Gav Thorpe as a BL Writer - Honest Review Please?

[Apostle of the 30th Host]

*Is this better in the BL section? I'm not sure.

 

I have just seen this on Warhammer Community: https://www.warhammer-community.com/2017/07/07/join-the-brotherhood-of-lorgar/

 

I am a huge Word Bearers fan, and this is a topic that I personally find fascinating. Lorgar's life before the Emperor comes to Colchis has barely been explored beyond a few sentences. The limited edition is also very attractive (the case looks amazing, and the cover artwork is new and, even though I can't decide if I like that new style, it is not bad - that's clearly Lorgar, it looks like the model. It is well done, but maybe not to my tastes. Either way, it is good enough to not put me off).

 

So looks-wise, its great and the subject is of great interest to me. It is also fairly affordable for a limited edition. Thing is, the price is right at that point where I am going to be disappointed if it's badly written. Which brings me to my question...

 

 

Is Gav Thorpe any good as a writer?

 

If I am honest, I know very little about him. First I heard of him, he was just some guy who wrote for White Dwarf around the time I first started collecting, then possibly went on to become editor. 

 

Recently I learn, however, that he is now a Black Library author. I don't know a lot about his books, but for some reason, I seem to have the idea in my head that he is not the best author - not to say he is bad, but I think it would be fair to say there is a huge difference in ability in BL. You have your big names like ADB, Dan Abnett and Anthony Reynolds (his Word Bearer stuff is really good) to name a few that are all fantastic writers, and then the other side which is just not as good. I don't know where this idea came from though, and I am aware it is an unfair judgement on him (I don't want to judge him without reading a book, but I am aware I would have this idea for a reason and don't want to buy it if it is bad. You know what I mean?) - I must have picked up on it somewhere though, perhaps in someone's posts on here. Did he write Dark Imperium? How was that received?

 

But anyway, I would love an honest opinion on him as a writer. Hopefully it will correct my own views if they have been misinformed and help me to decide if I should get the book. I just don't want something that would be of so much interest to me to be disappointing.

 

Cheers.

Edited July 8, 2017 by Apostle of the 30th Host

[Lucerne]

Solidly mediocre but rarely unreadable.

[Chaplain Raeven]

He wrote a decent amount of books for the Dark Angels. There are few people of the DA-fanbase that have positive opinions about him as a result. Suffice to say that his books aren't masterpieces.

 

I've read some of his books as well. They were enjoyable, but like Ugolino mentioned, very mediocre. 

[Halandaar]

Far from the worst of the authors under BL, but also not near the top end. He also did the Path of the Eldar books which I thought were absolutely okayish.

[Corswain]

Hit or miss. I've never hated his work but I find I either love it or don't. I certainly don't feel he's a terrible writer, just that sometimes his books could have been handled better.

I'm a huge Dark Angels fan too, for context.

Edited July 8, 2017 by Corswain

[helterskelter]

I can finish his books. Kind of. If they're about elves I can finish them. Angels of Caliban split down the middle, being allowed to flesh out an Aspect of DA was ace, but if he touches Curze again I would happily remove his hands.

[cheywood]

He's been an author for BL for a couple decades. In that time he's written for pretty much every setting GW has, but he seems to specialize in Eldar and Dark Angels, along with the Raven Guard in the Heresy. I personally have yet to find one of his books truly satisfying, but they're certainly readable. They flow pretty well honestly. There's just not a lot of depth behind his characters in my opinion.

[deathspectersgt7]

Very Decent liked some of his DA stuff and a few other books. Like what some said readable good flow to the stories.

[Space Truckin]

Think everyone here has hit the nail on the head. 

Read most of his DA stuff.  I think he has potential to be better and always got the feeling that he just wasn't very passionate about writing about the Dark Angels.  His books feel more like a chore.  

That said - His Honor to the Dead Audio Drama  is pretty good and I'm still interested in reading Last Chancers.

 

I guess to sum it up -  if I wasn't so interested in reading about Dark Angels Gav certainly wouldn't convince me to keep reading his books about them.

[Mellow]

In my opinion he's terrible. The only reason I bought the Dark Angels trilogy was to find things out about lore but his ability to write a novel (considering he's paid to do it) is awful at best and a tragedy at worst. Everything is super duper simplistic and even moments that should be surprising in his Novels only result in small movements of trapped wind.

[DarkChaplain]

I like his works. His WHFB stuff, the Sundering most notably, was great. Angels of Darkness established much that the Dark Angels have been about ever since. Angels of Caliban was a pretty great Horus Heresy novel, even if I could've done without another Curze vs the Lion duel (but the repetition is hardly his fault, he had to put Curze in the situation we see for the series to progress).

I haven't read his Eldar novels, but his audio dramas and short stories have been good and I'd say the approach is comparable to his elves in WHFB.

 

I'd still go to bat over Deliverance Lost and Corax after a re-read of the former. The story arc works very well when drawn together and looking at what each part establishes about its primary characters, and Corax himself. While they're not in the top ranges of the HH series, they certainly aren't near the bottom.

And then there were the pretty excellent two novels for The Beast Arises which were some of the highest points of the series.

 

He has a particular style that I appreciate. It works best with pointy ears where you expect some sort of mythical distance I think. I think he'll do well by Lorgar. His strengths aren't necessarily the big character action setpieces or moments of random badassery, but building up something more with his characters.

Lorgar also isn't the first time he's writing Word Bearers. He did a short story about Eliphas the Inheritor last year, and WBs featured in Corax: Soulforge.

[m_r_parker]

Honestly, I used to give him quite a bit of well-deserved respect, now I just wince when I hear his name attached to anything.

 

Pretty much everyone agrees that his pinnacle was around Angels of Darkness, something that has formed the basis of much of the lore of the Dark Angels ever since. Past that he's been pretty hit or miss. Most people regard the Eldar books as decent, although I've not read them myself, and a lot of the old Fantasy stuff has been well received as well. In my opinion, his Raven Guard in the HH series was a swing and a miss and were some of the weaker parts of the series as a whole. A couple of years ago he did a novella sized compilation of short stories called Lords of Caliban, and I'd barely read 10 pages before I had to put it down it was that bad. The last nail in the coffin for me was the audio drama The Thirteenth Wolf, which I listened to at a GW event as an early exclusive, and it had the poorest portrayal of the Space Wolves that I have ever seen - beyond cliche in their mannerisms and speech, and frankly looking like complete idiots when dealing with the Thousand Sons (especially in the last section, and is still one of the biggest and dumbest things I have read / heard coming out of BL).

 

i don't want to bash the guy, he's been with the company since before most of us have even heard of GW in any shape of form, and a lot of the earlier stuff in his career still carries through to today, despite the colossal amount of ret-cons that the company have done over the years. But judging from his latest releases I can't see him doing anything near the quality of a lot of the other BL authors are capable of. 

 

In all honesty, I think he's wrong for Lorgar. Maybe I'm judging it based on a corrupted version of Lorgar and the Word Bearers that we've had from the likes of Reynolds and A-D-B. Maybe Gav can do Lorgar in the middle of a religious conflict on Colchis, before the coming of the Emperor and the eventual fall to Chaos. But that's not what I want from the Word Bearers, I'd much rather have something more fundamentally creepy and evil from the mid-Heresy than learning about how he was raised by Kor Phaeron. I'd much rather have another novella like The Purge, that showcases the World Bearers and their Primarch at their Worst / Best.

[Cleanse And Purify]

In every interaction I've seen Gav have with the fanbase, he's been an absolute great guy. And he gets a lot of hate (not necessarily in this thread, but in general), so his continued good cheer is pretty remarkable. His books are solidly middle-of-the-road IMO in 40k. Angels of Darkness was his best IMO. His Warhammer Fantasy books are, IMO, much better. In particular, his Dwarf books (Doom of Dragonback, and Grudgebearer) are very good (I am a massive Dwarf fanboy though, sooooo bias). I am not a fan of his most recent Dark Angels series in 40k, but I thought Deliverance Lost was decent. He is more consistently enjoyable than Guy Haley and Rob Sanders, IMO, whom have some great stuff (Legion of the Damned and Atlas Infernal are incredibly atmospheric books, but some of their other offerings fall extraordinarily flat) and some terrible stuff.

 

IMO, his heresy stuff has been middle-of-the-road. Not the biggest fan of the Word Bearers, so I probably won't pick it up. 

[Mellow]

Lorgar is rubbish. He's just a bleedin' priest and The Emperor wanted to purge those millennia ago!

[E_50_Panzer]

I think Thorpe is OK. He seems to be focused on DA and Eldar. His DA 40k books I found to be average, and while each had their moments, I didn't get entirely moved by them. Path of the Eldar, though, I quite liked, at worst it's something refreshing after reading dozens upon dozens of SM books, and at best you could say that Path of the Warrior and Path of the Outcast were good. Path of the Seer; however, was quite a drag, I thought.

 

As for his work in the Heresy... I thought Angels of Caliban was bad. It continues the circus show that is Imperium Secundus, stepped up the ridiculous nature of it, and did a poor job with Kurze.

[AceofAllTradez]

I feel as if a high school student could write better when looking at some of his work in particular Angels of Caliban. Not all though.

[[TA]Typher]

Deliverance lost.

 

 

Worst BL book written. It showed corax as a brilliant primarch for 1/3 of the book. He was everything that you would thing a super human-genetic demi god would be. Then for some unknown reason he turns into a near-mindless window licking tool the other 2/3rds of the book. The alpha legion on the other hand were pulling of schemes that Will E. Coyote could only dream of and they did it with ease.

 

Gav is not very good. I am a huge DA player. he routinely molests my fluff in a way that he should have to register with the state. I audibly groan when I see his name on any book that I would normally love to read and have routinely passed on buying them because of this.

Edited July 8, 2017 by [TA]Typher

[Roomsky]

He's a better guy than an author, I think. I frequent his blog and his comments are often very insightful.

 

As for writing quality, in my opinion, he's just above the no-buy zone. His prose is as beige as I've read in BL, like some kind of anti-Mcneill. His characters are often flat, and those he inherits from other writers tend to lose all nuance. He also wrote Weregeld, one of the few BL works that actually made me angry.

 

On the other hand, he clearly has some integrity in story telling I respect, in that he lacks the apparent bolter-porn quota some authors seem to feel is needed in a BL book. I found Angels of Caliban in particular quite enjoyable simply because there's like, 2 action scenes in the whole book. His brevity sometimes works in his favor as well, The Emperor Expects was enjoyable enough for being mostly free of bloat.

 

He is absolutely not among the top or even high-tier writers in BL, but he has put out good works before. I'd say wait for the standard release and take note of the reviews before a buy.

[Slave to Darkness]

Hes not great, but his stuf isnt bad. Cant see me getting excited over his stuff even if its for one of the armies I collect, unlike A DB who writes pure gold even if the subject matter is something boring like bread or socks...

[Petitioner's City]

I like how space travel takes time in his books, that conventional drives and distance play a role in his fiction - even that set in a single system like his first Dark Angels book. It's not on the level of the Expanse for use of time and scale, but it's nice to read.

 

As for his texts, his fiction prose is sometimes bland. But this is the person who wrote Inquisitor, who was a dominant voice during 3rd-4th edition, and who produced so many great ideas for the hobby; he's a key world builder for this IP & its a shame that side of him is completely ignored in the constant criticism of him.

 

Also has anyone ever read his Last Chances novels?

Edited July 9, 2017 by Petitioner's City

[Mellow]

I got the impression (and obviously I may be wrong) from one of ADBs posts elsewhere that he likes Thorpe and finds him especially helpful. I'm presuming maybe he's like a catalyst or is an ideas man where another author has more of a natural writing ability to put those ideas to paper. Maybe that role would suit Thorpe better. Ideas rather than writing.

 

Not for me to say though.

 

Plus I'm sure him remaining an author depends purely on sales. If no one bought his books BL wouldn't want to keep him. Same as any other author I imagine.

[Tymell]

I find his work to be decent, somewhere around the middle for the most part. Very little of his work has felt terrible, but nor has much of it truly impressed me. His prose is solid and keeps things moving along, I very rarely find myself getting bogged down and struggling, but the characters themselves don't leave that much of an impression.

 

I'm still keen to read Lorgar: Bearer of the Word, if only because it's an opportunity for someone new to write these characters, and the issues Gav has (in my opinion) with character depth and memorability might be lessened with such established characters.

[Gen.Steiner]

I really liked his Last Chancers novels and shorts, and all the other stuff he's done that I've read has been good. He isn't a Literary Master, but to be honest I don't read BL stuff for Literary Awesomeness (I have people like Ursula K LeGuin and Ken MacLeod and Iain Banks etc for that). I read it for the 40K 'verse.

[Allart01]

Gav Thorpe is a great guy, who can come up with great ideas.

I believe that he is one of the bravest BL authors, creatively speaking, maybe because he shaped some of the original lore to begin with.

He's also really good at building tension.

With that said, the execution of those ideas feels almost always rushed, or lacking in some other way.

Two things I don't really like about his style: 

1 - The personality of a character counts for nothing when it comes to the plot. If the story needs Billy to do something, even if it makes no sense at all, Billy will do it without questions asked or explanations offered. This makes almost all of Gav's characters look stupid.

2 - He tends to ignore other people's works. This is particularly clear with his pre heresy Dark Angels. To make one example: in "Descent of Angels" by Scanlon it is Luther who suggests the name "Dark Angels" for the First Legion, quoting an old calibanite poem. In "Angels of Caliban" by Thorpe, however, Luther himself muses about why the Emperor chose that name for the Legion. 

In a blog post about "Azrael" he candidly admitted that he chose a different timeline to set the story in just because he couldn't be bothered to read other people's works involving Azrael in 999M41.

Sounds a little lazy to me.

But again, I don't want to bash him. He is very friendly and I enjoyed his books more often that not.

[b1soul]

His works range from bad to mediocre...nothing utterly abysmal I suppose

 

Thorpe, Kyme, and Swallow are serviceable, barely