"Those Books" Nagash series

[Navar]

So I was reading the the Tomb Kings thread and the first 2 books in the Nagash Trilogy came up. It was met by

We don't talk about those books

I was wondering why. I just ordered the first two off of Amazon, and I was wondering if I should be regretting that order?

Is there a good place to obtain reviews of the Black Library books?

[Tadite]

They aren't on the list of highest quality BL. This isn't the reason why undead fanatics don't like them though. It's because of just how dramatically they changed some of the fundamental fluff. Lots of new and strange magic a whole bunch of sometimes off the wall ideas.... People got a little scared that it would all end up in the new Tomb Kings army. I still think it will.... somehow.

[Halelel]

Horrible horrible books

If I ever win the lottery, I will buy every BL Nagash book currently available and hold a mass book burning for the sake of humanity.

Not joking about this either.

[Sheena Easton]

They are poorly written (not as badly as the HE or Sigmar ones though) and crap over long established fluff from a great height...

One example of just how stupid they are - Arkhan The Black, Dark Lord Of Nagash, Scourge Of Araby and feared right hand of the usurper was so called...

because he had poor dental hygiene and ate some seeds that made his teeth black...

[Thoras]

They are poorly written (not as badly as the HE or Sigmar ones though) and crap over long established fluff from a great height...

One example of just how stupid they are - Arkhan The Black, Dark Lord Of Nagash, Scourge Of Araby and feared right hand of the usurper was so called...

because he had poor dental hygiene and ate some seeds that made his teeth black...

tbh i just got done reading Malekith, Shadow King and Path of the Warrior (40k i know, but same author) and thought they were a pretty solid read.

OOI why did you think otherwise?

[Shizzbam]

The problem I find with Gav Thorpe's writing is that it reads like an army book. There's a description of key events and what everyone did, but there's no character development, no emotional involvement. Its just "this happened" and that's about it, like it was a timeline or something

[Drongol]

tbh i just got done reading Malekith, Shadow King and Path of the Warrior (40k i know, but same author) and thought they were a pretty solid read.

OOI why did you think otherwise?

I'll jump in on this one--it seems I've been spreading around the BL anti-love quite a bit lately.

The "Sundering" series is just dry as a bone. It honestly reads like Tolkien to me--to interested in world building to create a coherent, gripping plotline. Part of the problem is that we all already know what's going to happen--GW has mapped out his historical event pretty well, after all, and the few surprises the author has in store are hardly earthshattering. Furthermore, it's a stylistic thing that's hard to pin down--it's not like the writing is bad, but it just seemed about as exciting as a textbook.

As far as the "Nagash" series, there are several issues. Firstly, ancient Nehekarah is extremely removed from the typical Warhammer setting, which makes the book feel out of place (it's not, really). Secondly, so much of the setting seemed to have been invented whole-cloth out of the mind of the author that I found myself scratching my head at times. It was like they wanted to take everything that was big and necromantic about the Tomb Kings and give it a plausible, steampunky ancestor--and while I love steampunk, it doesn't mix well with ancient Egypt.

Further compounding this is the very manifest nature of the Nehekaran gods--seriously, why are the king's Ushabti (which I thought meant statues, not bodyguards) half-human, half-divine beast or element?

[Brother of the Hydra]

They are poorly written (not as badly as the HE or Sigmar ones though) and crap over long established fluff from a great height...

One example of just how stupid they are - Arkhan The Black, Dark Lord Of Nagash, Scourge Of Araby and feared right hand of the usurper was so called...

because he had poor dental hygiene and ate some seeds that made his teeth black...

I thought this was great! Just because he did not slaughter the life out of x y or z to gain his nickname... it just goes to show the effect time, superstition and chinese whispers have on the world. I thought it was a refreshing change and cudos for being different and not taking the easy way out.

This is from someone that has Arkhan as my all time favourite character EVER and thats after what 16-17+ years. The books jump about a bit which in fairness bugs the life out of me but thats about it. Yes I wish Arkhan was in a proper Undead book rather than this Vampire Counts nonsense that we are being shovelled (hense no WH army) and yes I know I could exchange Vampire Counts for Immortals in my head but its not the same.

Truth is we are all interested in a hobby that has no fixed cannon, for good or ilk, so that means just suck it up...

[Shizzbam]

They aren't on the list of highest quality BL. This isn't the reason why undead fanatics don't like them though. It's because of just how dramatically they changed some of the fundamental fluff. Lots of new and strange magic a whole bunch of sometimes off the wall ideas.... People got a little scared that it would all end up in the new Tomb Kings army. I still think it will.... somehow.

Care to share some of those ideas and new fluff? For someone who'll never read the books but loves spoilers?

[death__lord]

Care to share some of those ideas and new fluff? For someone who'll never read the books but loves spoilers?

Ok if you want.

Vampires are created by blood transfusion, Abhorash was just another scheming bastard, Neferatem has suddenly changed her name, the two other bloodlines seems to never have existed, Khalida was not given the blood kiss by Neferata and therefore not saved by Asaph and there exist some sort of very ork like humans in the badlands.

There are probably more but this is all I can think of for now.

[Oguleth]

The more I read the threads about these books, the more I want to read them... If only to roll my eyes when comparing it to the old ways. The question is, how much depth does the characters have? Are they just emo nobles addicted to power, or does it go beyond that?

And using Robert Jordan as an example as a good writer... He is almost as repetetive as the whateverhisnameisagain's first Shannara book. Most books are 800 pages of nothing, and perhaps 100 with something of substance, and that's it. And it goes on and on and on...

[Lord of Divine Slaughter]

BL publishes some of the worst trash in this galaxy, there are a few tolerable pieces, but they are few and far between - unless you're just about 12 that is

[cyberspite]

Black library novels are OK as long as you have nothing to compare them to. Once you read something that is truly well-written, such as Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series for instance, they just don't compare.

[Lars Porsenna]

Black library novels are OK as long as you have nothing to compare them to. Once you read something that is truly well-written, such as Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series for instance, they just don't compare.

Does not compute...

I'd actually rank Jordan right in the same league as BL books (perhaps worse, since the hype he gets makes me expect decent books). Opinions are opinions of course...

Damon.

[BobtheInquisitor]

Black library novels are OK as long as you have nothing to compare them to. Once you read something that is truly well-written, such as Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series for instance, they just don't compare.

Hahahahahahahahah! Oh man! That's pretty rich. I guess BL will just never be able to fit in enough braid-tugging and disdainful sniffing for you literati.

There are lot of great BL books out there, so long as you go in expecting a Warhammer story. Just like The Expendables was a great movie so long as you go into it expecting an 80s action flick throwback. Complaining that The Expendables isn't Inception is missing the point. Compaining that BL books aren't A Song of Ice and Fire (Which is, so far, much higher quality than Wheel of Time, though it is spiraling) would also miss the point--not only are they written for different audiences, but BL books actually end eventually.

If I want to read some nice, thought-provoking fantasy, I'll go read Sword and Citadel by Gene Wolf, or some early LeGuin or some of the Russian fantasy that gets translated. If I want world-building or intrigue, then I'll get ASOIAF, the Malazan Books of the Fallen, The Warded Man, Glen Cook, or a dozen other authors, since that's 90% of modern high fantasy. If I want to read fun fantasy, I'll read Lovecraft, Howard and BL. And comparing Robert "Slow down, Tolkein, and let me tell you what they're wearing" Jordan to "quality fantasy" is like comparing "Tom Kratman" to "writes like Noam Chomsky."

[Aedes]

I also have to break a lance for BL here.
I havent read the Nagash books, but I can say that I was positively surprised about "Shadowking" and "Empire". IMHO good and exciting books.And I am not 12 years old....

[Lord of Divine Slaughter]

I also have to break a lance for BL here.
I havent read the Nagash books, but I can say that I was positively surprised about "Shadowking" and "Empire". IMHO good and exciting books.And I am not 12 years old....

Haven't read those. Only did Konrad and Felix & Gotrek, who are the possibly the greatest waste of paper even surpassing zimbabwean dollars.

Though I did like the Genevieve thing, and the Ravenor thing was okay.

[elusiveintrovert]

One thing I didn't like about the Nagash books was the lack of mention of the Mortuary cult throughout the books. For a death obsessed culture that revolved around that cult, it should be showing up more prominently.

My understanding of the war with Nagash from earlier background was that a lot of the fighting against Nagash was done by the mortuary cult. The Nehekaran resistance was supposed to be a bunch a angry people backed up by ushabti statues, bone giants, etc. By that book it seems that a lot of the constructs the Tomb Kings have were all made by Nagash hundreds of years after they were originally conceived by the Mortuary cult.

[Tregar]

The first book had some awesome ideas and neat concepts to it that I could really appreciate. What did it in was the parallel timelines, which was utterly confusing, especially when you consider that the two timelines might have similarly-named relatives or genericised characters that are so easily confused. I believe that if they re-released the book as one timeline, from start to end without the constant switching back and forth, it would be ten times better as a book.

The second book just took too many liberties with the established background. I have no problems with them expanding on previously unconsidered areas, like involving Cathay, fine by me, but when it's at the expense of major aspects of the background, it just plain sucks.

One of the most appealing aspects of reading these books is the "Oh, I wonder when THIS is going to happen, it's going to be really cool!", like when Neferatem becomes Neferata. But with Nagash the Undying, she's just Neferata the whole time. Similarly with the duel with Khalida, a key, established part of the background, the motives of the two characters and the end result are both completely changed. In other words, it's worse than useless.

[Ka Faraq Gatri]

Similarly with the duel with Khalida, a key, established part of the background, the motives of the two characters and the end result are both completely changed. In other words, it's worse than useless.

Actually, I really liked that. The original source material for that duel is the Tomb Kings army book which is, as it should be, TK-centric, with all the events portrayed told from THEIR point of view.

In this case, the duel is told as Khalida would have told it, casting her as the heroine. The "true" events, as told in the novel, are a little different. If we get the story again in a Lahmian Vampires book, I'm sure it would be different again.

This is what I like the most about the ToL/HH series - seeing the story behind what we think we know from army books/codices, which all take a biased viewpoint.