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Are there any of you out there? I know you exist, but I have never met/talked to one.

I mostly like the author but I shall forever hate Brotherhood of the Snake. Doubt anyone just purely hates him though.

he has no idea how to finish a book.

None.

Almost everything I've read by him ends with some sort of deus ex machina in the last 50 pages, usually the last 10.

That said the journey is usually worth it and he's the only BL author I regularly follow but make no mistake, he has serious problems in his plotting.

His stories have a few problems, but he's one of the few BL authors I'd spare if I went on a homicidal rampage through their HQ.

You people are aware that this thread is full of HERESY! Don´t you know that the Great Abnett is the Patron Saint of the Imperial Guard? He has proven that the humble guardsman can kill ANYTHING with his/her trusted lasgun.

On a more serious note. I concur with Kid K that Abnett could put some work on his plot endings.

I'm on the last 50 pages of "ONLY IN DEATH!!!!one!!!1!"

And yep, they're surrounded. Yep thy're doomed. Yep a dozen major characters have met CERTAIN DEATH but...

Oh look, a Deus Ex Machina some left lying around! What a lucky break for us!

And I bet Gaunt ain't dead either.

Can someone bring an incinerator cannon? So we can wipe this heresy filled post from the the universe? Personally I thinks thats a good idea.
Seriously though Abnett is possibly the best writer in the black library, His books are just amazing well written, Even if the plot lines are slightly off and random, he isn't exactly perfect!

Abnett is possibly the best writer in the black library

Wow.

Talk about damning him with faint praise. I mean who's next in line? Gav Thorpe? CS Goto? The intern who wrote us a Valhallan book if we gave him a sandwich?

Anyway he's only #3 after Jack Yeovil and the immortal Ian Watson.

Brotherhood of the Snake=Crap.

Dan Abnett isn't THAT good, unless, like KK says, you compare him to...what, C.S. Goto and entourage?

Dan is one f my favorites, though I really like James Swallow and Graham McNeil as well.

...
It's 40k fiction. It's not Shakespeare or Homer by any stretch of the imagination.

Dan's a personal favorite, however, when I want to read about something blowing the hell up. Aaron Dembski-Bowden is creeping up fast though. Can't wait for Soul Hunter.

But if I want to read *good* fiction? I'll stick with Jim Butcher.
Dresden Files? Excellent.
Codex Alera series? Awesome.

I really enjoy his work, but it's kind of bothersome when your favorite character dies on the last page of a book because he just walked into a bamboo hut where a cunning trap was laid for him by a child who, before now, was not mentioned in the book.

At least Guardsman Hawke doesn't die in Storm of Iron. He was the Jason Statham of the Imperial Guard.

Brother SRM wrote:I really enjoy his work, but it's kind of bothersome when your favorite character dies on the last page of a book because he just walked into a bamboo hut where a cunning trap was laid for him by a child who, before now, was not mentioned in the book.

Although some of his books have a bad habit of throwing in last minute characters, one of my favorite things about his work is that no matter how well built up, or how enjoyable a character is, they're always expendable in his eyes.

I loved Gaunts Ghosts for that reason.

WARNING: SPOILER ALERT

Kid_Kyoto wrote:Oh look, a Deus Ex Machina some left lying around! What a lucky break for us!

I actually really liked the end of "Honor Guard", which definitly had the largest random plot device I have ever seen. But other then that, I don't remember many other Deus Ex Machinas. But then, I still gotta read "Only in Death".

metallifan wrote:
Although some of his books have a bad habit of throwing in last minute characters, one of my favorite things about his work is that no matter how well built up, or how enjoyable a character is, they're always expendable in his eyes.

I loved Gaunts Ghosts for that reason.

Funny I find the exact opposite. The extras who only a get name 2 pages before they die are expendible.

The secondary characters might die in the last 8 pages of the book.

The main characters never die. The closest thing to a dead main characters would Colbec.

As for Deus Ex Machinas, the worst of course was the 'machine of Chaos army and space fleet destroying' at the end of the Saint series. But they show up in smaller doses throughout. Two guardsmen surrounded and outgunned, about to die, then the cavalry shows up. Mkoll vanishes early on, surely he's dead, he pops up in the last 10 pages and kills the cheif bad guy. It's a cliche, it can be used well but sit shows up in every darn book.

Only in Death managed to make its miracles work in context, it wasn't as bad as I thought. But it still has 3 seperate miraculous saves in the last 3 pages.

Dan abnett is made of win and awsome, his characters seem to be invincible and expendable at the same time. One miunte 10 of them kill 5 chaos terminators and a terminator lord, (we all know which book that was) and the next they get shot once by some kid and die, even when on previous occasions they have been shot like 40,000 times. . His characters do have a habit of dying, then comming back, then dying, then comming back. Kind of like Daniel Jackson of the 41 millenium.

Well at least he's not C.S. Goto!
Abnett's endings always leave me hangin' though...

despoiler52 wrote:One miunte 10 of them kill 5 chaos terminators and a terminator lord

Huh. I always assumed they were "regular" power armored CSM. Overgunned, of course, but not Terminators.

Abnett is great!!


goto on the other hand...

Good old Multilasers C 'M.L.' S Goto

Okay, whats up with Goto and multilasers?

Everybody in his books uses Multilasers.

Space Marines in his books use Multilasers instead of bolters.

Terminators can do backflips

Everyone surfs on a tank. Eldar even built platforms on their tanks for surfing.

Kids with rocks and sticks can blow up a Falcon Grav tank

Razorbacks morph into Land Raiders, and back into Razorbacks. Often multiple times in the same paragraph, or even sentance. (ie: "The Razorback brought it's guns to bear. The Land Raider fired it's guns that it brough to bear. The Razorback that just fired it's guns that it just brought to bear killed the Ork Vehicle with it's guns. The Land Raider drove away.")

A Terminator and a Kasrkin become BFF's and live happily ever after.

Space Marines get horizontal with Eldar.

Etc...

Erk. Thanks for the info (I think...).

Still worth reading at least -one- of the DoW books, just for the laughs

One of the great things about Abnett is that he doesn't overuse certain phrases. William King, for example, said "superstitious awe" 3 times in as many chapters in "Space Wolf". And the Ciaphas Cain series, even though it's great, is a study of the overusage of "bowel-loosening terror".

Abnett's great, his books are great, what I call comics for adults, no brain power needed just good escapist fun, though I do wish he'd stop killing off his characters.

I never thought about it before, but I have to agree with you on the whole "deus ex machina" thing. Of course, the only two books I've read by him are Honor Guard and Titanicus. The first needs no explanation and the second, well, . Other than that I really do love his work. I think he did an amazing job in Titanicus and he really should branch out and do more AdMech-type stuff (I wish he would have written that HH book about them, what a let down that turned out to be).

dementedwombat wrote:I never thought about it before, but I have to agree with you on the whole "deus ex machina" thing. Of course, the only two books I've read by him are Honor Guard and Titanicus. The first needs no explanation and the second, well,

Spoiler:

a Titan legion somehow destroys a corrupted chaos titan horde twice its size without taking major losses and the battle is never fully explained

. Other than that I really do love his work. I think he did an amazing job in Titanicus and he really should branch out and do more AdMech-type stuff (I wish he would have written that HH book about them, what a let down that turned out to be).

Many events in titanicus do not really make sense game wise, for instance a warlord being brought low by 2 warhounds, and the amount of CC in that book makes no sense.

Since when has fluff=gameplay?

Harms66 wrote:Abnett's great, his books are great, what I call comics for adults, no brain power needed just good escapist fun, though I do wish he'd stop killing off his characters.

I wish he'd kill more, the battle are meaningless if only faceless extras will die.