Dan Abnett Interview

There is a real treat for Dan Abnett fans over on the Overlords podcast.

The interview is wide ranging and very interesting.

Of particular interest - to me at least - was when he talked about the interface between Black Library, the core rules, 'Canon fluff' and all the over various 40k related literature/games/video games.

This was something that was discussed on The Imperial Truth. However the discussion on that podcast - which it has to be said they were approaching from the slightly different angle of fan-made fluff and codexs - was kind-of wishing that GW would get it's act together and pull the fluff into a solid framework.

But as Mr Abnett pointed out the decision was made in the 1990's - when Black Library was developing - that the various arms of the universe should be considered as seperate and autonomous entities. Indeed there is a joke within the company that there is a Daniverse in 40k - a place in which the contradictions in Mr Abnett's novel exist outside the main fluff of the universe.

Of course such a decision might be seen as heresy to the witch-hunters of the forumhammer world. But to the rest of us it is something for which we should be eternally grateful. After all without this discontinuity we would not have Gaunt's Ghosts, the Horus Heresy etc, because the writers would long ago have given up the commisions as a bad job, due to their work being endlessly resubmitted because minor details do not fit the gameplay of the current rules, or the latest upgrade of an army book, or contradict something that was written long ago in White Dwarf etc.

Which in turn makes me wonder why the contributers on The Imperial Truth feel themselves so inhibited with regard to the 'Canon Fluff' when making their homebrew codexs.

Perhaps the answer is the baneful influence of the witchhunters of the forumhammer world - for whom conformity and suppression of creativity appear to be the prime reason for their existence. But given that GW endlessly says that hobbyists should take the world and make it their own, perhaps they should simply take a leaf out of Mr Abnett's and Black Library's book and not worry what was in issue 173 of White Dwarf and just go and make their own fluff.

No doubt it will provoke the fury of the forumhammerers, and may even lead to charges of crimes against WYSIWYG but equally as one of the contributors to the Imperial Truth discussion was Big Jim and his Combat Patrol rules are going to be played at Adepticon, perhaps there is hope.

Always assuming that the IP stick doesn't beat them down.

Still the interview with Mr Abnett is a real pleasure, and more power to the Overlord guys for getting it together.

peace:)