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Dan Abnett

Steerpike

Felis amatus
Moderator
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

Minstrel
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
 

SlimShady

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

Reaver

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

JCFarnham

Auror
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

Minstrel
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

Auror
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 :p)
 

Steerpike

Felis amatus
Moderator
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

Minstrel
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

Felis amatus
Moderator
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

Minstrel
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:eek:

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 :D) make a return in the story Apostle's Creed - written by none other than <dah dah dah da da da daaaah> Graham McNeill :eek:
 
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Steerpike

Felis amatus
Moderator
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.
 

Steerpike

Felis amatus
Moderator
Oh, so you're a Games Workshop veteran too :D - 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

Minstrel
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.
 
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
 
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