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!

The Sundering is Killing My Hands

I have been reading The Sundering, by Gav Thorpe, for over a month and a half. It groups the books Malekith, Shadow King, and Caledor into one book, along with 2 short stories. It is a monster at over 1000 pages.

I've been wanting to write a post on it. And even though I'm not finished yet, I'm 900 pages in. I feel like I've got a handle on the story and writing style.

First, it never takes me this long to read a book. I am a quick reader. In middle school, when the other kids were complaining about reading 3 books over the summer, I was reading 150. I can plow through a Gotrek & Felix Omnibus in a little over a week. This book has taken FOREVER to get through. And I haven't been putting it aside to read anything else either.

Yea, this book is large at 1000 pages. But I've read other books about that long. The Sundering is enormous! It makes regular books look like cardboard readers for infants. And it's size alone has made it difficult for me to read. I have rheumatoid arthritis, which makes my hands a bit weak and sore. I actually have to wear compression gloves just to hold this book up. It looks like I picked up a dictionary and decided to start reading. So, I go days without reading, because it just simply hurts too much.

This book dwarfs "normal" books

Just in case you weren't aware, Black Library has created the Time of Legends series. It mirrors the Horus Heresy 40k series, in that it deals with world changing events that happened centuries before "current" time in the fantasy world. The Sundering tells how the Dark Elves came to be from mainly 3 points of view; Malekith, Alith Anar - a Naggarothi who fights with the other kingdoms of Ulthuan, and Imrik, who takes the name Caledor when he becomes Phoenix King of the High Elves. The problem is, each book repeats the events from the previous book, just from a new point of view. It bogs the story down. Just as I get excited and can't wait to turn the page, a scene from the previous book appears, and I'm forced to read pages of THE EXACT SAME WORDS again.

This book confirmed for me that I am not a fan of Gav Thorpe. The only previous work of his I had read was Deliverance Lost, from the Horus Heresy series. It, too, was a slow read. He gets so concerned with setting up events, that once something finally happens, you just don't care anymore. Even his intro to The Sundering was boring. He basically tells us that he wrote a totally different book as the first in the triology, then had to quickly changed it when Black Library told him they wanted to name it Malekith. Yea, the first book was originally all about this elf named Carathril. Call me crazy, but if I was told I was going to write a book about how the Dark Elves came to be, the first guy I would think to write about would be Malekith. He is kind of a big deal.

Ok, so I've been bashing this book. But it isn't all bad. I love the character of Alith Anar. And being new to the Warhammer fantasy world, I've learned a ton about the elves in general. There are parts that are real page turners, and I've found myself up past 1 in the morning, because I have to find out what happens. It is definitely a must read if you are a fan of either the Dark Elves or the High Elves. There is a lot of history explained here. But I know that if I ever happen across a book written by Gav Thorpe, I won't pick it up to see how it is. (I do this with Dan Abnett. He could write about paint drying and I would read it.)

Have you read The Sundering, or other Time of Legends books? Let me know what you thought! I'm really looking forward to picking up both the Sigmar and the Rise of Nagash collections.



Seriously, it is like a phone book