #10 on: July 16, 2010, 12:52:57 AM »
I'm curious, what is the content of Space Marine and Farseer which would be considered inaccurate now? I havn't read any of the books that have been marked with this stamp.

So sad but true.
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Offline Koval, Master Verispex

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Re: Heretic tomes
« Reply #11 on: July 16, 2010, 03:41:01 AM »
Space Marine has Squats in it, for a start, and a Zoat features very prominently near the end. Not read Farseer so I can't comment, though I'd rather like to as I enjoyed Bill King's Space Wolf stuff.

Offline Irandrura

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Re: Heretic tomes
« Reply #12 on: July 16, 2010, 05:11:17 AM »
Space Marine has Squats in it, for a start, and a Zoat features very prominently near the end.

I'm not sure what the problem with a Zoat would be. The current Tyranid codices do not mention them; perhaps it is felt that the Zoats are too interesting, and give the Tyranids too much depth?
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Offline neverXmore

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Re: Heretic tomes
« Reply #13 on: July 16, 2010, 08:04:23 AM »
Space Marine has Squats in it, for a start, and a Zoat features very prominently near the end.
I'm not sure what the problem with a Zoat would be. The current Tyranid codices do not mention them; perhaps it is felt that the Zoats are too interesting, and give the Tyranids too much depth?
I thought that the current Games Workshop stance on both Squats and Zoats seemed was not that they never existed, but that they didn't exist anymore. What is the fluff for Zoats? I've seen some models, but like most of the very old stuff they didn't really look too flash.

So sad but true.
I don't want to seem rude but if I wanted to take part in talking about why the eldar codex needs to be better I'd read pretty much any thread in the Eldar forum.

Offline The Ecclesiarch

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Re: Heretic tomes
« Reply #14 on: July 16, 2010, 08:37:16 AM »
:o Zoats are mentioned in the last tyranid codex! (pg25 Forgotten Fleets, Collossus).
Sentient centauroid creatures that communicate telepathically, apparently they fled the hive fleet after gaining awareness that they were slaves and tried to settle in human space...followed by an inveitable war of extermination against them by the Imperium :D
...and subsequent death of the Zoat race... :-X

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Offline neverXmore

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Re: Heretic tomes
« Reply #15 on: July 16, 2010, 11:22:10 AM »
:o Zoats are mentioned in the last tyranid codex! (pg25 Forgotten Fleets, Collossus).
Sentient centauroid creatures that communicate telepathically, apparently they fled the hive fleet after gaining awareness that they were slaves and tried to settle in human space...followed by an inveitable war of extermination against them by the Imperium :D
...and subsequent death of the Zoat race... :-X
A similar fate to squats in many ways.

So sad but true.
I don't want to seem rude but if I wanted to take part in talking about why the eldar codex needs to be better I'd read pretty much any thread in the Eldar forum.

Offline Gornon

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Re: Heretic tomes
« Reply #16 on: July 16, 2010, 11:27:55 AM »
I've added this page to the Stickies.  More or less, I have stated what GW has said and linked to this topic.  Since GW has not stated just what makes these books out of date, I have decided that once again, it is up to the posters and players to decide what is outdated and what is not.
« Last Edit: July 17, 2010, 11:09:21 AM by Gornon »
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