Why do Abnett 40K stories sometimes not "feel" 40K?

[b1soul]

Could anyone help me articulate why this is?

 

I sometimes feel that Abnett is writing good military sci-fi albeit set in his own pocket Abnett-verse

[Brother-Chaplain Kage]

Any examples in particular? I've never felt that way at all about his books. 

[Roomsky]

I've never liked the Abnett-verse idea. He no more has his own little setting than Mcneill, ADB, or anyone else. Yes, he expands things, but that's why he's one of two guys I would recommend to someone looking to get into BL. He fleshes out the setting, he doesn't simply fall back on it. His stories feel alive and real because he doesn't constrain himself to pre-established set dressing, he makes his own. 

 

Hell, he tried to make 30k well and truly distinct from 40k, as you might expect with a 10,000 year gap. Its the failing of other authors to live up to his quality, he shouldn't be blamed for being good.

[b1soul]

No need to "blame" him

 

This is more about exploring what makes him unique (if you think he is)

[Roomsky]

No need to "blame" him

 

This is more about exploring what makes him unique (if you think he is)

 

Well, sure, if that is your intent I apologize. 

 

I have seen many use "Abnett-verse" as a backhanded compliment, a bit of "oh, he's great at world building, if only he would make it lore friendly." Which is, of course, absurd. He is neither unique nor unwarranted in what he writes, and its always annoying to see people criticize him for it (again, not you).

 

In regards to his unique craft, the Imperium is a huge place. More authors should by making up characters, rules, regiments, societiess and the like tbh, it really makes the sprawling interstellar abomination that much more alive.

[E_50_Panzer]

I may be a bit biased, but I never think Abnett's stories don't 'feel' 40k. Rather, I think the complete opposite. Anytime there's a massive battle or an important scene, he sets it perfectly. In Gaunt's Ghosts, we get the full scope of total war, especially in Necropolis, but also in the other books there are amazing, apocalyptic, all or nothing battles; to me, that captures many of those badass 40k artworks we always see. In Ravenor, he has a great talent for really setting the emotion of the places the characters go to. Seriously, I loved practically every page of that series, it was beautiful. Same thing for Pariah. 

[The Doctor Of War]

Can't say i've felt that way about his work. Maybe i could say it doesn't feel like the overly simplified "grimdark grimdarkness, space marines are always angry" version of 40k elements of the internet portray 40k as, but the only time i've ever said "That's doesn't fit" is when he referred to the White Consuls Primarchs. And even then that can be explained away if you just assume the White Consuls, for whatever reason, use the honorific Primarch for their leaders.

[b1soul]

I think Abnett's tone is sometimes very different from other BL authours

 

 

Hard for me to put a finger on it

 

He also gets quite creative...for example, Eisenhorn's lightsabre

 

His naming also have a unique ring...and his dialogue is very snappy, less heavy if you will

Edited September 13, 2017 by b1soul

[Olis]

There are times when you know you're reading Abnett's ideas, those times when you feel that he's putting things into the setting that no-one else would. He's a lore-maker, imo, rather than someone who works within the lines. I suppose this might hark back to Abnett's 2000AD days. It feels that way to me.

[Kastor Krieg]

Instead of being confined by it, Abnett pushes against the boundaries of the setting, explores into unseen territory and make his own strong mark on the "land" he covers.

 

It's all still 40k, very much. 

[b1soul]

@Olis

 

Fully agreed...Abnett is more willing to take creative risks

[Knockagh]

IMO Abnetts main strength is creating good likeable characters that you want to get to know better. ABD is fairly good at this too.

 

Ghosts, Eisenhorn/Ravenor, Horus Rising all contain characters I really love. I'm engaged in their story I want them to live, to survive and thrive. I'm punched when they die. It can leave a hole in the book that doesn't make it worse it just draws me in further.

Sandy Mitchell did the same (for me) in a different way with Cain. ABD with First Claw and Abaddons crews, Guy Haley with Dante and his tank crew.

I want long term characters I can invest in. Abnett has had a few failures along the way also (most noticeably Mr Slaughter) but he most definitely has a skill in making me love his creations.

Truthfully this is a skill lacking in a lot of 40k writers. Sometimes I think it's because they don't get the chance to write a long series, they get dragged off to another project before they can trilogise a story. Abnett humanises his people he doesn't change humans into something else, I love this.

More Ghosts, more Eisenhorn, more humans please. Make space marines secretive heros who fill a role but not the central staring role.

Edited September 13, 2017 by Punishing Pete

[HeritorA]

Could anyone help me articulate why this is?

 

I sometimes feel that Abnett is writing good military sci-fi albeit set in his own pocket Abnett-verse

Well - how to help if you are totally right. Whole GG serie was given for his own universe in the Sabbat Worlds. What could be said more.

 

Abnett prose is unique. Cause - he didn't serve but always does investigation on the theme he is writing with a lot of chating with the infantry/armor vets.

Also - due to him being a prolific comics author and a big fan of english literature/language - he always use the frazes, sentences and build his paragraph in such a way that every other BL author could only dream of. He is from that uniqie range of 'authors' who can build galaxies and worlds from the scratch. And make them interesting.

 

Right now only 1 BL author learned himself almost to the same level as Abnett - and his name is Chris Wraight. His last novels 'Path of Heaven' and 'Carrion Throne' are the best example for that. And upcoming on this saturday 'Watchers of the Throne'.

 

Also a lot of mentioned above leads to Abnett using a lot of good ideas from other titles (he is also a great compiler). He take material and rework and improve on it. For example - his GG are Sharpe in W40K. His Double Eagle is a battle of Britain. His Inqusitor - is a story of Holmes merged with Agatha Cristi. Especially the last Eisenhorn book from the trilogy - it has a direct scene from the "Murder on the Orient Express"

His Horus Heresy characters quote Cesar, Roman Enperors, Shakespear, Dickens, antique greek philosophers etc.

Unremembered empire used 2 Shakesperian dramas in the story. It's partly Hamlet for God Sake.

His 'Prospero burns' show direct glimpses to the war in Bosnia and middle east.

 

All that combined make his style unique and interesting. And through all my scepticism and disappointment with Abnett due to the titles like UE or Prospero Burns - I can't wait to start reading 'The Warmaster'

 

I've never liked the Abnett-verse idea. He no more has his own little setting than Mcneill, ADB, or anyone else. Yes, he expands things, but that's why he's one of two guys I would recommend to someone looking to get into BL. He fleshes out the setting, he doesn't simply fall back on it. His stories feel alive and real because he doesn't constrain himself to pre-established set dressing, he makes his own. 

 

Hell, he tried to make 30k well and truly distinct from 40k, as you might expect with a 10,000 year gap. Its the failing of other authors to live up to his quality, he shouldn't be blamed for being good.

 

So - you don't like the Sabbat Worlds Crusade with all the epicness of Blood Pact, Sons of Sek, Anarch and Gaunt Ghosts?

[Adeptus]

Everyone has their own idea of what life in the 41st Millennium is like. Dan Abnett's stories are set in his version of 40k, which I have found differs in consistent ways from a lot of other versions of 40k. I just recently read Titanicus and enjoyed it greatly, but after slogging through Eisenhorn and not enjoying it much I've been reluctant to pick up the Gaunt's Ghosts series.

[HeritorA]

Everyone has their own idea of what life in the 41st Millennium is like. Dan Abnett's stories are set in his version of 40k, which I have found differs in consistent ways from a lot of other versions of 40k. I just recently read Titanicus and enjoyed it greatly, but after slogging through Eisenhorn and not enjoying it much I've been reluctant to pick up the Gaunt's Ghosts series.

Eisenhorn is a novel for it's own time. By 2017 it's a little outdated. To have a joy for the new times - you can read 'Bequin', which is partly a modern take on the Inquisition. Same as Wraight 'Carrion Throne' and French 'Covenant'.

Same as with the first 2 trilogies of Gaunt Ghosts.

Books will always be apprehended differently by the new generation in comparison to the old one, which read it upon release date.

[Brother-Chaplain Kage]

I'm re-reading the Eisenhorn trilogy again, almost finished with book two, and it still holds up for me. Personally, I don't see how it could be an un-enjoyable slog to read. 

[Phoebus]

I don't think Dan Abnett makes his stories different from the Warhammer 40k norm so much as he makes them richer than most.

 

What I considered to be a signature Abnett characteristic was the detail he'd instill in the places his characters would visit and the societies and cultures they'd encounter there. I've lost count of the number of non-descript, basic building block towns or medieval-era fortresses a parade of other authors have offered up as almost an afterthought of a setting for their stories. The words "Tech-Adept" or "Imperial Commander" are often the only thing that distinguish their populations from any body of people, anywhere. I've given up trying to think of excuses for them.

 

Also, as others offered, Abnett wasn't content to simply work within the lines. He correctly understood that the lore that informs Black Library stories is hardly a boundary; the codices and rule books give enough detail for just an outline for the setting, and for a reader to understand the mood that informs it. The history of the Heresy, as presented in various official articles, amounts to less than the word count of the Wikipedia article for World War 2, and possessed far less detail. Accordingly, Abnett gave us a Mournival of advisors chosen for their temperament, "I am Alpharius," a Leman Russ as full as machinations as the Varangian "barbarians" who served the eastern Roman emperors, and so on.

 

The fact that increasingly more authors - Dembski-Bowden, French, Sanders, Wraight - have offered us rich and distinct characters and settings is a welcome turn to the better.

[Marshal Rohr]

 

Could anyone help me articulate why this is?

 

I sometimes feel that Abnett is writing good military sci-fi albeit set in his own pocket Abnett-verse

Well - how to help if you are totally right. Whole GG serie was given for his own universe in the Sabbat Worlds. What could be said more.

 

Abnett prose is unique. Cause - he didn't serve but always does investigation on the theme he is writing with a lot of chating with the infantry/armor vets.

Also - due to him being a prolific comics author and a big fan of english literature/language - he always use the frazes, sentences and build his paragraph in such a way that every other BL author could only dream of. He is from that uniqie range of 'authors' who can build galaxies and worlds from the scratch. And make them interesting.

 

Right now only 1 BL author learned himself almost to the same level as Abnett - and his name is Chris Wraight. His last novels 'Path of Heaven' and 'Carrion Throne' are the best example for that. And upcoming on this saturday 'Watchers of the Throne'.

 

Also a lot of mentioned above leads to Abnett using a lot of good ideas from other titles (he is also a great compiler). He take material and rework and improve on it. For example - his GG are Sharpe in W40K. His Double Eagle is a battle of Britain. His Inqusitor - is a story of Holmes merged with Agatha Cristi. Especially the last Eisenhorn book from the trilogy - it has a direct scene from the "Murder on the Orient Express"

His Horus Heresy characters quote Cesar, Roman Enperors, Shakespear, Dickens, antique greek philosophers etc.

Unremembered empire used 2 Shakesperian dramas in the story. It's partly Hamlet for God Sake.

His 'Prospero burns' show direct glimpses to the war in Bosnia and middle east.

 

All that combined make his style unique and interesting. And through all my scepticism and disappointment with Abnett due to the titles like UE or Prospero Burns - I can't wait to start reading 'The Warmaster'

 

I've never liked the Abnett-verse idea. He no more has his own little setting than Mcneill, ADB, or anyone else. Yes, he expands things, but that's why he's one of two guys I would recommend to someone looking to get into BL. He fleshes out the setting, he doesn't simply fall back on it. His stories feel alive and real because he doesn't constrain himself to pre-established set dressing, he makes his own. 

 

Hell, he tried to make 30k well and truly distinct from 40k, as you might expect with a 10,000 year gap. Its the failing of other authors to live up to his quality, he shouldn't be blamed for being good.

 

So - you don't like the Sabbat Worlds Crusade with all the epicness of Blood Pact, Sons of Sek, Anarch and Gaunt Ghosts?

 

 

Saying Prospero Burns shows glimpses of Bosnia and the Middle East is a huge stretch.

[Phoebus]

With respect to HeritorA, I think the comparison between Gaunt's Ghosts and Cornwell's Sharpe series is lazy, at best. The two series compare in the sense that both follow the ongoing exploits of a comparatively small unit of infantry in a far larger conflict waged by distant masters. That's where it ends. Sharpe and Gaunt are hardly alike, either in their background, their manner, or their outlook. I struggle to imagine a way in which the wars they wage are meaningfully similar.

[Petitioner's City]

There are hundreds of ideas Abnett gave 40K, which make that world or universe more concrete, more real, more lived in. Some of these are quite famous - amasec, for example, or vox, titles like medicae, or structures or microsocieties like a more diverse Guard, or more complex technological trees as seen in his Chaos armies or his planet-building or his mercenaries in Hereticus, or creating such deep settings as Vervumhive or Gudrun or the planet of Pariah (something which others do too, of course!). My favourite is the idea of locum inquisitors - which comes from the short story where a twenty/thirtysomething Eisenhorn encounters an Ork on a backwater world. I loved the idea of inqusitors being part lawyer, part judge, part CSI and part doctor for the general well-being of the imperium, going from planet to planet to planet as part of their training. It just felt so evocative, just as the story was. I lived on Shetland for a year, and many doctors were locums - so it also felt very real. Inquisitors are essential components of Imperial infrastructure, and little inquisitors are needed 'out' there, just as doctors are. 

Edited September 13, 2017 by Petitioner's City

[deathspectersgt7]

Man I loved his Description of Orks In Brotherhood of the Snake .

[HeritorA]

 

 

Could anyone help me articulate why this is?

 

I sometimes feel that Abnett is writing good military sci-fi albeit set in his own pocket Abnett-verse

Well - how to help if you are totally right. Whole GG serie was given for his own universe in the Sabbat Worlds. What could be said more.

 

Abnett prose is unique. Cause - he didn't serve but always does investigation on the theme he is writing with a lot of chating with the infantry/armor vets.

Also - due to him being a prolific comics author and a big fan of english literature/language - he always use the frazes, sentences and build his paragraph in such a way that every other BL author could only dream of. He is from that uniqie range of 'authors' who can build galaxies and worlds from the scratch. And make them interesting.

 

Right now only 1 BL author learned himself almost to the same level as Abnett - and his name is Chris Wraight. His last novels 'Path of Heaven' and 'Carrion Throne' are the best example for that. And upcoming on this saturday 'Watchers of the Throne'.

 

Also a lot of mentioned above leads to Abnett using a lot of good ideas from other titles (he is also a great compiler). He take material and rework and improve on it. For example - his GG are Sharpe in W40K. His Double Eagle is a battle of Britain. His Inqusitor - is a story of Holmes merged with Agatha Cristi. Especially the last Eisenhorn book from the trilogy - it has a direct scene from the "Murder on the Orient Express"

His Horus Heresy characters quote Cesar, Roman Enperors, Shakespear, Dickens, antique greek philosophers etc.

Unremembered empire used 2 Shakesperian dramas in the story. It's partly Hamlet for God Sake.

His 'Prospero burns' show direct glimpses to the war in Bosnia and middle east.

 

All that combined make his style unique and interesting. And through all my scepticism and disappointment with Abnett due to the titles like UE or Prospero Burns - I can't wait to start reading 'The Warmaster'

 

I've never liked the Abnett-verse idea. He no more has his own little setting than Mcneill, ADB, or anyone else. Yes, he expands things, but that's why he's one of two guys I would recommend to someone looking to get into BL. He fleshes out the setting, he doesn't simply fall back on it. His stories feel alive and real because he doesn't constrain himself to pre-established set dressing, he makes his own. 

 

Hell, he tried to make 30k well and truly distinct from 40k, as you might expect with a 10,000 year gap. Its the failing of other authors to live up to his quality, he shouldn't be blamed for being good.

 

So - you don't like the Sabbat Worlds Crusade with all the epicness of Blood Pact, Sons of Sek, Anarch and Gaunt Ghosts?

 

 

Saying Prospero Burns shows glimpses of Bosnia and the Middle East is a huge stretch.

 

But it does - all that scene with the claymores and piano - was actually that. It is always nice to see the meaning beside the scenes. Anyway - in my humble opinion.

 

 

With respect to HeritorA, I think the comparison between Gaunt's Ghosts and Cornwell's Sharpe series is lazy, at best. The two series compare in the sense that both follow the ongoing exploits of a comparatively small unit of infantry in a far larger conflict waged by distant masters. That's where it ends. Sharpe and Gaunt are hardly alike, either in their background, their manner, or their outlook. I struggle to imagine a way in which the wars they wage are meaningfully similar.

Comparison was made by Abnett himself a long time ago. And it stuck.

 

As for the each particular GG book - he used some famous conflict in our history as a backdrop.

For Example - Necropolis  - is a one big Stalingrad. Traitor General - French resistance during WW2. His Last Command  - 1940 attack in Belgium and Germany. Only in Death - direct rewrite to the sieges of Badahos and Suidad Rodrigo during Peninsular war of 1808-1814 etc. etc.

 

Petitioner's City

Vervunhive wad reworked through combining Stalingrad with Nottingham. I'm not joking.

[Roomsky]

 

 

I've never liked the Abnett-verse idea. He no more has his own little setting than Mcneill, ADB, or anyone else. Yes, he expands things, but that's why he's one of two guys I would recommend to someone looking to get into BL. He fleshes out the setting, he doesn't simply fall back on it. His stories feel alive and real because he doesn't constrain himself to pre-established set dressing, he makes his own. 

 

Hell, he tried to make 30k well and truly distinct from 40k, as you might expect with a 10,000 year gap. Its the failing of other authors to live up to his quality, he shouldn't be blamed for being good.

 

So - you don't like the Sabbat Worlds Crusade with all the epicness of Blood Pact, Sons of Sek, Anarch and Gaunt Ghosts?

 

 

I think you misunderstood.

 

I don't like the label of "Abnett-verse." It implies he can't effectively work within the confines of the setting, which I argue is not true. I think all his works are excellent.

[Fire Golem]

I'm re-reading the Eisenhorn trilogy again, almost finished with book two, and it still holds up for me. Personally, I don't see how it could be an un-enjoyable slog to read.

 

I've recently read the first 2 of the Eisenhorn trilogy (not got round to the last one yet) and I agree, they didn't really feel outdated or anything.

[DukeLeto69]

What most have said above holds true for me. Abnett richly expands the setting rather than working within perceived confines of the IP. In fact he expands it to such a degree that HE is actually in many cases setting the setting (if that makes sense). Examples already given like Vox, or Amasec. There is also Promethium and plenty more.

 

For me the ONLY time when I went "whoah hold on a minute that doesn't feel right" (as in not 40k) was the hover cars in one of the Eisenhorn books. I think THAT was literally the only time.