Games Workshop
Entry updated 13 February 2023. Tagged: Publisher, Game.
UK company specializing in fantasy-adventure Role Playing Games, Wargames and models. Its related Magazine White Dwarf (June/July 1977-current), initially covering the entire field of fantasy and sf RPG and Board Games, narrowed its focus from the later 1980s to deal only with Games Workshop's own miniatures-based Wargame products (see Warhammer 40,000). In its early years the magazine ran occasional sf/fantasy fiction and serial Comic strips; David Langford contributed the sf/fantasy book review column "Critical Mass" from 1983 to 1988, these columns being collected with subsequent work for other games magazines as The Complete Critical Assembly (coll 2001). After Langford's departure further genre review columns were contributed by David V Barrett and David Pringle.
Games Workshop's subsidiary, GW Books, under the editorship of David Pringle (with Neil Jones 1990-1991), between 1989 and 1991 produced a range of novels and story collections in three series relating to three of the company's games: Warhammer (Heroic Fantasy), Warhammer 40,000 (heroic fantasy/Space Opera) and Dark Future (Alternate-History/Cyberpunk/car action). Writers who contributed novels included Brian Craig (Brian M Stableford), David Ferring (David S Garnett), Ian Watson and Jack Yeovil (Kim Newman), while the anthologies, edited by Pringle (one with Neil Jones), featured work by these authors and, among others, S M Baxter (Stephen Baxter), Myles Burnham (Eugene Byrne), Ralph T Castle (Charles Platt), Storm Constantine, Charles Davidson (Charles Stross), Sean Flynn (Paul J McAuley), Nicola Griffith, Neil Jones and William King.
Ranging from the conventional to the very offbeat, GW Books' output was superior to the highly successful stream of games-related fictions from the TSR stable (see Game-Worlds), perhaps because Pringle, editor of Interzone, drew on the contributors to that magazine. Further ties continued to appear after Pringle and GW had parted company. Games Workshop also published very many games manuals and two art books, one featuring Les Edwards, the other John Blanche and Ian Miller. [KN/DRL]
further reading
- Ian Livingstone and Steve Jackson. Dice Men: The Origin Story of Games Workshop (London: Unbound, 2022) [nonfiction: hb/]
links
- Stephen Baxter. "Freedom in an Owned World: Warhammer Fiction and the Interzone Generation" (May/June 2003 Vector) [mag/]
- Picture Gallery
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