Hi, I’m Dan, and I’ll be your God-Emperor of Mankind

by danabnett on Jan.21, 2010, under Dan Abnett and Graham McNeill

It was recently announced that the luminous Michael Moorcock would be writing a Doctor Who novel. In the press release, he said that this book was “not a tie-in”. Later, presumably after people had coughed quietly and politely behind him, he issued another statement correcting the (I’m sure quite genuine) error. He said that when he’d called his book ‘not a tie-in’, he’d meant that it wasn’t going to be a novelisation of a TV episode.
The stigma of the tie-in rises again. I mention this after Adam’s comment yesterday. And blow me down, if that doesn’t reveal another ghetto of fiction. There are the high-end ‘real‘ books, the stigmatized tie-in stuff, and then there are novelizations. I’ve got my hands full fighting the good fight for the original tie-in, but while I’m on the subject… (*deep breath*) there is ALSO a real craft to taking a movie or TV script and turning it into a slice of fiction. It is an old and honorable trade. People have devoted their lives to this particular job, and they are unfairly dismissed. Of course, BY ITS VERY NATURE, a novelisation is going to look more like a flimsy cash-in than another tie-in product. And some are bad. You know what, some ‘real‘ books are bad too.
What I’m really saying is, there are two types of tie-in and I write the good kind… oh, people, I’m kidding! Okay? Kidding! The previous paragraph was intended to show full solidarity with the writers who make the unsung art of the novelisation their stock in trade. It’s a real skill to do it well. Actually, now’s a good time to mention that tie-in writers of all stripes have a recognised international association, the IAMTW. Go google it. It’s long past time I became a fully paid-up member. If they’ll have someone like me after this.
40K tie-in is a funny beast, unlike any other brand I’ve encountered. In the first place, the universe is the best part of three decades old, and it’s matured (yes, that’s the word. Not ‘fermented’). In the early days, the masters of that universe had huge difficulty generating fiction or comics precisely because they were so worried about strangers coming in with muddy shoes, scaring the cat, and breaking the fine china.
I was approached to write for the 40K Universe (and its fantasy counterpart, Warhammer) in the late nineties. As a recovering role-playing gamer (I still attend meetings: “my name’s Dan, and I’m a third level magic user”), I got it pretty quickly. I enjoyed writing ‘straight‘ (or ‘adjective-less’) Warhammer (still do), but the rules were very tight because it’s only one world. 40k is a galaxy, a multi-dimensional universe, in fact. It’s huge. There were a handful of very simple, unbreakable rules: certain things you simply Could Not Do and certain things you always needed to, but they were really easy to remember. What impressed me from day one was the scope and scale. This universe was massive, and so exotic and unexplored, you could find plenty of space to develop all sorts of ideas that in other pre-fab universes would have been continuity no-no’s.
What impressed me even more was the emphasis on flavour. Yes, of course you had to get the rules and technical details right, but the most important thing to capture was the very particular taste of 40k. It’s exotic, cruel and dark, an Imperial glory that is part Ancient Rome and part high Victorian; it’s grotesque and heroic, savage and ornate. You want the movie pitch? It’s Mervyn Peake’s Dune. It’s Charles Dickens’s Gormenghast. It’s Frank Herbert’s Brave New World. It’s Terry Gilliam’s Gladiator. It’s H.P. Lovecraft’s Full Metal Jacket.
I started on a small scale, creating the character of Gaunt, an officer put in charge of a recon regiment called the Ghosts. Combat SF, infantry war. Wilfred Owen’s Heart of Darkness. Clark Ashton Smith’s All Quiet On The Western Front. I chose human characters (Imperial Guard) rather than Space Marines (the post-human 40k poster boys) because I was on a learning curve and I needed that human connection. I’ve since written space marines, successfully, but the books about Gaunt and the boys and girls are my main series, because, when all’s said and done, they’re about people. It doesn’t matter what universe they’re in (or who invented it), it’s a character-driven thing.
Ghosts die in the books. It’s war, and I am not a benevolent creator. Boy, do readers get upset. I have been physically menaced on occasions because people have become so engaged with a character or characters. I can think of no finer compliment. I can think of a few pleasanter ones, but…
Once I’d developed a little confidence in the 40k universe, I started to play around. 40k is essentially a table-top science fiction combat game. That’s precisely what the Gaunt books depict: they don’t wander too far from the game experience. Then I started writing the Eisenhorn books alongside them. This trilogy (and its sequel trilogy, Ravenor) covers the life and adventures of inquisitors, the ‘occult police enforcers‘ of the 40k Imperium. These aren’t battlefield stories, they’re supernatural detective thrillers set in the hives and cities and slums and ruins of the 40k universe, on alien worlds, in industrial structures, in daily life. It was one of the first times anyone had taken a shot at portraying the 40k universe away from the frontline. The editors and I gave it the underwhelming name ’domestic 40k’. It proved to be very popular (readers often tell me that the Eisenhorn books, now collected as one gorgeous omnibus, are their favourite things, and I love the Eisenhorn and Ravenor sequences so much, I’ll be writing a third, final trilogy - the Bequin books - as soon as I can).
The same goes for the Horus Heresy. Since 40k was first invented, part of the background fluff has been that there was a great civil war, the Heresy, ten thousand years before the game setting. The Heresy made 40k the universe it is. A hand-picked elite team of writers, including me and Graham, were recruited to write books recounting this story. A bit like the Dirty Dozen with laptops. Rather than ‘domestic 40k’, we were developing ‘historical 40k‘ (aka‘ 30k’). Graham and I will be chatting about this a little tomorrow.
My point (and I do have one) is that the 40k universe, despite being somebody else’s, and full of somebody else’s rules, has revealed great creative freedoms to me. You don’t have to break the toys and then invisibly mend them, nor do you have to be so careful with them you leave narry a mark upon them. You’ve got to know where to look, and you’ve got to know how to exploit what you find. You’ve got to be sensitive to the rules of the common reality, yet bold enough to test them. At no point has that process seemed less satisfying than being creative in a universe of my own, because I’ve immersed myself so deeply in it, that distinction has blurred somewhat.
Yesterday, Derrick very kindly commented that he never thought of 40k as NOT being my universe. Then again, gainsayers may argue that all I’ve done is create a ‘Dan-i-verse‘ inside 40k, just as Graham has created a ‘Graham-i-verse’, and the real rulebook sticklers often rebuke me for making mistakes. Well, it’s a big universe and there’s room for everyone.
Then again, as e.e. cummings wrote, “Listen; there’s a hell of a good universe next door: let’s go. “
Nice one, e.e. In the spirit of that quote, I will, in a day or two, talk about working in my ‘own‘ universes, with Triumff and Sinister Dexter. Tomorrow, you lucky people, we’ll post up a chat Graham and I have been having about 40k, the Heresy, making things up, universes (our own and others), and so on. Be warned: put the analogy police on speed dial.

Somebody else’s blog, somebody else’s universe…
Wow, this is a bit like checking into a fancy hotel. Will you look at this blog? It’s got decorative side motifs, for goodness sake! It’s not like being at home in your own blog. Everything’s so clean, and there are mints on the pillow… I’m Dan. Hello. Morgan and...
Not the end
So I guess we’re at the packing your suitcase and waiting for a cab to the airport stage of our visit here at Babel Clash, and I’d like to echo what Graham said last night: we’ve had a splendid time, it’s been great meeting you all and chatting to you...
A New Record
Hey Dan & Graham, Congratulations on setting a new record for us here at Babel Clash. We’ve had more visitors during your stint on Babel Clash than we have ever had before. Take a bow, gentlemen. I think that says a lot about your skills, how much your fans appreciate...
For your weekend reading pleasure…
I just wanted to pop back tonight and get you all fired up for Graham McNeill, who’ll be manning the main blog here for the next couple of days. Expect Ultramarines, the origin of Graham’s Ultramarine fiction, writing nuts and bolts (should that be ‘bolters’?), and plenty of other cool...
Any other business?
So, Saturday morning here in the UK, really early, still dark, crisp and cold. Don’t know what woke me. Maybe it was the giant-size Hollywood-style full moon lighting the edges of the cloud banks as it sets; more likely the telepathic tremors letting me know how popular our stint here...

19 Comments for this entry

elizabeth
January 21st, 2010 on 9:40 am
i still haven’t forgiven you for killing caff. (my husband likes to politely remind me when i start reading a new book that he better not get woken up by a hysterical wife at 3 am because a character just died)

but the mention of writing bequin books made me squeal with delight, while the students taking their exams just look at their loony teacher wondering what the hell that was about!
Frank
January 21st, 2010 on 10:25 am
Kudos to Ian Watson’s Inquisition Wars books. I’m still amazed at what he came up with and added to the universe. Remote control spy flies, a sexy human-tyrannid hybrid assassin. The marriage of a rich universe and a great author (as is Dan) is an awesome recipe.
elizabeth
January 21st, 2010 on 10:39 am
ooh and i got the ‘zing’ too!!!
Cor
January 21st, 2010 on 10:46 am
Finally made my way over from your usual blog, anyway time to add my opinion to this raging debate on tie in fiction.

I remember reading the first three Halo tie in novels the fall of reach, the flood and first strike and was a fan of the games at the time, I remember how the first one was incredibly detailed and gave more depth and flavor to the world than the game could ever hope to achieve, the way it went into the quite dark and disturbing creation of the games main character the super soldier master chief and the rest of the spartans, and third strike continued this but with the flood which was an actual novelisation of the first game fell short I saw no point in reading what was simply a word for word copy of the events of the game and its this sort of tie in which gives the whole genre its bad reputation.

On a similar note I was having a discussion with my friend in the pub the other day and im always trying to get him to read your books ive offered numerous times to lend him the first Ghost Omnibus or eisenhorn or ravenor but he just wont have it and on this particular time he came out with ‘why dont you read proper books once you did you’d give up this warhammer nonscence’ i was just wondering how you sell this sort of fiction to people who just dismiss it.
Leif
January 21st, 2010 on 11:24 am
@ elizabeth: Look at Lijah Cuu and what he has done. Everytime I read his name I spuirm because of what he did. /SPOILER/ But it is a way to empathize with a character, with Bragg we lost a great friendship, with Muril we lost future potential, with Corbec the hope. I lost a few of my favourite ones, too, but the show must go on. And Dan has a knack o introducing new interesting characters.

@Dan: How do you come up with such rememberable names for everything? I have read quite a few books in my lifetime and yours are the only ones where I could name 20 different planets or persons from the top of my head. Rereading His Last Command again and and noticed that I could ascertain “so this guy is Tanith, and this one Verghast” althought he appeared for the first time (and died shortly after that).

Also I liked very much how you included Sergeant Blake in one of Gaunts dreams, although he had only three lines and died seven books ago. Sorry for my english.
Adam
January 21st, 2010 on 12:01 pm
Gotta chime in on Cor here. I agree, overall, that Fall of Reach added more meat to the Halo ‘verse, and that the expansion of the story from simply Master Chief to the of the UNSC as a whole, as well as the other spartans and the end-justifies-the-means training program, but I had a very, very hard time accepting Eric Nylund’s ridiculous characterization of Master Chief. I thought he was a completely ass-backwards character, and a few scenes had me scoffing at how hard Nylund tried to humanize him, with dumb, unconvincing results. Furthermore, though he added a ton of unique stuff to the ‘verse, like the engineers of the covenant, a deeper exploration into the hierarchical system and what-have-you, he completely ignored the Elites until the end of the novel, where he stuck them in as almost an afterthought, making it seem like the Elites were a similar creation to the Spartans - a measure for the Covies to deal with them. When in fact, if the games are any indication, the Elites have been the backbone of the Covenant military for centuries; their absence served no purpose other than to build suspense for one of the most cliche zero-gee fistfights I’ve ever read.

And, though the Flood has some glaring errors (MC’s narration of walking down tunnels, switching to shredder rounds, and killing 2.5 elites before activating the light bridge and hopping back into the warthog yadda yadda was tiresome), I think overall William Dietz is a much better writer. The strength of The Flood isn’t in the master chief chapters (though I found his character, the few times it was managed to be squeezed in beside all the game-narration, much more convincing), it’s in the chapters about the Marines, fighting to secure the hill on which they’ve made their stand, that I found the read convincing and expansive. The difference in characterization between MC of Nylund’s work and the MC of Dietz work I blame more on Nylund than Dietz, since Nylund seemed to completely ignore the MC from the game.

I feel like First Strike is the strongest one so far (Ghosts of Onyx was a miss for me), since it mixed what Nylund did well in the first book with a less retardedly unrealistic Master Chief.

Anyway, would you look at that? Maybe I don’t scoff so much at tie-ins as I thought. I just need a good introduction, perhaps.
Andrey
January 21st, 2010 on 12:01 pm
This site is beautiful but the post formatting is not. Please, use line breaks and paragraph breaks. Your loyal readers thank you…
danabnett
January 21st, 2010 on 12:15 pm
Elizabeth - I’m very sorry to you and your husband. Still, if I was at school, I’d want you to be my teacher. You read 40k. You rock, miss.

Frank - Yeah, I think somehow I came across as suggesting that nothing existed in 40K fiction until I showed up. My bad. Ian’s books are amazing and ground-breaking. And wonderfully insane in places.

Cor - Hi! Interesting comments, which no doubt sum up the tie-in experience for many people. Your mate sounds very resistant, and some people will just never be won over. Assuming he’s a regular reader who enjoys a good book, AND assuming he’s an SF reader (if he isn’t either, it really is going to be like trying to push soup up hill… also, what have you got in common?), tell him you’ll buy him a pint if he reads the first couple of chapters of Eisenhorn and still thinks it’s tosh. It’s like a bind taste challenge, except he won’t be blindfold and there’s no actual tasting involved. Plus, if it goes wrong, you can claim the price of a pint back off me next time you see me at a convention.

Leif - I’m not sure about the names. I’m glad you like them, and I’m very glad you’ve noticed that a Tanith name can only be a Tanith name, a Verghast name Verghast etc. I’m very particular about names, but it’s an art not a science. I just get a gut feeling when a name is right. Having said that, I kill so many guardsmen in the Gaunt books, I have taken to collecting lists of names at Games Days: when people come to get books signed, I invite them to sign my list if they’d like a character named after them to be bumped off in the next volume. Note: not all names work, and I don’t guarantee mode of demise.
Cees
January 21st, 2010 on 12:29 pm
Hi Dan, I’ve had a question about GG for a while that I was saving up for one of the youtube interviews; however since you’re here now I’ll just place it here.
After I read Blood Pact I reread Traitor general. In TG I noticed that Gaunt remarked to himself having served with Rawne for the better part of 9 years, while in Blood Pact he states to have been in command of the Ghosts for a decade save for a two year hiatus on Gereon ‘5 years ago’ (BP time). However with these numbers it should have been 9 + 5 = 14 years.
This would become 16 (wow! wtf) years if you actually add up the Gerion gap.
Confused by this I took up my other books and wh40k.lexicanum.com to get an idea what was going on. Long story short I got the Tanith first to have been active for 17 years, with Gaunt pushing 60 (”..in his
forties…” in First and Only)

I am confused by this. Help!

(Todays free offer; a way out of timeline bookkeeping that only obsessive fans whine about: “Gaunt was talking in Balhaut years. ‘In his forties’ was observed in Tanith years by Caffran. Both these planets go around their sun in 1.6 Terra-years.”)

At least now you know how George Lucas feels like with fans fighting over stuff like this. Besides this nagging I really love your writings. Like another poster remarked on your blog, the interaction between Ghosts and Astartes might be interesting. Any chance we’re going to see something like that happening (could also be Catachans or Cadians for all I care). I always liked it when the Ghosts do stuff alongside other professional IG regiments.
grahammcneill
January 21st, 2010 on 2:37 pm
Ah, the timeline question…

That’s popped up a few times, with the 999.M41 dateline for 40K having to be played with in a fast and loose fashion. If, like Dan, you’re clever, you set your stories in the past of 40K so the months spent between warzones can be cheerfully accommodated. But, if you’re me, you work your stories into particular events and thus tie yourself in temporal knots. But, aha, the Warp! The great thing about traveling through the warp is that you can arrive at your destination before you left. So, in answer to timeline bookkeeping, my answer is: the Warp did it

Cor, I’d make a bet with your friend. Tell them you’ll read a book of their choosing if they’ll read a book you give them. Then you can compare the notes, and if your friend still doesn’t want to venture into the nightmare worlds of 40K, then you offer to buy him a pint and a bag of scampi fries. But if he does like it, welcome him with a bag of Dan and Graham shaped goodies…
Frank
January 21st, 2010 on 2:50 pm
My bad, it wasn’t my intention to suggest that you come across in that way.

I mentioned Ian as an example of how authors can be creative within the confines of someone else’s universe.

The great thing about the 40k universe for me as a reader is the varying subjects/writing styles of authors.

For me:
Abnett: titanic WWII esque scale grunt warfare. Watson: poetic elegance. Counter: rancid evil to make the devil weep (Grey Knights).

It’s cool how so many great authors can coexist in one place.
Rich (Blitzspear)
January 21st, 2010 on 5:50 pm
I was royally annoyed when i found out you could not do a follow up to Riders of the Dead but i now see that your inventing a situation 10 years hence from the events in Riders would have to be woven into any future books by other writers and knowing you it would be epic to say the least. On the 30K HH books what sort of pressure did you and the other writers feel inventing the beginings of the Empire and the legions?
Also regarding the rules layed down about what could and could not be done with the history of 30k did any of the writers try to shoehorn the Ultramarines back into the Heresy? there must have been one person tried
Oh whilst on Ultramarines are you going to say anything about the process of writing a screen play? Is it like writing for a comic just longer? Or is that still to hush hush for the unwashed masses to here about?
Rich
danabnett
January 22nd, 2010 on 4:05 am
Cees - the honest answer is that everyone slips up now and then. The official answer is that we’re talking about comparative physical ages (it’s been established for a long time that, due to various things including juvenat processes, people live longer in 40K, and 60 isn’t even middle aged). This is accentuated by (and the discrepancy you point out is explained by) the varying, uneven and impossible to equal out time-debts caused by warp travel, as Graham points out. For example, Gaunt may have been a year older than Rawne when they met, but might be eighteen months older than him now. Plus, there’s the ‘local years‘ thing you mentioned. Hmmm… Ghosts and Astartes, eh?

Frank - No offense taken. I just wanted to make sure Ian got the props due.

Rich - Yeah, Warhammer continuity is a whole other thing, because it’s so much tighter (even now you’ve got the Time of Legend stuff). I had a great idea for a sequel to Riders, but it would have only worked in a future we cannot explore.
Cees
January 22nd, 2010 on 7:30 am
Imperial navy crews must have one hell of a tough time organizing birthday parties :D.
grahammcneill
January 22nd, 2010 on 7:51 am
Now THERE’S a scene for a novel with real comic potential!
paranormal activity
January 23rd, 2010 on 4:38 am
More power to you.i have actually bookmarked it to show some of my friends
Julo Argus
March 11th, 2010 on 7:55 pm
Hey, great post! I will bookmark this one! Thanks
Demetrius Omegus
March 11th, 2010 on 7:57 pm
great entry. I will add it as favorite! Cheers
Willetta Foston
March 19th, 2010 on 8:15 pm
You make valid points all of them. I think that we want to be heard as much as we don’t want to leave comments in the wrong circumstances. It’s a human response to a human problem — as contadictory as we all are.