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I read them, hoping they would get better.


Due to all the C.S. Goto hate on dakka, I really, REALLY want to read one of his books.

battle Brother Lucifer wrote:There is only one Bl book I have ever put down (yet) because it was so bad.

Double Eagle. (I think thats the name)

Its all about boring air warfare. And dudes talking about planes. And a crippled chaos dude who flies his own plane.

Manchu wrote:Aw, bummer. I've always wanted to read that one.

Double Eagle is pretty good. Basically I think its hard to convey the fast-pased combat of air warfare in book form. Things are always pitching and yawing and stuff. My advice is that if you do read it take notes: Character Overload!



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The worst BL book I've read is probably Death World. I doubt its the worst BL book just the worst one I've read.

The infamous "Space Marine" by Ian Watson.

I thought that was a "classic?"

I love love love Ian Watson. In terms of literary quality, he produced the very pinnacle of BL's catalog, IMO. There has yet to be an equally talented writer in terms of sheer creativity working for them.

Monster Rain wrote:I'll go to my grave saying that Ben Counter is worse than C.S. Goto.

Agree. Daemonworld was the only interesting book he's written, but I could still smell the crayon. GK Omnibus is pure generic cheese. Abyss, Soul Drinkers, barf.

But Descent of Angels is still the one I like least.


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otoh the Word Bearer books are pretty craptastic as well.... damn hard to choose.

Manchu wrote:I love love love Ian Watson. In terms of literary quality, he produced the very pinnacle of BL's catalog, IMO. There has yet to be an equally talented writer in terms of sheer creativity working for them.

So I take it you recommend Inquisition War?

The Vampire Genevieve omnibus. bs. Zero battling, she barely fights and pretty much just has sex with every guy she sees... and even the sex scenes have zero Passion. Waste of time.

KamikazeCanuck wrote:

Manchu wrote:I love love love Ian Watson. In terms of literary quality, he produced the very pinnacle of BL's catalog, IMO. There has yet to be an equally talented writer in terms of sheer creativity working for them.

So I take it you recommend Inquisition War?

A thousand times yes. It reads like no other BL books, however. Flip through if you find a copy in a bookstore before buying. I think it's the only 40k yarn that could stand alone as sci-fi (i.e., being a part of the 40k world is not its principal selling point).

Manchu wrote:

KamikazeCanuck wrote:

Manchu wrote:I love love love Ian Watson. In terms of literary quality, he produced the very pinnacle of BL's catalog, IMO. There has yet to be an equally talented writer in terms of sheer creativity working for them.

So I take it you recommend Inquisition War?

A thousand times yes. It reads like no other BL books, however. Flip through if you find a copy in a bookstore before buying. I think it's the only 40k yarn that could stand alone as sci-fi (i.e., being a part of the 40k world is not its principal selling point).

In fact I have the omnibus, its just under my pile of HH books. sigh, they're writing them faster than I can read them.

@KC: I look forward to hearing what you think. Read one of the short stories and write a review, if you get a chance.

Sure, so its more like an anthology then?

No, like most BL omnibuses (omnibi?), it contains three novels and two short stories.

Ian Watson is easily the best living British science fiction writer.

On top of that, he's also a really great guy.

Karon wrote:All the C.S. Goto books?

Aw man, I don't want to hear that... I actually paid money for the Blood Ravens Omnibus but have yet to read it.

Magestorm gets my vote, generally anything by Jonathan Green (was that his name) the Armageddon books were truely shocking, I mean a dreadnought that allows an Impy Guardsmen to craft a multilaser on his arm....clearly you didnt research your source material did you mate??

Another one....

Felix, Gotrek and The Contractural Obligation, aka Giantslayer. Just didn't do it for me at all, and it seemed pretty clear the author was bored of the characters. Thankfully, Nathan Long (I think!) picked up the reins for Orcslayer onwards, and its been tip top ever since!

Sample of Giantslayer?

Gotrek, Felix and Teclis in a boat. Teclis does something. Gotrek grumbles and mutters, Felix looks sheepish.

And that's a lot of the book.

I personally hated Inq. War by Ian Watson. But I agree that it could be random stand alone science fiction.

I also couldn't get thru the first book in the Nagash series. Just couldn't take it for some reason. Though that could simply have been because Weber/Flint/Ringo all released books around the time I started to try to read it and no one in black library holds a candle to those guys.

Kid_Kyoto wrote:Why the hate for Battle For Abyss? I know it didn't advance the HH plot much (spoiler, Horus turns to chaos!) but it was a fine adventure story.

I thought it was a horrible novel, the only likable character or part was the Thousand Son. I found the story incredibly predictable; skirmish, skip through space, loyalists survive despite the odds... Rinse and repeat.
As I said, the story was predictable and underwhelming, the Word Bearers were the worst bad guys in 40K, they were almost as useless as Storm Troopers in SW's.
The ending was really underwhelming and the chief bad guy did nothing but screw up over and over again.
Then, as you said, it didn't advance the Horus Heresy plot much.
To me, it was definitely the worst HH book so far.

Monster Rain wrote:I'll go to my grave saying that Ben Counter is worse than C.S. Goto.

I've heard a lot of hate for both these writers although from what I've heard of his stories C.S. Goto is much worse, I was impressed with Ben Counters 3rd HH novel, Galaxy In Flames I think it was?

For me, the worst Black Library Novel I've read would have to be Battle for the Abyss. Possibly one of the Space Wolf ones too though.

We need a book section:
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/335125.page#2254648

I dream of a Dakka with a subforum titled "Fine Literature" that just discusses Speez Mahrines and Comics!

Eldar Prophecy.... FuTARDED!

Battle for the Abyss and both of the DA HH books were all pretty terrible. Nemsis was not great either, but that is a whole other rant.

Mechanicum was not very good, but it was not the worst.

Double Eagle was pretty exciting I thought, and I even wrote a few pages of rules for air combat inspired by the book.

I'll second Redemption Corps as being awful but I have to put a series of books and a single book ahead of them both:

1. Sons of Dorn. Simply awful and not even captivating.
2. The entire Last Chancer series.

Just Dave wrote:

Kid_Kyoto wrote:Why the hate for Battle For Abyss? I know it didn't advance the HH plot much (spoiler, Horus turns to chaos!) but it was a fine adventure story.

I thought it was a horrible novel, the only likable character or part was the Thousand Son. I found the story incredibly predictable; skirmish, skip through space, loyalists survive despite the odds... Rinse and repeat.
As I said, the story was predictable and underwhelming, the Word Bearers were the worst bad guys in 40K, they were almost as useless as Storm Troopers in SW's.
The ending was really underwhelming and the chief bad guy did nothing but screw up over and over again.
Then, as you said, it didn't advance the Horus Heresy plot much.
To me, it was definitely the worst HH book so far.

Monster Rain wrote:I'll go to my grave saying that Ben Counter is worse than C.S. Goto.

I've heard a lot of hate for both these writers although from what I've heard of his stories C.S. Goto is much worse, I was impressed with Ben Counters 3rd HH novel, Galaxy In Flames I think it was?

For me, the worst Black Library Novel I've read would have to be Battle for the Abyss. Possibly one of the Space Wolf ones too though.

I must agree. Although I have many HH books to go Battle for the Abyss has been the worst one so far. The Ultramarine Captain is a stereotypical Ultramarine Captain. The Space Wolf Captain is an unbearably stereotypical Space Wolf. Mhotep is a stereotypical 1K but he's lucky that makes him awesome anyway. Skraal however was a pretty cool guy. It's all by the numbers except for the part where Cestus (I think his name was) goes to hell. It's not the worst book evar! or anything just found it to be the weakest so far in the series.

I found Mechanicum to be really good, I'm not sure why people hate it tbh...

The Dark Angel HH novels weren't good, but they're far from worse in the Black Library.

I really enjoyed Mechanicum actually. It was one of those novels that gave an excellent insight on an otherwise very untouched subject in the Adeptus Mechanicus. While I think there is little help for Battle for the Abyss I think were it was released messed it up even more. If it was the next book to be released following on the heels of First Heretic, it may have kept the timeline a little more contiguos and thus made it a little easier to stomach.

I liked Decent of Angels. The story of the Lions world before and after the Emperor gained control of it was very interesting. They had a lot of history and a particular way of doing things until Mr Emperor popped around. Then all hell breaks loose as they watch their world get eaten and changed, never to be the same again. Its a rather sad story in my opinion and you can see why Luthor go's the way he does. The first book where you really see what happens when the Empire of man takes over a found world.

Worst book for me? No idea. Too many in BL to count. Id go with most of the HH books though as they're just long winded and most of the characters are hard to remember and boring. I gave up on the HH series after this Angels book above.

+1 for Warrior Brood

Sons of Dorn seemed like a total rehash of Bill King's "Space Wolf."
I forgot about the first Nagash novel, I have never been so dissapointed it a book that I really, really wanted to read. Well, strike that, Goodkind really let me down a couple of times, but that's a different genre.

In defense of the Ian Watson books I really like them. And not just because of the constantly ejaculating bolters.

He was the first to write 40k novels and like Umburto Eco writing about the middle ages, he figures that anyone that distant from us in time is going to be insane by modern standards. So he writes insane characters doing insane things amist an atmosphere of despair and decay.

So yeah, an acquired taste.