Biggest Nerd-Rage 40k Controversies Ever!

By player359820, in Deathwatch

Posted at

Grand Inquisitor Fulminarex said:

So what is the deal with "fame"? I cant imagine Dan Abnett has that much to brag about. I have read his work, and it is not like it is up there with Dickens or even the guy that writes Star Wars books. Seriously, I really like 40k, and sure he has contributed a good bit, but as we all know, canon changes, and who is to say his writings do not become heresy before too long? LOL

Abnett can actually write, compared to the awful awful stuff that the rest of the BL put out his works are Dickens. Sadly he knows this and is jumped on by eager fans at every opportunity who add to this.

At the end of the day just blame it all on Gav Thorpe, its easy enough to do and he makes a good scapegoat

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Artaxerxes said:

At the end of the day just blame it all on Gav Thorpe, its easy enough to do and he makes a good scapegoat

Naaaah. I'll blame it on a "do less" attitude, something that is financially supported by the fans. GW and BL have realised that they can keep on churning out the same materials and not push any real boundaries because, well, their fans keep on buying their stuff. Why should they do more when it is going to take more effort and they're probably going to come out with the same result?

It's like people who go to work, do their job, and then clock out. What's the point in doing more when they aren't going to get paid more for it? (There's obvious counter-arguments here with this analogy, but there you go.)

Kage

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MILLANDSON said:

Ranek7212 said:

Dan Abnett is the best 40k writter! and Gaunt is the greatest Hero of all time.

This is just to keep the controversies going on.

Also Dan Abnett is never going to do the space wolf novel for the HH line of books because the The Thousand Sons players poison him or redirect his attention to the Smurf Movie.

The sad thing is... I met Dan Abnett at Games Day too, got his signature and everything... but he acts like a stuck up, egotistical *bleep*

He turned up 20 minutes late to the signing session I was waiting at, and when I told him I was a big fan of Eisenhorn and Ravenor, all he said was "yea, you're not the only one, everyone loves them," in a voice that sounded so smug it hurt.

I'm just not sure I can like him or his books anymore when he just doesn't seem to care about his fans to the extent he takes them for granted like that.

Now, Graham McNeill (signed a load of my stuff and after I told him my name (when he asked me who he was signing stuff to) knew me from the RT credits, which was sodding AWESOME *squee*) and Sandy Mitchell... they were guys who appreciated you telling them you loved their work, and who wanted to have a chat and a conversation with all the people they were signing stuff for. Even if they didn't mean it, it shows more respect for their fans than Abnett showed.

He could eat fans for tea for all I care, so long as he keeps producing the goods. gui%C3%B1o.gif

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BaronIveagh said:

Adam France said:

Imaginative enough to have given us such ubiquitous and evocative terms as vox, or promethium?

Strange, I could swear Codex Imperial Guard was written by Rick Priestley and Andy Chambers...

I'll grant that the scene with the beating drums was a bit odd, and chalked it up to Chaos being chaos. The whole Men of Iron plot is a mishmash of RUR and Vault of the Beast with some 40k tossed in. Didn't read the rest of them after that.

So ... you only read the first book? That seems like something you should have mentioned Baron when you slated the whole series. Kidding aside the last two alone have been really great books, the series is very strong indeed.

Abnett himself claims to have created the terms I mention (and many others besides I'm sure) ... I'm curious to check if that's bs?

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MILLANDSON said:

Ranek7212 said:

:: Glares at Mill:: Dude I hate you. Ciaphas Cain is my hero.

I'll have to take a photo of the signature and send it to you then, so you can share in the awesome gran_risa.gif It's a shame you couldn't make it, Sandy is a really nice guy, doesn't take his fans and praise for granted like Dan Abnett did when I got to talk to him.

You seem to be judging authors merits entirely on a personal level of your view of how they treat you personally on a single meeting ... rather than how well they write 40k books. Fair enough, but that takes subjective to a whole new level.

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Adam France said:

MILLANDSON said: Ranek7212 said: :: Glares at Mill:: Dude I hate you. Ciaphas Cain is my hero. I'll have to take a photo of the signature and send it to you then, so you can share in the awesome It's a shame you couldn't make it, Sandy is a really nice guy, doesn't take his fans and praise for granted like Dan Abnett did when I got to talk to him. You seem to be judging authors merits entirely on a personal level of your view of how they treat you personally on a single meeting ... rather than how well they write 40k books. Fair enough, but that takes subjective to a whole new level.










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N0-1_H3r3 said:

While they fulfil the same battlefield role (and are sufficiently close to be represented the same way in game terms), Rune Priests aren't Librarians in the strictest sense; the Space Wolves don't have a Librarius, and they apparently never have had one, instead using shamanic battle-psykers developed as an extension of Fenrisian traditions rather than in the more standardised manner of Codex chapters. Just as importantly, the Space Wolves are known for their lack of adherence to the Codex Astartes, and consequently will invariably ignore things like Codex-mandated colour schemes for specialists except where it serves their purposes.

You're preaching to the choir here, N0-1. I'm a HUGE Space Wolves fan. I was merely pointing out that the bluish-gray of their armor technically falls within the Codex Astartes standard for Librarians, as the shade of blue is in no way standardized. happy.gif

-=Brother Praetus=-

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Brother Praetus said:

N0-1_H3r3 said:

While they fulfil the same battlefield role (and are sufficiently close to be represented the same way in game terms), Rune Priests aren't Librarians in the strictest sense; the Space Wolves don't have a Librarius, and they apparently never have had one, instead using shamanic battle-psykers developed as an extension of Fenrisian traditions rather than in the more standardised manner of Codex chapters. Just as importantly, the Space Wolves are known for their lack of adherence to the Codex Astartes, and consequently will invariably ignore things like Codex-mandated colour schemes for specialists except where it serves their purposes.

You're preaching to the choir here, N0-1. I'm a HUGE Space Wolves fan. I was merely pointing out that the bluish-gray of their armor technically falls within the Codex Astartes standard for Librarians, as the shade of blue is in no way standardized. happy.gif

-=Brother Praetus=-

In the Great Companies color schemes can change, Not only in their great company symbol. Also there are the number of Lost Companies in the Space Wolf fluff. Some of which left Fenris and never returned, mostly do to differences with a new great wolf or some other such. Which is why in my Army, I used the old crusade or HH color scheme, more of a shadow grey then that baby blue for my wolves.

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MILLANDSON said:

Adam France said:

MILLANDSON said: Ranek7212 said: :: Glares at Mill:: Dude I hate you. Ciaphas Cain is my hero. I'll have to take a photo of the signature and send it to you then, so you can share in the awesome It's a shame you couldn't make it, Sandy is a really nice guy, doesn't take his fans and praise for granted like Dan Abnett did when I got to talk to him. You seem to be judging authors merits entirely on a personal level of your view of how they treat you personally on a single meeting ... rather than how well they write 40k books. Fair enough, but that takes subjective to a whole new level.



That's a pretty big assumption of how I judge merit, and you'd be entirely incorrect. I've stated before how I love the Eisenhorn and Ravenor trilogies, and I still plan on getting the next trilogy based on those characters that he's writing at the moment. Gaunt's Ghosts is also a good series (I have all of the books), though they have tended to be very samey and have started to dip in quality, the last good one was Traitor General, in my opinion.

I generally rank Ciaphas Cain as the equal of Eisenhorn (not as well written, but a lot more enjoyable to me) and above Gaunt's Ghosts (the Tanith are cool, and the characters are good (other than Gaunt being boring as ****, and Abnett killing off all my favourite characters), but it feels like half of the fight scenes are copy/pastes of each other).

However, the way an author treats his fans also suggests, at least to me, how much they deserve those fans. Treating them badly, by being late, egotistical, etc, makes them less worthy of their fans, in my opinion, than authors who appreciate the support their fans give them, and make an effort to at least appear as though they care about what their fans think.

Plus, Abnett treated most people (other than two friends I made at Games Day who happened to be dressed up as Tanith, their costumes were awesome) like he treated me, and the same applied to Graham McNiell, Sandy Mitchell, Andy Hoare and the other authors there (though they acted in the opposite manner to Abnett). In fact, Abnett was the only one to act like a **** to most people.

So... yea, my opinions are based on more than just a one off encounter, so I'd appreciate you not making incorrect assumptions about how I choose which authors/books I like, thanks Adam. Next time, all you have to do is ask me, I won't bite.

Well, you didn't mention anyone else having an issue (or being on the brunt of rudeness from Dan) in your earlier posts.

Also you did post (I would cut and paste - but hey FFG forum software is crap as we all know) that you were no longer sure you could like his books any more because of the way he treated you. That suggested to me at least you were thinking of not buying future books - despite liking Abnett's previous work - because of his perceived rudeness to you.

I don't really understand what you mean by 'worthy'? Worthy of you buying his future work?

Seriously, personally I don't care what any author is like as a person (and I don't think how they behave at a single event really can tell you that anyway - heck Hitler was personable I'm told), I just care about how well they write. No one would argue Gogin (for example) was not a great artist ... but he was personally a bit of a prick according to common agreement. Doesn't make his paintings any less fantastic. Same principle here.

EDIT - Also, I can't argue with your personal taste. Of course you may personally enjoy a poorly written book, I enjoy some books that are fairly poorly written. What I'm saying here is Sandy Mitchell is not a great writer (and is certainly wayyyy down the scale from Abnett). Yes, you may like Mitchell's work, but as you do say here, they are 'not as well written'. That's definitely true.

As to making assumptions - I went solely by what you'd posted here, and was not making massive assumptive leaps.

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Sad that Abnett was a jerk and McNeill was nice, I would have hoped for the other way around (I love most of Abnett's work, and hate almost everything every written by McNeill). Mitchell's sense of humor is too sharp and off the wall (in a cleanly executed sort of way) for me to believe he wouldn't be nice, good to hear some anecdotal evidence to support that idea.

As far a Gaunt, I'm hooked on the series, and actually thought "Only in Death" was one of the best so far, though I was really hoping for the plotline with "that guy" (don't want to risk spoilers for anyone) who briefly shows up towards the end to play out a different way.