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Hey all, I wasn't sure whether to put this here or in the background forum.

Something has been bugging me about Black Library fiction, as I've read a fair amount of it this last year. I've read the Ultramarines Omnibus, the Ravenor Omnibus, Horus Heresy 1-3, Kill Team, and I also have read the various bits in codices and army books. Now, excepting the army books and codices, because they are not designed as novels, I've come to the conclusion that Black Library fiction (or at least the ones that I've read) suffer from being overly 'hasty'. By this, I mean that they don't devote enough time to developing things, and thus seem to rush from one combat to the next with the barest indication of the consequences or results of earlier plot points. For example, in the third Ravenor book, two characters have a falling out over religion - one cannot accept that the other has committed a particular sin and terminates their relationship as a result. This is given a singular paragraph of analysis and development. Horus' fall in the Heresy series seemed incredibly swiftly dealt with, giving me plot whiplash at the all-too rapid brushing over of what should have been the absolute core of the series. In the second Ultramarines book, there are many examples of ordinary people trying to survive a Tyranid invasion. But take all the collected snippets of any given person's viewpoint, and they would add up to no more than five pages, an insufficient amount to develop their character and response to the events. This effect was most noticeable in the third Ravenor book, since it is the conclusion of that trilogy and responsible for tying up plot threads. It seems to me, and YMMV, that Black Library doesn't allow a page count that lends to proper development of a theme or characterisation.

Now, obviously we are talking about 40k fiction, which is always going to be a pulp genre; but I've read the Raymond Chandler books and they manage it just fine while being pulp. And, also obviously, 40k fiction is going to have a certain high proportion of gunfights and the like, draining the page count that can be used for other purposes. So that explains why 40k novels often seem to have very little actual plot in them (just like computer game plots are typically wafer-thin). But it seems a poor exchange, to get so many words devoted to Harlon Nayl blowing someone's head off, or Ventris punching a PDF trooper in the chest, but so few used to actually make the novel a good piece of fiction. It is usually a sign that something is going to be poor quality when it focuses heavily on fights or sex (this goes for films, books and other mediums) - but there are examples of works that focus on one or the other and still manage to be excellent (Fight Club, The Three Musketeers).

I considered that I may have read too few to get a proper opinion, but I've read a fairly large number of books by now, including the quite good Gaunt's Ghosts, and so it seems to me that I've probably gotten the measure of it by now. So I was wondering if I'm the only one who thinks like this. Am I alone in wishing that Black Library authors would try to devote just a few more words to developing plots, themes and characters, and thus seem less 'hasty'?

They do often suffer from being a bit hasty, some more so than others. I think that a lot of readers like that though and it seems that the books that do a better job at not being "good morni...I kill you!!!!!!" are often the ones people complain about dragging on.

I think that a fair number of the ghaunt's ghosts novels do a better job, as well as some of the later Horus Heresy books. Fulgrim felt very rushed, but I think Mechanicum and the Dark Angel ones are a bit better.

I am reading the Raven Guard HH one right now (Deliverance Lost) and I think it really does a good job at not feeling rushed so far. Of course being a Raven Guard fan makes me kind of partial there.

I think that, especially in the case of the HH books, an individual volume feels a bit rushed, but when taken as part of the whole they don't need to explain as much in one book, and can flesh things out over a series of books.

In my opinion, Dan Abnett does better at "not rushing" things in his books, especially when compared to 'other' authors in the BL house. There are also varying degrees of quality within the authors of BL.. The infamous CS Goto, for example cannot distinguish between a razorback and a land raider in his books

Sci-fi by its nature is very "left-brained".
GW also has a very specific target demographic.
I don't know, as someone who's apparently incapable of objectively judging literature, I find them fine. But then I have little time for bookish-books.

I've rarely thought of a BL book as "too short" in any case. They tend to be around 300-500 pages and that's usually plenty time to tell the story. They just have longer action sequences than most books by nature. Fluff in codices tends to have some rushed conclusions by nature of only taking up a paragraph of space or whatever.