[HH] Dan Abnett's prose has that little something extra

[Ascanius]

Ironically, considering the topic, I'm not quite sure how to phrase this, so please bear with me. I'm also familiar only with the Horus Heresy series, so I don't know if this is something he's always done or something he developed later in his career.

There's something about the way Dan Abnett crafts or structures his prose that seems to me to have that little something extra that sets his work apart from the other HH writers.

This isn't a knock on them, by any means. I have listened to and genuinely enjoyed the audiobooks of all of the novels up to Deliverance Lost, plus most of what's just been collected and harmonised in Garro. I see a lot of criticism of Battle for the Abyss or the Dark Angels subseries, and they're not my favourites either, but I do find a lot to be of interest in those, as well.

I'm also not saying that Abnett's characters are remarkably more compelling* than other writers', or that his plots are more finely structured. I'm more thinking of certain qualities of the way he actually writes sentences, and what that adds to the work.

There's something special about the use of repeated phrases, or variations upon repeated phrases, that somehow hits the sweet spot where it feels like a recurring phrase of music without degenerating into schtick or a gimmick.

(OK, "wet leopard growl" from Prospero Burns maybe started feeling like schtick by the end.)

There's also a quality of characterisation evoked through third-person omniscient narration - descriptions of characters' personalities or beliefs or thoughts - that's also matched really well to the way the characters then express themselves in dialogue or action, either in counterpoint to or confirmation of that omniscient viewpoint.

Abnett also introduces excellent fragments of detail about characters or organisations or places or philosophies that feel like they have more life beyond the page, or imply something more about the setting. Things like the Geno Five-Two Chiliad, which is fantastically drawn in itself in Legion, but also makes me speculate about the other strange and bizarre organisations and beings that exist in the Imperium.

When I think back, Abnett's contributions to the Horus Heresy series aren't always my favourite books in terms of the people, places, and events they cover, but they're nearly always the ones I value for the sheer pleasure of reading (or hearing, in my case) and spark my imagination more about what it might be like in that setting.

Does anyone else know what I mean?

*For instance, I liked the characterisation of the Legionaries and the Remembrancers in A Thousand Sons more, and found McNeill's depiction of Ahriman's character arc through that book more compelling as a story than most of what happened in Prospero Burns. I also thought the mystery elements of The Outcast Dead were as good as those in Prospero Burns - but I prefer Abnett's prose in describing Kaspar Hawser's weird dream sequences and flashbacks to McNeill's equivalents for Kai Zulane.

[m0nolith]

He's great, but personally this is the order I go with when it comes to BL writers.

 

1. ADB

2. McNeill

3. Abnett

[bluntblade]

I'd say Chris Wraight's and John French's prose is streets ahead of McNeill's, which often leans a little too heavily on heaping up superlatives and similes for my liking. I haven't read any Abnett beyond Horus Rising, but certainly he's one of the front runners.

 

Based on my readings so far, Abnett, Wraight and Abnett do grandeur the best. AD-B in particular also "spices" it up a bit, be that with a character's irreverence or some sort of detail that grounds the reader in what's going on - see the Emperor's sword being described as a tool of conquest, oddly utilitarian.

[Roomsky]

Its an interesting subject, writing about what makes an author enjoyable without simply saying "they do x better than y-author", and it is certainly easier to quantify what is wrong with prose than what is good about it.

 

For the greatness that is Dan, for me at least, it is his dialogue in tandem with his manner of description. In his dialogue, he captures the off-the-cuff feel of most conversations that several other authors can't match up to, those speaking always feel like people (or post-people) speaking rather than simple vehicles for plot advancement or exposition. As far as his descriptions go, he drip feeds the details of a scene at just the right pace, not so rapid that each new chapter is top-heavy with flowery exposition, but not so little that we can't imagine where the characters are standing.

 

This is of course in tandem with his excellent plotting, well-measured pacing and basically unmatched worldbuilding abilities.

[Mellow]

Funnily enough I rarely notice the difference with any author. I just read the books and at the end categorise them into one of the three piles. "Good", "meh" and "oh dear god"

[b1soul]

Wraight, French, Abnett, and DB

 

...in no particular order

 

Haley is OK

 

Smilie and Annadale are sometimes tolerable

[Ascanius]

I think McNeill and ADB are my favourites for subject matter and characterisation. ADB definitely has some strong moments of prose construction, too, especially in "big moments".

 

Roomsky got at what I was saying in my first post. Abnett's really good at giving you character voice in both dialogue and in the way he writes narration about the thoughts of characters in their voice - not an inner monologue, but the way the narration in a section about a character's experiences will often take on their personality, like soldiers seeing bastard heathens with their bastard knives and bastard chanting.

[DukeLeto69]

Abnett is by far my favourite BL author. He is not perfect but his strengths are (in no particular order):

 

- world building

- characterisation

- interesting concepts and plot ideas

- his additions to the cannon that have been adopted (eg Promethium, Hot Shots, Vox)

- his ability to set up a series or follow on for other writers to pick up and build on

- his writing style is not too clever and overrought. It remains accessible without being Janet and John

- saying that he has tried very different styles and approaches such as present tense for Know No Fear that perfectly fitted the nature of the story

 

However, he does have two weaknesses:

 

- some of his books suffer from rushed endings (which is a massive pity after all that excellent world building, character building and plot set up). Many feel as though they need at least another 50 pages

- his work in comic books sometimes tips over into his BL fiction and has too much influence on what should be a more unique feeling IP (in particular I am referring to Unremembered Empire which felt like a super heroes book at times complete with rushed and unsatisfying ending).

 

However, I can forgive him most things having written probably at least 10 of my top 20 BL books = Necropolis, Only In Death, Traitor General, Xenos, Ravenor, Pariah, Titanicus, Double Eagle, Horus Rising, Know No Fear!

[mc warhammer]

yes, dan's prose is a cut above most of the BL roster. it was something i noticed straight away on Horus Rising and if i'd read False Gods or Galaxy in Flames first, i wouldn't be here today.

 

on this board, that is. not dead

[Knockagh]

Guy Haley is by far my favourite BL author going on current releases. Wraight is a close second and French follows. I really hope warlord restores some love for Annandale.

 

As far as Abnett goes, I've loved his old stuff but anything that he has written in the last couple of years (admittedly not a lot) has been fairly awful in comparison. I am Slaughter was by far the worst in TBA series.

[mc warhammer]

i think the OP is specifically looking for discussion on the way abnett structures his prose rather than plot, characters etc

[bluntblade]

I'm gonna grab Legion and/or Know No Fear today, should be in more of a position to comment then

[Ascanius]

i think the OP is specifically looking for discussion on the way abnett structures his prose rather than plot, characters etc

 

I don't have a problem with people expanding the subject. :)

 

Sometimes writers who have a particular talent in one area, like crafting memorable prose, have weaknesses in other areas, like plot structure or evoking theme.

 

Abnett reminds me of Stephen King in terms of the way he gets inside the head of characters with narration and uses repetition and slight variation to evoke a mood or reinforce an idea . . . but people often say King rushes his endings, too, so it's interesting to see that same criticism made of Abnett.

 

I listened to Horus Rising far too long ago to remember those details, but I can see how someone might think Legion ended abruptly without much resolution, or believe that Prospero Burns spent too much time on the pre-Prospero story and not enough time on the actual battle (though in the latter case, I'm pretty sure we didn't need to see the whole battle refought from the Space Wolves' point of view).

 

I'm hopefully going to finish listening to Know No Fear tomorrow - I have about 03:45 running time left, and a roughly 1-hour commute each way, so I should finish it on my way home tomorrow night.

[DarkChaplain]

Abnett's always been amazing at establishing settings and adding detail. His world building skills are incredible. But oh god does he struggle with the pacing and endings of his novels. It always annoys me how excellent his books are for the most part, especially the older ones, just for him to rush towards the end within a short chapter, throwing all sense of structure and satisfaction out of the window to just wrap it up on time.

 

The most mindboggling thing about that, to me, is that even with the rushing his books often end up at the shorter end of the spectrum. The Unremembered Empire is probably the best example of him rushing things, and it is also one of the shortest books in the entire Horus Heresy series. If anybody could get away with writing a longer book than originally commissioned and getting compensated for it, it'd be Abnett. And yet his stories clock in at less, despite clearly needing more time and space to fully finish.

 

I've also got to say that I'm not happy with Dan only barely hitting the intended plot points these days. The Unremembered Empire was more superhero novel than about the Imperium Secundus and Sanguinius becoming the new Emperor. The scene on the cover is a few paragraphs long at best. Prospero Burns dealt very little with Prospero itself, too. And then we have I Am Slaughter, which has the Orks appear for a few pages before an abrupt end, after ditching an entire Chapter between chapters, off-screen.

He fills his stories with so much detail and care and damn fine prose that he neglects the actual plot, it looks like. Sometimes with the Horus Heresy it felt like he was too busy writing his own meta universe than HH. It is a criticism often leveled at Graham McNeill that he puts cameos and setup for his 40k stories into things (the Iron Warriors, M'Kar, Ventanus/Ventris, Honsou), but Dan does a lot of it as well, through more vague topics like the Cognitae or the likes, but to me it is worse that his own inventions like the Perpetuals often take up big chunks of the ongoing narrative and pushing the big events aside.

 

He's got incredibly neat prose, and I enjoy reading his books for what he can do with them, but the past few years I've gotten increasingly disappointed with his output. He gets you in the moment like few others, but his flaws can also take you out of it all very rapidly, and when you then also have years and years of delays on sequels, I'm wary of reading his novels at all until the series/trilogy is finished.

[HeritorA]

Okay, my version:

1) Abnett - through I rave about him 'very slowly writing' for BL, I do believe he is the best. His depictions of battlescenes and human emotions weren't beaten yet. Plus he gave us half of the good books from BL combined. Plus 'Warmaster' this year, plus he was at Nottingham for High Lords of Terra meeting - that means HH novel next year or 2019. AWESOME!

Through Chris Wraight got very close as of 2017.

2) Chris Wraight - in the last 10 years he become from a point of that new guy wrote something poor as a filler for 'Warhammer Online' to OMG that's a masterpiece.

It's like Chris went 'Abnett' - first in WFB with all the novels and shorts about Schwarzhelm and Helborg, fantastic novel about Imladrik and then, especially in the last years since 2010 - War of the Fang (first headshot to our fans brain); then 'Scars', then a lot of amazing audios and shorts, novels and a crown of 'The Path of Heaven'. Later on he delivered on one of the most iconic moments in W40K history - the Wolf and the Lion. And now we have the upcoming 'The Carrion Throne' - which would be a brilliant read, I;m sure of it.

(By the way even like Dan Abnett he is very freely behave with the fluff, so a lot of 'errors' and self-creation of iconic moments - Abnett was always critisized upon).

3) Aaron Dembski-Bowden. No comments needed - cause 'Talos', cause 'Abaddon', cause Argel Tal, cause 'Aurellian' and cause upcoming 'Black Crusade' and 'Conan-Sigismund' ruling from the throne and kicking ass

4) And mister new Lovecraft John French with an epic tale of Ahriman, Warp dimension/time travel/momets of sincerity and hope snatched away and 'In the mountain of Madness' in space. And of course that 'He is dead' moment of PoD

[b1soul]

Abnett is a very "clever" writer I think...

 

Legion, Prospero Burns, and Know No Fear exemply this quality

 

His wordplay is excellent and he deploys interesting concepts, techniques in his writing

[DukeLeto69]

Abnett is a very "clever" writer I think...

Legion, Prospero Burns, and Know No Fear exemply this quality

His wordplay is excellent and he deploys interesting concepts, techniques in his writing

Agreed and that is a great point... He is a very clever and inventive writer.

 

As others have said, he also writes great dialogue that really gives a flavour of the different characters and feels "real"

[DukeLeto69]

I am Slaughter was by far the worst in TBA series.

Different folks and strokes and all but IMO IAS was nowhere near the worst in the TBA series (that "honour" goes to either Echoes of the Long Was, Hunt for Vulkan or Shadow of Ullanor).

 

Nor was it one of the best (that "honour" goes to either The Beast Must Die, The Last Son of Dorn or The Beheading).

 

It was a pretty middling book in the series but what it did do very well (like Horus Rising) was set up a new era that felt distinctly different to 40k that allowed other writers to build on. It was another example of how Abnett does great world building.

[HeritorA]

 

I am Slaughter was by far the worst in TBA series.

Different folks and strokes and all but IMO IAS was nowhere near the worst in the TBA series (that "honour" goes to either Echoes of the Long Was, Hunt for Vulkan or Shadow of Ullanor).

 

Nor was it one of the best (that "honour" goes to either The Beast Must Die, The Last Son of Dorn or The Beheading).

 

It was a pretty middling book in the series but what it did do very well (like Horus Rising) was set up a new era that felt distinctly different to 40k that allowed other writers to build on. It was another example of how Abnett does great world building.

 

Agreed. Still 'IS' is one of his less 'good' books. Now with incoming 'Warmaster' at BL Weekender November 2017 and first few sentences of 'Penitent' and hopefully a concept of a new HH book (Beta-Garmont of Siege of Terra hopefully, after all he just got back from the 'High Lords of Terra' meeting in Nottingham) Abnett is back to us with the follow-up stuff for 2018-2020 years.

[DukeLeto69]

Agreed. Still 'IS' is one of his less 'good' books. Now with incoming 'Warmaster' at BL Weekender November 2017 and first few sentences of 'Penitent' and hopefully a concept of a new HH book (Beta-Garmont of Siege of Terra hopefully, after all he just got back from the 'High Lords of Terra' meeting in Nottingham) Abnett is back to us with the follow-up stuff for 2018-2020 years.

 

 

 

First few sentences of Penitent! Where you see/hear that? Seriously? If so then that is GREAT news.

 

Re the Dan visiting GW HQ - are you sure that was an HH meeting? He might just have been there signing all the copies of the limited edition Titanicus (although I certainly hope not).

 

BTW - on Twitter Matt Farrer asked ADB if he could use to Arnogaur in Urdesh - which surely means it is not finished so (speculating here) won't be coming out alongside Warmaster which is a shame.

[HeritorA]

Agreed. Still 'IS' is one of his less 'good' books. Now with incoming 'Warmaster' at BL Weekender November 2017 and first few sentences of 'Penitent' and hopefully a concept of a new HH book (Beta-Garmont of Siege of Terra hopefully, after all he just got back from the 'High Lords of Terra' meeting in Nottingham) Abnett is back to us with the follow-up stuff for 2018-2020 years.

First few sentences of Penitent! Where you see/hear that? Seriously? If so then that is GREAT news.

Re the Dan visiting GW HQ - are you sure that was an HH meeting? He might just have been there signing all the copies of the limited edition Titanicus (although I certainly hope not).

BTW - on Twitter Matt Farrer asked ADB if he could use to Arnogaur in Urdesh - which surely means it is not finished so (speculating here) won't be coming out alongside Warmaster which is a shame.

Dan twitter and his talk at the last event he visited (can't remember how it's called).

As for the Dan visiting GW HQ - he was going for the meeting of High Lords of Terra (and that's HH who-what writes in the future meeting)

Argonaur in Urdesh would be cool (we are twitting in the same feed ;) ) and I still hope it would be released with the Warmaster (it's smaller than GG novel) - quicker to edit. By the way - his writing/editing part 3 (you could see that in 6 threads/twitts below our present conversation ) which is the last part of the book and called 'The voice that drowns out all others' :)

[Mantras]

For me the most obvious example of the difference between Abnett and Co is the Beast Arises Series. Abnett has a very particular way of building his universe, using phrases, concepts and (I can't think of a smart way to phrase this) words to mean things they don't usually mean.

[HeritorA]

For me the most obvious example of the difference between Abnett and Co is the Beast Arises Series. Abnett has a very particular way of building his universe, using phrases, concepts and (I can't think of a smart way to phrase this) words to mean things they don't usually mean.

Yes he can do that. He can do that a lot. That's one of the things that makes him a truly terrific author (even through he purposefully destroy a lot of fluff) For him we could forgive a lot of things

[Indefragable]

What stands out to me about Abnett's writing (and this does not mean other authors don't do this, but Abnett is particularly good at it) is give his characters a certain depth, a certain level of grounding that makes them relatable. It's a bit of Hemingway's iceberg theory at work (implying that there is so much more to a character than is ever actually discussed), and a bit of the literary equivalent of adding weathering effects to a model. Many characters in BL literature inhabit the 40k universe....Abnett's live in that universe. 

 

Thoughts on other authors:

Hidden Content

ADB does exposition pretty well. So many of his works feature conversations that we fans have all the time...yet they feel natural and rooted in the setting and character's enough that they come off as natural and don't feel like fan service. He's pretty good overall. 

 

McNeill has some pretty interesting ideas, overall. In many ways the most provocative of the "big" BL authors. In Thousand Sons he describes psykers as "swimming" the warp which was an idea that made the entire concept of psykers suddenly click for me. How the TS have their enumerations, essentially mantras, that help bring them back up to air and so forth was pretty neat. Likewise, in Vengenful Spirit, his idea of a long-haired, tatooed Blood Angel Captain who is a thrill junky made me smile and look at "my dudes" in a way I had never conceived before. 

 

Wraight has done a bang-up job adding personality to obscure legions and characters. Scars is one of the top 3 HH books as a result. How the White Scars respect for the land/nature leads them to be particularly gifted psykers (because they respect the warp and its power, rather than trying to control it/ignore it/harness it) is an example of a brilliant piece of writing. 

 

I have not read enough of Haley (yet) to make a judgement, but he has done more for Sanguinius in a few sentences than pretty much the rest of the HH series combined. How Sangy meditates by flying and likes to buzz AA guns like Maverick in Top Gun is hilariously awesome. 

 

[R_F_D]

When is the Black Library Weekender?