My Love/Hate Relationship with Black Library...

...and, by extension, Games Workshop. Now, I had planned to write Model Stripping, Part 2 today, but I had more difficulty finding Simple Green than I had planned on. Don't worry, I have models in my kitchen melting, I mean soaking, as we speak. That post will be up in the next day or two.

Anyway, back to Black Library. I have said before that I am an avid reader. Now that The Sundering is under my belt, I have easily read 50 or more Black Library books, both 40k and fantasy. And while I won't stop reading their books anytime soon, they do a few things that irk me.

Fluff Changes
Now Games Workshop has been known to cause an uproar by changing fluff. Sometimes this is a good thing. Look at the Necrons. Sometimes it creates an all out uprising. All I need to say is Tau. (Just google "Tau fluff change." You don't even need to click on a link, just read the results.) Well, these fluff changes affect the books as well. Suddenly, the Dark Eldar are helping the Tau defeat Tyranids. Wait, what? It isn't like Black Library can go back and change all the books they published before the fluff change. So things get confusing.

Author Changes
Black Library is famous for handing well-loved characters over to new authors. It doesn't make sense. If William King is too busy writing some new book, so you have to hand Gotrek and Felix over to Nathan Long, why couldn't Nathan Long just write the new book? Leave our favorite characters with their creators! Dan Abnett, William King, and Graham McNeill aren't going to rise up against you, Black Library. You aren't giving them too much power if you let them keep their babies. No matter how great the new writer is, the books just aren't the same. Every time a series changes writers, a High Elf mage dies. Stop killing the mages, Black Library!

New Readers, Beware
These books are not friendly to people new to Warhammer. Eisenhorn was the first Black Library book I ever read. I think I stopped to ask Nate what a word meant at least every page. I had NO CLUE what happened in the first 50 pages. If I hadn't had him pushing me on to keep reading, I would have never read beyond that first page. And that is a shame. Because I know people who would LOVE these stories, if they could get past the jargon. But they will never read a Black Library book, because they just can't understand it.

Authors, Please Read
So many times I have read a book, only to be confused, because the timeline totally contradicts that of a previous book. This is related to both fluff changes and author changes. But if Black Library comes to me, and asks me to write the next book in the Horus Heresy series on the Dark Angels, I'm going to read those that came previously. Luther may be awesome, and even given some pretty awesome power by Chaos, but he can't be in two places at once. So please, authors, do your homework first.

These are my main gripes with Black Library. But, on the pro-side, they have a huge selection of books with incredibly engrossing storylines. So the next time a Grey Knight starts fighting in the name of Khorne, I'll just turn a blind eye and keep reading.

Let me know if you have a bone to pick with Black Library! Or share your favorite books. I just finished The Sundering, so I need something new to read!