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Opinions on Ben Counter and James Swallow


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When I first got into the 40k-verse, I read a pretty wide assortment of books. Some of my early favorites were the first two Blood Angels series novels by James Swallow and the first four Soul Drinker novels by Ben Counter. Though i read and liked other authors, those two always stood out as being some of my early favorites. Nowadays it seems neither is ranked very highly in the hierarchy of Black Library, despite both Galaxy in Flames and Fear to Tread being really good to me.  What is your guys opinion on either author? I certainly dont put either above Abnett or ADB (loving First Heretic btw) but I've liked them consistently more then some others (compare Mc

 

Note I have not read any of Counters recent work past Galaxy in Flames; does it seem likely he has just gone down hill in recent years?

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Seeing as Battle for the Abyss is almost universally regarded as the worst Horus Heresy novel, I'd have to say yes.

 

I personally enjoyed Fear to Tread, but I'm also not a huge Blood Angel fan and so had very little expectations for it.

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Fear to Tread is almost as terrible as Battle of the Abyss. It's arguably way more disappointing considering how it was supposed to be the grand entrance of the Blood Angels into the Horus Heresy series.

 

I think Counter's worst is arguably worse than Swallow's worst...but on average Counter is better than Swallow. I thought Counter's Grey Knights series was OK. Everything by Swallow rubs me the wrong way. 

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Remember opinions are always subjective, even when people agree.

 

Swallow has written well on occasion, with Faith and Fire being an enjoyable read for me to name but one.

 

Ben Counter though.. I'll pass, personally. I recall reading one of his novels and it just wasn't for me.

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I don't see why Fear To Tread is so derided.

 

 

I really cared when Meros sacrificed himself and that for me is sign that the book was worth reading.

 

 

I will agree that the two most senior daemons seemed like squabbling children rather than inhuman malign intelligences but it wasn't enough to ruin the book. I think ADB, Abnett and McNeill all write creepier, more inhuman daemons. The worst portrayal of daemons though for me is in one of Gav Thorpe's anthology short stories (I think it's The Lion in The Primarchs) where a daemonic incursion reads like a checklist of units from the codex. For me Codex Daemons is meant to provide a few illustrative archetypes or general types of daemon codified for table top use but in stories daemons should be infinitely varied and changing and the description shouldn't be about how tall they are, the colour of their skin etc. It should be about how it makes the protagonist feel - the choking scent of decay in the back of the throat even though there is no air to carry the smell, the crawling feeling across their skin, the buzzing behind their eyes as their brain struggles to comprehend something that is not of this universe...

I really like the Garro series too.

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I think Swallow is the better author, personally - and no bias just because I've met him a few times and he's always been pleasant. Purely on the basis of what I've read thus far.

 

Blood Angels series is poorly written, I feel - but thereafter his work has taken a marked increase in quality and character development. I'd like to read more of him - but equally, I have probably not read enough of Counter's work (was his most recent contribution the SD series?) to completely comment one way or the other.

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His Soul Drinker series was some of his first works actually. Now that I look back certain parts of the story bugged me, but as far as I recall Counter wrote good action with some decent plot twists in the first few novels.

 

Just to correct something I wasn't comparing Swallow and Counter, they just stand out as I like the two off of previous works. Their novels I liked were generally bolter porn, but I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. Good bolter porn is a fun read

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swallow has ruined the blood angels for me. I dread to read anything with his name on it.  Looking forward to seeing ADB tackle the BA (im sure he has a BA character in one of the upcoming books?)

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The Dues whatever was so hard for me to read. The space marines didn't feel like space marines to me? I am with Rafen running through the streets crying? I mean come on really???? But I did like the Sisters books wierd LOL

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I've loved BA since I first got their 3rd Edition codex. I've read most of Swallow's work with them and feel that they are good books rather than great books. I would love to read ADB's version of them beyond what he put in the Night Lords book, can't remember the name right now.

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James Swallow is a BAFTA nominee according to Wikipedia. Not that that has anything to do with this, just a fun fact that I didn't know before tongue.png

Mr Swallow wrote FotE, which is one of my favourite HH books to date so he'll always be high in my opinion just for that. Nemesis was decent, but I wasn't really a fan of Fear to Tread. The first three BA books I didn't much like either, although the rest of the series I did enjoy.

As for Ben Counter, I do really like the Soul Drinkers series. Phalanx was really good and ended the series well. Galaxy in Flames is also one of the better HH novels, but BftA is probably the worst. His Grey Knight series is decent as well. It's kind of hard to judge that now though because of the changes that the Grey Knights have gone through, so the same organisation portrayed in his series aren't recognisable as the GK anymore. And obviously, you have to compare it to the Emperor's Gift, a battle that no other book will ever win imo tongue.png

TL;DR - Both are good authors, not the best that BL has to offer but still of a high calibre. Capable of writing novels that aren't so great, but also capable of writing some of the best 40k out there.

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I haven't read enough Counter to really form a solid opinion about his writing.

 

Swallow's work on the Blood Angels however... well let's just say that I'm not a big fan. As a BA player and a fan, his vision of the BAs has been a rather painful experience for me. I think his writing is okay, definitely not the weakest in BL, but when it comes to actual contents of the story and respect for the background... oh boy. But honestly, if we forget his work on the Sons of Sanguinius, he actually isn't that bad. I did enjoy Faith and Fire and the parts I have read about FotE.

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swallow has ruined the blood angels for me. I dread to read anything with his name on it. Looking forward to seeing ADB tackle the BA (im sure he has a BA character in one of the upcoming books?)

+1 from me. I rarely leave a book unfinished, once started, but I just couldn't force myself to endure the drivel.

Sadly, whenever 'Angels turn up in an AD-B story he makes a point of punking them.dry.png Something pro-BA would be very welcome from the current King of 40K.

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Swallow's alright. I haven't encountered a lot of his work, but I can at least stand it unlike Counter's. I simply cannot read anything Counter writes- his prose is blunt and dry, there's no delicious juice to devour like ADB's or Thorpe's. I've always had a love of flowery prose, so Counter to me has always just seemed to write like a trained ape. Worst of all is Counter's work on the Space Wolves. While the Soul Eaters were terrible and thank god they're a dead Chapter n- wolf.

 

Wolf. Wolf wolf wolf. Wolf wolf wolf wolf. Wolf, wolf wolf, wofl wolf wolf wolf. Wolf wolf wolf wolf wolf. Wolf. Wolf wolf. Wolf wolf wolf. Wolf wolf, wolf wolf wolf, wolf wolf.

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Everything you need to know about the Soul Drinkers:

 

"By Dorn's rippling pectorals! I've suddenly grown eight spider legs! ............................Obviously, this is a sign that I am blessed by the Emperor and should lead the Chapter!"

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Everything you need to know about the Soul Drinkers:

"By Dorn's rippling pectorals! I've suddenly grown eight spider legs! ............................Obviously, this is a sign that I am blessed by the Emperor and should lead the Chapter!"

biggrin.png And just how many times did they have to get hit over their slowly-mutating heads for it to sink in? Like the assault sergeant who turns into an unkillable jelly-monster with chainswords for hands and a tendency to gibber "Skulls! Blood! Skulls!"

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Counter is responsible for some delightful daemonic vistas, which include, among others, a Slaaneshi chapter that does not suck (the Violators). In my eyes that alone would make up for a hundred Battles for the Abyss.

 

I haven't had a chance to read any of Swallow's work yet, but for what's it worth, his visions of chaos are said to be impressive too, though more in terms of general aesthetics than character construction.

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For the record i haven't read Swallow's BA series as i'm not a massive BA fan, but i do like Nemesis and the SoB books. I read somewhere that Swallow likes to change fluff up a bit, which is something i like as it adds a new dimension to a story angle/arc. 

 

Counter i can't say about as i haven't read much of his work, so i won't say yay or nay for him. 

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I read Swallow's Blood Angel books back in 2008 shortly after I finished the Soul Drinkers. I found Counter's work to be far more tolerable than Swallow's. But, in truth, they are nowhere near the worst books I have read and I could read them again, they just don't fit somehow with the quality of the others.

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Have to weigh in on Counter over Swallow too.

 

The BA series, while not terrible (terrible being defined as CS Goto) was very shoddy, with Swallow seemingly forgetting that he'd killed hundreds of Marines in the previous Chapter, yet the task force doesn't demonstrate any loss of force projection. This compares very poorly with the likes of the GK series and even the Soul Drinkers, which was a flawed, yet enjoyable series for the most part, and Counter could keep an approximate track of how many Marines he'd killed off. Swallow's SoB work is a noticeable improvement over his BA stuff though.

 

As far as HH goes (bearing in mind there's a good few I haven't read), Counter still wins. I found Eisenstein OK, but rather slow with the second half really dragging, whereas Galaxy in Flames was pure distilled awesome. While Battle for the Abyss was boring, it did occasionally make me smile, and I enjoyed the presence of the loyalists from the Traitor Legions. Nemesis on the other hand, was godawful, the worst non Goto BL book I've ever read. It suffered from some of the same restrictions as Abyss, namely there's no way the plans work, because Macragge isn't destroyed/neither Horus of the Emperor get assassinated, which robbed both books of any real tension or stakes. But Nemesis takes the cake with its fluff defilement. The black pariah, a pariah having a daemon sown into his skin, calling a Culexus assassin a psyker etc. Someone needed to remind Swallow what an untouchable/pariah actually are. To use fire as a psychic power analogy, untouchables are vacuums, but Swallow treated them like a different kind of fire, rather than its antithesis.

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I thought Battle for the Abyss would have been a much better novella than it was a novel.  In fact, everything about its tone, characters, and placement and impact in the greater Heresy storyline makes me consider it the "spiritual father" of the current novella concept.  Did I enjoy it as a novel?  Not so much.  I genuinely think, however, that in many cases the dislike of Battle for the Abyss is more of a meme, as opposed to a sincere estimation that it's the "worst" novel in the series.  And where Galaxy in Flames is concerned, I had few complaints.

 

On the other hand, I was not a fan of the Soul Drinkers series.  I thought the premise was incredibly promising: a loyal Chapter driven to rebellion, fighting against the Imperium but for its abandoned ideals.  I was expecting to read a series wherein these well-meaning renegades would gradually be forced to make compromise after compromise in their struggle until Sarpedon was finally forced to choose between death and surrender to Chaos.  That never manifested, though.  Despite two Chapter civil wars, the Soul Drinkers stuck by a schtick wherein they remained "good guys" and took on "the faction of the week" depending on the novel.  Their mutations were, I thought, a pointless addition that required the reader to ignore the silliness of a Space Marine thinking he was somehow "blessed" by such "augmentations" (as Wade offered, above).  By the time Phalanx came about, the Soul Drinkers were running on fumes.  The Daenyathos did nothing to improve matters, and the whole plot line was a stretch to begin with: millennia-old manipulation that required a deus ex machine like the first novel's events for the manipulator's master plan to even start.

 

Swallow has written a range of Blood Angels, of which I've read two (Red Fury and Black Tide), and three Heresy novels:  Flight of the Eisenstein, Nemesis, and Fear to Tread.  I found his 40k Blood Angels fiction to be forgettable, I was disappointed by Fear (primarily because I thought much of the horror of Signus Prime was contrived and ineffectual), I more or less enjoyed Nemesis, and I thought Flight is one of the "can't miss" novels of the Horus Heresy.

 

Bottom line, while I think it's fair to say that both authors have had mixed results, I don't think it's fair to automatically dismiss either one when Black Library releases their novels.

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I've only read Galaxy of Flame, Flight of the Eisenstein, and Fear to Tread. It's been a while since I read them but I know I didn't dislike them. They were all good reads to me. Not much else I can say as the other books mentioned here don't really interest me. I looked them up especially the soul drinkers on 40kwiki and that's all I really needed to know.

 

I am interested in getting the two SoB books though. I listened to the audiobook Red and Black and enjoyed it so if I can find them i'll give them a read.

 

 

 

Edit: Added the bit about the SoB books

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