Warhammer Horror imprint announced

[Duke_Leto]

https://www.warhammer-community.com/201 ... g-reveals/

So there is going to be a new range of horror stories set in the different warhammer settings. In discussions with ADB over on B&C it is clear BL want to have books that appear on the Horror shelves of book stores as well as in the Science Fiction and Fantasy section.

Personally psyched for this and think it is potentially a great move. Really hoping for more "domestic 40k" stories about normal / little people agains the odds. Slice of life stories (with a twist) that really give an insight into what is like for citizens of the Imperium to live in those times. It will be great to get away from the front lines and battles and not have a super warrior in sight anywhere!

Can totally see Peter Fehervari and Matthew Farrer playing in this sandpit. Also David Annandale is from a horror background.

Excited about the potential here.

[Xisor]

Yeah, there's some chat going about that it'll be super 18+ allowing for all sorts of mental depravity.

I'm not entirely convinced. There might be a shift in regularity of that sort of stuff, but I'd be dubious if it's quite what the gore-afficionadoes are after.

I'm pretty excited about it. They were tight-lipped at BLL, but as ADB notes: the marketing aspect (e.g. get some books onto 'Horror' shelves rather than 'SFF') seems pretty sensible, and logical.

I'm not a big Horror reader though, so I'm pretty curious as to what it'll all be. David Annandale's stuff could already fit right in there, I imagine (and he said himself: Horror's his academic pedigree, it's where his actual work and expertise lies), and for example Gav's 'Malekith' had some pretty deeply creeptastic bits in his journey into the Chaos Wastes.

Who knows, but it'll be fascinating to see!

[Duke_Leto]

Agreed. Just as "Sci-Fi" splits down into many sub-genres so too does "Horror". I guess if the story has a way of scaring the reader either through psychological terrors through to gore/splatter then it fits. Actually think provides an opportunity to massively open up the kind of stories told in the 40k setting...something you, me and many others have wished for.

I got into a little bit of a (gentle) sparring match with ADB on the topic (outcome was of course inevitable). Actually was my bad as I used words like "mature" and "complex" to which he rebuffed that authors like him and Dan etc already aim for that. I think that is true though there are many examples of BL authors whose work falls more into YA territory.

I then used an analogy that seems to work better...

Alien = Horror Sci Fi
Aliens = Military Sci Fi
And LOL
Alien 3 = the masterpiece that never was!

[Rob P]

Not convinced straight sci-fi horror would be any good, but psychological horror could be fantastic.

Closest to horror so far was a scene from Chris Wraight's first ''Sword of'' book. Which was fantastic.

That being said, genre is just a sales took. YA didn't really even exist about 20 years ago (teen?).

I went to a thing where they talked about thriller, chiller and horror and basically said the book is whatever category will sell best. And look at stuff like Station 11, literary fiction dressed as dystopian.

You can dress as you like to categorise, but i'm a big horror fan and will be disappointed if it's just swearing, explicit violence and sex to make it 18+.

Chaos is a great mechanism to make characters make horrific choices.

[Duke_Leto]

I definitely think it will not be that (swearing, more violent, sex) to make it 18+

Over on B&C ADB has said as much too. I just think the "horror" aspects will be dialled up and the battles/war will be dialled down.

Can't find link right now but there is a very interesting article over on the BBC website about horror films and critics having snobbery against the genre that has led to sub genres and recategorisation or many horror films into chillers and thrillers which is pure semantics of course!

[Hachiko]

Well, we don't know if the main titles that will be released under this banner will be for 40K or AoS. There's also the snowball's chance in hell that it will be some "World the Was" books as well (old WHF), which would be perfect imo.

As for writers:
Fehervari, obviously, if they want to go true, true, psychological horror. Even the beginning of his recent The Greater Evil had some "Aliens" type horror vibe to it.

C.L. Werner - the man is a horror lore grandmaster. An ideal fit would be Warhammer Fantasy, but I think he could do 40K as well.

Annandale - Huge horror fan. You can see it in his works. He did a great kaiju tale, The Conversion, in the anthology Kaiju Rising a few years back which had a nice horror vibe.

However, all we know is that there is a good chance Graham McNeill wrote something for this (via a June 16th Facebook post). I know he did some pseudo-Lovecraftian stuff, along with Alan Bligh, a few years back, but I never read them. Not sure I see McNeill penning the tales to send shivers down my spine.

[Xisor]

Speaking of, what sort of thing is popular in the horror genre? I know they stick the classic ghost stories, 'weird horror' (Lovecraft et al.), and whatnot in there - but what are the modern popular ones? What differentiates them from, say, fantasy and sci-fi and crime/thriller?

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McNeill penning the tales to send shivers down my spine.

Well, if he's writing 'em then I'm afraid!

I jest (and, indeed: well said, Hachiko!). McNeill strikes me as typically a more easy-going popcorn-y reading type, even if his book is hitting the other notes for other things. But still, he managed more than a few good turns, down the years. His 'Of Mars' series had a lot of pretty cool (/horrid) bits to it, and as a largely non-horror reader, I'm not sure how much more some books are likely to 'send shivers down my spine' as opposed to... bore me.

That might not be the best way of phrasing it, but still: as Rob hits on, 'wherever it'll sell best' is really where the books are being targeted. Or at least, that makes sense to my (amateurish, at best) insight into it all.

This could go horribly wrong, my to-read piles are already threatening to crush me. If I start dabbling in horror too...

[Hachiko]

Speaking of, what sort of thing is popular in the horror genre? I know they stick the classic ghost stories, 'weird horror' (Lovecraft et al.), and whatnot in there - but what are the modern popular ones? What differentiates them from, say, fantasy and sci-fi and crime/thriller?

Good question on what is 'popular'. In a way, I think everything old is new again. Anything new by King or Barker still tops the charts; and a lot of their back catalog gets bolstered predicated upon the success of movies like IT. It's hard to gauge what's trending by checking the Amazon top-sellers these days; since the top slots get flooded by a lot of whatever Kindle stories are going for 99 cents.

As for Lovecraft; I've found that a lot of the people who 'like' him are in it more for the aesthetics than actually reading it. Also, a lot of stories get the term 'Lovecraftian' when they are anything but.

Lovecraftian would be hard to port to 40K...To a certain degree, in 40K, all the terrible, Elder Gods....are already known and identified. So that element of the horrifying, unseen, unbelievable hand moving things is removed.

Peter Fehervari does a great job in incorporating Lovecraftian elements...the Saathla (spelling) in Fire Caste were Innsmouthian in appearance, while the genestealers of Redemption in GC, the ones who lived in the city, well, the whole thing gave off an Innsmouthian vibe.

Also, he's the best choice for cultivating that 'disturbing' vibe, as well as the 'strange' tone of those like Aickman (of who he's a huge fan).

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McNeill penning the tales to send shivers down my spine.

Well, if he's writing 'em then I'm afraid!

I jest (and, indeed: well said, Hachiko!). McNeill strikes me as typically a more easy-going popcorn-y reading type, even if his book is hitting the other notes for other things. But still, he managed more than a few good turns, down the years. His 'Of Mars' series had a lot of pretty cool (/horrid) bits to it, and as a largely non-horror reader, I'm not sure how much more some books are likely to 'send shivers down my spine' as opposed to... bore me.

Indeed

I did a little of the the "read inside" that Amazon allows for the Miskatonic books that McNeill and Bligh (R.I.P.) wrote....obviously, Bligh was the better horror writer. Pretty sure they're banking on a) he's got some horror titles on his resume, and b) he still has some name value with the readers.

Now, as we all know, there are horror elements threaded throughout the lore, as you mentioned. Some authors play up the horrifying aspects of those things better than others....

But what are they going to do? There is a real sense of zombie fatigue...so there's that. I'm sure plague zombies will still pop up. When Star Wars tried their horror books (Death Troopers, Red Harvest, etc.) they went straight to zombies. Then again, zombies were still 'hot', and the sight of a stormtrooper helmet hanging on a bloody hook was a pretty big thing for SW fans; whereas for 40K fans it's another day at the office.

I'm guessing (I'll bet even) that the first Horror title will be an AoS story focusing on Nighthaunts. This is fine; but if they pair them off against Stormcasts, where will the horror be? Part of what makes horror effective is a sense of being helpless against the unknown, and Stormcasts are a bit overpowered for that.

You can't just count on; oooh, here's a horde of skeletal creatures. Horror!

That might not be the best way of phrasing it, but still: as Rob hits on, 'wherever it'll sell best' is really where the books are being targeted. Or at least, that makes sense to my (amateurish, at best) insight into it all.

Actually, that is the best way to phrase it!

This could go horribly wrong, my to-read piles are already threatening to crush me. If I start dabbling in horror too...

Get yourself a spinner rack! The best place to grab a horror paperback is from a drugstore spinner rack!