This old fart is not a good writer. he's a fucking setting thief. Every time he's offered to write a 40k book, he doesn't decline it because he wants to explore his own material, he accepts the offer, takes the money. And writes his own material. Every time he ignores the gigabytes of established 40k lore to insert his own ideas that are completely alien to the universe, be that enuncia or perpetuals, and makes them central to the plot. The actual 40k lore serves as window dressing to his original novels about original concepts that have no place in 40k. And he's not a good writer. he writes light novel action schlock without any themes to it.
>best 40k writer ignores 40k setting foundations Really makes you think
>>93209080You shut your GODDAMN mouth. In THIS house we respect police-sketch Gimli.
>>93209080>And he's not a good writer. he writes light novel action schlock without any themes to it.And what do you do for a living, Anon?
>>93209080Newfag take, Eisenhorn solidified half the concepts that BL operates on today. He’s not an impressive writer but it’s science fantasy tie-in pulp, not A Canticle for Leibowitz, and it’d be better off if it was less consistent and more weird.
>>93209080>Every time he ignores the gigabytes of established 40k lore to insert his own ideasBased
>>93209080>his own ideas He stole the cabal from nemesis the warlock and the perpetuals from highlander
>>93209173>guy who made perpetuals>best writerMarvelshit secondaries are a plague
>>93209237Hard agree. Eisenhorn was a tremendous effort to put a face the 'domestic' Imperium, which was extremely rare at the time.Abnett's later works are certainly more out there, but Gaunt's Ghosts and Eisenhorn are exceedingly solid.
>listen to an audiobook about an inquisitor>he literally lists his physical appearance like a grocery list>close audible
>>93209080But have you read any C.S. Goto?
Eisenhorn and Gaunt's is garbage that only looks acceptable next to the genuine sewerage outflow that is the rest of BL.
>>93209237But modern bl is utter garbage
>>93209080>The actual 40k lore serves as window dressing to his original novels about original concepts that have no place in 40k. I've got some time this evening and we're talking about someone who's been foundational to 49K writing for the past twenty years minumum. How about you pick one of these concepts that 'has no place in 40K' and we can take a closer look?
>>93209336The hate for Goto is ridiculously overblown both by newfags who were born after his books were already out of circulation; and by oldfags who are memeing spergs. Goto is really an average BL writer. Which is awful, but he's not an outlier. For what it's worse, I know a lot of books worse than Goto (every other FB one)>but multilasers! muh multilasers!Shut up sperg, nobody cares about minutiae. For all I know, there's multilasers somewhere in the galaxy made by some lonesome forge world.
>>93209080Only stupid retard nerds care about 40k lore. This is not my opinion, this is the easily observable GW stance.
>>93209080thought that was gaider
>>93209080>he hasn't read Know no Fear
>>93209435It’s garbage because modern BL writers are not interested in science fiction or science fantasy or even writing, they just want to publish their vision of wurhummer created by 30 years of cultural osmosis and memes. Not because Abnett fleshed out how inter-planet trade works.
>>93209173True. Reality warping language for the win. Psyker seeth and cope.
>>93209080>This old fart is not a good writer.Well, he writes 40k novels matey.
>>93209491he is probably just a grimderp purist who hates any attempt to make the Imperium seem believable or plausibly functional>>93209551you can say the same about any multimedia-shared-author-universe, so why are you here on /tg/, which is mostly dedicated to discussing such things?>>93209871But enuncia basically is just warp sorcery
>>93209237Eisenhorn books are crazy overrated, they are, in fact, his worst Inquisitor books. It's the blind nostalgia speaking. The only thing they have over the ones that came after is that they strongly focus on a single character instead of constantly juggling the attention between several. But his arc takes up three entire books while its ending is already perfectly apparent by the end of the first one.
>>93211723/tg/ is dedicated to /tg/, so what the fuck are YOU doing here?
>>93211805Maybe you guys should read real books that history will not swallow whole in like 30 years.
>>93209080>he accepts the offer, takes the money. And writes his own materialSounds based to me.Why should he follow your headcanon?
>>93209286Anon, who is honestly better than Abnett in 40k? BL is a sea of shit. The best 40k got was doing a Sharpe rip-off with Gaunt's Ghosts, which at least leaned into the "always war" shit. Abnett's just working for a paycheck, and that's about as good as 40k is gonna get. >>93211303This exactly lol.
>>93212031An AI will write the next ones lolIt's peak slop
No one attacks Abnett since he’s silent on social media and doesn’t say politics
"Sorry, I'm not going to read the lore a bunch of toy soldier nerds wrote, it's cringe. My own ideas are much better."
>>93209221this is a lame thread but you don't have to be a chef to know when your toast is burnt
>My sonic fanfics are SOOO much better than segas stories Cmon losers admit it you lost
Black library hate only started after 2016
>>93211821It's been 20 years and the series has becone an influential bestseller. Eisenhorn will absolutely be read in 30 years.
>>93212415And what else happened in 2016? BL hate has been overblown due to a few pushing memes.
>>93212415It started when HH started.And it was started by Abnett, lmao.
>>93212493All the issues in HH stem from Abnett though? Chris Wraight is goated anyway who cares
>>93212493….Horus heresy started in 2005 the cracks only started during late 7th edition. This board hasn’t been able to talk about 40k lore since gathering storm
>>93211820is it though? there is very little game mechanic discussion outside the generals, and even those are mostly lore discussion, coomer posting, and pol infiltration attempts>>93212493the original HH series was supposed to be much shorteralso Abnett doesn't make the big decisions regarding the HH series, and even the smaller plot twists and lore changes that Abnett introduced would have been vetted by editors and corporate types
>>93212417Ok, but it's not really literature. It's the kind of thing I'd have in my toilet, as a joke.
>>93212493Lol imagine being Dan Abnett and knowing your life's work is low paid peurile garbage like Black Library novels lol
>>93213053His life’s work is unironically in the MCU, his guardians of the galaxy comics are what they based the movies on
>>93213053He writes other things you know most notably 2000AD and fucking marvel
>>93213066>>93213080I love how you guys hairtrigger a reply as though theis pedigree abrogates him rather than condemns him. The Marvel explains why nothing he does has any purpose except selling toys lol
The story of Dan Abnett, by Anon>You are Dan Abnett>You are a well-established comic book and sci-fi writer with a respectable career>get in contact with the early Black Library publishing press and get hired for some freelance work>write a book about the Imperial Guard, that seems cool>it sells well because you know how to write sympathetic, interesting characters and a compelling plot even if you're kind of making shit up as you go along >but it's okay to get creative because the directors of 40k are very vocal that the main appeal of the setting is that anything is possible and you can have any kind of fun you want with it. It's a big sci-fi sandbox>so you play in the sandbox a bit>GW likes your work and it sells well, so you keep getting hired back on for some trilogies like an Inquisitor trilogy based on their new board game>GW knows you have some wacky ideas in your stories that may not quite fit into the wider setting, but that's okay, this is your sandbox and they even call it the Abnettverse so that everyone knows it's sort of like its own little pseudo-canon away from the wider setting>then GW decides to maybe do a HH series, asks if you're interested since you're their best selling author>sure, why not, let's do a deep dive on the Primarchs and the truth of the Heresy that the audience has been guessing at for decades>you write the first book>everyone is fascinated with this more detailed, likeable depiction of Horus and his fall from grace, nothing in it is radically lore-breaking and it fits seamlessly into the existing HH lore>it's a massive smash hit, so much so that GW has to step away from its 10-book series plan because it prints money so hard they almost can't believe it>you write some more books, and throw in a few twists because it'd be boring if there's no new lore revealed in some of these titles, right? >pitch 5 different twists to BL editors for Legion>they say "cool, do it"
>>93213094You act like he was sucking the tit of BL when multiple companies have him write. You jumping to marvel is such a cop out.I highly doubt your fanfics compare
>>93213130>he sharts out garbage for THREE huge conglomerates!Amazin
>>93213094His 2000AD work is good. Stop crying either leave 40k or cope
>>93213137What’s your issue against him?
>>93213124>you didn't mean to put 5 different lore-rewriting twists into Legion, you expected them to reject 2-3 of them, but they greenlit all of them, so now you kind of have to>Perpetuals are now a thing>And they're not just a mutant breed of human, they are now the actual origin of the Emperor and a whole league of superhumans that once served as his lieutenants>wait a second we've completely rewritten the entire foundational lore of the setting>Legion sells like hotcakes and GW shrugs and says "damn, oh well. Guess we'll lean into the new lore twists instead of gently backing away from them as just more Abnettverse lore">more HH books get written>more twists get added, some interesting, a lot of them stupid, just to goad the readers into buying every single entry because why change a profitable strategy?>by the time it reaches the Siege of Terra the HH no longer resembles the original depiction in any way, shape, or form>Abnett, still the best-selling author, is selected to write the big finale>You are Abnett>You have to quietly wrap up all the stupid little twist arcs you made up and you do so by basically sabotaging your own creative baby, all the story arcs you wanted to explore are swept under the rug because you're trying to appease the now furious reader base because they actually read Horus Rising after all this time and realized the Emperor signed a pact with Chaos *in the very first fucking novel and nobody cared*>you somehow manage to do so by making a triple-size trilogy to cover the final battle>readers blame you for forever 'ruining' 40k's lore, even though everything you ever put in a book was approved by GW's editors and loremasters and you couldn't fart a word onto a page without their say-so>You were just trying to have a bit of fun with the setting and now you're literary Hitler, apparently>oh well, this was really all just a hobby for you anyways
>>93213146Maybe. >>93213158It's just not very good matey.Warhammer 40,000 was at some point a kind of creative tabletop game.Then the lorefags came.The lorefags insisted it was serious and fucked it up. The tourneyfags came and fucked it up some more.The stories' prose is turgid, overwrought. The characters are two dimensional, the plots are pointless and don't scale. Biggles books have probably done more for this kind of fiction. A biplane is a twin winged plane by the 2ay, not a bisexual airplane. You would not know this from reading Dan Abnett's tawdry undergraduate boss battle garbage.
>>93213124Boy I'm so glad my favourite tabletop game now comes in novel form, I will wear my co fy WH40k t shirt and light a scented candle for the Emperor!
>>93213183Look groggy just play a historical already
>>93209237EIsenhon's third book's weird way of handling Blanks made me stop reading.>>93211805That's also a fair point.
GW's interns are already here.>>93209173That hasn't worked out well for too many others.>>93213124>>93213180Hello Dan.>>GW knows you have some wacky ideas in your stories that may not quite fit into the wider setting, but that's okay, this is your sandbox and they even call it the Abnettverse so that everyone knows it's sort of like its own little pseudo-canon away from the wider settingRevisionism.
>>93213286Abnettverse has been named as such since before Horus Rising was ever published my man, don't expose yourself as such a newfag so obviously
>>93213286Yeah dude this thread is GW shill central Horus galaxy was right. /tg/ is GW central
>>93213180>and now you're literary Hitler, apparentlyconsidering how easily /tg/ gets butthurt about stuff, I actually haven't seen too many complains about Siege of Terra on here>>93213183translation: something Abnett wrote contradicts my headcanon, and now anytime I post my headcanon here, anons tell me I am wrong
>>93213286>Revisionism.implying GW even cares about setting consistency and not just shilling models and tie-in campaign books every chance they get
>>93212031>who is better For actual serious writing nobody but for pure comedy Sandy Mitchell
>>93213350Chris Wraight
>>93213303I know you desparately want to think people take the lore seriously.
>>93209080>he wants to explore his own materialHow the fuck do you think the "established 40k lore" came to exist in the first place you retard? People made up cool things. Half the "established lore" you think Abnett is breaking is probably things Abnett invented in an earlier book.
>>93213392on /tg/ a lot of anons do>>93213453true, sometimes Abnett goes on an ego trip and lists all the stuff he came up with that is now widespread in the setting and it is a long list
>>93213485>on /tg/ a lot of anons doEvery time you speak, an indictment
>>93209080I don't disagree generally.But the original Eisenhorn Trilogy plus Gaunt's Ghosts up to Sabbat Martyr are the best 40k fiction ever written.
>>93213565It’s amazing how hard he fell off. His more recent stuff is so shit I’m convinced he died years ago and some fag from BL is just pretending to be him.
>>93209080>This old fart is not a good writer.Not especially, but he's fine at what he gets paid to do.>he's a fucking setting thief. Every time he's offered to write a 40k book, he doesn't decline it because he wants to explore his own material, he accepts the offer, takes the money. And writes his own material.40k isn't worth being reverential over.
>>93213124>so you keep getting hired back on for some trilogies like an Inquisitor trilogy based on their new board gameits actually the other way around. GW launched the Inquisitor game based on the popularity of the Abnett novels.
>>93212370post your weird muscle mpreg morphs on the appropriate board away from semi-respectable human beings plz and ty
>>93209183kek
His books are solid but inoffensive. You could replace the 40k setting with other fantasy settings and little would change. Our heroes share our modern day morality no matter what.
>>93209173fpbp
>>93213180The only complaints I’ve really seen on end and the death are that book two was boring and dark king was pointless, and that emperor had to trick Horus to win and Horus soul wasn’t obliterated, both of which improve the setting imo. The emperor being infallible was boring as shit and the best thing HH did was to make him just as much of a fuck up as the rest of the setting
>>93209080His writing quality has massively decreased. The last two Ghost books were so shit, though I admit the Mkoll parts in the last one were decent glimpses into a chaos society but other than that it was shit.
>>93213495>Every time you speak, an indictmentOf what?People come here to talk about lore for various settings, how new are you?>>93213682Nope, GW sent some material for the Inquisitor game they were working on to Abnett to see if he could work some of it into the Ghost novels, but Abnett saw the opportunity to do a novel that wasn't just 300 pages of regurgitated ww2 movie action scenes and grabbed it with both hands
>>93213183>The stories' prose is turgid, overwrought. The characters are two dimensional, the plots are pointless and don't scale. Biggles books have probably done more for this kind of fiction.So nothing to do with Abnett, all to do with the target audience of 40K. Cool! >>93213682Absolutely not. The Eisenhorn model predates Eisenhorn as a book character. Dan Abnett's own account says that he was asked to do the books as background writing for the game that was in development.
>>93209549>oldfags who are memeing spergs
>>93215730Quite a bit to do with Abnett, he's one of the worst offenders at everything listed. It makes sense that someone of your reading age is rattled by this. Read some Rudyard Kipling, Edward Gibbon or Truman Capote. Don't put McDonalds in your head as well as your stomach.
>>93209080>The actual 40k lore serves as window dressing to his original novels about original concepts that have no place in 40k.As opposed to window dressing to just sell figures?
>>93214190Newfag alert yet again. Christ, Dan Abnett may have his problems, especially in his later years of writing and some of the mistakes he created early on, but if you're trying to argue The End and The Death IMPROVED THE SETTING, Boy what a retard you are for getting involved after seeing your favorite Youtube Channel talk about it for three episodes.
>>93216445And besides, you clearly havent read any of the other books and media for that headache of a series, if you think THAT Book, was the one that made him appear falliable. GW/BL started that shit years ago, and you just found that out by skipping ahead to read about online discourses over how much of an Airplane Nosedive that trilogy was in trying to wrap up the whole series and multiple beloved characters of both the series, but also the setting as a whole.
>>93216109Wait a second, you're bashing Abnett for flowery prose and then recommending Kipling in the very next post? Thanks for confirming you have no idea what you're talking about.Also Abnett's prose is not overwrought, it's appropriate for the job (building atmosphere).
>>93213124As far as I remember, Abnett related in an interview that every author new to 40k used to be required to write about the Imperial Guard before he was allowed to write about anything else. That was because the Guard was the least unique part of the world that even a total outsider could convincingly write about without breaking the lore.
>>93213124>everyone is fascinated with this more detailed, likeable depiction of Horus and his fall from graceI, too, was quite fascinated by his gradual fall from grace that was set up in the first book.Until the very next book interrupted it to have him fall instantaneously at the flick of a switch, and not because of any personal tragedy, but because he was shanked and talked to a hallucination that said "dude trust me".I was still fascinated. By how quickly a series that had promise degenerated into a puerile cartoon. Who could've predicted how much worse it would get further on?!
>>93209080>And writes his own material. Every time he ignores the gigabytes of established 40k loreGood.
>>93216548The problem was unfortunately in how much they were practically rushing to try and finish the series in a close to 10 books and close to a dozen audio dramas and a couple tasty short stories. But, once as mentioned, the books started going off the shelves and money started pouring in, they obviously slowed it the fuck down big time. Why do you think that Fulgrim's corruption and fall along with Ferrus's Death was all handled in the exact same book and were finished within less then 400 pages worth of text? By that point, they realised that this short series of books no longer applied and immediatly spat out the next one with the Abyss book, which was spun out of wholecloth, and which on its face sounded completely ridiculous but which was just rolled along with. The shipyards of Saturn, being able to build 3 huge fuck off, moon sized ships, with no one being aware in anyway shape or form, and which was able to destroy its own creation bay with no on being the wiser was fucking trite, but by that point the 40k fans were so caught up in the dopamiane, and just excused it as part of the lore that they were discovering, rather then the blatant fuck up it was. It's also why years later, the first few books, both for Horus, Ferrus, and Fulgrim obviously were fucked with themselves, since their was no time to let the character's breath before they all croaked or got bent over and got fucked because of the original 4 books. Why, within the span of 5 books, 3 of which has been either off screen or a couple paragraphs, Horus turns from a man who wishes to be as beloved as Sanguinius, is suddenly okay with ripping of a man's flesh and putting it on his armour for sacred runes to help please his warp allies.
Essentially, the proublems for that whole thing with the radical change with Horus immediatly became apparent once they tried to strectch out the series, after they had already tried to speed rush all the way to the Istvaan Massacre within the span of 4 books, and most of that being worldbuilding for either the legions for each book, or the Primarch in question to define who and what they were in said books because this was the first time they ever got written down in their entire history that was a rulebook paragraph excerpt.
>>93213124>>93213180So essentially it's all the fault of that cunt with a girl name, Lauren Goldberg or something.
>>93216624>Why do you think that Fulgrim's corruption and fall along with Ferrus's Death was all handled in the exact same book and were finished within less then 400 pages worth of text?This whole notion that they're going too quickly is just a fallacy. Most of these books are full of pointless filler and there's nothing much going on with the characters. Fulgrim is an arrogant narcissist and this leads to his fall. One book is more than enough to explain all of this and is it wouldn't need to be very long either. This is why they love to fill up these books with copy-paste space marine characters and secondary battles. The End and the Death trilogy is like the final apotheosis of this. It's about the final showdown between The Emperor and Horus and yet the books jump around hyperactively between a whole bunch of the other unnecessary stuff. Tear out the filler and you would genuinely be left with something like 10 books.>Why, within the span of 5 books, 3 of which has been either off screen or a couple paragraphs, Horus turns from a man who wishes to be as beloved as Sanguinius, is suddenly okay with ripping of a man's flesh and putting it on his armour for sacred runes to help please his warp allies.Because one of the major influences on the Horus Heresy is Paradise Lost. In there Satan too goes from seeming like a glorious and sympathetic character to being ever more degraded and vile. Of course, the people who write for BL aren't geniuses or anything so the execution is kinda hamfisted.
>>93216938>Most of these books are full of pointless fillerWell duh, the entire series is filler wrapped around small paragraphs from old rulebooks that already contain everything you need to know.>One book is more than enough to explain all of this and is it wouldn't need to be very long either.One paragraph is enough.>Tear out the filler and you would genuinely be left with something like 10 books.More like one page, really.
>>93216548>but because he was shanked and talked to a hallucination that said "dude trust me".People who write stuff like this must be struggling with literacy or something. For these people the Warp is real. These are not mere "dreams". Telepathy of that kind is constantly used to convey information on a routine basis. Magnus, an expert in the matter straight up tries to interfere and still confirms that what he's seeing could end up being true. Horus ultimately falls because his sin is pride. He was made Warmaster and so starts to think that he could take the top job too. He thinks he isn't being shown the respect he deserves which is why the vision rankles him so badly. He sees the other Primarchs honored with statues except his is missing.
>>93209173>>93209080Yep, almost like using relatable real-word concepts and tropes as a base with a sprinkling of 40K insanity on makes for good military sci-fi.You can't go 'full 40K' and expect decent material because it's so full of plot holes and handwaves. You're asking for AoS whilst Dan's giving you WHFB.
>>93217134No setting ever sharted on realism as furiously as FB. AoS has the excuse of being suffused with reality-bending magic. FB invites you to believe that a bunch of primitives in chain mail are a persistent threat to an industrialised country with tanks because contrivances contrivances contrivances contrivances contrivances
>>93216109>Edward GibbonEdward Gibbon was a historian/essayist, not a novelist. Your efforts to seem educated just expose your pretentions.
>>93209080That's not ADB though.
>>93209080I agree with all of this. I've actually never really enjoyed a book by Abnett.
>>93213038I have literature in my toilet, I use it for the only thing it's good for: wiping my arse.
>>93209080How is it his fault if the higher ups in gw/black library agree to publish whatever he writes?
>>93209080His books are, for the most part, part of the 40k settings foundation.Eununcia and the king in yellow are amazing
>>93213303>not too many complaintsHonestly probably because not many of the type of person who hangs around here actually read them. Most of my IRL gaming circle are, alas, "/tg/ types"(yes I know it's hypocritical to want better when that's what I am as well, but I do damnit) and I think one guy in our group actually bothered to read the Siege books. Some had already checked out before the end of the interminably drawn-out core Heresy series, personally I got off the ride at the end of it - my 'tism wouldn't let me stop until I'd read them all at least once, but GW choose to make Siege it's own series saved me because I managed to convince my wonky brain the HH series was finished, I ran and never looked back.
>>93209549Wasn't it gotos books in which the BAs lost thousands of marines in a single battle? 40k, Not 30k mind you)They are really bad.
>>93216938I think the general consensus is that there's a happy medium between cramming the whole story into ~10 novels or dragging it out to 60+ and an addon series of however many more Siege was. That they switched from one to the other only compounded the downsides of both.
>>93216938>It's about the final showdown between The Emperor and Horus and yet the books jump around hyperactively between a whole bunch of the other unnecessary stuff. Tear out the filler and you would genuinely be left with something liYou seem to not understand that it's a setting, not a story. All those side characters are way more important than the big fight at the end, because it's essentially those unimportant characters that are needed to inspire people to make their own /yourdudes/ for 30/40k chapters or warbands. The entire series is just a backdrop for this. It's a sandbox with an outcome that was clear from the start.
I am of the opinion that the Perpetual stuff is a great addition to the Horus Heresy series, it added a nice ongoing plot point that wasn't just Legion X Captain and identical brothers fighting Legion Y mooks. All of the marine wank starts to blur together after a while. I also like that Enuncia is explored in Ravenor, Bequin and HH, tying it to the universe at large. Saying that, The End and The Death is one of his worst books but that's because it is so drawn out and jumps between stories far too often, not because of any lore or plot element. Which is the Horus Heresy series in a nutshell.
>>93209173>best 40k writerAlthough that is Fehervari
>>93217378Not only that, but their suggesting Kipling in a 40k thread is tone deaf; Cormac McCarthy is legit a better choice for Anon's in this thread.
>>93218357>giant bald guy is the root of all evilHorus bros, our response???
>>93218104Despite it's problems, one thing I liked about the End and the Death is it undermined the theory that Horus never stood a chance and the Emperor let him win.
>>93218382bald=evil see the OP for the consensus. Notice how much pro-bald propoganda has flooded the site in the past 10 years alongside a surge of marine players (bald) reading abnett (bald)
>>93218423Unironically I'm going bald but afraid to shave my head because if I keep my beard I will look like a redditor. At least I don't wear glasses.
Opinions on Andy Chambers and his Path of the Dark Eldar series? I've been working through the omnibus version and it seems pretty good so far.
>>93218010>You seem to not understand that it's a setting, not a story.Oh god, this meme excuse again. The story happens inside the setting. Settings are described from a bird's eye view in relatively short excerpts. The rulebooks have that kind of style. If you're going to write a novel that has characters, dialogue, a plot.... you're now writing a story and you need to write it differently. The two are mutually supportive. Reading The End and the Death is like reading the literary equivalent of the Rise of Skywalker. An ocean of rapid fire crap is thrown at you. Into all of this they've added that equivalent of the duel from Revenge of the Sith where they just endlessly fight. It's just bad fucking writing. What's worse, I know that Abnnet knows better because he's produced okay books before. >All those side characters are way more important than the big fight at the endThis is why you take all of that crap and write a collection of short stories while reserving the novels for the big stuff. You do not attach 500 little subplots onto the main one.
>>93217378I agree, mentioning non fiction in the children's sandpit you treat like non fiction is over the line.>>93218357Flexing about flexing, why are 40gayers so basic
>>93217850This is definitely the game for you.
>>93217867>How are his stupid writing decisions his fault? He shouldn't have to take accountability for his own choices.
>>93217867A lot of what is really bad about this series is accidentally explained by ADB in one of the forewords. Apparently, this whole process was barely managed at all. Writers would come up with a character or story idea and editorial would approve it without much fuss. Editorial saw its job as only keeping the basic facts straight, shit like "Blood Angels wear red armor". The writers themselves wouldn't coordinate on anything but the most basic of stuff.It was only when the Siege of Terra sub series started that they started to actually assign specific writers to write specific parts with greater oversight. I guess that's why much of the series feels like throwing shit at a wall and seeing what sticks.
Imagine being a grown man and reading warhammer novelsImagine putting thousands of hours of reading slop that isn't worth the paper it's printed onWhy not spend all the hours you do on reading trash into reading actual works of literature and poetry?
>>93218909I hate BL novels but I could see people reading it like any other penny dreadful on holiday or as a break but yeah it's fooken grim. Dementia will set in early for these people
>>93218412>and the Emperor let him win.But Horus lost.
>>93218720>This is why you take all of that crap and write a collection of short stories while reserving the novels for the big stuff.Which is exactly what they did. Do you know how many HH related short stories, novellas and audiodramas there are? Even half of the "big novels" are just short story compilations. But with so many side characters, they had to wrap it up at some point, and the final book obviously is the place to finally tie up all the loose ends. Its not perfect, but necessary.
>>93218899Thats hard to believe desu. In its whole, the various sub-plots do make sense, and the general timeline is (for the most part hello battle for the abyss) pretty much coherent, despite multiple people writing parts of the same subplot, or exploring the same event from different angles.
>>93218909> into reading actual works of literature and poetry?Does it include Space Marines?No? Well, there is your answer.
>>93218909It helps me sleep.That said, nobody reading or replying to 4chan posts has any right to talk down to anyone for wasting time.
>>93218909>reading.I pirate the audiobooks (not only BL tho) and listen to them while painting and during long car travels.
>>93219098>Do you know how many HH related short stories, novellas and audiodramas there are?I'm aware. Those things should have fucking there stayed there and away from the main novels. >Its not perfect, but necessary.It is certainly not necessary and is in fact really irritating. You're reading some relevant part about the final duel only for the text to cut to Fafnir Rann for the next 10 pages and then to some other and so on down the line.
>>93219125Seriously, it's mostly just their brain farts
>>93218780And yet you're here as well instead of off playing Superior Pseudfaggot 50000. Oh let me guess, you don't actually play games or really belong here either you just come here to view the apes in their enclosure right? Everyone you've ever met thinks you're a twat pal. Not because they're not clever enough to understand what you do, but because you're too dumb to understand how stupid you really are.
>>93219262Yep, this sort of problem with BL’s writing has been around since the beginning. Both for fantasy and warhammer, it only got worse over the years because they just kept adding more and more people to do the exact samething ADB described for years, and years on end. Until it got to such a point from the community, where after hearing dozens of complaints, GW management finally got involved and fixed by saying “EVERYTHING IS CANON!!!!” Which instead of actually fixing the problem, and making sure that this could be avoided in the future, and fuck maybe even have their entire editing staff spend a new hiring spree to help manage and fix all of the hundreds of inaccuracies between dozens of authors across a dozen different franchises (Yes, Warhammer does have that many groups terrifyingly enough), they gave up and just excused the problem out of existence by saying that their is practically anything goes if the author writes something in it and they aren’t corrected. From gender transitions being a thing, to everything single type of power armour going from a quiet motor, to a teeth chattering sound that makes it hard to hear anything around a space marine, and anything and everything in between. Like, the only exceptions to this were the Squats with their decanozing, but then that got flipped with their bastardized return, and leaves story’s like the Inquisitor War series in Limbo between the correct versions desired for either side, pro or anti Squat. Congratulations GW, you fucking broke everything you tried fixing, AGAIN!
>>93220180To add one, one last closing example, we still don’t know, if the Monastery of Death, written all the way back in the 90s, but which house every single STC in existence, including the Men of iron, is canon or not. And whether it’s going to be used or just forgotten as side price by a no name author, over 30 years back.
>>93209080OP, you were supposed to upload the photo of Aaron-Dembski Bowden
>>93209080I never enjoyed Daniel Dennetts writing either
>>93218772>I agree, mentioning non fiction in the children's sandpit you treat like non fiction is over the line.you took a shot at looking classy by grabbing at the first three 'classic' writers you could think of and just ended up showing your arse. you're the definition of a pseudointellectual.if you were going for a classic writer you could have mentioned faulkner, if you knew any contemporary writers you could have mentioned george saunders or cormac mccarthy or even fucking alice munro. but you reached for a grab bag of names you thought made you look authoritative, which is an essayist from the fucking 18th century, a boys own adventure writer, and the one quality writer I'd bet money you only know from In Cold Blood and not the Grass Harp.
>>93220205Who gives a fuck. It’s lore spergs like you that ruin everything. Why can’t you just enjoy the setting and any media produced in it for what it is? It’s not military history, it’s not fucking marvel crisis infinite 52 crossover civil war endgame. It’s a setting - you’re supposed to use your imagination and have fun. Fuck’s sake. You pompous little prick.
>>93209080His non40k books are pretty good.
>>93218320Fehervari is the most chad of all BL novel authors>use a bunch of seemingly unrelated 40k novel commissions as the basis of your own interlinked book series>don't get too much attention so that way you avoid the redditors who sperg out over abnett, adb and other famous BL authors>be extremely smug
>>93209080BL should never have been a thing
>>93220205What does it matter if its canon or not?
>>93224849>It’s a settingThis. Use whatever bits you want to play the games of /yourdudes/ inside this setting and ignore whatever you dont like. Times perpetuals or other things i dislike are mentioned in my headcanon: 0Times those things mentioned during narrative campaigns with my friends: 0He could write another 50 book series with the adventures of John Grammaticus during the time of Alexander the Great or whatever, i couldnt care less and its effect on my games would be zero.
>>93217898HH should’ve just stayed as the perspective of Loken. Having a single marine as the eyes of it from the end of the crusade right up to terra would’ve been much better. Adding in filler books like giving every primarch multiple books and whole shit on individual events destroyed the mystery of the era. >>93227587What annoys me with this shit is the amount of no model secondaries who repeat it ad nauseam because their only foot in the hobby is watching loretubers and reading wikis.
>>93209080Ben, you gotta get over it.
>>93227587>Using a pair of Eldar scissors that could cut through space and time that were given to him by Eldrad[7], John Grammaticus appeared near the ruins of Ababa Hive on Terra during the Siege.What's going on big guy
>>93227606>Adding in filler books like giving every primarch multiple books and whole shit on individual events destroyed the mystery of the era.You realize that they have to present some bits of fluff-"meat" to all the fans, right? Having a book about only a couple of legions or primarchs would make the others (rightfully) mad. And of course they had to have some Mechanicum books also. It should have been less books in total for sure, but its GW we are talking about, so of fucking course they are milking the fuck out of it, just like they did and do with everything.HH did not do everything right, but covering all the Primarchs/Legions and other factions was not the problem.Just get over it.>muh mysteryThere was no mystery, as everything was clear from the start.
>>93227648>there was no mystery>just get over itSpot the disingenuous fag
>>93227663What are you even talking about?
>>93227606>the mystery of the era.Did the movie 300 destroy the mystery of King Leonidas for you?Did the movie Troy destroy the mystery of the Siege of Troy for you?Did Downfall destroy the mystery of Hitlers last days for you?Anon, these things are just interoretations of how it could have happened. HH is just like that.20 years from now, someone in the GW headquarters will have the glorious idea that by letting some new BL writers just re-write the entire HH series will make some super easy cash, and they will write everything again, with different points of views, and some things will happen slightly different. And it will change nothing about the overall outcome. Big E will still sit in the Golden Throne after Horus gets defeated, Traitors still go to the Eye. Everything else is just meaningless flavour text and light entertainment for their customers.
>>93211805>the story is bad because you can see how it will inevitably end from very early onYeah, you're right, terrible storytelling.
>>93209080>his own ideas that are completely alien to the universe>perpetualsDaemons respawn, The Emperor respawns, the Eldar Phoenix Lords respawn, Lucius respawns, Necrons and Dark Eldar both have their own versions of coming back to life, Imperial Saints respawn, where did you get the idea that immortality is alien to 40k?Also Enuncia is ancient forgotten and forbidden sorcery, how is that not at home in 40k? The galaxy is full of dark secrets and shadowy cabals digging for esoteric knowledge, whether that be the Mechanicus looting a necron tomb, Ahriman searching for the Black Library, or some heretic trying to find a hidden language to reshape reality.Nobody ever explains how these things aren't at home in 40k, they just say they're bad as if its self explanatory.
>>93227648>>93227663>>93227672>>93227716Mystery is the wrong word. We simply spent too much time and got into too much detail and got too close to these characters. A two hour movie can hit the high points of a historical event and still maintain a distant mythological feeling, a 66 book series is simply absurd.
Have actually been reading Warhammer lore because everyone raves about it and fuck me is it rough lol
>>93209080I'm sorry but I disagree. A lot of new BL books feel like they're just selling models. Dan Abnett made these worlds, battles and the IG feel lived in. There are details, differences amongst people and planets. The inquisitor novels give insight on peaceful worlds where there is still seeds of chaos and evil. As far as "lore breaking" goes, no more than what GW releases on a daily basis, most notably, fem custodes. His Gaunt's Ghosts novels got a lot of people into 40k, I know it hooked me in. Dan Abnett, C. L. Werner, and Sandy Mitchell are the only authors I even bother reading at this point.
You're correct op, he's not good. He's great
>Controversial GW novel threadHot take. Defenders of Ulthuan/Sons of Ellyrion > the Tyrion & Teclis trilogy. It's close, don't get me wrong. Both are my favourite GW books. I just feel like Defenders/Sons ties up the narrative a little better.
>>93213180>you didn't mean to put 5 different lore-rewriting twists into Legion, you expected them to reject 2-3 of them, but they greenlit all of them, so now you kind of have toC'mon now.
>>93209080He's a dumb nigger that said Blood Ravens weren't thousand sons related.
Abnett is mediocre author, but gw mind slaves, wh fags eat slop right up, no matter how bad it is so that's that>Gaunts ghosts, abnetts best work is sloppa derivative of Sharpe
>>93213574>I’m convinced he died years agoDidn't he have a stroke or something a few years ago?
>>93234768he was diagnosed with epilepsy
>>93234546but Eisenhorn/Ravenor/Bequin is his masterpiece saga
>>93209549this
>>93218382judge holden isn't the root of all evil, he isn't satan, and he doesn't have superpowers either. you fell for his memes, the book filtered you.
>>93209080>he ignores the gigabytes of established 40k loreWho gives a shit. What made 40k evocative in the first place was that it was pastiche of Moorcock, Dune, Judge Dredd, and whatever crazy shit Blanche painted that week.Most of BL sucks precisely because it's written by fanboys of Warhammer whose primary reference is other Warhammer fanfiction. This is the same reason why modern anime sucks as well.
>>93209634>>93209080I just finished Know No Fear and I thought it was pretty good despite the 7 pages dedicated to describing ships crashing into planets
>>93242695It's almost like you have to read real books
>>93242695Yeah, warhammer nerds should actually read the stuff that inspired their setting rather than BL schlock
I only read Kino Science Fantasy
>>93233533Abnett actually said that. I think it was in the Arc Technica interview that he said he came to the editor with 5 ideas including two big asks to sacrifice and they just said "Yes".
>>93246540https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VchkiTUisu82:50
This dude took expectation subversion to a whole new level and basically killed a lot of the myth that made the Horus Heresy cool.
>>93243391Personally I like Abnett's long drawn out descriptions of stuff. They are a slog the first time around, but make rereading them a lot more enjoyable>>93242695>Most of BL sucks precisely because it's written by fanboys of Warhammer whose primary reference is other Warhammer fanfictionActually a lot of them just copy-paste from tried and true tropes and genres
>>93248214Abnett played the end of the series completely straight, how is that subversion?
>>93246540>>93246552Couldn't he say no? Delay a little and say "look we got 40 more books to go, maybe I should use only 2 of those ideas now and go back to the other two in the next book". Is there some unwritten rule that writers cannot go back on what they offer to editors?I got the impression his editors said yes more than once, problably always. No wonder his books got weirder as they went to the point we got fucking Erda at the fucking eleventh hour.
>>93209080Oh come on, Legion was great
