Black Templars stealing from Monty Python?

[IBBoard]

Robo-Dixon? Again, don't remember I'm useless with stories and films etc, I remember the general plot (sometimes with a bit of prompting) but details and names are just gone!

[Simguinus]

British TV in DD has Robo-Dixon of Dock Green, with integral rocket launchers no less, "Evenin' all." *kaboom* There's also a bizarre reference to Iain M Banks as mayor of Shetland (or Orkney) and Kim Newman himself as a film director...

[IBBoard]

So many cult references - they probably caught my attention a bit at the time (if I read the actual book) but not anything memorable. At least 40K doesn't have anything quite so obvious in the way of naming - nothing I can think of anyway (other than the historicaly 'genetic' names like Khan with the White Scars)

[Simguinus]

I think it's more to do with Kim Newman than GW. His Warhammer novels are the same: Filthy' Harald? Drachenfels? And indeed, in his non-GW novel, 'Anno Dracula', the main protagonists include Genevieve Dieudonne (still created by Chandagnac), Mycroft Holmes, Jack Seward, Dr Henry Jekyll and a batch of other C19th fictional figures. A bit like the graphic novel versions of League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

Ian Watson's 40K works and most other 40K authors of that era (Will King, Brian Craig, Charles Stross) didn't really go in for that sort of thing. More recent 40K work, done predominantly by GW insiders, has tended more towards gamer-esque referencing - by which I mean the way that during any given RPG incident, someone is bound to quote Star Wars at some apposite moment, or Monty Python, or the Fast Show. Or name characters after heroes and villains from comics.[/b]

[IBBoard]

Yeah, Kim Newman/Jack Yeovil is originally a Vampire author (as far as I know) so Dracula references are always going to be popular. Things like Dracula can probably come under 'genetic history'. I'm trying to think of some of Pratchett's more comic examples, but just like every vehicle crash must have a rolling hub cap, all main vampires must have the Transylvanian accent and the posh dinner suit

Not sure I've ever seen any Bill King 40K stories - I've only ever read Gotrek novels - and the same with Brian Craig - the Orfeo trillogy. Classic GW from the 80s had worse graphics and styling in the art, but I think the more modern authors and back-story writer (who will have come up with equipment names) aren't quite of the same calibre as Ian Watson, Jack Yeovil and the like.

It's interesting that GW let Kim Newman use Genevieve outside one of their novels, though. I guess he could claim creative similarities or something, but knowing GW Legal, I would have thought they'd have restricted authors to not including anything from their GW works outside GW works.

[Simguinus]

One of my favourite Pratchett 'yoinks' from other authors is Yob-Sodoff, the Great Old One whose call is "Yerwhatyerwhatyerwhatyerwhat!" And Ashtaroth, the infernal star-toad with a billion young, who tortures its victims to death by showing them photos of its offspring...

Bill King did some stuff for the 40K anthologies, and the occasional piece for WD. I think Inqisitor Kryptmann was one of his...one of the early 'nid short stories.

I concur, GW novelisations these days, even Bill King's, are a bit formulaic, compared to the chaotic vision of Ian Watson, and the dark, tightly-plotted horror of Newman-as-Yeovil. Arguably, since Genevieve Dieudonne is neither a GW character, nor a GW trademark, I don't think the Officio Lexicanum could really do a lot about it. Newman came up with Genevieve, and she's never been 'statted' - unlike several of the characters from Beasts In Velvet, or used by other GW authors, like say Yevgeny Yefimovich, or the von Carsteins, who are entirely GW creations. Which, I think, leads to some of the formulaic nature of current GW novels - they're very muchly in-house things - I don't GW would let someone like Ian Watson have the kind of freedom that he seems to have had writing the Inquisition War books now.

The artwork wasn't always bad: a lot of the Ian Miller stuff from the covers of the Orfeo trilogy was quite good, but a lot of the other works, especially on DF novels was a bit spotty. To be fair, whilst its no great work of art, I prefer the Dave Gallagher cover of Drachenfels to the more recent re-print, mainly because of the lack of ridiculously-sized swords in the hands of 16 year old vampire girls. That she could lift it isn't the point.

[IBBoard]

And don't forget that BelShamroth (sp?) is C'thulu-based.

The Bill King I read was Dragonslayer - not sure how old that is, but it didn't seem too formulaic. People like Gav Thorpe probably couldn't manage Yeovil-style Warhammer novels though. He's probably a good author, but not my style.

As for the old Dark Future artwork, I think some of it fits Dark Future better than some of the Rogue Trader stuff fits 40K. Maybe it was more fitting then, but now half of it looks like ill-concieved Thrash-metalers/hippies/other stereotypes in a new location. At least Dark Future was kinda supposed to be close to those dates and so they might still have been around. There was soom good artwork, but I think the less developed Universe meant there was some bad stuff too.

Still, we're managing to get rather off-track here while still hanging on-topic with our finger nails

[andygorn]

If you're going to have the Holy Orb of Antioch (and...let's face it...that's the ONLY reason to have a Black Templars army in the first place), then you just HAVE to call the guy carrying it 'Brother-Captain Maynard' and do some of / the whole of: "You shall count to three...five is right out..." quote when it's thrown at things.
For The Rabbit, use the Nightbringer's stat's and give it the "We'll be back" rule, but the Holy Orb kills it outright, as long as any part of the HO template hits it's base.


Speaking of Dark Future, these were a FANTASTIC series of novels.
Really dark and post-apocalyptic-cyberpunk, but completely funny (and perhaps a bit too adult for the teenies who buy GW stuff now). Such as:

Elvis Presley never died...he just faked it and became an elite mercenary (but he re-learns how to play Heartbreak Hotel and his other hits);
Donny and Marie Osmond get turned into psychotic Terminator-style metal cyborgs;
Demons infesting technology;
Sentient cars and nuns-with-guns;
Crazy Telethon showing (amongst other things) "sexual gymnastics starring the Vice-President of the USA, the 'grand old lady of hardcore humping' Kitti Kat Gazongas, and Kermit The Frog"
Random cowboy (I was never quite sure if it's Lee Mavin, Clint Eastwood, Roy Rogers or someone else)

By the way, does anyone know if they released the last novel in the 'Route 666' series (supposed to be called 'US Road Cavalry')?

[IBBoard]

For those who want the quote (shamelessly borrow from the Wikipedia article):

..And Saint Attila raised the hand grenade up on high, saying, "O Lord, bless this Thy hand grenade that with it Thou mayest blow Thine enemies to tiny bits, in Thy mercy." And the Lord did grin and the people did feast upon the lambs and sloths and carp and anchovies and orangutans and breakfast cereals, and fruit bats and large chu... [Whereupon the friar is urged, "skip ahead a bit, brother"]... And the Lord spake, saying, "First shalt thou take out the Holy Pin, then shalt thou count to three, no more, no less. Three shall be the number thou shalt count, and the number of the counting shall be three. Four shalt thou not count, neither count thou two, excepting that thou then proceed to three. Five is right out. Once the number three, being the third number, be reached then lobbest thou thy Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch towards thy foe, who being naughty in my sight, shall snuff it." Amen.

It's just the combination of archaic language and phrases like "who being naughty in my sight, shall snuff it" that make it great Wikipedia also mentions the Black Templars reference in the references section.

As for the final Route 666 book, it doesn't look like it. After the comparative flood of six reprints from September 2005 to July 2006 there's only been two since then and one of those isn't released until next month! You'll have to keep an eye on the Black Flame website to see when others are coming out.