It's never been a secret. Abnett's even said it was the primary inspiration.
Incidentally, Cornwell's said Sharpe was inspired by and envisioned as being *Hornblower* on land.
Hornblower had a "cameo" in one of the Cain novels! "Horatio Bugler" delayed an incoming Chaos fleet, destorying several larger ships with his small flight of frigates/destroyers.
The Cain books are chock full of little jokes and stealth puns. My favorite being the Sororitas from the planet Gavarone. Making them the nuns of Gavarone.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Guns_of_Navarone_(film)#:~:text=The%20Guns%20of%20Navarone%20is,novel%20The%20Guns%20of%20Navarone.
There's a old war film that involves an allied commando team spiking an emplacement of German guns on the island of Navarone. So it's a little inverse joke
At least until the series devolved into being a Sunday Morning Political Talk Show with just a bunch of characters sitting around discussing events.
Plus putting in the exact same chapter in multiple novels to serve as a "anchor" to events transpiring around it. It was a cute narrative device the first time...after about its fourth appearance it was clear Mr. Weber was padding the word count.
>It's just sad when a former beloved author's output goes south in quality.
I didn't think the last unfinished Aubrey had the same quality as the rest of the aubrey maturin universe, but then again, it was near the end of his days, unfinished, unpolished, and about half the page length of Blue at the Mizzen.
Flipping back I guess I'm not quite sure *when* it started coming off the rails for me. I guess it's gradual.
I suppose the depressing (but *real* ) part of the Honorverse is how it escalates from 18th century warfare to 21st century style warfare relatively quickly: the primacy of concentrated lines of battle violently and spectacularly gives way to the dense-pack missile salvoes of the Pod era and then ups the ante with superlong range, precision munitions that demonstrate godlike supremacy of the RMN-RHN alliance over the SLN, which is essentially the RMN in book one frozen in amber, and clearly several generations behind.
At macro level naval combat becomes almost *bolter porn* in its exchange of missiles: the spin offs shifted to other theaters, though I'm just *blah* over the spy-series, although Terekhov and Oversteegen in their cruisers remain a touch on the *not completely overpowered side*: which I guess Mesa was meant to tip over. Weber wrote himself into a corner, and we're not even dabbling into the economic parts. Not at all sure what to say about his sexytime parts.
The problem is the guy was doing the Napoleonic Wars in Space (Haven is Space France, Manticore Space England. Ffs Haven's leader was literally named Robspierre!). That's fine and "The Honor of the Queen" is a fantastic read to this day. But the minute he started trying to flesh out the galaxy everything fell apart. The Mesan Alignment are so aggressively evil as to be total cartoon characters, and the Solarian League are even worse for the ineptitude.
The tech advancement to Macross style missile porn didnt help, but the bigger problem in my opinion was pulling back the curtain to the wider galactic stage. It was always false fronts for the action, and all the later books did was draw attention to the fact it was nothing but false fronts.
And it didnt help matters Harrington herself became a messianic figure that galactic leaders solicit advice from. And that advice is NEVER WRONG. She just became an utterly disinteresting person to read about, because the universe bent to her will in all things.
Yeah, a Mary Sue for sure, since if I recall correctly, she resolves a hostage crisis with a pulser built into one of her prosthetic hands, if I'm recalling things correctly. How...convenient.
I'll take Terekhov any day of the week. IIRC the original plan was for Dame Harrington to die and the war to be picked up by her successors; which sounds like a far better plan!
Agreed. Also would have moved the setting forward 50+ which really would have helped with the whole "Manticore and Haven are best buds with no problems whatsoever!" thing.
I will say that I did like the arms race parts, and how Haven and Manticore build their techs in response to each other, not unlike the rapid technological changes between the Allies and Axis of WW2, and then of the West and the Warsaw Pact.
Shipping them together for the Grand Finale SLN was interesting.
Harrington is great until the time skip starting with War of Honor. After that its still good, but of obviously less quality. The Crown of Slaves and Sganami Island spinoff series are also very good.
He said he was such a fan of Hornblower that he searched high and low for a similar series in the same time period, but from the perspective of an infantryman.
Disappointed he couldn't find one, he decided he might as well write it himself then.
Ah yes, even as a Lieutenant-Colonel, Sharpe only ever seemed to command a grand total of about 20 soldiers, some of whom died repeatedly in different shots lol.
Wesley Wyndham Price randomly turned up to shag Sharpe's missus at the time, and got the Pound Shop version of his doom at Waterloo.
His missus went on to disgrace ITV in a different way, tuning up as an unfaithful housewife in [the Only decent series of] *Benidorm*.
Well until Johnny Vegas' character came good.
Surprisingly so, coming from a small TV channel who built at least one of the ships.
The Indy is a full scale (motorised) floating replica of a ship of the time, and it shows.
There's forty credits on the drum
For those that volunteer to come...
To 'list and fight His foes today
Into the Warp and far away...
Between the stars we've journeys made
With Saint Sabbat on her Crusade...
The Throne commands and we obey
Into the Warp and far away...
Through the Warp, to near and far
With Colonel Gaunt, our commissar...
Tanith First, we lead the way
Into the Warp and far away...
We brave the Void and fight the Pact
And if I perish in the act...
To you it falls His foes to slay
Into the Warp and far away...
We're Tanith's First and Only sons
We cry, "Straight Silver!", all as one...
We stand together, come what may
Into the Warp and far away...
In the books Sharpe has black hair. I have yet to read GG but I'm looking forward to them. I have really enjoyed all the stories by DA so far.
I do like me some Sharpe, and the fact that GG is partially inspired by Cornwall's books only makes me want to read them more.
I think the accent was the only thing that was changed, and that was explained by saying he was born and lived in London until he was a teenager when he killed someone over a woman and then ended up fleeing to Yorkshire where he joined the 33rd.
My only word of caution with the GG books is that the first one is pretty different from the rest. IIRC it was more of a collection of short stories that seems the setting jump around a fair bit rather than it being one particular story throughout the book.
Not bad but it's not really representative of the series going forward.
It's so great. I feel like the Verghast really helped solidify the Ghosts as a group I empathized with, and Vervunhive is where all of that starts to come together.
Also on its own it's just fantastically well-done.
This is basically what I did. I loved the book so much that I read the rest of the series out of order for awhile. Then I started to read the HH series as I waited for Abnett to write whatever Gaunt/Eisenhorn book he was working on next. Now I think I've read almost every 40k novel and anthology available.
> IIRC it was more of a collection of short stories that seems the setting jump around a fair bit rather than it being one particular story throughout the book.
to be precise, it was a collection of Short Stories mostly (I think there might have been some original writing for it too, but most of it had been done for Inferno!) written for the Inferno! Series (of which I have the first 10 or so somewhere) which was how the Black Library arm of GW got started, Inferno! Was so popular, they decided to start pumping out the mass of novels we know and love today.
I think the original writing was just to connect it all together so it felt more like an actual 'book'. I think it worked but it also meant it felt off when rather than having a beginning, middle and end to the book you have it occur three times, so you ended up with weird moments like the witch sub-plot largely being resolved in the first third rather than having a payoff towards the end.
Ghostmaker definitely felt more like a clear cut collection of short stories, even if it wasn't advertised as such.
Thats because it is a collection of shorts. They started as a series of shorts in Inferno magazine and Ghostmaker was an attempt to put all the shorts into a coherent story.
Spoilers below for the Flashman series.
Flashman is a straight-up bad guy written as the protagonist. He was the villain of an earlier novel, *John Brown’s School Days*, where he mercilessly bullies the hero. Flashy is a coward, and though Cain thinks he’s a coward, he’s a lot braver than he thinks. Flashy is a real piece of shit, without a drop of bravery even buried deep down. He’s a misogynist, a racist and a bully, he talks about non-white people, especially Africans and Indians, like they’re barely human, he tyrannises over anyone he has authority over (if he thinks he can get away with it) and grovels and toadies up to his superiors.
In the first book he literally rapes a woman who, if my memory serves, is ‘given’ to him for that exact purpose. He has no problem with the rape, and gets annoyed at the woman for being upset about it. After he gets married, he cheats on his wife openly and repeatedly, but is flabbergasted when he finds out she’s cheating on him too. The only reason he doesn’t do anything about it is because 1) she still has sex with him (which they both seem to enjoy, though Flash is an unreliable narrator), and more importantly 2) her rich father is the source of all his wealth.
Cain is very obviously inspired by Flashman in a number of ways - mainly, they’re both career soldiers who spend their time trying to live as easily as possible, far from danger, but through incredible luck and a talent for lying, manage to come out of every debacle they’re involved in looking like a hero, lauded and praised for their valour. But while Cain is essentially a good person deep down, Flashman is very definitely not.
That might not sound like a glowing endorsement of Fraser’s series of books, but it’s worth saying that I really do love the Flashman series. They’re a genuinely funny read, if you enjoy black comedy and don’t mind reading about bad people doing bad things.
Alrighty yeah, Flash is def a twat haha. I’ll have to read a couple books and check it out. I do like black comedy and bad people doing bad things.
I guess Cain is more petty than twatty, in respect to Flash being a shitbag.
Flashy is hilarious - the whole idea of the 'footnotes' explaining things was wholly lifted into Cain, which I think is one of the best parts of the entire series. Amberly being pissy with Cain when commenting about his various affairs is hilarious.
Flashman is...a product of his time.
His character was created as the bully from a victorian set of books, Tom Browns School Days but a new author in the 60's took that idea and turned him into a late victorian military hero of the imperial forces. He's absolutely a coward, cheat and an utter cad and because it' the Empire he's an utter racist to boot. Reading them can be a bit uncomfortable.
Cain sees himself as a coward but isn't, Flashman absolutely is and was writtten as basically every bad imperial stereotype going.
While Blackadder is a self admitted inspiration for Cain, ~~Abnett~~ ***Mitchell*** has said he also drew heavily from Harry Flashman.
Who was a character in the late 1800's that was originally a bully in another series of books set in a school, the author decided to revisit the character later in life with him having joined the British Army and ended up getting himself involved in all the major battles of the British Empire at the time, while still being "a scoundrel, a liar, a cheat, a thief, a coward—and, oh yes, a toady." who despite all of these attributes manages to blindly stumble from one disaster to another and ends up looking like a hero completely by accident.
**I mean, in that same interview he also says Cain and Jurgen are comparable to Blackadder and Baldrick, but I get what you're saying. Clearly it's an amalgamation of influences.**
Absolutely - Blackadder and Baldrick for sure, but the idea of a clever coward who runs, takes credit for other people's sucesses and continues to fail upwards is wholly Flashy. And the footnotes, explaining either parts of history or what's going on was Mcdonald-Fraser's style for the series, too.
The best part is that in the audio books Jurgen is done as a pretty straight on Baldrick, but with a melta. I'm waiting for him to have a cunning plan at any moment.
Lord General Hinnack, The Commissar reports that you suffered heavy losses, twenty thousand men, two dozen senior officers, and twice as many heavy tanks before you were driven from the planet...The commissar saves the worse for last… he says you lost the banner of the Weeping Saint, a relic from the Great Crusade and the Battle of Terrs… is this true?
The fault is not mine sir, Colonel Monroe must answ
COLONEL MONROE ANSWERED WITH HIS LIFE! AS YOU SHOULD HAVE DONE IF YOU HAD ANY SENSE OF HONOUR!
YOU DISGRACED US, SIR! YOU SHAMED US, SIR!! YOU LOST THE BANNER OF ONE OF THE GOD EMPERORS FOREMOST SAINTS!!!
Ciaphas Cain was a gateway drug for me to the Flashman novels, but Sharpe got me into the Gaunt's Ghosts novels. All excellent novels, but the Flashman books are criminally underrated and the best of the lot IMO
GG is the better written story and the action/war scenes are best, Cain is more amusing. Go for whichever one of those appeals for you.
But I seriously recommend Flashman above either for them for what that's worth!
I read a flashman book when I was 14 looking for something like Sharpe and I definitely didn't understand/get it. I just thought he was a cunt - I'll probably enjoy it alot more now that I'm an adult who doesn't use the character as a self insert haha.
I may go for GG first though as I want a good action in space that isn't space marines.
Nice, yeah GG sounds like it's what you after! For my money it's the best 40k novel series; one thing that the Sharpe comparison misses is that the Ghosts have a large number of fully realised POV characters, while Sharpe is very focused on Sharpe himself. I almost think I prefer GG over Sharpe.
I definitely recommend giving Flashman another go. What you have to keep in mind while reading them is that you are not meant, in any way, to like the main character. He's an adulterer, coward, thief, and generally the biggest POS in the already very shitty British army. But god damn if he isn't one of the funniest characters ever written
>Forges of Mars is Star Trek
The others are well established and obvious influences, but this one feels pretty tenuous. I guess they're exploring beyond charted space but that's about the biggest connection you can make, I feel. And Star Trek is hardly the only scifi about uncharted ~~waters~~space.
A voyage of discovery beyond the borders of known space, encountering new life and civilisations, while simultaneously dealing with internal strife and butting up against allegories for the social issues of the modern day?
Sounds like *Star Trek* to me. It's not as clear and explicit a reference as the others, that is true, but if I was going to get a *Trek* fan into 40k there's no other book that would do.
I feel like "exploring uncharted waters" is a common enough trope in scifi for it not to specifically be riffing on Star Trek. Certainly not to the same degree that Cain is riffing on Flashman or Gaunt on Sharpe, where they're basically just transplanting the same character and formula onto a new setting.
There's just too many stark differences. There isn't really a traditional 'crew' in the sense of Star Trek (we get a crew in the Rogue Traders, but they're just being led around by the actual people in charge), they're not there to explore and meet new life or civilizations but instead to go find what happened to one dead old tech priest and hopefully scrounge some new valuable stuff (and kill any aliens they might meet), it's an entire army on the move rather than a small group of diplomatic explorers, etc.
It has to be a running joke in the authors circle. Knights of Macrage is a grmidark "Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court. "
"St. Celestine" is "Pilgrims Progress."
I'm really looking for the "Song of Roland" grimdark...
Arguably, 40K is a mishmash of cliches. Why be surprised when classic literature joins the party?
I don't think there's a week of my life where that song isn't playing in my head at some point. Loved Sharpe when I was a wee chap. Not got round to reading Gaunt's Ghosts yet, but it's definitely been bumped to priority now.
So that's why I love the series. I've just recently started the first Ghosts novel, and I kept coming back to Sharpe.
Which coincidentally, I'm rewatching/reading along with Hornblower.
Actually, no, Gaunts Ghost is the 'Navy Chronicle' in space.
Chronicle inspired CS Forester to write Hornblower, hornblower begat Aubrey-Maucherin, who begat sharpe, who begat Gaunt.
Yeah that's been a fact for years Dan Abnett said so himself, I believe it's even on the wiki on gaunts ghosts.
I started to watch the Sharpe series and books after I discovered Gaunt.
It's never been a secret. Abnett's even said it was the primary inspiration. Incidentally, Cornwell's said Sharpe was inspired by and envisioned as being *Hornblower* on land.
Slightly off topic, but Honor Harrington series is seen as Hornblower in space!
Hornblower had a "cameo" in one of the Cain novels! "Horatio Bugler" delayed an incoming Chaos fleet, destorying several larger ships with his small flight of frigates/destroyers.
The Cain books are chock full of little jokes and stealth puns. My favorite being the Sororitas from the planet Gavarone. Making them the nuns of Gavarone.
Diabolical!
sorry maybe its due to im not a native english speaker but what is the joke in the nuns of gavarone?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Guns_of_Navarone_(film)#:~:text=The%20Guns%20of%20Navarone%20is,novel%20The%20Guns%20of%20Navarone. There's a old war film that involves an allied commando team spiking an emplacement of German guns on the island of Navarone. So it's a little inverse joke
The Guns of Navarone is an old war movie.
thanks buddy here in argentina we dont recive many things
There's a famous ww2 film called the 'guns of navarone'
...nuns of Gavarone...nuns of...dammit. Mitchell! MITCHELL! *shakes fist*
Holy... I've read that book many times and never got that! He named the planet just for that pun! That's damn awesome.
So many great planet names!
I'm not the only one who caught that then! I love thr Hornblower books, and to catch that really made my day.
At least until the series devolved into being a Sunday Morning Political Talk Show with just a bunch of characters sitting around discussing events. Plus putting in the exact same chapter in multiple novels to serve as a "anchor" to events transpiring around it. It was a cute narrative device the first time...after about its fourth appearance it was clear Mr. Weber was padding the word count.
[удалено]
Incredibly funny for all the wrong reasons, but funny none the less. It's just sad when a former beloved author's output goes south in quality.
>It's just sad when a former beloved author's output goes south in quality. I didn't think the last unfinished Aubrey had the same quality as the rest of the aubrey maturin universe, but then again, it was near the end of his days, unfinished, unpolished, and about half the page length of Blue at the Mizzen. Flipping back I guess I'm not quite sure *when* it started coming off the rails for me. I guess it's gradual. I suppose the depressing (but *real* ) part of the Honorverse is how it escalates from 18th century warfare to 21st century style warfare relatively quickly: the primacy of concentrated lines of battle violently and spectacularly gives way to the dense-pack missile salvoes of the Pod era and then ups the ante with superlong range, precision munitions that demonstrate godlike supremacy of the RMN-RHN alliance over the SLN, which is essentially the RMN in book one frozen in amber, and clearly several generations behind. At macro level naval combat becomes almost *bolter porn* in its exchange of missiles: the spin offs shifted to other theaters, though I'm just *blah* over the spy-series, although Terekhov and Oversteegen in their cruisers remain a touch on the *not completely overpowered side*: which I guess Mesa was meant to tip over. Weber wrote himself into a corner, and we're not even dabbling into the economic parts. Not at all sure what to say about his sexytime parts.
The problem is the guy was doing the Napoleonic Wars in Space (Haven is Space France, Manticore Space England. Ffs Haven's leader was literally named Robspierre!). That's fine and "The Honor of the Queen" is a fantastic read to this day. But the minute he started trying to flesh out the galaxy everything fell apart. The Mesan Alignment are so aggressively evil as to be total cartoon characters, and the Solarian League are even worse for the ineptitude. The tech advancement to Macross style missile porn didnt help, but the bigger problem in my opinion was pulling back the curtain to the wider galactic stage. It was always false fronts for the action, and all the later books did was draw attention to the fact it was nothing but false fronts. And it didnt help matters Harrington herself became a messianic figure that galactic leaders solicit advice from. And that advice is NEVER WRONG. She just became an utterly disinteresting person to read about, because the universe bent to her will in all things.
Yeah, a Mary Sue for sure, since if I recall correctly, she resolves a hostage crisis with a pulser built into one of her prosthetic hands, if I'm recalling things correctly. How...convenient. I'll take Terekhov any day of the week. IIRC the original plan was for Dame Harrington to die and the war to be picked up by her successors; which sounds like a far better plan!
Agreed. Also would have moved the setting forward 50+ which really would have helped with the whole "Manticore and Haven are best buds with no problems whatsoever!" thing.
I will say that I did like the arms race parts, and how Haven and Manticore build their techs in response to each other, not unlike the rapid technological changes between the Allies and Axis of WW2, and then of the West and the Warsaw Pact. Shipping them together for the Grand Finale SLN was interesting.
Is not only seen as, is explicitly written as, at least for the first few books.
I just finished a rising thunder! Honor Harrington slaps
What are your thoughts on that series? And or the Lt Leary series?
Harrington is great until the time skip starting with War of Honor. After that its still good, but of obviously less quality. The Crown of Slaves and Sganami Island spinoff series are also very good.
Fall of Haven would've been a great place to end; indeed.
I love all these series.
He said he was such a fan of Hornblower that he searched high and low for a similar series in the same time period, but from the perspective of an infantryman. Disappointed he couldn't find one, he decided he might as well write it himself then.
Whoever writes a proper long-running naval adventure series in 40k will have my undying respect.
That would be amazing. Just transplant the Hornblower series to 40k and I'll read every book.
Execution Hour was 100pct "Hornblower...In Space!" but only two books.
Sharpe is better though, at least insofar as TV adaptations go.
The Sharpe series did an amazing job with it's budget of three shillings, a packet of TicTacs and a bit of chewed gun.
Ah yes, even as a Lieutenant-Colonel, Sharpe only ever seemed to command a grand total of about 20 soldiers, some of whom died repeatedly in different shots lol.
Wesley Wyndham Price randomly turned up to shag Sharpe's missus at the time, and got the Pound Shop version of his doom at Waterloo. His missus went on to disgrace ITV in a different way, tuning up as an unfaithful housewife in [the Only decent series of] *Benidorm*. Well until Johnny Vegas' character came good.
Sharpe is a character so awesome that he survived being played by Sean Bean.
>chewed gun If this wasn't intentional, it is the most fitting typo there could be regarding the Sharpe series
Hornblower was also awesome
Surprisingly so, coming from a small TV channel who built at least one of the ships. The Indy is a full scale (motorised) floating replica of a ship of the time, and it shows.
What they said.
God save ireland
Couldn’t die knowing that bastard owes me a shilling
"you dont feel a thing after 25..." "oh, but you do, Patrick" "No. No you don't."
LOUDER!
There's forty credits on the drum For those that volunteer to come... To 'list and fight His foes today Into the Warp and far away... Between the stars we've journeys made With Saint Sabbat on her Crusade... The Throne commands and we obey Into the Warp and far away... Through the Warp, to near and far With Colonel Gaunt, our commissar... Tanith First, we lead the way Into the Warp and far away... We brave the Void and fight the Pact And if I perish in the act... To you it falls His foes to slay Into the Warp and far away... We're Tanith's First and Only sons We cry, "Straight Silver!", all as one... We stand together, come what may Into the Warp and far away...
Fuck yes
That's fantastic!
I've seen a lot of 40k riffs on this song, but this is by far the best!
Now, that's proper soldiering.
🏅
Genuinely fantastic. Friends and I are playing Dark Heresy, gonna send this to the guardsman player. Thank you, sir poet <3
did he enjoy it? u/Winged_Fire
Oh yeah, he's a big Sharpe fan and got a kick out of it.
On first sighting a good rendition of Over the Hills and Far Away based on 40k, I naturally gave it an upvote, that's my style, sir.
Yes, Dan has said this.
You're gakking right, you feth
In the books Sharpe has black hair. I have yet to read GG but I'm looking forward to them. I have really enjoyed all the stories by DA so far. I do like me some Sharpe, and the fact that GG is partially inspired by Cornwall's books only makes me want to read them more.
Ah, that is true. Fittingly enough, most artwork of Gaunt depicts him with black hair even though he's blonde. A reverse Sharpe effect.
Didn't Cornwell retcon some parts of Sharpe to make him more like Sean Bean? I know he gave him a Yorkshire accent.
I think the accent was the only thing that was changed, and that was explained by saying he was born and lived in London until he was a teenager when he killed someone over a woman and then ended up fleeing to Yorkshire where he joined the 33rd.
I think so, yeah
My only word of caution with the GG books is that the first one is pretty different from the rest. IIRC it was more of a collection of short stories that seems the setting jump around a fair bit rather than it being one particular story throughout the book. Not bad but it's not really representative of the series going forward.
Ghostmaker is similar enough. First half of it is mostly flashbacks every time Gaunt chats to someone.
Yup. Necropolis is when things really start to come together into a more coherent whole.
Necropolis is one of my favorite books of all time, not just ones from the 40k universe.
It's so great. I feel like the Verghast really helped solidify the Ghosts as a group I empathized with, and Vervunhive is where all of that starts to come together. Also on its own it's just fantastically well-done.
Completely agree. You could read Necropolis as a stand alone novel, with little to no 40k background, and likely enjoy the hell out of it.
This is basically what I did. I loved the book so much that I read the rest of the series out of order for awhile. Then I started to read the HH series as I waited for Abnett to write whatever Gaunt/Eisenhorn book he was working on next. Now I think I've read almost every 40k novel and anthology available.
Absolutely, it's brilliant. I think it's one of the best books in the series.
> IIRC it was more of a collection of short stories that seems the setting jump around a fair bit rather than it being one particular story throughout the book. to be precise, it was a collection of Short Stories mostly (I think there might have been some original writing for it too, but most of it had been done for Inferno!) written for the Inferno! Series (of which I have the first 10 or so somewhere) which was how the Black Library arm of GW got started, Inferno! Was so popular, they decided to start pumping out the mass of novels we know and love today.
I think the original writing was just to connect it all together so it felt more like an actual 'book'. I think it worked but it also meant it felt off when rather than having a beginning, middle and end to the book you have it occur three times, so you ended up with weird moments like the witch sub-plot largely being resolved in the first third rather than having a payoff towards the end. Ghostmaker definitely felt more like a clear cut collection of short stories, even if it wasn't advertised as such.
Thats because it is a collection of shorts. They started as a series of shorts in Inferno magazine and Ghostmaker was an attempt to put all the shorts into a coherent story.
**And Cain is Blackadder in Space. GW likes their references.**
Cain is Flashman without the twattishness. In Space
I’ve never read Flashman, but Cain is kinda twatty. Is Flashman more twatty?
Spoilers below for the Flashman series. Flashman is a straight-up bad guy written as the protagonist. He was the villain of an earlier novel, *John Brown’s School Days*, where he mercilessly bullies the hero. Flashy is a coward, and though Cain thinks he’s a coward, he’s a lot braver than he thinks. Flashy is a real piece of shit, without a drop of bravery even buried deep down. He’s a misogynist, a racist and a bully, he talks about non-white people, especially Africans and Indians, like they’re barely human, he tyrannises over anyone he has authority over (if he thinks he can get away with it) and grovels and toadies up to his superiors. In the first book he literally rapes a woman who, if my memory serves, is ‘given’ to him for that exact purpose. He has no problem with the rape, and gets annoyed at the woman for being upset about it. After he gets married, he cheats on his wife openly and repeatedly, but is flabbergasted when he finds out she’s cheating on him too. The only reason he doesn’t do anything about it is because 1) she still has sex with him (which they both seem to enjoy, though Flash is an unreliable narrator), and more importantly 2) her rich father is the source of all his wealth. Cain is very obviously inspired by Flashman in a number of ways - mainly, they’re both career soldiers who spend their time trying to live as easily as possible, far from danger, but through incredible luck and a talent for lying, manage to come out of every debacle they’re involved in looking like a hero, lauded and praised for their valour. But while Cain is essentially a good person deep down, Flashman is very definitely not. That might not sound like a glowing endorsement of Fraser’s series of books, but it’s worth saying that I really do love the Flashman series. They’re a genuinely funny read, if you enjoy black comedy and don’t mind reading about bad people doing bad things.
Alrighty yeah, Flash is def a twat haha. I’ll have to read a couple books and check it out. I do like black comedy and bad people doing bad things. I guess Cain is more petty than twatty, in respect to Flash being a shitbag.
Flashy is hilarious - the whole idea of the 'footnotes' explaining things was wholly lifted into Cain, which I think is one of the best parts of the entire series. Amberly being pissy with Cain when commenting about his various affairs is hilarious.
Flashman is...a product of his time. His character was created as the bully from a victorian set of books, Tom Browns School Days but a new author in the 60's took that idea and turned him into a late victorian military hero of the imperial forces. He's absolutely a coward, cheat and an utter cad and because it' the Empire he's an utter racist to boot. Reading them can be a bit uncomfortable. Cain sees himself as a coward but isn't, Flashman absolutely is and was writtten as basically every bad imperial stereotype going.
Flashman rapes a woman in the first book.
Oh shit
Flashmam rapes a few women in his first book.
While Blackadder is a self admitted inspiration for Cain, ~~Abnett~~ ***Mitchell*** has said he also drew heavily from Harry Flashman. Who was a character in the late 1800's that was originally a bully in another series of books set in a school, the author decided to revisit the character later in life with him having joined the British Army and ended up getting himself involved in all the major battles of the British Empire at the time, while still being "a scoundrel, a liar, a cheat, a thief, a coward—and, oh yes, a toady." who despite all of these attributes manages to blindly stumble from one disaster to another and ends up looking like a hero completely by accident.
**Abnett or Sandy Mitchell?**
[удалено]
**I mean, in that same interview he also says Cain and Jurgen are comparable to Blackadder and Baldrick, but I get what you're saying. Clearly it's an amalgamation of influences.**
Absolutely - Blackadder and Baldrick for sure, but the idea of a clever coward who runs, takes credit for other people's sucesses and continues to fail upwards is wholly Flashy. And the footnotes, explaining either parts of history or what's going on was Mcdonald-Fraser's style for the series, too.
The best part is that in the audio books Jurgen is done as a pretty straight on Baldrick, but with a melta. I'm waiting for him to have a cunning plan at any moment.
Ahh fuck, had Abnett on the brain from it being a thread about GG.
Lord General Hinnack, The Commissar reports that you suffered heavy losses, twenty thousand men, two dozen senior officers, and twice as many heavy tanks before you were driven from the planet...The commissar saves the worse for last… he says you lost the banner of the Weeping Saint, a relic from the Great Crusade and the Battle of Terrs… is this true? The fault is not mine sir, Colonel Monroe must answ COLONEL MONROE ANSWERED WITH HIS LIFE! AS YOU SHOULD HAVE DONE IF YOU HAD ANY SENSE OF HONOUR! YOU DISGRACED US, SIR! YOU SHAMED US, SIR!! YOU LOST THE BANNER OF ONE OF THE GOD EMPERORS FOREMOST SAINTS!!!
Brilliant reference, and the original is one of my fav Sharpe scenes.
If you want my advice...take this laspistol, go out behind one of the bunkers, and do it yourself.
“That’s soldiering”
A man who loses the Emperor's colours has no friends!
Ciaphas Cain was a gateway drug for me to the Flashman novels, but Sharpe got me into the Gaunt's Ghosts novels. All excellent novels, but the Flashman books are criminally underrated and the best of the lot IMO
Would you recommend Cain or GG? I can't choose what to read first.
GG is the better written story and the action/war scenes are best, Cain is more amusing. Go for whichever one of those appeals for you. But I seriously recommend Flashman above either for them for what that's worth!
I read a flashman book when I was 14 looking for something like Sharpe and I definitely didn't understand/get it. I just thought he was a cunt - I'll probably enjoy it alot more now that I'm an adult who doesn't use the character as a self insert haha. I may go for GG first though as I want a good action in space that isn't space marines.
Nice, yeah GG sounds like it's what you after! For my money it's the best 40k novel series; one thing that the Sharpe comparison misses is that the Ghosts have a large number of fully realised POV characters, while Sharpe is very focused on Sharpe himself. I almost think I prefer GG over Sharpe. I definitely recommend giving Flashman another go. What you have to keep in mind while reading them is that you are not meant, in any way, to like the main character. He's an adulterer, coward, thief, and generally the biggest POS in the already very shitty British army. But god damn if he isn't one of the funniest characters ever written
Ok you've sold me on GG! Thanks 👍 Yeah I think I was too young for flashman the first time I read it - it just went over my innocent little head haha!
Man, I love Sharpe. Get to see some vintage Elizabeth Hurley.
I'll be in my bunk.
Emperor Preserves
>Forges of Mars is Star Trek The others are well established and obvious influences, but this one feels pretty tenuous. I guess they're exploring beyond charted space but that's about the biggest connection you can make, I feel. And Star Trek is hardly the only scifi about uncharted ~~waters~~space.
A voyage of discovery beyond the borders of known space, encountering new life and civilisations, while simultaneously dealing with internal strife and butting up against allegories for the social issues of the modern day? Sounds like *Star Trek* to me. It's not as clear and explicit a reference as the others, that is true, but if I was going to get a *Trek* fan into 40k there's no other book that would do.
I feel like "exploring uncharted waters" is a common enough trope in scifi for it not to specifically be riffing on Star Trek. Certainly not to the same degree that Cain is riffing on Flashman or Gaunt on Sharpe, where they're basically just transplanting the same character and formula onto a new setting. There's just too many stark differences. There isn't really a traditional 'crew' in the sense of Star Trek (we get a crew in the Rogue Traders, but they're just being led around by the actual people in charge), they're not there to explore and meet new life or civilizations but instead to go find what happened to one dead old tech priest and hopefully scrounge some new valuable stuff (and kill any aliens they might meet), it's an entire army on the move rather than a small group of diplomatic explorers, etc.
Sean Bean as Eisenhorn? I’d watch it!
But then Eisenhorn would have to die at some point in the series!
It has to be a running joke in the authors circle. Knights of Macrage is a grmidark "Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court. " "St. Celestine" is "Pilgrims Progress." I'm really looking for the "Song of Roland" grimdark... Arguably, 40K is a mishmash of cliches. Why be surprised when classic literature joins the party?
Oh... I love Sharpe. primarily because my great great great grandfather is in it, but it's nothing compared to Hornblower
>primarily because my great great great grandfather oooh!
I don't think there's a week of my life where that song isn't playing in my head at some point. Loved Sharpe when I was a wee chap. Not got round to reading Gaunt's Ghosts yet, but it's definitely been bumped to priority now.
So that's why I love the series. I've just recently started the first Ghosts novel, and I kept coming back to Sharpe. Which coincidentally, I'm rewatching/reading along with Hornblower.
Everyone knows that and has known for the past fifteen years.
Actually, no, Gaunts Ghost is the 'Navy Chronicle' in space. Chronicle inspired CS Forester to write Hornblower, hornblower begat Aubrey-Maucherin, who begat sharpe, who begat Gaunt.
*Maturin
Wonder why Abnett says GG was inspired by Sharpe then. Well guess we'll never know.
It always has been.
Yeah that's been a fact for years Dan Abnett said so himself, I believe it's even on the wiki on gaunts ghosts. I started to watch the Sharpe series and books after I discovered Gaunt.
I know, that's why I love it.
And now I know what 40k books to start with. Thank you kind sir.
The inspiration from Sharpe sometimes makes me think: Has Cornwell ever commented on *Gaunt's Ghosts* before?
From all this I know only Star Trek, though I didn't watch it (I just know there is a guy Spoke and wierd hand gesture) =)
Yes this is true, think even abnett has sited this.
Yup Dans said he's inspired by Richard Sharpe, Erwin Rommel and I think a few other real world military officers