# Dan Abnett



## Steerpike (Feb 14, 2012)

Anyone else a fan? He writes mostly Warhammer 40K stuff, though he has a few of his own novels out (Triummf - Her Majesty's Hero is a nice, humorous fantasy).

I thought Double Eagle was very good, and I am in the midst of Titanicus right now. His Gaunt's Ghosts books are also great fun.


----------



## Drakhov (Feb 15, 2012)

Abnett's one of my favourite Black Library authors, along with Graham MacNeill and Sandy Mitchell. I haven't read Triummf or Embedded yet but they're on my Amazon wishlist. You'll enjoy Titanicus I'm sure.  I recommend the novels he's done in the Horus Heresy series for BL also, and if you enjoy Sword and Sorcery fantasy i'd recomment his Mallus Darkblade novels, set in Games Workshops Warhammer universe


----------



## Reaver (Feb 15, 2012)

The Eisenhorn Trilogy is one of the greatest Sci-Fi tales I've ever read.


----------



## Drakhov (Feb 15, 2012)

Reaver said:


> The Eisenhorn Trilogy is one of the greatest Sci-Fi tales I've ever read.



Re-reading them now  - the continuation in the Ravenor Trilogy as well


----------



## SlimShady (Feb 15, 2012)

I am an enormous Gaunt's Ghosts fan, but other than that I haven't had time to check out his other works.


----------



## Reaver (Feb 15, 2012)

In my opinion, all of these are outstanding works of fiction, as a series or stand-alones.  Abnett is a master storyteller.


----------



## JCFarnham (Feb 15, 2012)

Correct me if I'm wrong hasn't he done a lot more than games workshop based fiction?

I remember seeing other things by him...


----------



## Drakhov (Feb 15, 2012)

JCFarnham said:


> Correct me if I'm wrong hasn't he done a lot more than games workshop based fiction?
> 
> I remember seeing other things by him...



Triummf and Embedded aren't GW - I also remember reading in his bio he did comic book work (for 2000AD and DC Comics) back in the day, as well as Doctor Who.


----------



## JCFarnham (Feb 15, 2012)

That's it! I've read comics he worked on, I remember now. 

But yes, a good writer indeed (though I haven't really read his books )


----------



## Steerpike (Feb 15, 2012)

Triumff and Embedded are both good. I enjoyed Embedded particularly.

I've never read the Eisenhorn books, and I didn't know he ever wrote any Warhammer fantasy. Have to check those out!


----------



## Drakhov (Feb 15, 2012)

Steerpike said:


> Triumff and Embedded are both good. I enjoyed Embedded particularly.
> 
> I've never read the Eisenhorn books, and I didn't know he ever wrote any Warhammer fantasy. Have to check those out!



If you want to check out his Warhammer fantasy stuff, personally i'd go with (in descending order of  goodliness)

Mallus Darkblade series 
Hammers of Ulric
Riders of the Dead
Gillead's Blood
Fell Cargo

Speaking of his comic book work, he did a lot for GWs magazines (Warhammer Monthly, Inferno and Hammer & Bolter)


----------



## Steerpike (Feb 19, 2012)

Thanks, Drakhov. I've heard of the Mallus Darkblade books, I just didn't realize it was Abnett. 

I'm a little over half-way through Titanicus. It is quite good. I want to read the Horus Heresy stuff, but I was a little disappointed to see how many different authors were writing the books in that series. What do you think of the non-Abnett stuff?


----------



## Drakhov (Feb 19, 2012)

Hmm, that's a difficult question - i wouldn't really put it in terms of Abnett vs the rest - in fact Graham McNeill (who i mentioned is another of my fave BL writers) has written more of the series so far than Abnett (5 books to Abnett's 3) and if i'm honest i prefer his _Horus Heresy_ novels to Abnett's, but i'd read Abnett's _Sabbat Worlds_ novels or the _Eisenhorn _or _Ravenor _trilogies over McNeill's _Ulramarine _series.  Saying that, although I love the _Gaunt's Ghosts _series, I was dissapointed with a couple of them - _His Last Command_ and_ Only in Death_, and even _Blood Pact _somehow didn't quite cut it for me.

In the interests of full disclosure, i have to admit to being a huge fan of Games Workshop and Black Library, and have been collecting the novels for 20+ years, to the extent now that i literally (and i do mean literally) buy their books to the exclusion of pretty much everything else (which is why i haven't gotten round to _Embedded_ or _Truimmf_ yet- it's a compulsion! The problem is they're just so damn prolific, they churn out books faster than i can read them and i tend to buy them for the sake of buying them for fear of falling behind

Edit: There are 2 anthologies in the _Heresy_ series, _Tales of Heresy_ and _Age of Darkness_ - if you want to compare the styles of the various authors to see if they're to your taste you could start there. On a side note, the _Sabbat Worlds_ anthology contains stories by other authors set in Abnett's 'universe' - if you liked _Double Eagle_ you might be glad to know Larice Asche and the Apostles (to anyone coming late to this conversation, no they aren't a Christian Rock band ) make a return in the story _Apostle's Creed_ - written by none other than <dah dah dah da da da daaaah> Graham McNeill


----------



## Steerpike (Feb 19, 2012)

Thanks, Drakhov. The only McNeill books I've read are the Ultramarines books. I liked them well enough, but not as well as I've liked Abnett's work. I started with Warhammer Fantasy - William King (Gotrek and Felix) and Jack Yeovil/Kim Newman (Genevieve). I liked both of those, and I liked Long's Blackhearts books, the Ulrike books, and his continuation of the Gotrek and Felix series, though at times he gets a little too over the top/cinematic for my tastes. 

I want to grab a book by Henry Zhou (?), mainly due to Dan Abnett comments about him. There are a lot of other works out there in Warhammer and Warhammer40, I just need to get into more of them. I'm generally leery of gaming fiction because I've come across enough of it (mostly D&D) that wasn't very good.


----------



## Drakhov (Feb 19, 2012)

Oh, so you're a Games Workshop veteran too  - btw i edited my earlier post


----------



## Steerpike (Feb 19, 2012)

Drakhov said:


> Oh, so you're a Games Workshop veteran too  - btw i edited my earlier post



A bit. Not to the extent you are. I got into it mostly after playing Warhammer Fantasy Roleplaying Game. Until I picked up Double Eagle, I'd never read anything other than the fantasy books. That was the first 40K book I read. Been branching out into more 40K books since then. I like the Warhammer fantasy and Warhammer 40K universes quite a bit.

I'll check out Apostle's Creed and those anthologies. Thanks for the recommendations.


----------



## Konstanz (Feb 25, 2012)

I just wanted to let you all know that the coolest, toughest, roughest, suavest character ever invented has to be Major Elim fething Rawne. 

My favorite character from the entire series. Right now I just finished Blood Pact, so I haven't read the newest one. The character development of Rawne is also very well-written. 

Bromance.


----------



## Androxine Vortex (Mar 4, 2012)

I love Dan but a lot of times I think he is waaaay overrated. I thought Prospero Burns was terrible and even thought Legion was great, it took forever to get things rolling and was very boring the first sixty pages or so.

His best book (and my favorite book) would be the Chronicles of Malus that he co-wrote with Mike Lee


----------

