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Am I the only one who compulsively needs stories that exist in a pre-determined and shared world to line up exactly with each other, or at least not contradict one another at any time?
Now, with the Warhammer universe this can be a bit of an unreasonable thing to ask.
There's several sources of information that will build up this timeline after all; you have the codices, of which there were eventually 8 editions worth of, with every edition having at least a few each, one for every different race and/or army (in general); you have the fantasy flight games stuff which reproduced exacting background books and games for pretty much anything they could think of, and then of course you have the novels.
And unfortunately for me, it's those I am most interested in. And I say that's unfortunate because those always end up getting the raw end in any Games Workshop deal, both from the point of view from the company itself, and frequently from the reading audience, who might not enjoy their favourite tabletop characters doing things that they feel might be out of character, or that they be contradictory to already given information in the codices.
Warhammer has been around since 1983 and as such it has an incredibly rich background, supplied by dozens and dozens of writers and artists, and as that massive body of art and information is brought about by the investments of a company expecting to make a profit, it necessarily needs to be fluid and not-static, if not progressive, in order to lure in more players. And this needs to happen at a reasonably fast pace. The books are a part of this. They are a glorified marketing ploy.
As such, It's not great literature, I know. And sometimes I feel as if I'm terribly wasting my time. Especially since I take so long with reading novels in general. Why do I read this, which will be dust and forgotten in a hundred years, when I could instead be reading books that will stand the test of time?
But I like it nonetheless.
It's fun, it's good old pulpy fun. Swords and maces, axe and swords. Dark gods, desperate odds, violence and bloodshed.
But after so long, after reading so many books, all set in this shared world, I've been presented with a problem that might eventually shoot the legs out from under the whole thing: after so many books, which are still Canonical?
I've read from Genevieve to Sword of Justice, from Trollslayer to Tainted Blood, Fell Cargo to van Horstmann, and the cracks are starting to show.
(I could've found better comparisons to perfectly illustrate the contradictions but, bloody hell, I've already spent way too much time on this as it is...
OOH FINE! : from Drachenfels to Retribution, Zavant to Witch Killer, and from the Heart of Chaos to the Age of Legend. Fine, good, are ye happy now???)
I should be just having fun.
I focus too much on this; the idea of overlapping canonicity, a perfectly depicted world operating with greased-cog-efficiency, and I know it. And yet I fell in love with the world at one point, while taking bite-sized mouthfuls. I've always been compulsive about most of what I do, so, provided with enough time, I'd eat up the whole buffet. I've stayed away from the models (mostly), and of the game, and focused pretty much always completely on the story side of things.
And since I love it, and since I am me; I need all of this to make sense. To have, as is advertised, these stories exist on the same plane, the same universe. I give it my time, I give them my money, so I want that in return.
There's obviously several eras in the fiction that stand out. And maybe I just need to divide these up into their own type of realms, easy picks would be; Oldhammer (Genevieve, Orfeo, the Wolf Riders, Konrad, ...), the adventure age (Blackhearts, Slaves to Darkness,...), The Grimdark era (End Times and Swords of the Empire ...) But the writers base themselves on whatever they have at hand. So these things are a grey area all-round.
Take for instance Gotrek and Felix, which have been through every iteration, but which could inhabit their own bubble inside of the larger Warhammer idea, together with Ulrika, Thanquol and the Laughter of Dark Gods... At this point, with the upcoming continuation they really do stand quite apart.
To form a catalogue of Warhammer fiction, perfectly inter-canonical on the basis of mood and continuity is insane, and yet... it has appeal... so, To be continued?
Or if anyone has a list somewhere handy already, I could go with that instead. Don't be shy, comments welcome.
Here, by the way is a link to Wikipedia's Warhammer Fantasy novels list.
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I, in general, spend way too long on pin-pointing the canonicity of the Warhammer novels I read, because I want to root the story in its correct place in the overal timeline. It took me a while but now that I have, here with Van Horstmann, I find that it's pretty uncontradictory; in terms of Altdorf, its great fire, the rise of the Colleges of Magic, and the End Times, and even the novel's emperor Eckhardt the third isn't outright refuted by anything that I've read. Everything seems to fit neatly. And yet, it is a neatness brought about by strain.
Everything fits, but only just, without room for organic evolution. The story feels slotted-in into a bare availability rather than existing flush on its own.
These are the dangers of tie-in fiction. You're writing, and reading, second fiddle.
This obviously isn't always the case; take Gaunt's Ghosts for example. But fiction like this, sprung forth from a trademarked playing field, inevitably has its restrictions, bounds out of which it cannot venture.
I'm not saying much new or interesting, I know.
It's just a lament.
I wish it could all just be better.
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