# Which BL authors do you think are really hit or miss?



## MontytheMighty (Jul 21, 2009)

My picks...

Graham McNeill and Nick Kyme. 

I have issues with Graham's style. His writing, especially his descriptions, can be extremely vague and verbose. I've noticed that he doesn't often use imagery appealing to the senses, rather he slathers on a bunch of vague, abstract adjectives, which don't allow me to visualise a vivid image of what he's describing. Just my opinion...

As for Nick, I read some of his stuff and I honestly think to myself, sh1t...I write better prose than this guy. Promethean Sun and most of his other stuff is incredibly bland. Promethean Sun is also really juvenile...it reads like space marines vs. Jurassic Park/Dino-Riders. 

However, I really enjoyed _A Thousand Sons_ and to a lesser extent, _Fall of Damnos_, which I found to be solidly entertaining. Comparing _Fall of Damnos_ to _Promethean Sun_, I find it hard to believe that the same guy wrote them. I'm sure Nick wrote both, but he must've been inspired by the muse or something when he wrote _Fall of Damnos_. Graham is on average better, but I've found that _A Thousand Sons_ is by far the high point of his work.


----------



## IRkorpus (Nov 13, 2012)

William King's Gotrek and Felix novels where great but when Nathan Long took over i found he didnt quite hit the mark for me. still a great author in my book but i thought the standard W.K. had set wasnt quite reached.


----------



## Rems (Jun 20, 2011)

All of them with the exception of ADB. I've enjoyed every single one of his books, the man can write 40k (Hell the man can write, full stop). 

Even Abnett, the lauded golden boy of Black Library i find to be hit or miss. Know No Fear and the Eisenhorn series were great, filled with little sci-fi touches which made the setting feel like it was in the future. Conceptually they're what 40k should be. The Gaunts Ghosts series however i just can't get into. I find it predictable and cliche, with characters that verge on 'Mary Sues'. 

James Swallow takes my 'hit and miss' award though. His Blood Angels series was pretty atrocious, but then he pulls out Flight of the Eisenstien. Then it's back to poor form with Nemesis. The man's a pendulum.


----------



## Bane_of_Kings (Oct 28, 2009)

Graham McNeill (Loved _A Thousand Sons_, hated _Courage and Honour_), Nick Kyme (Loved the Salamanders Trilogy, didn't like _Perfection_ anywhere near as much) and Gav Thorpe (Loved _Deliverance Lost_ and his last two Eldar novels, but hated _The Purging of Kadillius_)


----------



## ckcrawford (Feb 4, 2009)

I agree. All of them except ADB yet. To be honest he is more of a realistic type writer. It was his realism that kind of turned me off. But I actually like it a lot better after the ruination of many novels.

Two big misses for me are Gav Thorpe's Raven's Flight and Graham McNeill's Angel Exterminatus.


----------



## Lord of the Night (Nov 18, 2009)

William King (Love _Angel of Fire_, Hate _Sword of Caledor_), Dan Abnett (_Know No Fear_ and _Pariah_ are amazing, _Gaunt's Ghosts_ bores the hell out of me), and Nick Kyme (Love the _Salamanders_ series including _Nocturne_, but I dislike his Dwarf work, but that is probably because I dislike Dwarfs in general.)

Only two authors are consistently awesome and get more awesome with each release. ADB and C.L Werner.


LotN


----------



## Mossy Toes (Jun 8, 2009)

In terms of being hit or miss with the readers, I am quite enamored with what Matt Farrer and Rob Sanders turn out, but many seem to get a "miss" for those authors.


----------



## piemelke (Oct 13, 2010)

I agree with monty I thought the salamanders series was only becoming worse as the series expanded, crap the last book could have been written by Swallow,
I also think ADB has his better and worse moments, to be honest I think his book from a loyalist space marine perspective were not that great (Hellsreach was still way above par in the SMB series), the emperor's gift was not that great but hey Matt did not give him a present with the super excellent GK codex. To be honest I do not think he is a loyalist kinda guy all his portraits of loyalist are as naive cunts (which they probably are) it seems he has it for the dramatic though tormented guy (who he kills off in the end Talos, Sevatar) with a lot of funny comments. 
For me prince of crows was his worst yet, still better than average but I had the feeling I was watching an american movie (piggybacking a space flyer wtf ??).
I do appreciate the work of Sanders except atlas infernal.
Sarah wrote a good book with the gildar rift, 
graham missed with the outcast dead 
Chris scored with battle of the fang, wrath of iron was less good
and Andy smillie is also promising


----------



## Vaz (Mar 19, 2008)

Graham McNeils work reminds me a bit of an african diamond mine worker having a shit. A lot of it is brown dribbly smelly stuff you rather don't want to go rooting around in, but you know you "must" so as not to miss out anything, but once a while, you do come across a gem. And then having been caught, he produces his brown dribbly smelly stuff.

Darius Hinks is another. His Sigvald was pretty unreadable, his characters and plots are convoluted and twisting, when they a) shouldn't be and b) aren't written that well. His Orion was one of the worst books in Fantasy so far; about the quality of the Knights of the White Wolf novel. I haven't read his Empire books, and I don't want to - this isn't 40k where I fear I am missing out on storylines (I REALLY didn't want to get Angel Exterminatus especially after athe Outcast Dead, but due to the title, I feel I am "forced" to). 

Nick Kyme; Salamanders, and now Dwarfs. He has ruined both. I picked up his Great Betrayal, and the two he standalones he did in the dwarf "trilogy"; they wrre terrible; Gav Thorpe's scaling can be a bit off kilter, but I have got less than 50 pages in, and I am reading about 20000 Dragons in a single battle, and then got to the Dwarfs finding Skaven 200 years before they were even made, let alone discovered by the Dwarfs. The guy should't be given a pad and pen lest he actually starts writing anything down. Let us not get started on Salamanders; we'll be here all day talking about Firey Fire Marines of Firey Doom; so much so that the wolfy Space Wolves of wolfiness with wolfy mcwolfywolfington seem appropriately and tastefully named.

Winners? ADB (Prince of Crows, TFH), Abnett (Double Eagle, Know No Fear, Legion, Guns of Tanith, although the later novels are tired and running out of ideas now that Bernard Cornwell has stopped writing Sharpe), CL Werner (Wulfrik, The Red Duke), Mike Lee (Nagash, although I will overlook his failure to properly mutilate the Druchii), Gav Thorpe (Odd as it is, I do enjoy his Books; Angels of Darkness, The Lion, excluding senseless death of Nemiel, Caledor and Deliverance Lost. I am a bit disappointed he never makes a "revelation" storyline, like Legion, or breaks the mould in anyway, like Prince of Crows. It is still so much better than someone who writes generic scifi and slaps a HH label on to get it sold), and the guy who made Florin D'Artaud, sadly I cannot remember his name for the life of me. Oh, and Gordon Rennie (Gothic War, Zavant, hell yeah), and Brian... Craig? (Orfeo, the guy who did Plague Daemon). For the oldies still out there.


----------



## Roninman (Jul 23, 2010)

MontytheMighty said:


> My picks...
> 
> Graham McNeill and Nick Kyme.
> 
> ...


Totally agree on both of these. I dont even have nothing to add


----------



## MontytheMighty (Jul 21, 2009)

piemelke said:


> I also think ADB has his better and worse moments, to be honest I think his book from a loyalist space marine perspective were not that great (Hellsreach was still way above par in the SMB series), the emperor's gift was not that great but hey Matt did not give him a present with the super excellent GK codex. To be honest I do not think he is a loyalist kinda guy all his portraits of loyalist are as naive cunts (which they probably are) it seems he has it for the dramatic though tormented guy (who he kills off in the end Talos, Sevatar) with a lot of funny comments.
> For me prince of crows was his worst yet, still better than average but I had the feeling I was watching an american movie (piggybacking a space flyer wtf ??)


I don't want this turning into a circle-jerk but I couldn't agree more 

ADB's loyalist SM work is still above average, but pretty poor compared to his better CSM stuff (NL mostly). I did enjoy his Flesh Tearers short story a lot, but the Crimson Fist one was mediocre, as was _The Emperor's Gift_, in part because it smacked of SW/Logan Grimnar wank (but wasn't the only reason). _Helsreach_ was good but not great. 

_Prince of Crows_ was nice. We now know Sevatar has speedhax and a witticism for any situation. I enjoyed it for the most part. 

I don't think ADB is a "hit or miss" for me because he never misses by that much. The man can write, no doubt about it. McNeill and Kyme on the other hand...sometimes they can write well...sometimes they're utter shite


----------



## Hachiko (Jan 26, 2011)

MontytheMighty said:


> I don't think ADB is a "hit or miss" for me because he never misses by that much. The man can write, no doubt about it.


Also, lest we forget, Cadian Blood. Damn good and fun Imperial Guard novel.


----------



## cheeto (Apr 1, 2011)

Graham McNeill. I was all into painting little led models and reading White Dwarf when I was a teenager and I never knew Warhammer was releasing books until a few years ago I recognized the Warhammer 40k emblem out of the corner of my eye while looking for something to read for a trans pacific flight...

My first 40k book was The Killing Ground. It was only out of morbid curiosity that I picked up my next 40k book which was Eisenhorn. Thank God for Abnett. After Abnett I was solidly sold on 40k books. 

The Killing ground was atrocious. Not all of the books in the UltraMarines series were bad, a few even pretty good but mostly misses for me. There is just something kinda McGoo about his writing style that is a huge let down for me but I still pick up his books anyway.


There is one author that I just can't bring myself to read again but the thread was hit or miss, not worst author in the black library...


----------



## ckcrawford (Feb 4, 2009)

Vaz said:


> Graham McNeils work reminds me a bit of an african diamond mine worker having a shit. A lot of it is brown dribbly smelly stuff you rather don't want to go rooting around in, but you know you "must" so as not to miss out anything, but once a while, you do come across a gem. And then having been caught, he produces his brown dribbly smelly stuff.


LOL! So true! _Storm of Iron_ and the first couple books in the Ultramarine series were pretty good, but he pretty much lured both fans into his series of pretty terrible novels. The Ultramarines series went no where with Uriel pwning nubes left and right. We get it Mr. McNeil he's your version of Draigo. The Iron Warrior series was completely ruined. 

He's like the bald dude in the parking lot who offers two boys nice pieces of candy and tells them there's a lot more in the trunk.


----------



## MontytheMighty (Jul 21, 2009)

Gav Thorpe can be quite good sometimes. Other times not so much. Swallow isn't a hit or miss for me as he's always been a miss


----------



## Kreuger (Aug 30, 2010)

Something to consider here is how much is the author and how much is the editor? Additionally, how much of the stories are required or controlled by GW's corporate vision for the franchise?

I'm willing to wager that the black library team needs better editors. In novel production, editing isn't just cruising t's and during i's but also helping to vet content and writing and telling the author, "this is bad" "this thing needs to change" etc.


----------



## Diatribe1974 (Jul 15, 2010)

When Abnett writes about Gaunt's Ghosts, I feel like I'm staring into the abyss, slowly losing myself into the madness within. As a result, I struggle to finish anything concerning it. But the moment he writes anything non-GG, I absolutely love it.


----------



## ckcrawford (Feb 4, 2009)

MontytheMighty said:


> Gav Thorpe can be quite good sometimes. Other times not so much. Swallow isn't a hit or miss for me as he's always been a miss


I actually liked _Angels of Darkness_. His books can be written pretty well, I just believe his novels spark up quite a bit of controversy. Even _Angels of Darkness_ was met with A LOT of controversy. Granted, I read his novels the same time I started reading the series a bit back. So I guess I kind of thought every Black Library author was competent. 

But one thing is for sure about Gav Thorpe, he is very into introducing new fluff. I have heard people call it updates or something of that sort, but really, its actually forged from a fact mixed with a bunch of nothingness.

In Dark Angels, he used the Dark Angel's secrecy against them. In _Deliverance Lost_ he uses the one fact that the Raven Guards destroyed themselves by tampering with their geneseed into something completely different.


----------



## piemelke (Oct 13, 2010)

Angels of darkness was his best book so far, at least from my perspective, 
deliverance lost I did not like that at all, he was not able to give the RG an identity except that they got their arses kicked a lot,
also here the AL came as the drago of legions
and here goes the circle
I do not like Swallow, the abyss book was ok, but what he did to the BA is unforgivable, I read one short story from Andy and that was already heaps better


----------



## Angel of Blood (Aug 18, 2010)

Can't believe so many people don't like Gaunts Ghosts. I rate it as probably one of the best series I've ever read, with Sabbat Martyr coming right up as one of the best books I've read.


----------



## Doelago (Nov 29, 2009)

Angel of Blood said:


> Can't believe so many people don't like Gaunts Ghosts. I rate it as probably one of the best series I've ever read, with Sabbat Martyr coming right up as one of the best books I've read.


Agreed. The first two books are a bit of that and that, but after that it really picks up and is pure awesome from start to finish.


----------



## forkmaster (Jan 2, 2010)

Well book two I think is important as it a compilation of shorts that builts un individually every character of the regiment and shows who they are.  Gav Thorpe wrote a great FotE, slightly less good Nemesis and FtT (the last one lacked characters). Dan Abnett writes great books, but some of them are too complicated. PS for instance I did not like as it was dull. It was great from a higher sense (with detailing the culture of the SW), but still too dull.

Rob Saunders Im afraid I would say is a typical hit and miss, as he writes great stories, but i have no idea what the hell is happening in them.


----------



## Marley (Nov 3, 2012)

I can see where people are coming from with Gaunts Ghosts. A few years ago I tried it and never even got halfway through "Ghostmaker" - just didn't click for me. However, on holiday last year I read "Necropolis" on my kindle and since then I have read every single book in the series. It's different to any other Black Library series and i'm glad I went back to it. The characters and emotions are much deeper than usual, action is awesome and very varied and once you get into the story your hooked.

But.... I can see why people wouldnt like it. Sometimes it doesn't "feel" like 40K if that doesn't sound silly? However, I would definately suggest giving it a second go for anyone who initially gave up on it like me.

On a similar topic I should probably heed my own advice and give "Prospero Burns" another chance eh....


----------



## TRU3 CHAOS (May 21, 2010)

Graham is by far the biggest hot or miss author. He reminds me of Sammy Sosa.


----------



## Lord of the Night (Nov 18, 2009)

Angel of Blood said:


> Can't believe so many people don't like Gaunts Ghosts. I rate it as probably one of the best series I've ever read, with Sabbat Martyr coming right up as one of the best books I've read.


I've just never liked it. Too many of the main or awesome or both of those characters are dead, the Tanith 1st and Only are not an Imperial regiment that really draw me in, the enemy does not include enough awesome Chaos forces and hasn't since Heritor Asphodel died, and I find the series dull for the most part.



Vaz said:


> And then got to the Dwarfs finding Skaven 200 years before they were even made, let alone discovered by the Dwarfs.


The Dwarfs discovered some Proto-Skaven, not the actual Skaven society which at that time does not exist. But the Dwarfs will recognize the Skaven as a threat in 200 years from TGB, but that is not to say that they never saw any signs of them. After all they are living on top of them, it'd be impossible that they never saw a single sign of the Skaven until the rat-men assaulted them and took many of their holdings from them.


As for Graham McNeill and Nick Kyme. I like them, but I admit I can see why others do not, Kyme more so than McNeill.

McNeill wrote _A Thousand Sons_, for that alone he is awesome. But add to that _Angel Exterminatus, Storm of Iron, Warriors of Ultramar_ and the Elven Duology and he just becomes beyond awesome. That said he's had his share of duds, _Courage and Honour_ and _The Outcast Dead_, but I really do enjoy his work and look forward to all of his releases.

Kyme's Dwarfs are not for me but I don't like Dwarfs period. But I loved Kyme's Salamanders, his portrayal of Dark Eldar in _Firedrake_ was sublime and I absolutely love the story of the Dragon Warriors that the trilogy weaves subtly in the background until _Nocturne_ when most of it becomes clear, and the promise of more in the future is some of the best news i've had BL-wise. I also enjoyed _Fall of Damnos_ but it needs a sequel to finish it off.


LotN


----------



## ckcrawford (Feb 4, 2009)

@ LotN

What do you think about Dan Abnett's style of writing with _Legion,_ and _Prospero Burns?_ I often look at your book reviews and I noticed you rated _Prospero Burns_ lower than most Heresy Novels. Obviously you _Know no Fear_, was written differently, but besides that novel, do you rate books like _Legion_, or _Horus Rising_ in the 8's along with Prospero?


----------



## MontytheMighty (Jul 21, 2009)

piemelke said:


> also here the AL came as the drago of legions


Yes, ugh 



> I do not like Swallow, the abyss book was ok, but what he did to the BA is unforgivable, I read one short story from Andy and that was already heaps better


Andy Smillie I presume...
Swallow absolutely butchers the BA. I don't know how he can manage to make them so..._bland_


----------



## Rems (Jun 20, 2011)

Angel of Blood said:


> Can't believe so many people don't like Gaunts Ghosts. I rate it as probably one of the best series I've ever read, with Sabbat Martyr coming right up as one of the best books I've read.


Are you by chance also a fan of the Sharpe series?


----------



## Vaz (Mar 19, 2008)

@LotN; I beg to differ. As an in universe novel, Graham Mcneil falls terribly; according to you, his best pieces of work are ones which really bear no relevance to 40k or the WHF world; the stories are generic fantasy with the names of characters tied in so that he can sell his books and make a "fake" name for himself.

Praising Storm of Iron now is utterly wrong; trying to show how "different chaos is because different chaos chaos different" at that stage was new; but not well concieved or written. Characters were monofaceted and uninteresting, and his pacing was terrible. Warriors of Ultramar; same issues. We see men in power armour, not Space Marines but are excessively dull and again, boring. He is also the one we are to blame for the suggestion that every special character in the Ultramariones has to be one who bucks the Codex - Idaeus, Himself, and Sicarius to name but a few.

His Thousand Sons expresses their "magic"; big flashy hollywood shit. Not at all like the dark, brutal, insidiousness nature of Psychic powers. Ignore the "hairography" (yes ive been watching glee, blame the missus), and you get to yet again, a poorly timed, uninteresting selection of characters whose only difference is their name.

Lets not get into Angel Exterminatus; I rate it as poorly as Battle for the Abyss, and should be retitled to "How I once again fucked up the Emperors Children into moronic twats mk3 and Storm of Iron characters, an inane and boring monofaceted biography".

His one true success is The Ambassador novels; in particular the first; the second was a little daft, but it worked because we had no other information about Kislev at the time other than Gotrek and Felix in Praag or Riders of the Dead. The latter is superior by far, personally, but it is not exactly dealing with the same situation; it was almost as good as Rennie's Zavant, but as an airport book it almost works as a generic fantasy "whodunnit", but again, it has very minor correlation ans ties with current fluff.

As for the Proto Skaven; no, Skavenblight/Kazvar wasn't even occupied by Humans or Dwarves by the time of the occurence (-2005), for another 5 years at least. It would then be 200 years before it was overrun by "large rats" (note not man like rats) after the meteor. Plus, his writing makes me want to bounce his head off a wall. While his characters have a bit of character, he can't write for shit.


----------



## Lord of the Night (Nov 18, 2009)

ckcrawford said:


> @ LotN
> 
> What do you think about Dan Abnett's style of writing with _Legion,_ and _Prospero Burns?_ I often look at your book reviews and I noticed you rated _Prospero Burns_ lower than most Heresy Novels. Obviously you _Know no Fear_, was written differently, but besides that novel, do you rate books like _Legion_, or _Horus Rising_ in the 8's along with Prospero?


Ok first off my opinion of _Legion_ is that it is NOT an Alpha Legion novel. It is an Imperial Army novel with the Alpha Legion playing a guest starring role. It does not show off much of their black ops skills and is more about revealing why they sided with Horus rather than exploring them as an Astartes Legion, which I admit is important but still we need more about them. I was more impressed by their portrayal in _Deliverance Lost_, now the Alpha Legion impressed me in that book. I went in thinking "It's not possible to infiltrate an Astartes Legion." Man I was wrong. The Alpha Legion felt very distinct in DL, the kind of Legion that you should fear because you'll never be able to predict what they will do and how they'll beat you.

Personally I think Abnett does not like writing Space Marines, or he vastly prefers to write Guard and Inquisitor stuff. Know No Fear was fantastic, but Prospero Burns and Legion both don't feel like what we were told we would get. _Legion_ is an Imperial Army novel and _Prospero Burns_ is a mystery novel featuring the Space Wolves. I've changed, and improved, my ranking system since I read them but i'd say that _Legion_ and _Prospero Burns_ would now get anywhere from 7 to 7.5. Which to me is enjoyable but not standout and certainly not up to the standard that BL has been giving us in recent months.

_Horus Rising_ would be somewhere around 7.5 to 8.



Vaz said:


> @LotN; I beg to differ. As an in universe novel, Graham Mcneil falls terribly; according to you, his best pieces of work are ones which really bear no relevance to 40k or the WHF world; the stories are generic fantasy with the names of characters tied in so that he can sell his books and make a "fake" name for himself.


I've read generic fantasy. McNeill is leagues above it.



Vaz said:


> His Thousand Sons expresses their "magic"; big flashy hollywood shit. Not at all like the dark, brutal, insidiousness nature of Psychic powers. Ignore the "hairography" (yes ive been watching glee, blame the missus), and you get to yet again, a poorly timed, uninteresting selection of characters whose only difference is their name.


Of course its flashy, it's meant to be. The Thousand Sons go to war with magic swirling around them in gases and currents of indescribable colour with swords made of incandescent flame and bolters that spew pure energy that can cut through armor and strike the soul and lightning crackling across theri armor that is carved to resemble statues and daemons. It's going to be very flashy and very big. But the Thousand Sons at that point have not delved into sorcery and the dark side of it has not yet emerged, thus their magic can appear somewhat wholesome. But when Magnus fights Russ the true face of their powers shows itself and you can see that the powers they'll be using later are going to be very different to what they've used before.

As for the characters, it's your opinion. But I enjoyed Ahriman immensely, no other fictional character has stirred such hate in me that Ohthere Wyrdmake did, and Magnus was a fascinating character whose motives were not only understandable but sympathetic.

Oh and quick tip for you and your wife regarding Glee. Watch Season 1, and then unless you like Public Service Announcements stop watching immediately and never put it on again.



Vaz said:


> *Lets not get into Angel Exterminatus; I rate it as poorly as Battle for the Abyss*, and should be retitled to "How I once again fucked up the Emperors Children into moronic twats mk3 and Storm of Iron characters, an inane and boring monofaceted biography".


I have no idea how you can even bring yourself to type that. My brain would cut off circulation before it would allow that to be typed by my hand.

_Angel Exterminatus_ was great and once again illuminated a lesser-known Primarch and made the reasons clear as to why the Iron Warriors joined Horus. And the Emperor's Children were an absolute delight and the final part with Fulgrim was shocking, and has me eagerly awaiting the moment when the other Traitor Primarchs meet him again and can see what has become of him.



Vaz said:


> His one true success is The Ambassador novels; in particular the first; the second was a little daft, but it worked because we had no other information about Kislev at the time other than Gotrek and Felix in Praag or Riders of the Dead. The latter is superior by far, personally, but it is not exactly dealing with the same situation; it was almost as good as Rennie's Zavant, but as an airport book it almost works as a generic fantasy "whodunnit", but again, it has very minor correlation ans ties with current fluff.


I have heard of these novels twice. Both from you. Other then that, never heard of them and I don't care for Kislev so not really interesting in picking up a duology about it.


LotN


----------



## VulkansNodosaurus (Dec 3, 2010)

Graham McNeill. A Thousand Sons is probably my favorite BL book; Defenders of Ulthuan (Elves 1) probably my least favorite. To a lesser extent, Gav Thorpe.

The authors I feel are consistent are Abnett and ADB (consistently good), plus Kyme and Swallow (consistently OK to meh).


----------



## piemelke (Oct 13, 2010)

Lord of the Night said:


> Ok first off my opinion of Legion is that it is NOT an Alpha Legion novel. It is an Imperial Army novel with the Alpha Legion playing a guest starring role. It does not show off much of their black ops skills and is more about revealing why they sided with Horus rather than exploring them as an Astartes Legion, which I admit is important but still we need more about them. I was more impressed by their portrayal in Deliverance Lost, now the Alpha Legion impressed me in that book. I went in thinking "It's not possible to infiltrate an Astartes Legion." Man I was wrong. The Alpha Legion felt very distinct in DL, the kind of Legion that you should fear because you'll never be able to predict what they will do and how they'll beat you.


I found DL not that great at all giving a very 2-dimensional image of both the RG and the AL (see earlier posts), but I guess the same goes for you and me we all like what we want to read, my personal view is that AL is overrated and the RG has been portrayed as naive one in a dozen legions by Gav, Graham portaits them as space ninja's which I like



Lord of the Night said:


> Personally I think Abnett does not like writing Space Marines, or he vastly prefers to write Guard and Inquisitor stuff


I think he really like to reflect from the perspective of a standard human in the grimdark 40K setting, however I enjoyed brotherhood of the snake, know no fear and prospero burns, legion not that much,


----------



## Angel of Blood (Aug 18, 2010)

Rems said:


> Are you by chance also a fan of the Sharpe series?


Strangely no, never read the, enjoyed the tv series, but just don't really like reading novels based in anything before WW2 times.



Lord of the Night said:


> Ok first off my opinion of _Legion_ is that it is NOT an Alpha Legion novel. It is an Imperial Army novel with the Alpha Legion playing a guest starring role. It does not show off much of their black ops skills and is more about revealing why they sided with Horus rather than exploring them as an Astartes Legion, which I admit is important but still we need more about them. I was more impressed by their portrayal in _Deliverance Lost_, now the Alpha Legion impressed me in that book. I went in thinking "It's not possible to infiltrate an Astartes Legion." Man I was wrong. The Alpha Legion felt very distinct in DL, the kind of Legion that you should fear because you'll never be able to predict what they will do and how they'll beat you.


I still fully see it as an Alpha Legion novel .I still believe that the Alpha Legion couldn't have been written about, or rather introduced in any other way than how they were in _Legion_. It gave them that perfect air of subterfuge and manipulation they are renowned for. And the fantastic reveal of Omegon. For me _Deliverance Lost_(terrible novel imo) took away all of that, sure it showed they could infiltrate another legion, but the Legionaries themselves seemed to just become less....independent perhaps. In _Legion_, we are shown that they are all encouraged to question the primarchs motives and the mission on a wider scale, yet in DL they are now blindly following the Primarchs with no idea as to why they have betrayed the Emperor and thrown in their lot with Horus. Don't even get me started on how poorly I feel he portrayed Alpharius, his meeting with Horus seemed almost cringe worthy . _The Serpent Beneath_ however, was once again a very good portrayal of them



Lord of the Night said:


> Personally I think Abnett does not like writing Space Marines, or he vastly prefers to write Guard and Inquisitor stuff. Know No Fear was fantastic, but Prospero Burns and Legion both don't feel like what we were told we would get. _Legion_ is an Imperial Army novel and _Prospero Burns_ is a mystery novel featuring the Space Wolves. I've changed, and improved, my ranking system since I read them but i'd say that _Legion_ and _Prospero Burns_ would now get anywhere from 7 to 7.5. Which to me is enjoyable but not standout and certainly not up to the standard that BL has been giving us in recent months.


I don't think so personally. Again I feel _Legion_ simply had to be written that way to introduce the XX legion. I also thought _Prospero Burns_ was done in a brilliant way. Sure the first few chapters leave a lot to be desired, but after that I think once again it was the perfect way to reintroduce and revamp the Wolves that would have seemed a bit strange if done from their own perspective. I also still maintain despite what people say, that the novel was still largely about the burning of Prospero, it just showed why it happened as opposed to it actually happening(which would have just been the opposite of what we've already read). But going back to not liking writing Astartes, _Horus Rising_ was fantastic, you'd be hard pressed to find people who don't like Loken, Torgaddon and Tarvitz, or even the soon to be traitors like Abaddon and Little Horus. 




piemelke said:


> I found DL not that great at all giving a very 2-dimensional image of both the RG and the AL (see earlier posts), but I guess the same goes for you and me we all like what we want to read, my personal view is that AL is overrated and the RG has been portrayed as naive one in a dozen legions by Gav, Graham portaits them as space ninja's which I like,


Agreed. The novel was just generally disappointing in all areas imo.


----------



## Phoebus (Apr 17, 2010)

The idea that "Legion" was not an Alpha Legion novel makes my head hurt. No offense intended.

It's the Alpha Legion. The most secretive of the Legions. Their whole motif can be boiled down to subversion, espionage, sabotage, infiltration.

Didn't show off their "black ops skills"? By novel's end, most posters that bothered on this website that bothered to post about "Legion" *couldn't even agree whether or not it was Alpharius in most of the scenes that he showed up to by name.* _They were hiding in plain sight._

So let me be unequivocally clear on my position in this matter: no author has done a better job of capturing a Legion's motif during this entire series than Dan Abnett did with the Alpha Legion. I don't care if you hated Omegon. I don't care if thought the Acuity was a stupid vehicle for the twin primarchs to turn. If you read "Legion" and you say you didn't flip back and re-read various sections to figure out whether Alpharius, Omegon, or one of their minions was in a given scene...

_... I simply don't believe you._

In other words: mission successful.

Other authors have done a good job of capturing certain Legions or Primarchs. Matt Ferrer did a good job of making Angron almost sympathetic - that's pretty massive. Aaron Dembski-Bowden made the Word Bearers readable and even got me to forget that much of their cause for complaint was still rather questionable. With just a few titles and sentences, he also made the Dark Angels worthy scions of Caliban and the Night Lords a viable gang-derived culture without resorting to cliches. Graham McNeill took Perturabo - a primarch who had only been known for being a *dick* up 'till now - and injected life in him.

But Abnett *nailed* the Alpha Legion. Asking for the most covert Legion to have their tale told through *overt* means is to miss the point behind them.


----------



## Angel of Blood (Aug 18, 2010)

Phoebus said:


> The idea that "Legion" was not an Alpha Legion novel makes my head hurt. No offense intended.
> 
> It's the Alpha Legion. The most secretive of the Legions. Their whole motif can be boiled down to subversion, espionage, sabotage, infiltration.
> 
> ...


Ahhhh, can always rely on you to make a point we agree on much more eloquently than myself. Couldn't even begin to agree more.


----------



## MontytheMighty (Jul 21, 2009)

Lord of the Night said:


> *snip*


Frankly, it boggles my mind that you can rate _Fear to Tread_ *10/10*...WTF?! 

Of course, it also boggles my mind that Vaz can dismiss _A Thousand Sons_ as garbage

Really goes to show that people have very different tastes...


----------



## ckcrawford (Feb 4, 2009)

@ Lord of the Night.

_Horus Rising_, _Legion_, _Prospero Burns_, in the same category, we are in the same page. I guess those books were just not your cup of tea.

As far as _Angel Exterminatus_ goes... I totally agree with Vaz. I'm not trying to be a cynical asshole like in South Park but I know there was no one in the Forum more excited about this novel coming out than me. Finally got the Iron Warriors. But through a more skeptical view of the novel and so much a bashing sense, it was extremely all over the place. Non of the characters were really Iron Warriorish. I think you saw many unhealthy, back stabbing ambitious Warsmiths, but you didn't actually see that healthy competition that got anything accomplished. I said the survivors meant nothing in the story... well... lets take that close minded part out of the equation. What was their purpose in this novel? They were just there. It was like having a bed bug infestation in my novel. 

I wrote my review on this novel so I'm not going tantrum against a book that really in my opinion hurt my favorite legion.

@MontytheMighty

He does like the novel if I remember correctly from his older posts in previous threads, he just dislikes his writing style. He would describe the best of McNeil's works as diamond mind worker's shit.


----------



## Vaz (Mar 19, 2008)

Yeah, Thousand Sons is decent for mcneil. it is a top 10 heresy novel, (including shorts etc), so its not all bad. However I find the blokes poor writing and his seeming inability to write SM as anything other than Men in Power Armour to be something of a personal bugbear. Comparing him to fantasy writers; le guin, tolkien, martin, gemmell, canavan, there is no competition. He sells because frankly people buying his books for the most part don't know what else there is out there.


----------



## Vaz (Mar 19, 2008)

Yeah, Thousand Sons is decent for mcneil. it is a top 10 heresy novel, (including shorts etc), so its not all bad. However I find the blokes poor writing and his seeming inability to write SM as anything other than Men in Power Armour to be something of a personal bugbear. Comparing him to fantasy writers; le guin, tolkien, martin, gemmell, canavan, there is no competition. He sells because frankly people buying his books for the most part don't know what else there is out there.


----------



## mal310 (May 28, 2010)

Phoebus said:


> The idea that "Legion" was not an Alpha Legion novel makes my head hurt. No offense intended.
> 
> It's the Alpha Legion. The most secretive of the Legions. Their whole motif can be boiled down to subversion, espionage, sabotage, infiltration.
> 
> ...


Well put. Agree completely. 

I thought their portrayal in both Deliverance Lost and the Serpent Beneath was very poor.


----------



## Phoebus (Apr 17, 2010)

Vaz said:


> ... his seeming inability to write SM as anything other than Men in Power Armour to be something of a personal bugbear.


This is a problem I've seen with many writers, though I'm not sure I'd term it an inability. I think it's more a matter of getting out of one's comfort zone. Where the Iron Warriors are concerned, for instance, I think their siege tactics are unimaginative in the sense that they are anachronistic. For them to work, the readers needs to suspend disbelief and imagine that - while armour and melee weapons have advanced enough in the preceding 28 millennia to make melee combat viable - artillery somehow sucks and thus needs to be used in a manner recalling 16th-19th century warfare.

I think this issue goes hand in hand with an inability to capture the dystopian feel of the setting. You just don't see that very often. Or, at any rate, often enough. But that's just a personal opinion.


----------



## Phoebus (Apr 17, 2010)

mal310 said:


> Well put. Agree completely.
> 
> I thought their portrayal in both Deliverance Lost and the Serpent Beneath was very poor.


We might differ a bit there. I didn't think their portrayal in those stories was "poor", per se. Rather, I think that the style of writing was (with the exception of their respective twists in the end) much more *direct*.

But that's just my opinion!


----------



## Angel of Blood (Aug 18, 2010)

MontytheMighty said:


> Frankly, it boggles my mind that you can rate _Fear to Tread_ *10/10*...WTF?!


Thought I was one of the very few on this one. How do you rate it? I have no specific rating system, but I found it very, very poor and really struggled to read it. Felt utterly cartoonish, over the top, unmemorable characters and a complete let down, totally failing to convey the horror of Signus. Hell it didn't even almost look like a massacre, sure they raged out a bit, but they never seemed as if they were in any danger of losing the battle at any point. Azkaellon turned out to be generally quite a dick and unlikeable, somehow that's meant to be the point I think, not a great decision imo. The legion didn't seem to have any character like the other legions have shown, once again just seemed very plain, with nothing making them stand out that much.

Don't even get me started on Raldoran. He's meant to be the first captain of the legion? Pretty much the best they have to offer excluding the Sanguinary Guard. Some one whose even mentioned in another novel to be one of the most renowned and deadly astartes across all the legions. He seemed utterly and totally vanilla, bland and nothing at all special, almost every other captain introduced in the series seems to have more to them and look like they could best him in a duel. 

So yeah, _Fear to Tread_ is easily the biggest let down of the entire series for me so far(Wasn't expecting anything from BftA). And this is from a massive Blood Angels and Sanguinius fan, hell my forum names even from the big guy himself.


----------



## Vaz (Mar 19, 2008)

I can get the whole need to bombard a wall into rubble akin to the 19th C; the reason we don't now is because there is less "land grab" tactics; it is more removal of an occupier rather than Denial of Use operations.

Look at Gaza conflict; Israeli and Palestine militants are shelling each other. Sure, tanks are mobile, and Apaches/Fighters render the need for walls useless; but artillery is still being used for area denial and asset denial; destroying the infrastructure. It is also how the Taliban worked in the Stan; our strength is in rebuilding the Afghan peoples infrastructure; they pull it down. It is essentially the same; regardless of spades or high explosive rocket propelled artillery.

However, mcneils space marines are just men in power armour. There is none of the social retardation that is present in Abnetts (the last Ghosts novel shows this most acutely with the White scar showing mertt how to shoot, and the Iron Snake) or ADBs, well, anything (Helsreach, Emperors Gift, and Prince of Crows).

Sure, maybe you can say that the particular characters are unique, but every character that Mcneil writes falls into the same zone; Grendel is Pasanius is Haathor Mat, Ahriman is Honsou is Uriel is The Ambassador is Tyrion.

His characters have no additional personality; that he insists on writing for the most part non humans, he could expand (as ADB does most spectacularly) on the difference between the Astartes social interaction, and that between humans. When mcneil writes, it feels as if an astartes is chatting to his legionary serf/assistant, and goes "whatever happened to fit bird, that one with the fine ass tits back on 6315? Did you get to smash her?"

While that might have been fine for Bill Kings Asterix and Obelix in space back when it first came out, the evolution of Astartes into what they are now; typified by the Heresy, and upcoming Astartes novels showing them as alien as any other is jarring and suspension breaking.


----------



## Phoebus (Apr 17, 2010)

Angel of Blood said:


> Thought I was one of the very few on this one. How do you rate it?


I gave it a 6-6.5 out of 10. Mind you, for me a 5 is average, a 6 is above average, a 7 is good, etc.



> Felt utterly cartoonish, over the top, ...


That's how I felt about the living city attacking the Blood Angels. It didn't strike me as horrifying at all. On the other hand, the fate of the ships sent to investigate the wall of darkness was done well (I thought), as was the description of the insanity plaguing the crew of the flagship. It's sad we didn't get more of that during the rising action - build up the stress, horror, etc., as they got closer to Signus Prime.



> ... unmemorable characters ...


That was my single largest complaint.



> Azkaellon turned out to be generally quite a dick and unlikeable, somehow that's meant to be the point I think, not a great decision imo.
> ...
> Don't even get me started on Raldoran. ... He seemed utterly and totally vanilla, bland and nothing at all special, ...


The biggest problem with these characters is that there is no real protagonist for the reader to latch on to. Swallow did a *great* job with Garro, I thought, and it came as a huge surprise to me that he couldn't hit that mark again with a more likeable Legion.

Instead, we got three-four characters who, in addition to Sanguinius, vied for time and page count... without offering anything truly meaningful to the story. IMHO.



> The legion didn't seem to have any character like the other legions have shown, once again just seemed very plain, with nothing making them stand out that much.


It's disappointing, isn't it? I thought there was a powerful theme ready to be seized. The Baalites would have been the scions of nomadic, barbaric tribes. It would have been interesting to see a Legion whose sons rose from such a background to embrace the artisanship and culture that the Remembrancers of Terra brought with them.



Vaz said:


> I can get the whole need to bombard a wall into rubble akin to the 19th C; the reason we don't now is because there is less "land grab" tactics; it is more removal of an occupier rather than Denial of Use operations.


I think we're talking about two different things.

In the most basic sense, there will always be "sieges". My point is that sieges are no longer fought like they have in the past. There's a reason why we don't use walls anymore and why we haven't for over a century. Artillery and airpower have improved to the point where walls are meaningless. We can shell over walls (to strike what's behind them), and we can do so from tens of kilometers away (depending on the asset). We can fly over walls and land assets behind them.

What it really comes down to is whether you can outrange the enemy's artillery and/or use airpower to remove said assets. Any maneuver in modern warfare is predicated on the ability to either prevent the enemy from shelling/bombing you, or at least to move without his knowledge. Otherwise, the maneuver force suffers what the Wehrmacht did in the western front, post-Normandy or what the Iraqi army suffered in two different conflicts.

Either way, walls are irrelevant. Iron Warrior tactics - and the defenses they face - are anachronistic. The real siege is the process by which an attacking force breaks through system defenses, orbital platforms, and ground-based silos, etc. Once you get through those, "besieging" land-based fortresses or cities is a matter of details.

I could see it if 30k40k fortresses were these massive domes (so you can't shoot over my defenses or land people behind them) studded with anti-orbital and anti-air defenses, artillery emplacements, etc... but what we usually get is fortresses that are fundamentally no different than those of the 16th-17th centuries.



> However, mcneils space marines are just men in power armour. There is none of the social retardation that is present in Abnetts (the last Ghosts novel shows this most acutely with the White scar showing mertt how to shoot, and the Iron Snake) or ADBs, well, anything (Helsreach, Emperors Gift, and Prince of Crows).


Truth.



> While that might have been fine for Bill Kings Asterix and Obelix in space back when it first came out, ...


That made me laugh! Well played.


----------



## forkmaster (Jan 2, 2010)

Well I'm not gonna defend Gav too much, I can agree that he wrote kind of 2D characters (the same problem Swallow suffered from with FtT). Someone wrote this on another site and I found it pretty ok explanation:


> there's a reason they come across that way, it's because they pretty much are just that. The book explicitely states they were psychicly brainwashed to forget who they originally were and all that.





> You may have noticed from it that in that story, also, they had no real clue what their primarchs were doing or why. So that theme is continued somewhat. They have autonomy and independent thought far beyond the average Marine I think, but still don't necessarily get to know the inner workings of the command hierarchy.


The first part is that they are actually behind enemy lines and their not knowing much about high command is in the case they would be captured, the 2nd part is from The Serpent Beneath which details that Alpha Legionaires are kind of independent, much more than other Legions, but not entirely free.

And I agree entirely on Phoebus on FtF. I felt no characters seemed special, and the I never felt failure were close. If a character died I did not care for there had been non development. Also it did not take place as I had expected from previous lore. I was expecting Sang having broken legs and his Legion barel escaping the place only to return and revenge at the eternity Gate, breaking the daemons back. Here he did have is payback already at the end.


----------



## Lord of the Night (Nov 18, 2009)

Angel of Blood said:


> I still fully see it as an Alpha Legion novel. I still believe that the Alpha Legion couldn't have been written about, or rather introduced in any other way than how they were in _Legion_. It gave them that perfect air of subterfuge and manipulation they are renowned for. And the fantastic reveal of Omegon. For me _Deliverance Lost_(terrible novel imo) took away all of that, sure it showed they could infiltrate another legion, but the Legionaries themselves seemed to just become less....independent perhaps. In _Legion_, we are shown that they are all encouraged to question the primarchs motives and the mission on a wider scale, yet in DL they are now blindly following the Primarchs with no idea as to why they have betrayed the Emperor and thrown in their lot with Horus. Don't even get me started on how poorly I feel he portrayed Alpharius, his meeting with Horus seemed almost cringe worthy. _The Serpent Beneath_ however, was once again a very good portrayal of them.


Oh I agree with you on that point, but _Legion_ could have included more Alpha Legion characters and POVs and actually given them a real presence in the story on their own terms rather than through the eyes of the Army soldiers or John Grammaticus. But for me it just made me feel like the Alpha Legion were the spymasters, they go around recruiting agents and have a very informal structure but I didn't feel wowed by them. They just seemed like guys who have their niche and go with it. But DL, damn. Now that made me impressed with them, they were the masters of their craft. Hell Omegon was within punching distance of Corax and Corax didn't even realise it. Nobody else could pull that off and that is what DL succeeded in where _Legion_ failed. It made the Alpha Legion feel unique and capable of things that no others are, whereas Legion just made them look like a Legion with a penchant for spycraft.



Angel of Blood said:


> I don't think so personally. Again I feel _Legion_ simply had to be written that way to introduce the XX legion. I also thought _Prospero Burns_ was done in a brilliant way. Sure the first few chapters leave a lot to be desired, but after that I think once again it was the perfect way to reintroduce and revamp the Wolves that would have seemed a bit strange if done from their own perspective. I also still maintain despite what people say, that the novel was still largely about the burning of Prospero, it just showed why it happened as opposed to it actually happening(which would have just been the opposite of what we've already read). But going back to not liking writing Astartes, _Horus Rising_ was fantastic, you'd be hard pressed to find people who don't like Loken, Torgaddon and Tarvitz, or even the soon to be traitors like Abaddon and Little Horus.


I enjoyed _Prospero Burns_, I just felt that what we got was not what we were told we were getting. I expected to see so much more of the Razing of Prospero, instead it's a murder-mystery story about a poet and the Space Wolves and what led to the Razing, which is fine but I would have preferred to know that that was what it was about rather than go in expecting something else and being let down.

You are right and I am most definitely not one of them. Tarvitz FOREVER!! :biggrin:



Vaz said:


> Yeah, Thousand Sons is decent for mcneil. it is a top 10 heresy novel, (including shorts etc), so its not all bad. However I find the blokes poor writing and his seeming inability to write SM as anything other than Men in Power Armour to be something of a personal bugbear. Comparing him to fantasy writers; le guin, tolkien, martin, gemmell, canavan, there is no competition.
> 
> He sells because frankly people buying his books for the most part don't know what else there is out there.


McNeill is no ADB I won't deny that. But I do enjoy his characters even though I am aware that ADB's are vastly better and do feel more like genetically-enhanced demi-gods than McNeill's do. But that doesn't mean his characters are bad, I still enjoy his novels because I think he writes very well and he tells good stories.

And no. I've heard that kind of crap before from others and I have absolutely no interest in people telling me "You don't know what your missing." So be it. I choose what I read and nobody else. Recommendations are fine but I can't stand people who look at what I read and look down on me for it. Black Library is not classic literature, it will probably never be as popular as things like Lord of the Rings, Marvel or Star Wars. But to me it's better than all three of those things put together. (Not accusing you of saying that stuff Vaz, just somebody did once tell me that I was wasting my life reading BL and the other things I read and it really pissed me off.)

As for Tolkien, both I and my grandfather agree he is overhyped and i've tried some other prominent fantasy authors. So far only Pratchett has held my interest and chiefly because of Death, and I tried Steven Erikson's Malazan series and I was bored out of my mind very quickly with the information overload and slow build up of anything interesting.



MontytheMighty said:


> Frankly, it boggles my mind that you can rate _Fear to Tread_ *10/10*...WTF?!
> 
> Of course, it also boggles my mind that Vaz can dismiss _A Thousand Sons_ as garbage
> 
> Really goes to show that people have very different tastes...


Cinematic action scenes, those brilliant Junk-Daemons, the battle between Ka'Bandha and Sanguinius with Kyriss joining in, the Red Angel and the Blood Angels Librarians trying to save the Legion in the massacre. How could I not rank it 10/10. Shadowhawk did as well.

http://thefoundingfields.com/2012/0...ow-dual-advance-review-lord-night-bane-kings/

http://thefoundingfields.com/2012/08/fear-to-tread-shadowhawk/

More comprehensive thoughts on why FtT is a 10.

And yes it doesn't make sense to me either. But I never presume that because I like something everybody else will as well, Vaz does not like _A Thousand Sons_ and that is his choice. I'm sure he reads some stuff that I wouldn't bother with.


LotN


----------



## piemelke (Oct 13, 2010)

Lord of the Night said:


> Cinematic action scenes, those brilliant Junk-Daemons, the battle between Ka'Bandha and Sanguinius with Kyriss joining in, the Red Angel and the Blood Angels Librarians trying to save the Legion in the massacre. How could I not rank it 10/10. Shadowhawk did as well.
> 
> http://thefoundingfields.com/2012/07...ht-bane-kings/
> 
> http://thefoundingfields.com/2012/08...ad-shadowhawk/


The foundingfields reviews, mmmhhhhh not really that much of a reference to be honest,
if ADB writes a book it is 10/10 by definition what is the average number they give ? 8 ? 9? Hardly critical reviews with an extremely low information density you hardly ever learn more about the book than the amazon description.

anyhow the BA in ftT are 2-dimensional if they were ultramarines with a bad temper nothing would have changed the book, for me it feels the book has been written by a professional, not by someone who has his heart in it. Not by a geek who dreams 40 K, shouts blood for the blood god when his gums are bleeding, prays to nurgle when he pops his boils, cries for slaanesh when he wanks (most 40 K fans have no girlfriend), and so forth.
It seems that swallow just does not feel it, but that is a very subjective statement. The same goes for Gav, except in angels of darkness and the lion.
Graham in my opinion can feel it when he write the RG and probably even more when he writes mechanicum, almost all great mechanicum sections I know have been written by Graham, I liked priests of mars the magos in the chapters due and warriors of ultramar.
ADB only really feels it when he writes about a dramatic (soon to die) chaos character.
Nick, only the emperor knows what he feels


----------



## ckcrawford (Feb 4, 2009)

LotN writes reviews for the site he belongs to. Plus he rates novels high generally speaking anyway. Thats why I have never publicly asked him why he rates this and this the way he does. That and authors breathing down your neck... I understand. Don't you get books earlier than we do too because of your reviews?

Anyhow, interestingly enough I think Angel of Blood is on the same boat as I am. We have a favorite legion... and Black Library raped the glory of our legions. Hopefully ADB doesn't change his writing style too much. I enjoy the humanity he puts in his characters as well as the "reality" he puts into his novel. I said it before, there was a time I debated him over the reality over the Wolves being the killers of legions. But with all the other crap the BL authors are trying to introduce into the Heresy, I have extremely gone the other way. If they are going to go over board with all this new fluff, I much prefer good books, with well written characters and personalities, than "exciting" and out of the blue introductions into the Heresy. 

Unfortunately, that may not be the case. I had a thread in the fluff section and I was wondering whether people like the older style like _Horus Rising_, or the more newer forms of writing. I think LotN speaks for many newer readers though he himself is an older Heresy Fan. I think they are leaving more expanded character development and more into creating entirely new scenarios with stereotypical bolter porn.


----------



## MontytheMighty (Jul 21, 2009)

Angel of Blood said:


> Thought I was one of the very few on this one. How do you rate it?


Definitely not 10/10, maybe 6/10 at most. 6/10 is 60% and on the edge of failing in my book. 



Azkaellon is basically Raldoron with a bit more arrogance and paranoia. Not enough to set them apart.

Meros and Kano. They're the same character in different "skins": librarian and apothecary. They sound, act, and think very similarly

BA culture and customs not really explored. I could've been reading about any legion. The only thing setting the BA apart is that they have a bad temper...

All in all, very, very flat characterisation on both the individual and legion level. Very little BA "cultural investigation" is done. Swallow simply can't compare to Abnett, ADB, and my new favourite Chris Wraight.

The Fall of the Signus could've been described in greater detail. 30-50 pages would've been a good length. Swallow could've taken the opportunity to highlight the horror of a whole system falling to Chaos. Instead we get a few meaningless, tension-less pages adding almost nothing to the story. At least give such a huge event some impact. 

...or Swallow could've left the Fall of Signus a complete mystery and focused completely on the BA perspective. My point is...either do the Fall of Signus well or don't do it at all. He ends up doing it lamely

The Space Wolves...oh the Space Wolves, what a total waste, what a great opportunity to showcase interaction between two of the most popular legions. Instead the Space Wolves get zero characterisation and are killed "off-screen"

There's almost nothing redeeming about Swallow's writing. It's mediocre and bland at best. I'm not a Swallow-hater by the way. I sincerely wanted to like this book but I simply couldn't. When I read Abnett and ADB, I'm "wowed" fairly often. I think "wow, what a clever way to describe such and such" "wow, what striking imagery", "what eloquent dialogue". Swallow's writing is just really...underwhelming. Frankly, if this is his best work, I'm afraid of reading his 40K BA books


----------



## Lord of the Night (Nov 18, 2009)

piemelke said:


> The foundingfields reviews, mmmhhhhh not really that much of a reference to be honest.
> 
> If ADB writes a book it is 10/10 by definition what is the average number they give ? 8 ? 9? Hardly critical reviews with an extremely low information density you hardly ever learn more about the book than the amazon description.


So don't read them then.

The purpose of a book review, from mine and Bane of King's to the famed Graeme's Fantasy Book Review, is not to inform you about the book. It is to inform you of the reviewer's opinion of the book. I cannot review a book and tell you that "Yes it has awesome characters, cinematic battle scenes, shocking twists and reveals and a plot that will have you hooked," because I can't guarantee that though it did or did not for me, that it will for you as well. I cannot inform you of a book beyond telling you the plot because other than the plot a book is all about opinion. Thus as a reviewer I can only tell you my opinion and you have to take it as that, an opinion that perhaps you should listen to or perhaps you should ignore.



ckcrawford said:


> LotN writes reviews for the site he belongs to. Plus he rates novels high generally speaking anyway. Thats why I have never publicly asked him why he rates this and this the way he does. That and authors breathing down your neck... I understand. Don't you get books earlier than we do too because of your reviews?
> 
> Unfortunately, that may not be the case. I had a thread in the fluff section and I was wondering whether people like the older style like _Horus Rising_, or the more newer forms of writing. I think LotN speaks for many newer readers though he himself is an older Heresy Fan. I think they are leaving more expanded character development and more into creating entirely new scenarios with stereotypical bolter porn.


I *ASSURE* you CK that no authors are breathing down my neck, nor is anyone at GW nor would it matter if they were. I complete my reviews in a timely manner because unlike Bane of Kings and Shadowhawk I do not receive ARCs from any other publishing house than Black Library and so I find it easy to just get started. And that every single book I review receives a fair and objective review that gives my honest opinion and a score reflecting that. I have never and will never score a book above or below what it deserves because of a secondary reason. And I admit I do rate my novels higher but that is because I feel the quality of BL has vastly improved over the years, and because for me a score of 6 is Above Average, 7 is Good, 8 is Very Good to Great, 9 is Excellent and 10 is Exceptional Quality. Several books I have reviewed have reached 10/10 yes, among them _Void Stalker_, _Know No Fear_ and _The Siege of Castellax_. 

But that is just it. You think that. I do not. You think that the Heresy is leaving expanded character development focusing on additions of new lore. I think that the Heresy has managed to up it's game with a great increase of quality starting with _A Thousand Sons_ and has already changed what we know about the Heresy with shocking new lore and promises to do it again and again and again. Just because you consider it to be bad and I consider it to be good does not make _Angel Exterminatus_ either of those things in actuality, no book is universally loved or hated. Now for me I think that since ATS was released the Heresy has stepped up in quality, reading ATS and _The First Heretic_ and _Know No Fear_ when compared to _Legion_, _Horus Rising_ and _Fulgrim_, while the latter are still good, to me it feels like the former are on a completely different level to the latter in every aspect. But the author also comes into it as well when discussing quality. I like James Swallow, I like some of Nick Kyme's work though not all of it. I find Dan Abnett to be overhyped though still a good author just not the best, and of course I think ADB is the best BL author around. But plenty of people feel the other way, that Swallow is a bad writer and that Abnett is the greatest around and that ADB is an upstart. The fact that I like James Swallow is one of the reasons I like _Fear to Tread_, because I enjoy his writing style I can enjoy his latest novel where others do not. But that proves my point really, that it's all down to opinion.

If it helps these are what I liked about Angel Exterminatus.

First Fulgrim, he was amazingly psychopathic and easy to see why we should hate him now. He lies to his brother, tries to sacrifice him because he is strong and because Fulgrim feels nobody will miss him, and manipulates him using his past and his dreams. AE shows just how Fulgrim has changed and how far he has fallen, he has become a backstabbing egomaniac with delusions of now realized god-hood, he has become a being that truly does not care about anything but himself. I feel the book showed that really well, it made Fulgrim's transformation believable and showed how Chaos can change someone from possibly the friendliest Primarch into the most cruel.

Next the Iron Warriors. I admit that their culture was not greatly expanded on, but what we did see was quite good. The scene with the battle simulations was a nice window into how they conduct themselves off the battlefield, that they had a warrior lodge and were not corrupted by it because it was out in the open and was basically just an officer's club where they can discuss battle strategy in an open forum. The unhealthy competition between them is, I imagine, a product of the Olympia Genocide as the guilt has set itself deep into their legion and they have begun to hate and distrust each other, and of course the fact that Horus has proved that brother can betray brother, so trust even among brothers of the same legion will never be the same again.

Perturabo was the real highlight of the novel for me as a Primarch who desired peace. I did not expect that and certainly not of him, but we've never been inside his head before so we have only gotten the opinions of others. But I found Perturabo to be a misunderstood and sympathetic character, as all he wanted was to be a man in peacetime and to be able to build the things he dreamed of. But instead he had to become a warrior, so be it. He had to take the unglorious duty of siege work across the galaxy while his brothers reaped the adulation of the Imperium and he and his sons were forgotten. And then he watches his dreams, the few that he manages to build, are twisted by others and used for warfare which is what he never wanted for them. Perturabo's bitterness is born of others using him and his dreams to further their own and thus his joining Horus turned from just being a case those who think the strong should rule to a man who is tired of being used and is joining with someone that he thinks will not do that.

I also enjoyed the crew of the Sisypheum as they gave a good insight into what is happening to the Salamanders, Iron Hands and Raven Guard Post-Istvaan. These three Legions have been smashed and now they are just trying to do what they can, and that means striking at whatever target they can find small or otherwise. The Sisypheum showed it best, a mixed-Legion crew that has to operate on the small side but is determined to do everything they can despite the fact that they ultimately cannot do anything of any real importance, and yet they did manage to nearly halt Fulgrim's ascension. The Sisypheum crew are a good addition to the Heresy because it shows us what is happening behind enemy lines, that there are still loyalist elements fighting wherever they can and that provides so much potential for new stories, isolated groups of marines fighting wherever and however they can to fight Horus, even if nobody ever notices what they are doing.

That is what I really liked about _Angel Exterminatus_.


LotN


----------



## TRU3 CHAOS (May 21, 2010)

I think you underestimate Legion and Horus Rising. Legion was a master piece and you can mention taste and what not... There was absolutely no character written better than Loken in the series. Horus Rising basically made the heresy what it is. And I would also say its a character many readers hope to match when reading other novels. You say quality? How so? I'm not trying to offensive by the way. Has any primarch really been thoroughly written better than Fulgrim or Horus? I don't think I can accept that as true. Guilliman and Sanguinus were the worst. Papa surfs genius was explained in a couple pages and the Dan tried to explain how him and Manus together equals invincible. Sanguinus in fear to Tread was lame. Most would agree. It's to simplistic to say its ones taste I just think your giving some novels less due than others.


----------



## piemelke (Oct 13, 2010)

Lord of the Night said:


> So don't read them then.


agreed,

but you referred them as a reason for given ftt 10/10, I merely wanted to indicate that your reference does not warrant giving ftt 10
that's all


----------



## Lord of the Night (Nov 18, 2009)

piemelke said:


> Agreed.
> 
> But you referred them as a reason for given FtT 10/10, I merely wanted to indicate that your reference does not warrant giving FtT 10.
> 
> That's all


So your saying that my opinion is wrong and yours is right? That the review I wrote for the book I enjoyed does not warrant ME giving FtT a 10/10?

Yes it does. Because it's the score that I feel it deserves. So if your saying that even if I like a book I should give it the same score you would because it is the score that you would give it then you are a fool.


LotN


----------



## piemelke (Oct 13, 2010)

Lord of the Night said:


> So your saying that my opinion is wrong and yours is right?


These kind of remarks are so tiring and make me think of the discussions I had with my sister when I was 14, 

anyhow 

no, I do not say your opinion is wrong and mine is right 

what your wrote :

"Cinematic action scenes, those brilliant Junk-Daemons, the battle between Ka'Bandha and Sanguinius with Kyriss joining in, the Red Angel and the Blood Angels Librarians trying to save the Legion in the massacre. How could I not rank it 10/10. Shadowhawk did as well.

http://thefoundingfields.com/2012/07...ht-bane-kings/

http://thefoundingfields.com/2012/08...ad-shadowhawk/

More comprehensive thoughts on why FtT is a 10.
"

You referred to their reviews, since they gave high grades it would make it more defensible you gave it 10/10,
I merely stated that the references you provided are not that great in my personal opinion.
you gave it 10/10 which in my personal opinion (not a fact) is strange, at the least.
But if you want to give the book 10/10, be my guest


----------



## Phoebus (Apr 17, 2010)

Lord of the Night said:


> The purpose of a book review, from mine and Bane of King's to the famed Graeme's Fantasy Book Review, is not to inform you about the book. It is to inform you of the reviewer's opinion of the book. I cannot review a book and tell you that "Yes it has awesome characters, cinematic battle scenes, shocking twists and reveals and a plot that will have you hooked," because I can't guarantee that though it did or did not for me, that it will for you as well. I cannot inform you of a book beyond telling you the plot because other than the plot a book is all about opinion. Thus as a reviewer I can only tell you my opinion and you have to take it as that, an opinion that perhaps you should listen to or perhaps you should ignore.


LotN, I'm not trying to be rude... but this paragraph was a massive contradiction.

You say that you can't give information that - frankly - is a part of basic book reviews on account of your opinion not necessarily being the same of a reader... but then you say that all you can do is give us your opinion on how good the book is. Essentially, what you're saying is "Here's my opinion - but I'm not going to tell you how I arrived at it."

I bring this up because all the things that you said you *couldn't* do above... you *did* in your review - which, of course, you SHOULD have. I mean, I would scratch my head if you _didn't_ offer why you felt the way you did about a particular novel. So I guess my message to you is ultimately to be a little more careful in how you represent yourself. If I had never read one of your reviews before but happened on this post, I probably would not have subsequently gone on to the Founding Fields.

Beyond that, I hate to say it... but I also feel like you rate novels way too high. I have no doubt you genuinely enjoy the novels you rate highly, but the thing to remember is that an emotional opinion is, most often, a _subjective_ opinion - not an objective one. Part of being a reviewer means being objective about things, and recognizing weaknesses where they exist.

Probably something that could help you in the long-run is to avoid unnecessary qualifiers. Just focus on the book, and be as objective as you can on its strengths and weaknesses. Don't worry about how it stacks up to the rest of the series, or whether it's a 6, 7, 8, 9, or 10 out of 10. You'll note that the book reviews of the New York Times - whose Best Sellers list put the Heresy on the map for good - don't bother with such _subjective_ qualifiers.


----------



## Lord of the Night (Nov 18, 2009)

piemelke said:


> These kind of remarks are so tiring and make me think of the discussions I had with my sister when I was 14,
> 
> anyhow
> 
> ...


Ah I see what you meant now. My apologies, I misunderstood. I thought you were implying that I could not use my own review to explain my thoughts.

Well I enjoyed those parts, and they along with the overall quality of the book and the other parts that I enjoyed are what motivated me to give it a 10/10. But it earned that score on some other aspects, such as the expansion of Signus from a single planetary invasion to a full campaign against a hostile system and the revelation of Chaos on a very grand stage.



Phoebus said:


> LotN, I'm not trying to be rude... but this paragraph was a massive contradiction.
> 
> You say that you can't give information that - frankly - is a part of basic book reviews on account of your opinion not necessarily being the same of a reader... but then you say that all you can do is give us your opinion on how good the book is. Essentially, what you're saying is "Here's my opinion - but I'm not going to tell you how I arrived at it."


I do occasionally have trouble expressing the meaning behind my thoughts,

What I mean is I cannot tell you in a review that you WILL like a book. I can only tell you I think you'll enjoy it, but then i'm going off the fact that I like it. I'm saying that I can only tell you what I think of the book and then it's up to the reader to make up their own mind on it. I cannot state as an objective fact that a book is good and that everybody will like it, I can only tell you that I liked or disliked it. I did not mean I can't tell you why I liked or disliked a book, I just meant that those reasons are true for me but they might not be true for another.



Phoebus said:


> Beyond that, I hate to say it... but I also feel like you rate novels way too high. I have no doubt you genuinely enjoy the novels you rate highly, but the thing to remember is that an emotional opinion is, most often, a _subjective_ opinion - not an objective one. Part of being a reviewer means being objective about things, and recognizing weaknesses where they exist.


I assure you Phoebus I stand by my scores, at least the ones i've done since I moved to The Founding Fields, the very small number I wrote before that I feel I could have done better on. But I think there are several reasons why I rank books higher than others here do, first because the authors that everybody seems to hate like McNeill and Kyme I do not, I like their work. Second because for me a good book is usually a 7 and above, so it can look like they are higher ranked than they actually are. And third because I do honestly believe that BL has really upped it's game in the last two years or so and that they are putting out books far superior in quality to previous years.

That said I am careful and always after reading a book I go over it mentally and look for strengths and weaknesses. If you'd care to read a negative review of mine look for _Sword of Caledor, Malediction_ and some of my comments in _Neferata, Treacheries of the Space Marines_ and some others. I have written negative reviews and if I do not like a BL book, I say so. I wouldn't lie and say that I liked it when in reality I disliked it.



Phoebus said:


> Probably something that could help you in the long-run is to avoid unnecessary qualifiers. *Just focus on the book, and be as objective as you can on its strengths and weaknesses. * Don't worry about how it stacks up to the rest of the series, or whether it's a 6, 7, 8, 9, or 10 out of 10. You'll note that the book reviews of the New York Times - whose Best Sellers list put the Heresy on the map for good - don't bother with such _subjective_ qualifiers.


I do that already, or at least I try my hardest to do so. And I come up with the score once the review is finished and I have completed my assessment of the book. And I use scores because I think it sums up the review nicely, but of course would be worthless without reasons, pros and cons that raised and lowered the score respectively.


LotN


----------



## bobss (May 18, 2008)

Graham McNeil is the epitome of hit-n'-miss.

Some of his work can even bring forth manly tears; unstoppable deluges of salty water over some fictional tragedy or another.

Others are as interesting as going to Ikea on a Sunday...

..._And not going in the cafe section_.


----------



## Lord of the Night (Nov 18, 2009)

TRU3 CHAOS said:


> I think you underestimate Legion and Horus Rising. Legion was a master piece and you can mention taste and what not... There was absolutely no character written better than Loken in the series. Horus Rising basically made the heresy what it is. And I would also say its a character many readers hope to match when reading other novels. You say quality? How so? I'm not trying to offensive by the way. Has any primarch really been thoroughly written better than Fulgrim or Horus? I don't think I can accept that as true. Guilliman and Sanguinus were the worst. Papa surfs genius was explained in a couple pages and the Dan tried to explain how him and Manus together equals invincible. Sanguinus in fear to Tread was lame. Most would agree. It's to simplistic to say its ones taste I just think your giving some novels less due than others.


I never said they were bad. And _Horus Rising_ is a great novel, I was speaking of _Legion_. I just did not enjoy it as much as most other people seem to. For me Legion was an enjoyable novel but was more about the Imperial Army with the Alpha Legion as guest stars.

Hm, I prefer Argel Tal and Sevatar to Loken but Loken is definitely in my Top 5 for Heresy characters alongside the two I already mentioned and Tarvitz and Aeonid Thiel. And I expect Kharn to displace one of these characters once _Betrayer_ is released.

No Primarch has yet reached Abnett's Horus, I admit that. But that one great character alone does not make the novel better than what follows, but I do love Horus Rising and while it's not one of my favourite HH books it is one I really enjoyed reading and could and will one day read again. That said I think McNeill's Magnus and ADB's Lorgar are close seconds to Abnett's Horus. Hm, traitors are so much more likeable than loyalists...


LotN


----------



## Phoebus (Apr 17, 2010)

Lord of the Night said:


> I assure you Phoebus I stand by my scores, ...


Standing by one's scores isn't the issue here, though. 

It comes down to objectivity. That is, one's ability to identify the strong and weak points of a story their willingness to objectively outline those for a prospective reader. Book reviews and literary criticism are a tough gig for a reason.

You're in a position of power, if you will. You see books before the rest of us do, and you have an opportunity to influence a lot of peoples' buying decisions. I have read 30 of the novels, novellas, short stories, and audio dramas you have reviewed. Of those, SEVEN written stories are rated lower than an 8. All but two of those were from "Treacheries of the Space Marines", which you rated as overall between "good" and "very good" (7.5). By contrast, five were given 10s or higher (one got an 11).

As a reader, I'm going to have a hard time taking those ratings seriously from the get-go. Beyond that, when I cross-reference some of what you wrote with what I've read for myself, it becomes even harder to share your optimism.

I want to say this, by the way: this sort of discussion makes me feel a bit uncomfortable because ultimately it comes down to opinion. I really don't want to make you think I doubt your *integrity* as a person.


----------



## piemelke (Oct 13, 2010)

Phoebus
great post


----------



## Marley (Nov 3, 2012)

Darius Hinks can be hit or miss within the same book in my view. Some of his stuff makes me think "wow, this guy can write Chaos perfectly" ...... then at other points I honestly found myself bored and wondering what the heck was going on. Liked "Warrior Priest" although I didnt personally feel it was worth the awards it got when compared to some other BL stuff. I hated "Sigvald" unfortunately.


----------



## sadLor (Jan 18, 2012)

Phoebus said:


> You're in a position of power, if you will. You see books before the rest of us do, and you have an opportunity to influence a lot of peoples' buying decisions. I have read 30 of the novels, novellas, short stories, and audio dramas you have reviewed. Of those, SEVEN written stories are rated lower than an 8. All but two of those were from "Treacheries of the Space Marines", which you rated as overall between "good" and "very good" (7.5). By contrast, five were given 10s or higher (one got an 11).


Fantastic post. I do try to use FF as a guide when it comes to my black library purchases. I do need a place to at least give me a honest opinion about which book is good considering the sheer volume of books BL publishes... I'll be broke if I tried to buy everything. While it's a useful review site, I think FF does need a rating system that makes more...sense. I don't know what to think when almost every book gets a 9 or 10. 

I understand it is all perspective and opinion and the reviewers are all big 40k fans but it would be helpful if the reviewers were more critical. Look at all the reviews with 10/10, if you believe every book is equally good...okay, that's fine. However, if you are able to separate them and say one is better than another...that should probably mean the rating system should be adjusted to reflect that. I'm a fan of the FF site, I'll keep visiting no matter what but just thought I'll give my 2 cents.

PS - I am not attacking LoTN or any of the reviewers' opinions. Heck, I value your opinions...that's why I visit the site!


----------



## Doelago (Nov 29, 2009)

For me Graham McNeil is really hit or miss. Either he writes a really good story, or he writes such utter crap that its a pain to get through. There seems to be no middle ground. And annoyingly he can do both of those in the same damn book. Loved the first half of "Angel Exterminatus", but after that it felt like wading through a pile of donkey crap. While on the subject of that book, I could not stand the amount of named characters from other books in it. It was obvious from the start exactly who was gona make it through. Like, no suspense at all. 

James Swallow is imo the second best author at Black Library (after Abnett). Enjoyed all the books I have read by him. Especially "Faith & Fire" and "Fear to Tread" were amazing. BL`s best audio dramas are also all written by him. And boy do I love audio`s. 

Abnett is obviously just pure gold. Love everything he has written, well, apart from _maybe_ "Ghostmaker". Not sure, that one felt a bit iffy.

Aaron Demski-Bowden easily takes the third place imo, the dude writes awesome books. The Night Lords trilogy was amazing. The Emperors Gift was amazing. The First Heretic was good, but rather over rated imo. His short stories (apart from "The Prince of Crows") have all been a bit meh. They are better than some of the shit spewed out by BL, but they are nothing memorable either. 

Ben Counter is also a bit hit and miss. "Galaxy in Flames" was rather awesome. "Battle of Abyss" on the other hand... Well, lets not even discuss it.

Gav Thorpe did a good job with "Deliverance Lost". It was not amazing, but it was also far from bad. I mean, its a lot better than the El(k)dar books. Cant stand those. 

William King is pure awesome. No contest there. "Angel of Fire" was AMAZING. Where the fuck is the sequel? I need it now. I NEED IT. 

Dont care to start listing the rest of the authors, some have written good books, while others have written such atrocities towards literature that it ain`t even funny.


----------



## Lord of the Night (Nov 18, 2009)

Phoebus said:


> Standing by one's scores isn't the issue here, though.
> 
> It comes down to objectivity. That is, one's ability to identify the strong and weak points of a story their willingness to objectively outline those for a prospective reader. Book reviews and literary criticism are a tough gig for a reason.


I understand your point.



Phoebus said:


> You're in a position of power, if you will. You see books before the rest of us do, and you have an opportunity to influence a lot of peoples' buying decisions. I have read 30 of the novels, novellas, short stories, and audio dramas you have reviewed. Of those, SEVEN written stories are rated lower than an 8. All but two of those were from "Treacheries of the Space Marines", which you rated as overall between "good" and "very good" (7.5). By contrast, five were given 10s or higher (one got an 11).


Well there are at least two reasons for that. First and foremost is that there are certain authors whose fanbase is somewhat polarized, some love them some hate them. James Swallow, Nick Kyme and Graham McNeill are the three major of these writers. I like all three. Thus the amount of positive reviews that I write will be higher because I don't dislike any of the major BL authors, and the few whose works I don't care for are not prominent or have not written anything in a while. Andy Smillie, Andy Hoare, Steve Lyons and Christian Dunn are the authors whose works, so far, have not really interested me, and these authors do not have a large output of books, the last novel of Hoare's that I read was in 2010. So since I am reviewing books by authors I like most of the time, yes most of them are going to be positive ones. The second reason is that I really do believe that BL has upped it's game in recent years and the quality of what has come out recently, I.E _The Emperor's Gift, Ravenwing, Legion of the Damned, Pariah_, these are books that are of a much much higher quality than the books that preceeded them and I feel that the features I praise and the scores I give reflect that.

That said my scoring system might be different from others. For me a 5 is an average score, 6 is above average, 7 is good, 8 is great, 9 is excellent and 10 is exceptional. And I add decimal numbers to widen the range, a low 7 can mean a good book that doesn't make it to great, a low 9 can mean a book that has one or two flaws that keep it from reaching the 10. _Firedrake_ was one such book for me, I felt it lacked that epic moment that makes a book feel truly alive, the kind of moment that forces you to imagine it because it's that awesome and you cannot stop thinking about it. Firedrake, while a good novel, had no such moment and as such it could only read a 9. However I am aware that most of my scores are above 8 so I am trying to be more critical, thinking more about reading pace and desire to read and what I call the "wow factor" in that does the book imprint itself on my mind or is it forgettable. I think that adding such thoughts will widen the range of my scores.

As for 10/10s I am not a reviewer who believes that 10/10 is impossible. If it were it wouldn't be a score. 10/10 does not mean perfection, it means that it checks all the boxes and that if there are any flaws they do not detract from the overall work. A 10/10 work can still have flaws, they just aren't flaws that detract from the work and make it a less enjoyable reading experience.

As for the 11/10, that was for _Void Stalker_ and was symbolic of my feelings for the book, and I am not the only person who feels strongly about that book. This is what Civilian Reader had to say, and ADB quoted both of us on his blog.



Civilian Reader said:


> “I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again – Dembski-Bowden blows all tie-in fiction conceptions out of the water. Fifteen years ago, Dan Abnett reinvented WH40k fiction with his Gaunt’s Ghosts novels. With the Night Lords series (and also The First Heretic), Aaron DB has perfected it. He’s easily among my top five favourite authors. He is a genius at writing nuanced, complex characters. I will read anything he writes. Very highly recommended, Void Stalker is a masterful conclusion to a superb series.”


Or Graeme's Fantasy Book Review who gave it a 10/10 and had this to say.



Graeme's Fantasy Book Review said:


> ‘Void Stalker’ is another example of not only essential Warhammer 40K fiction but also essential reading for those who like their sci-fi dark and horrific in general. If you fall into either of these camps then you really do need to pick this one up.


If there's only one book that i'm sure deserves that kind of praise, it's _Void Stalker_.



Phoebus said:


> As a reader, I'm going to have a hard time taking those ratings seriously from the get-go. Beyond that, when I cross-reference some of what you wrote with what I've read for myself, it becomes even harder to share your optimism.
> 
> I want to say this, by the way: this sort of discussion makes me feel a bit uncomfortable because ultimately it comes down to opinion. I really don't want to make you think I doubt your *integrity* as a person.


Well fair enough, I am optimistic about BL and it's works but that is because I am enthusiastic about 40k and the Horus Heresy. I have confidence that they will continue to be superb in quality and that I will have many more positive reviews to write in the future. But that said I am capable of writing a negative review, but admittedly I do try to find the good parts of a book and at least give it a fair opinion. I combed through _Sword of Caledor_ trying to find some redeeming features but, in my opinion, found none. But that said when I must I will write a negative review, I just have not had cause to do so very much when writing reviews for BL and I am pleased with that. I don't like having to write negative reviews and I doubt anyone does unless they hated the book, rather than just disliked it. 

I don't see it that way. I don't think your questioning me in that way, though my integrity is rather flimsy most of the time. :grin:


LotN


----------



## Lord of the Night (Nov 18, 2009)

Marley said:


> Darius Hinks can be hit or miss within the same book in my view. Some of his stuff makes me think "wow, this guy can write Chaos perfectly" ...... then at other points I honestly found myself bored and wondering what the heck was going on. Liked "Warrior Priest" although I didnt personally feel it was worth the awards it got when compared to some other BL stuff. I hated "Sigvald" unfortunately.


Really? I felt the other way. I really liked _Sigvald_ but I found _Orion: The Vaults of Winter_ to be interesting but in the way that you are interested by something new before accepting it and not being interested by it anymore.

Though I hesitate to call him a hit and miss author for me because i've only read those two books of his, and one novella that I liked.

For me actually Abnett is somewhat hit and miss, more hit than miss but I do not like all of his work. I find _Gaunt's Ghosts_ boring, _Legion_ is one of the more average Heresy works imo and _Ravenor_ was dull for me. But _Eisenhorn_ is a classic, _Know No Fear_ is brilliant and _Pariah_ is riveting. The content of his books might be a factor but sometimes I find Abnett's work boring, too much focus on slow events and not enough on more interesting topics be they battle, character development or plot development.

Also as I stated to Phoebus I find Andy Hoare, Andy Smillie, Christian Dunn, Steve Lyons and William King to be hit and miss. I liked _Hunt for Voldorious_ at first but not anymore, Dunn's audio drama _Malediction_ was a dull affair, Lyon's _Dead Men Walking_ was the same and William King's _Sword of Caledor_ was the worst book i've read in some time, yet I absolutely love _Skavenslayer_ and _Angel of Fire_.

Hit and miss authors are different for everyone really. Nick Kyme has had a few misses for me but those are his Dwarf work and that is because I don't like Dwarfs except for Gotrek Gurnisson. I love his Salamander series though.


LotN


----------



## MontytheMighty (Jul 21, 2009)

Doelago said:


> Aaron Demski-Bowden easily takes the third place imo, the dude writes awesome books. The Night Lords trilogy was amazing.


His Night Lords books are definitely good. However, I don't like how he handles NL vs. loyalist SM action. It's like he's allergic to having NL killed "on-screen" by loyalist SM



> The Emperors Gift was amazing. The First Heretic was good, but rather over rated imo.


Emperor's Gift was a bit of let-down in my opinion
First Heretic is a bit overrated yes, but still a good read



> His short stories (apart from "The Prince of Crows") have all been a bit meh.


I think most of his short stories have been excellent, including _Prince of Crows_. I do believe Sevatar is becoming a pet character of his but it hasn't gotten in the way of good story-telling...so far



> James Swallow is imo the second best author at Black Library (after Abnett).


Why do you love _Fear to Tread_...I would really like to understand why some people think it's so good


----------



## ckcrawford (Feb 4, 2009)

@ LotN

I don't want you to think I am personally attacking you, because I actually do you read your reviews and almost have a way of nit picking what novels I think would be good. All I meant is that you have a standard expected with being part of a website that does reviews. I mean, if someone really showed how they felt about the book, I really doubt they'd be able to have the privledge of reading them before everybody. Also, as far as authors, Gav appreciated the review you gave him. I don't think I'm far off saying the authors by far appreciate your reviews. I don't think 5's, 6's, and 7's would favor you guys with the authors.

As far as tastes go. It does seem like you do enjoy good character development. I'm not sure I'd put the Ultramarine guy right there, but its hard to argue with even your top 5 characters, that the Heresy has produced characters of that quality. This is a concern with me and the Heresy. I mean, they have produced about 20 novels not including analogies and failed to reproduce those.


----------



## piemelke (Oct 13, 2010)

MontytheMighty said:


> His Night Lords books are definitely good. However, I don't like how he handles NL vs. loyalist SM action. It's like he's allergic to having NL killed "on-screen" by loyalist SM


couldn't agree more


----------



## Lord of the Night (Nov 18, 2009)

MontytheMighty said:


> His Night Lords books are definitely good. However, I don't like how he handles NL vs. loyalist SM action. It's like he's allergic to having NL killed "on-screen" by loyalist SM.


Well I don't think it's that he's allergic to it, it's that the series had too few Night Lords for him to actually show large casualties. The Blood Angels reap a good tally in Soul Hunter and we see how Adhemar died, no loyalists in Blood Reaver, and in Void Stalker the Genesis marines did kill a fair few Night Lords including Xarl. With so few marines to work with ADB has to be careful but fair with casualties, and there are other enemies than the loyalists.

The series was about First Claw, not the random Night Lords of the 10th company, so he focuses there and Night Lords do die, we just don't have a front row seat for it.


LotN


----------



## Lord of the Night (Nov 18, 2009)

ckcrawford said:


> @ LotN
> 
> I don't want you to think I am personally attacking you, because I actually do you read your reviews and almost have a way of nit picking what novels I think would be good. All I meant is that you have a standard expected with being part of a website that does reviews. I mean, if someone really showed how they felt about the book, I really doubt they'd be able to have the privledge of reading them before everybody. Also, as far as authors, Gav appreciated the review you gave him. I don't think I'm far off saying the authors by far appreciate your reviews. I don't think 5's, 6's, and 7's would favor you guys with the authors.
> 
> As far as tastes go. It does seem like you do enjoy good character development. I'm not sure I'd put the Ultramarine guy right there, but its hard to argue with even your top 5 characters, that the Heresy has produced characters of that quality. This is a concern with me and the Heresy. I mean, they have produced about 20 novels not including analogies and failed to reproduce those.


I can see what you mean but honestly i've never had any kind of problem like that. The reviews I write are honest reflections of what I feel about the book, and if they don't want the negative ones they just won't make them available through their FB and Twitter channels. And the authors do appreciate the good reviews i'm sure, but I don't think a bad review will sour them on me. They seem like cool guys who understand that just because I don't like one book of theirs does not mean I will never like another or do not like any others. And even then not everyone will love any one author, and I think that authors understand that and take bad reviews in stride.


LotN


----------



## forkmaster (Jan 2, 2010)

I'm gonna quote you on my review if you don't mind because that is essentially exactly how I felt!



MontytheMighty said:


> Definitely not 10/10, maybe 6/10 at most. 6/10 is 60% and on the edge of failing in my book.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Also, I would say ADB has grown a lot in the three years since he joined BL. I remember back in 2010 when nobody dared to say he was a good author since he was new and "had to prove himself first" before he could be ranked in the top. He had yet to disappoint me with any of his written stuff, neither novels or shorts. _Soul Hunter_ is his best work by far, together with _Prince of Crows_. His characters however had a tendency to "said nothing", spit acid on the floor (sometimes I think of Red Vs. Blue with the Sergeant who spat inside his own helmet) and smiled. Its no critique, just funny to notice.

Dan has a way for me as an non-english born to confuse me really esy in his advanced writing and its not until the big conclussion I had any idea what the hell was going on, but he does good books. Legion was much better the second time I read it, I fear however PS will not be. I've wondered if they had changed the title to _The Wolves Unleashed_ and added _Prospero Burns_ as sub-text, if it would have been better. Then it would mean it focused on WHY they were released on Prospero, and featuring not the actual battle as the main focus. Could that have made te fans less confused?

Also on the 10/10. I think people are too afraid to give out 10/10 to books they love. And you have to look at the context when rating a book. Is LotN comparing it to other genres, is it to other fantasy/sci-fi books? Is it only comparing to other BL releases? So if his rating is only comparing between BL books, then I think its fine. Just give the reasons why you love them then everybody doesn't have to agree on that.  I see such wide spread on what people like and search for in a book.

I for one did not like Prospero Burns. I think it had a great idea of a story, like the Wolves being deeper, Chaos working for such a long time and their view upon knowledge should only be told and never recorded and such bla bla. But I did not like reading it. I did not appeal to me as entertaining and read-able at all.


----------



## Sequere_me_in_Tenebras (Nov 11, 2012)

I personally believe the following shouldn't write for BL; Jonathan Green, Andy Hoare and L J Goulding. I just don't like their prose style or the way they write.

Graham Mceill, only as he seems to enjoy word play to much and not actually tell the story that flesh out the characters to the extent I'd like.


----------



## MontytheMighty (Jul 21, 2009)

forkmaster said:


> His characters however had a tendency to "said nothing", spit acid on the floor (sometimes I think of Red Vs. Blue with the Sergeant who spat inside his own helmet) and smiled.


Yes I do notice that ADB's characters tend to smile very very often. It's a small nitpick that I can easily overlook. I understand that smiling in the face of adversity or during confrontation is a sign of confidence or at least a way to appear confident...but ADB's characters do it a bit too much I think


----------



## Malus Darkblade (Jan 8, 2010)

MontytheMighty said:


> Yes I do notice that ADB's characters tend to smile very very often. It's a small nitpick that I can easily overlook. I understand that smiling in the face of adversity or during confrontation is a sign of confidence or at least a way to appear confident...but ADB's characters do it a bit too much I think


Wow I thought I was the only one to notice this or have an issue with it.

His female characters all sound identical as well, all having this rebellious/I can be rude to my Astartes/Primarch master because I'm useful + a wild woman/girl-power streak to them.

I think the British term for this is 'cheeky'.


----------



## Brother Subtle (May 24, 2009)

MontytheMighty said:


> Gav Thorpe can be quite good sometimes. Other times not so much. Swallow isn't a hit or miss for me as he's always been a miss


I found FotE great!


----------



## MontytheMighty (Jul 21, 2009)

Malus Darkblade said:


> Wow I thought I was the only one to notice this or have an issue with it.


I began noticing this after reading more of his work. Lorgar is a non-stop smile machine. It detracts little from my enjoyment of the otherwise excellent prose, but it can be a bit irksome. I mean, can't these characters express themselves with other facial expressions every now and then?



> His female characters all sound identical as well, all having this rebellious/I can be rude to my Astartes/Primarch master because I'm useful + a wild woman/girl-power streak to them.
> 
> I think the British term for this is 'cheeky'.


Yes, I agree with this too. I have no idea...but maybe they're all based on his wife  

Honestly, I found Lotara to be a pretty dull character. Overall, Betrayer was highly enjoyable. I especially loved the scene when Angron was reliving the last stand with his gladiator brothers in his mind. It was quite poignant.


----------



## forkmaster (Jan 2, 2010)

Yes, the one about the female characters is right as well since there is one in _Prince of Crows_ too.


----------



## WaLkAwaY (Dec 5, 2012)

I don't know how you all tell the difference. Maybe I read to many books at once or I read through too many of them in a time period.

I will usually read 4 - 6 of the books at a time. When I sit down I will read a chapter from each one. That is to me that greatest thing about the Warhammer 40k universe is that I can immerse myself in it and there is no time line really. I can read a chapter from Gaunts Ghosts then move onto a chapter from an Utramarines novel then to the Grey Knights and even if they are happening at the same time they do not interfere with each other. Sometimes I even get surprised and think "hey I know that name" or "I just read about this place" but what I am reading at that moment will fill in the blanks.

The authors all blend together for me I guess. I will say that I did notice my desire to finish certain books has waned but I could not tell you the authors as it was in ebook format and it never donned on me to look the author up.

Though Abnetts' Gaunt's Ghosts series I still have not finished as it has become a little stale. I think though that is what happens anyway when you have a story that continues for so long and is told without many deviations to the course it started on.

Hell even my favorite author R.A. Salvatore and the books he has written about the dark elf Drittz (my favorite books and character btw) get a little overdone and I find myself skipping through some battles sequences because they sound the same.

I also think it depends on the chapter you are reading about. I find anything about the Grey Knights interesting as they are the elite of the elite. I wish more was written about them. Same with the Space Wolves and the Ultramarines which I found enjoyable. Where it gets kind of hard is when every single chapter is referred to as "The most devout", "the best of the emperors chosen", "out of all astartes chapters no one is more..." just gets a little redundant to me.


----------



## Sequere_me_in_Tenebras (Nov 11, 2012)

The other thing to factor in when looking at review sites is, what is their angle? Perhaps 'some' (and I am not saying the guys from The Founding Fields) enter submissions and want to get published. Perhaps others are fans or both. Individuals may know people in the publishing trade or writers. Would you still get advanced review copies if you wrote less than positive reviews?

I'm not accusing anyone of biased, I'm playing devils advocate (so to speak).

This isn't strictly just about BL reviews, but on the whole.

OT - I've just read Matt Farrer's The Enforcer and found it really good. Wondered what happened to him.


----------



## Mossy Toes (Jun 8, 2009)

Farrer's still around writing for BL, short stories rather than novels, recently. They have his characteristic wierdness: "Faces," in which miners act out the roles of a Harlequin troupe, or "Seven Views of Uhlguth's Passing," in which a living planet swims out of the Eye of Terror looking for it's master. (Well, okay, "Seven Views" is quite a few years old. Still, it's typical Farrer weirdness)

Most recently for BL he's written "The Masters, Bidding" in _Treacheries of the Space Marines_: an excellent comparison of the differences between the original Heresy's fighters, the Veterans of the Long War... and the new blood who have joined the Chaos Space Marine ranks as mere renegades.


----------



## Malus Darkblade (Jan 8, 2010)

Really interesting stories.

So human miners pretend to be harlequins for a bit?

Does BL sell ebooks of those two short stories?


----------



## Apfeljunge (May 1, 2011)

http://www.blacklibrary.com/all-products/faces.html

http://www.blacklibrary.com/all-products/seven-views-of-uhlguths-passing-ebook.html


----------



## forkmaster (Jan 2, 2010)

I should say I had a really, _really_ hard time reading through Faces just so know!


----------



## DoctorStrange (Jan 15, 2013)

Nick Kyme. I love the first Salamander's book. Read it once and immediately wanted to start it again and couldn't wait to see what would happen next. Then I dropped £8 and discovered what does happen next. I haven't bought Nocturne, nor that HH novella-thing (Promethean Sun? It's Promethean Something, I'm sure). But I'll be re-reading *Salamander* many times.

Graham McNeill is another 'hit-or-miss'. *False Gods* was a miss for me, but *Fulgrim* was great. *A Thousand Sons* was beyond words and yet *Outcast Dead* was a mess. *Nightbringer* and *Warriors of Ultramar* were awesome, but *Dead Sky, Black Sun* was confusingly bad. *Storm of Iron* was my introduction to 40K in general so it holds a special place in my heart, but reading it back again it is pretty dire. Haven't read *Angel Exterminatus* yet but I like both the Emperors Children (who I think Graham writes very well) and the Iron Warriors (dat stoicism) so I'm looking forward to it. I just finished Betrayer so it will be interesting to see how it holds up.

Dan Abnett, or more specifically Ghosty Abnett, is hit and miss. *First and Only* drags on forever. *Ghostmaker* is just plain confusing on the first read. *Necropolis* is amazing, *Honour Guard* is a great sequel but then *Guns of the Tanith* is back to 'going on forever' but *Straight Silver* might be my favourite GG book yet. *Sabbat Martyr* was great. *Traitor General* and *His Last Command* were next level greatness but everything after that has been a solid meh for me. The state of the Tanith by Salvations Reach seems more like parody than anything else. There's more commissars and officers than there are infantry grunts.

Outside the Ghost's Abnett's work speaks for itself. But I still haven't got a clue why *Prospero Burns* is a Horus Heresy novel instead of the William King Space Wolf Fenris prequel it wants to be. But that's not to say I didn't enjoy reading it, I found it similar to Ghostmaker in a way. First time through I couldn't make head nor tail of it. When I read it through again everything slotted into place. I really think BLP should have done a much better job promoting it as what it was rather than what most (I assume) thought it would be.

ADB is just plain 'hit'. From the first time I read his first short story in one of the Space Marine anthologies (Heroes of... I think) I've been completely drawn in by his work. From *Cadian Blood* to *Void Stalker*. *Betrayer* _might_ be my favourite Heresy book yet (or Legion. Or The First Heretic. Or A Thousand Sons). I think I'm a full on fanboy by this point.


----------



## MontytheMighty (Jul 21, 2009)

DoctorStrange said:


> Outside the Ghost's Abnett's work speaks for itself. But I still haven't got a clue why *Prospero Burns* is a Horus Heresy novel instead of the William King Space Wolf Fenris prequel it wants to be. But that's not to say I didn't enjoy reading it, I found it similar to Ghostmaker in a way. First time through I couldn't make head nor tail of it. When I read it through again everything slotted into place. I really think BLP should have done a much better job promoting it as what it was rather than what most (I assume) thought it would be.


PB is a well-written tale (I'll admit that much even though I can't really stand the legion), but I don't get why some people think a book covering the Razing of Prospero from the Wolves' angle would've been pointless. 

Abnett's story (essentially a 30K exploration of the SW legion) was a solid contribution to the lore, but a book covering the actual conflict from the Wolves' angle would've made for a very interesting read in its own right as well.


----------



## Malus Darkblade (Jan 8, 2010)

forkmaster said:


> I should say I had a really, _really_ hard time reading through Faces just so know!


Yeah I just read it and its quite horrible. Other than being confusing its quite boring and depicts harlequins as nothing more than emotional ballet dancers with knives.


----------



## Anakwanar (Sep 26, 2011)

Dan Abnett, Aaron Bowden, Chris Wright, John French - and they do not need anyone else. A except for C.L. Werner - someone still need to write Warhammer Fantasy Battles :victory:


----------



## Xisor (Oct 1, 2011)

Malus Darkblade said:


> Yeah I just read it and its quite horrible. Other than being confusing its quite boring and depicts harlequins as nothing more than emotional ballet dancers with knives.


Guessing I read a different story then, where the mythology's explored and unfolded, with the cognitive horror of the experience being intricately and attentively well done indeed.

Emotional ballet dancers with knives? By that extent you, the two fine sirs, depict yourselves as nothing more than agitated zoo monkeys with keyboards!


----------



## Malus Darkblade (Jan 8, 2010)

Xisor said:


> Guessing I read a different story then, where the mythology's explored and unfolded, with the cognitive horror of the experience being intricately and attentively well done indeed.
> 
> Emotional ballet dancers with knives? By that extent you, the two fine sirs, depict yourselves as nothing more than agitated zoo monkeys with keyboards!


I always cringe when someone doesn't take a liking to me on these forums.

I'm sorry I wasn't a fan of Legion of the Damned. I really am.


----------



## Xisor (Oct 1, 2011)

Malus Darkblade said:


> I always cringe when someone doesn't take a liking to me on these forums.
> 
> I'm sorry I wasn't a fan of Legion of the Damned. I really am.


Erm, what?


----------



## Mossy Toes (Jun 8, 2009)

Now Now, Xisor, what did we say about ad hominums?

(Honestly, I haven't yet read "Faces" myself, I was just passing on the fact of its existence. Sorry that you didn't enjoy it, Malus)


----------



## piemelke (Oct 13, 2010)

In principle I would say let ADB write about traitor chapter's so far this seems to be what he does best, I know he is pitching for BA (or a BA successor chapter), however this seems unlikely, 
One of the loyalist chapters that might still be cool for him are 
the mentors chapter, I would really like to see them fleshed out more or the 
excorcists chapter


----------



## Stephen74 (Oct 1, 2010)

Doelago said:


> For me Graham McNeil is really hit or miss. Either he writes a really good story, or he writes such utter crap that its a pain to get through. There seems to be no middle ground. And annoyingly he can do both of those in the same damn book. ....... I could not stand the amount of named characters from other books in it. It was obvious from the start exactly who was gona make it through. Like, no suspense at all.


100% agree. McNeil is superb at writing a story where character interaction is at the forefront. He is absolutely abysmal at writing descriptions. One minute you can't put the book down, the next minute you want to burn your eyes out with red hot pokers.

I also agree about named characters. I guess that's a problem when it comes to writing about famous 40k events. I can't lay the blame for that issue at Grahams feet though.


----------

