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Popular Culture Review
within the multiplicity of gaps, often exploring the ‘little stories’ typically left
unexplored within the canon, whether that be the dying moments of a soldier on
the battlefield, letters sent home from the frontline, or even, indeed, life within
one of the multitude of hiveworlds within the Imperium. In doing so they
believe it is possible to both adhere to the canon and yet still tell original stories
that enrich their understanding of the W40K universe.
A Universe “Practically Designed for Fanfiction”
The second dominant theme that came out my interviews with W40K fanauthors was their emphasis on originality. When asked what, for them, were the
defining characteristics of good W40K fanfiction, the recurring response was
that it used the canon in an innovative way. ‘Steven’ summed this attitude up
succinctly: “for me it comes down to good story telling with innovation. I like to
see stories exploring stuff that’s never been explored before”. Equally, when
asked what they believed were the defining characteristics of bad W40K
fanfiction, the majority of them pointed to issues such as lack of originality and
derivative plots, alongside more practical concerns such as bad spelling and
grammar. Too many W40K fan-authors, they claimed, merely mimicked the
style and tone of published stories or produced what was termed ‘bolter-pom’;
endless descriptions of bloody battles between common foes with little or no
plot, suspense or character development:5
Many 40K authors tend to write about a bloodbath battle set in
the 40K world using 40K elements, because that’s all that they
see, or perhaps all they think needs to be said . . . ‘In the grim
darkness of the far future, there is only war’: they take the
‘only’ bit too far—they write about war, but forget the
character development, the plot t ݥ