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TiB wrote:I think 1st person is a fine way to tell a story, you just get different books. It's more about personal adventures and small tragedies than the big movements of intergalactic conquest. Both can be fun, both can be bad.

Cain does a pretty decent job with it (although I must agree with KamikazeCanuck that when reading 3 Cain books in a row, the repeating of the same sentences over and over can get to you)

I didn't realize Cain's books were 1st person too. I guess that makes sense as it's supposed to be his Memoirs.

For sure!

Shas'O Dorian: I love the Gaunts Ghosts series. I feel that the author (Dan Abnett) does a good job of making the protagonist (IG) seem a little better than in game without making them super-powerful who always win. There are fights between the ranks, casualties are frequent and to quote one of the characters there's almost always something going "awry".

I agree, Gaunt's Ghosts are a great set of books. Just started Horus Rising, OK but not as good as Gaunts Ghosts

short answer - yes many of them

My favourites are the Cain novels by Sandy Mitchel - great works, good characters and a unusually effective take on the 40K universe.
Whilst they are inspired partly by the Flashman novels - I far prefer them (and the main character) to the original. Personally i really enjoyed his Dark heresy novels as well - interesting that he is one of the few that deals with people in 40k having sex and relationships (!). I met him recently at a Games convention and had a chat which was cool - hope he gets to write a Horus Heresy Novel as it would be intersting to see his take.

next is Mr Abnet - love much of his works - especially Eisenhorn and Guants Ghosts - really enjoyed Legion and Titanicus too - His novels rank up with the great Michael Stackpole and Victor Milan novels for BattleTech

For me nearly as enjoyable was Lord of Night and Fire Warrior by Simon Spurrier

Mechanicum was great but some of the others seem too much by the numbers - quite enjoy the Space Wolf books

Did not enjoy the Soul Drinkers trilogy or Descent of Angels - must stick it on E-bay.............. The James Swallow Blood Angels books were .....ok a

Does anyone know what book starts the Night Lords series?

blazinpsycho&typhooni wrote:Does anyone know what book starts the Night Lords series?

Soul Hunter.

I love the Warhammer 40k Novels anything by Dan Abnett is a good read and personally I think the HH Novels are amazing and interesting kinda like Star Wars Episode I-III only with much better writing than Lucas. As for my favorite series it has to be the Eisenhorne series he's so awsome and anyone who has read those books will be pleasantly surprised.

Dan Abnett is the metaphorical big fish in a small pond... the one-eyed man in the land of the blind... ehh, what I'm trying to say is that he's a mediocre writer at best (and rather inconsistent in quality - Eisenhorn and Ravenor were half-decent, Sharpe's Lasrifles Gaunt's Ghosts is very overrated, although at least better than his real dreck like Titanicus and Brotherhood of the Snake). I feel his work is consistently overrated by fans who are starved for fiction in the Warhammer 40k setting that isn't so bad it makes you want to claw your eyes out. After reading a few of the offerings from other GW licensed authors (and recovering from the resulting brain damage), I can understand why people would react that way to Abnett's work, but really folks. Try reading some things that don't have the Black Library logo on it. There are tons of other authors out there who are more deserving of your money.

I'll admit that I do like Sandy Mitchell's Ciaphas Cain books, though. It's a guilty pleasure, since I can't help but be aware the series is essentially Flashman with Blackadder's Baldrick tagging along IN SPACE. But worse, because Mitchell apparently decided it was too hard to write a character that's totally unlikable the way Flashy is and still have him be sympathetic, so he took the lazy way out and made him just sorta a bastard but not really. And as others have mentioned, he has more than a few stock phrases that he uses over and over and over and over and over, which is somewhat grating. Still, in spite of all the (many!) flaws, it's a lighthearted and fun (and therefore totally unique among Black Library fiction) take on the setting, and for that I'm willing to forgive them. Mostly.

[As an aside, I find it very entertaining that the two most popular Warhammer 40k fiction characters are a Sharpe expy and a Flashman expy. In the grim darkness of nineteenth-century England there is only war, apparently.]

Genosaurer wrote:Dan Abnett is the metaphorical big fish in a small pond... the one-eyed man in the land of the blind... ehh, what I'm trying to say is that he's a mediocre writer at best (and rather inconsistent in quality - Eisenhorn and Ravenor were half-decent, Sharpe's Lasrifles Gaunt's Ghosts is very overrated, although at least better than his real dreck like Titanicus and Brotherhood of the Snake). I feel his work is consistently overrated by fans who are starved for fiction in the Warhammer 40k setting that isn't so bad it makes you want to claw your eyes out. After reading a few of the offerings from other GW licensed authors (and recovering from the resulting brain damage), I can understand why people would react that way to Abnett's work, but really folks. Try reading some things that don't have the Black Library logo on it. There are tons of other authors out there who are more deserving of your money.

I'll admit that I do like Sandy Mitchell's Ciaphas Cain books, though. It's a guilty pleasure, since I can't help but be aware the series is essentially Flashman with Blackadder's Baldrick tagging along IN SPACE. But worse, because Mitchell apparently decided it was too hard to write a character that's totally unlikable the way Flashy is and still have him be sympathetic, so he took the lazy way out and made him just sorta a bastard but not really. And as others have mentioned, he has more than a few stock phrases that he uses over and over and over and over and over, which is somewhat grating. Still, in spite of all the (many!) flaws, it's a lighthearted and fun (and therefore totally unique among Black Library fiction) take on the setting, and for that I'm willing to forgive them. Mostly.

[As an aside, I find it very entertaining that the two most popular Warhammer 40k fiction characters are a Sharpe expy and a Flashman expy. In the grim darkness of nineteenth-century England there is only war, apparently.]

Your comment seems vaguely familiar to a series of comments made by a person before. The BL books aren't great literary works, they're just here to expand the 40k universe. It's not like many people just read BL books and nothing else.

It's more for content.

I can agree with the above Abnett comment, he is an average writer who has a couple of great books. It does seem though, that BL is starting to attract some better writers. Aaron Dembski-Bowden is off to a good start, the Night Lords novel was very well written. It's just too bad that Bill King doesn't write for 40k anymore. As formulaic as the first SW books were, what happened to them after he left was a travesty.