Worst Black Library Author

[Warp]

The Dawn of War trilogy by Goto was the first 40K novel I read. I did it as I was getting into the hobby and I thought the book would connect me a bit since I knew about some of the stuff from the video games.

I STILL find myself thinking "wtf was he on about?" on some of the stuff I remember. Fortunately, lots of that book has been pushed out by me reading too many books a year.

[Lord Anubis]

Gav Thorpe almost turned me off the Black Library altogether. The Last Chancers books were just so God-awful. It's not that they were bad 40K books. They were just bad books, period. Calling them horrible is being generous.

I'm not going to go out and say "X writer sucks!" because, let's face it--they were good enough to get published under a label, rather than having to "self publish" like so many aspiring authors do.

Which means that they were obviously able to do something that the vast majority cannot.

Well, except close to half of them were high-end employees of Games Workshop, parent company of the Black Library. So in a way they were self-publishing.

Dan Abnett's written for the Black Library, and BBC books, and has a regular gig with Marvel Comics. I've yet to hear about anyone else begging Gav Thorpe to dabble in their universe...

[Hugz4Genestealers]

Would the poor, misguided fool who voted for Abnett please offer even one viable reason for why they think he is a worse author than the likes of Mr. Goto? Don't worry, we won't bite...

[Warp]

Dan Abnett's written for the Black Library, and BBC books, and has a regular gig with Marvel Comics. I've yet to hear about anyone else begging Gav Thorpe to dabble in their universe...

You mean apart from [url=http://angryrobotbooks.com/our-authors/gav-thorpe/]Angry Robot[/url]?

I can't even begin to fathom how someone can find books like "Angels of Darkness" to be worse than "Dawn of War trilogy", but to each his own.

[Lanparth]

I would say the worst is easily Goto.

[Grailkeeper]

One thing I'd like o hear is the reasons behind the votes for james swallow- I'm unfamiliar with his work but he has a relatively high score

[khornelord0129]

One thing I'd like o hear is the reasons behind the votes for james swallow- I'm unfamiliar with his work but he has a relatively high score

I think Swallow is a great writer. He wrote "Flight of the Eisenstein" and wrote the blood angels omnibus and black tide. I put him #2 on my list behind Abnett.

[FaultyVoodoo]

I must say, I was excited about reading the deathwatch novels. Then I read the first chapter. Then I closed the book, threw it away, and picked up Gaunt's Ghosts. The first few were rough fluff but very enjoyable. They are a bit old after all, so I could forgive the Iron warrior plague marines.


C.S. GotoHell.

[murrburger]

Good lord, Goto.

I read Prophecy, but... I just read it. I didn't understand a damn thing that was happening (I play Eldar), or who the hell anybody was, or why they were doing what they were doing. I just saw words on the page, and then turned to the next page.

Never in my life have I tried so hard to finish a novel.

[daboarder]

I think Swallow is a great writer. He wrote "Flight of the Eisenstein" and wrote the blood angels omnibus and black tide. I put him #2 on my list behind Abnett.

It should be corrected that James CAN be a great writer, flight is one of my favourite horus books so far and near the top of BL books af all time. That said however the man has done nothing but systematically butcher the BA background time and time again, not to mention in his books his marines are almost literarly too dumb to breath, as in they thought that fabius bile just happened to be a regular magos biologis, despite the fact marines look completely different to regular people.

I would also like to say that Faith and Fire is a fair read making the hurt James does to my preccious BA all the more painful...sigh.