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When ever I see people discussing BA canon, and the topic of the BA books by James Swallow comes up, everyone calls him heretical. Why is this? I read the first omni bus and I liked it. I really like fluff for BAs, so I'm wondering what he did wrong.

Good question. I also loved those books. They are part of what sold me on starting Blood Angels.

I read his books, and I really enjoy them but he does seem to miss some of the cannon and sometimes things just don't match up. He's not a writer like Graham McNiell but he is getting better with each novel. I also agree with ElectricPaladin it was because of his onmibus I chose blood angels as my first can current army. (Also Mephiston kick a** in the books, and I love Mephiston!)

BrotherGnaeus wrote:but he does seem to miss some of the cannon and sometimes things just don't match up

In 40k? Impossible!

Seriously, though, how "bad" is it, i.e. what is he getting wrong? Because every author deviates from studio fluff from time to time. Abnett, Dembski-Bowden, Mitchell, Goto ... they all do, somewhere, at some time. Most people just aren't aware of every little detail (especially when it's about some obscure element of the setting that hasn't been explained all that often), so it usually takes the internet and some fluff nerd to be made aware.

There is no such thing as canon and a consistent setting in the franchise, anyways, though I understand people expecting it. Small deviations are usually overlooked, especially if they don't play a particular role in the book, but is this case something big that goes against a major theme or aspect of the Blood Angels as presented by GW?

BrotherGnaeus wrote:I read his books, and I really enjoy them but he does seem to miss some of the cannon and sometimes things just don't match up. He's not a writer like Graham McNiell but he is getting better with each novel. I also agree with ElectricPaladin it was because of his onmibus I chose blood angels as my first can current army. (Also Mephiston kick a** in the books, and I love Mephiston!)

What canon does he miss? :s

I like his stuff, I think he does a good line in action scenes especially.

I think his stuff is well plotted and thought out too.

I really like the BA's because of him

I guess you can say his books are hard to "SWALLOW" XD

teehee...

anyways all joking aside, i rather enjoyed his books, I didn't notice any glaringly obvious fluff deviations, it was pretty good

Because in his Bloodangels books Swallow, in order to develop his story, burdens his characters with the idiot ball which is simply bad writing.
Since i do not enjoy reading about artificialy stupid characters ( that is, characters that act like idiots without being meant to be idiots ) i have a
rather low opinion of his BA books.

KingDeath wrote:Because in his Bloodangels books Swallow, in order to develop his story, burdens his characters with the idiot ball which is simply bad writing.

Since i do not enjoy reading about artificialy stupid characters ( that is, characters that act like idiots without being meant to be idiots ) i have a rather low opinion of his BA books.

I agree that this would be a flaw, but I didn't find it to be true in his books, at least not the First Omnibus (haven't read the second, yet). The characters were manipulated, true, but they made the best choices they could, under the circumstances. I didn't see any idiot balling. Can you point out the specific instances you're talking about?