Chapter 361: Final Thoughts: Whatever You Do, Don't Read the Official Novels! |
As a cloud-hammer who got into the franchise through the Warhammer games, and as a web novel author who read a massive number of official novels to write this fanfiction, I have just one thing to say:
If you like the Warhammer games, if you love playing as Space Marines and Darktide veterans, and if you play these games full of fighting spirit and passion, then, [please, whatever you do, do not read the official novels!]
Seriously, whatever you do, absolutely do not read the official novels!
Just be a regular cloud-hammer and stay loyal—that's all that matters. Never read the official novels.
I deeply regret it, because the official books completely destroyed my love, my yearning, and my passion for creating within the Warhammer universe!
I'm not sure about the state of Warhammer Fantasy's official novels, but the Warhammer 40k series is an absolute mess.
Chaotic character relationships, illogical plots, inconsistent power scaling, terrible character motivations and psychological shifts, forced settings and plots meant only to cater to miniature sales, and so on and so forth.
It is no exaggeration to say that the official novels hit almost every single toxic trope that modern web novels try to avoid.
The reason for these dealbreakers is simple: GW is a company that sells miniatures.
But the Warhammer 40k series does the exact opposite.
It starts with the merchandise, then hires a bunch of writers to build personas, pad out the plot, and integrate the selling points of those miniatures into the world-building.
This backwards creative process guarantees that the official Warhammer 40k novels are an absolute mess.
Furthermore, every official novel is written by a different author. Each writer brings their own values, morals, power scaling, and writing style, which drastically worsens the sense of fragmentation across the 40k books.
When this book reached about 600,000 words, I had just finished reading "The Master of Mankind". The irrationality, cowardice, timidity, and indecision displayed by The Emperor in that book became the straw that broke the camel's back for my creative passion.
In other official novels, The Emperor is wise, divine, decisive, and brilliant.
The completely contradictory portrayals of The Emperor across different works created such extreme whiplash that I had no idea how to write his character, nor was I sure if I even wanted the protagonist to serve the Imperium of Man anymore.
Meanwhile, the "Witcher" series—another representative work of the grimdark genre—flawlessly integrates each witcher character into the background of its era.
The intense inconsistencies in the official Warhammer 40k lore bled directly into this book's plot, leaving the male lead constantly flip-flopping between loyalty and heresy. As the author, I started losing my mind over it too. Ultimately, before I completely snapped, I decided to scrap my entire outline, have the protagonist flip the table, and destroy the entire Warhammer universe.
It was like traveling thousands of miles to meet an online date, only to discover they looked nothing like their photos. All the passion vanished in an instant, and writing this fanfiction turned into an unbearable burden.
As a result, the writing quality plummeted after the one-million-word mark, and the ending was rushed and sloppy.
I want to apologize to all the readers who followed the daily updates.
My next book will return to an original world and plot.
If I ever write fanfiction again in the future, I'll lean toward series like "Harry Potter", where a single author handled all the world-building and creation.
This book actually finished two months ago, and since then, I have been preparing for the new one.
The new book is scheduled to be released between July 29th and August 4th at the latest.
Finally, thank you all for your support!
...
Random thought: I noticed that after I published this book, a lot of "mushroom"-related novels popped up on the platform, haha~
(End of Chapter)
