Open Letter to Games Workshop, and its Publishing Arm, Black Library

To whom it may concern,

I would really like a copy of Fulgrim in hardcover. I believe it is one of the most powerful pieces of literature I've ever read, and when I worked in a sci-fi bookstore, I would happily tell anyone, and everyone, about its universal appeal.

But I refuse to buy in to (so to speak) this ridiculous exclusivity. Games Workshop and its subsidiaries continue to push their business in directions that are anti-consumer. I have ceased doing business with Games Workshop and Forge World on this basis.

I worked for years trying to convince people every day that franchise fiction like that of the Black Library had merit, and should not be dismissed out of hand due to the stigma attached to 'toys' and 'games'. I purchased some of your exclusive (and expensive) titles. I recommended you to customers and friends. I even submitted a short story for your open submissions (even though it was not accepted, I am still very proud of it).

I'm sad to see the direction you are taking. I presume that in the next few years Black Library will be transitioning towards a 'all online sales are through OUR website' model as per Games Workshop's current direction. In protest, and 'putting my money where my mouth is', I will purchase your titles 'exclusively' from Amazon and/or other online retailers (maybe even from a brick and mortar before they all go out of business). No more Games Day Anthologies, no more Brotherhood of the Storms for me. No wonderful Fulgrim hardcover.

As non-'exclusives' get rarer and rarer, I'll just have to... I dunno, read something else? Its not like I don't know how the Horus Heresy ends, is it?

Let your friends at Games Workshop know that when they are ready to get with the times and treat their customers with a modicum of respect, we'll be ready for them.

Yours regretfully,

Matt

Busy gamerfiction.com line up (that I may or mayn't get around to reviewing)

I am currently reading my awesome signed copy of Enforcer: The Shira Calpurnia omnibus by Matthew Farrer.

Next on my list:

Nemesis (Horus Heresy) by James Swallow

Retribution (Mass Effect) by Drew Karpyshyn

Fall of Reach (Halo) by Eric Nylund (new revised edition)


Things are slow, as per usual, but this time its not just laziness! I submitted a short story to the Black Library: Keep and Strengthen Us, We Who Fight for Thee by yours truly, Matt Nielsen! The tale of a Guardsman caught between the machinations of some of the most dangerous forces in the galaxy.

I'm going to TRY to post more on this blog as part of my new writing regimen. But yeah, bear in mind the abject laziness.

Horus Heresy

For more than 30,000 years, the Emperor has protected us. As humankind spread its way across the galaxy, always did the Emperor watch over us.

But now the Emperor has sequestered himself away in the depths of his vast fortress capital on Terra, and the Primarchs are left to their own devices. So when the most charismatic of all the Primarchs, and the Emperors chosen, the great Warmaster Horus succumbs to the temptation of the vile creatures of the warp lines must be drawn.

Horus Heresy: Collected Visions is both a synopsis of the overall course of the Heresy, as well as a fantastic artbook, featuring the collected Heresy artwork of both the Games Workshop studio artists and the Horus Heresy CCG. It also includes a short story that ties into the Horus Heresy novel Mechanicum, explaining the origins of some of the characters.

The Horus Heresy series of novels chronicles the fall of a civilisation on the doorstep of ruling the galaxy from its pinnacle of achievement to a new dark age of constant war. The series covers the great fall of the Imperium of Man through the eyes of the good and the bad, everyone from the mightiest space marine primarchs to the lowliest servitors. The depiction of all that the modern era of the 41st Millennium has lost really gives one an insight into the violence now plaguing the galaxy.

The tales told in this series are many and varied, ranging from tales of heroic sacrifice to the depths of hedonistic depravity. Characters and sub-plots weave their way in and around the main story arc, and despite the major outcomes being known, it is the fates of the hundreds of minor characters that make this a compelling series.

I happily give this series my seal of approval, and I would (and do) recommend it to anyone, not just Warhammer 40000 players.

Be on the look out for the next two novels, A Thousand Sons and Prospero Burns, which detail the sacking of the Thousand Sons homeworld of Prospero by the Space Wolves from both sides of the conflict. These books are due March/April next year.

As a special treat, I plan to have my own Thousand Sons miniatures painted up by then, and will be posting pictures of them for my review!