Lyric Suite
Converting to Islam
- Joined
- Mar 23, 2006
- Messages
- 58,187
Alright, so after a long pause i picked up Graham McNeill's 40k series again. I figured i'm past half way through i might as well finish it at this point. Just done with Courage and Honor, after which i think i have a couple more novels plus some short story here and there and i can move on to better writers.
My opinion of this guy hasn't changed much from last time. His prose is professional enough for what this is (his word painting in particular gets occationally quite vivid, like the first invasion of the Tyranids in Warriors of Ultramar. I'd say his descriptive skills are his strongest asset) but his story telling skills are very mediocre and there's some parts in his books that just feel rushed. Like at times his writing drops to fan fic levels and i can only assume time constrains were an issue. Considering the sheer volume of Warhammer novels out there i assume all those hired writers are on a time schedule.
What warrants comment is his presentation of Warhammer lore, which so far is bad in execution but actually interesting in detail. I can say i actually learned a lot so far, especially regarding the Space Marines themselves and the races he has touched upon so far, chiefly the chaos dudes, the Tyranids and now the Tau. And amusingly, he just confirmed my initial assumptions regarding the Codex Astartes, which i had assumed in the lore (i know in reality it's just a game rule's book) is supposed to be the product of an enhanced brain the depth of which cannot easily be probed by anyone who isn't a Primarch. I made that assumption given the strong influence of Frank Herbert's Dune in this setting, but McNeill's treatment of the Codex and the various dilemmas Uriel has to face in the course of this series is so banal, so childish i thought i just assumed too much and that the Warhammer lore isn't actually as rich as that, at least on this particular point.
Turns out my initial assumption was correct because in Courage and Honor (BTW he repeats the title of the book in the novel so many times it became comical after a while) he actually spells it out, when the chief librarian of the Ultramarines tells Uriel that even after centuries of study he himself couldn't probe all the secrets of the Codex, which begs the fucking question. If this is actually what the lore says and McNeill knew it, how the fuck did he came up with such pedestrian scenarios and situations which made the Codex seem like a bunch of stupid rules that couldn't possibly anticipate all the complexity of every relative situation? The way he descrived the Codex one would have been hard pressed to even imagine how the Ultramarines even won any wars at all, especially since it wouldn't have taken long for the chaos dudes to figure out how to exploit the banal/shit/boring rigidity of this book. Turns out the Codex isn't simplistic as that after all, at least according to the lore. So it's not the lore that's stupid, it is McNeill that was being retarded all along.
Still, i don't regret reading those books. I started with the idea of trying to get a better grasp of the lore and i'd say all in all that goal was accomplished. Especially when it comes to the Space Marines themselves i had no idea they were so advanced.
My opinion of this guy hasn't changed much from last time. His prose is professional enough for what this is (his word painting in particular gets occationally quite vivid, like the first invasion of the Tyranids in Warriors of Ultramar. I'd say his descriptive skills are his strongest asset) but his story telling skills are very mediocre and there's some parts in his books that just feel rushed. Like at times his writing drops to fan fic levels and i can only assume time constrains were an issue. Considering the sheer volume of Warhammer novels out there i assume all those hired writers are on a time schedule.
What warrants comment is his presentation of Warhammer lore, which so far is bad in execution but actually interesting in detail. I can say i actually learned a lot so far, especially regarding the Space Marines themselves and the races he has touched upon so far, chiefly the chaos dudes, the Tyranids and now the Tau. And amusingly, he just confirmed my initial assumptions regarding the Codex Astartes, which i had assumed in the lore (i know in reality it's just a game rule's book) is supposed to be the product of an enhanced brain the depth of which cannot easily be probed by anyone who isn't a Primarch. I made that assumption given the strong influence of Frank Herbert's Dune in this setting, but McNeill's treatment of the Codex and the various dilemmas Uriel has to face in the course of this series is so banal, so childish i thought i just assumed too much and that the Warhammer lore isn't actually as rich as that, at least on this particular point.
Turns out my initial assumption was correct because in Courage and Honor (BTW he repeats the title of the book in the novel so many times it became comical after a while) he actually spells it out, when the chief librarian of the Ultramarines tells Uriel that even after centuries of study he himself couldn't probe all the secrets of the Codex, which begs the fucking question. If this is actually what the lore says and McNeill knew it, how the fuck did he came up with such pedestrian scenarios and situations which made the Codex seem like a bunch of stupid rules that couldn't possibly anticipate all the complexity of every relative situation? The way he descrived the Codex one would have been hard pressed to even imagine how the Ultramarines even won any wars at all, especially since it wouldn't have taken long for the chaos dudes to figure out how to exploit the banal/shit/boring rigidity of this book. Turns out the Codex isn't simplistic as that after all, at least according to the lore. So it's not the lore that's stupid, it is McNeill that was being retarded all along.
Still, i don't regret reading those books. I started with the idea of trying to get a better grasp of the lore and i'd say all in all that goal was accomplished. Especially when it comes to the Space Marines themselves i had no idea they were so advanced.
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