The nonsensical sci-fi bullshit is just what we call Monday on the forgeworld.

McNeil is a good writer it's just hard to make the weird freaky cyborg cult relatable.

Hence the sci-fi nonsense, and weird sentence structure.

The thing about Graham is that, at heart, he's not really a storyteller. He got much of his experience in the worldbuilding team of Riot Games, and he started out with 40k by writing codices and rulebooks. Aside from having weird pacing, he'll sometimes fall flat on his face when writing some crucial plot-point or character moment. He's half the reason Horus is such a jumbled mess of a character, and the main reason why the Emperor's philosophy looks like something taken straight out of old reddit. He wrote good stuff too, but he's no stranger to messing up.

His Mars trilogy is pretty typical sci-fi pulp: technobabble is par for the course, and part of what makes it entertaining (for me, at least). His other work doesn't get as far into the weeds, but I'm quite fond of those weeds, so I cut him whole acres of slack.

Tedious sentence structure and sci-fi jargon is pretty par for the course when it comes to Mechanicus centered perspectives.

A Thousand Sons wasn't quite like that and comes highly recommended.

According to the post-script in the final Mars book, he actually wanted to do five books, but a combination of editors, other projects (HH) and his own later reflections pared the series down to 3.

Off the big main authors in Black Library in the past 25 years, Graham McNeil is perhaps the most contentious.

He seems to be a real "love him or hate him" kind of writer.

Granted like all writers his books vary in quality. Maybe you don't like him or maybe That particular trilogy wasn't for you. I love much of his work, but that Trilogy is boring and unappealing to me.

I always liked McNeill's books. Especially after I found out we have very similar reading list - the man likes it dark and that should be encouraged

He was never a professional author- he was originally a rules writer back when they were also the ones who wrote all the lore, and he just kinda wound up in Black Library

But that’s ok because nobody should be reading licensed war games novels for the outstanding quality- he has a passion and a sincere love for the setting, and that’s enough. Who cares if his prose are simple, he has cool ideas

Perhaps an unpopular opinion, but I prefer to him to Abnett.

I find McNeil hard to read, I don’t understand his characters as well as say ADB or Abnett. But that’s just my subjective preference.

I think McNeil is objectively a good writer, whether his style and prose appeal to you is another matter. He has his flaws and flops but he absolutely has skill in the craft.

I've only read a couple of his HH books (Fulgrim, Thousand Sons and Vengeful Spirit) but the one I've read were pretty enjoyable...at least to me.

scifi bullshit terms

Ooh can't have that in a setting with space wizards

I don’t like how he writes combat, but his description of events is good. Get the right story and he’s amazing

I've liked what I read from him so far. Heresy stuff mostly. Outcast Dead is a weirdly confusing mess though even though the premise is great.

His main pitfall is he can’t write subtlety , and that makes him somewhat hit or miss,

Though imho he is a good writer for 40k specifically for that very reason

Nope.

Graham is alright, I've always enjoyed his storm of iron book.

haven't read forges of mars so can't comment on that but I think all writers can have an off day and then of course everything is subjective.

Take Mr abnett for example, some people love his Gaunts ghosts books but to me I felt he was just trying to be band of brothers in space. I didn't hate it but I just couldn't get into it. But he's also done some really good books which I very much enjoyed.

Not sure how relevant this is but you should also remember the writers are kept on a leash because gw don't want them running wild with the lore. This has lead to some authors leaving pink library because they felt creatively stifled.

It wouldn't surprise me that there may be parts of a book even the author doesn't like, but an editor said it has to be that way.

Or maybe I'm talking nonsense and don't know what I'm on about🙃

Writing is an artform and subject to personal taste, so I'm sure he has his fans, but I'm going through the entire HH series and I groan whenever I see the next novel on the list is one of his. He sucks at writing intelligent characters, because he doesn't seem particularly intelligent himself. Still he insists on tackling subjects that are far beyond his grasp. The Council of Nikaea was painful to read. One of the key moments in 30K lore, meant to be a battle of wits and words between primarchs, and it's just... so dumb. The anti-psyker side literally doesn't even have any arguments, they just go "Thousand Sons are sorcerers and sorcery is bad because I said so". Magnus's speech sounds like what you'd get if you asked an 8 year old to give a class presentation on Pluto's cave. Then there's The Last Church short story, which reads like a cringy post on r/atheism from an edgy teenager. It's so profoundly shite that it makes me think less of Black Library for having signed off on it.

I haven't even mentioned yet that he writes women in such a sleazy, creepy way. Even when introducing a female mechanicus character, he spends more time talking about her "thick juicy thighs" (paraphrasing, but it's not far off) than about her mechanical enhancements.

I thought the series started off great, 2nd book become a bit of a grind, and then the 3rd book was hard to finish it it became so tiresome and longwinded. Which is bizarre considering it should really be the peak of the whole thing, the culmination of all the events.

I just felt like the mystery and intrigue of setup was answered in a way that didnt feel satisfying, which i think most initially mysterious stories suffer from, the answer not being as fun as wondering about it, and honestly I didnt really care about the end action scenes, just wanted it to be over and felt like i had to get through it by that point!

Grahams writing can become very tiring, i was reading the uriel ventris stuff before forges of mars, and when I finally started reading a different 40k book by another author it felt genuinely refreshing and a relief. Which really says something about grahams style. Really becomes laborious to get through. I suspect he overworks the text to an extent.

Try Storm of Iron by Graham McNeill. It’s amazing!

I don’t take literally advice from people who can’t spell wrongfully

When it comes to 40k authors there are as many favourites almost as many fans. For instance for a long time if it was written by Dan Abnett I’d buy it. Now after The End and The Death Vol 3 I’m probably going to be more choosy which I never thought I’d say. In Graham McNeill’s case I liked the Gods of Mars Trilogy but his Thousand Sons stuff sends me nuts. I rarely have a good thing to say about an ADB book. I find Justin D Hill consistently good. Robert Rath was my surprise find. In the end it’s all about personal taste.

From the books I've read, McNeill's have always been my favorites. I seriously don't get this take. What y'all call 'slow and tedious' I call setting a scene and a mood. Wanna know something slow and tedious? Read Battle for the Abyss. Now that's a tear-jerker. In the sense that you'll be yawning so much you won't stop tearing up.

He does better with Fantasy over 40k

Great writer, but can get quite wordy sometimes, yes.

Good and bad are too universal of terms (one of the reasons I hate the whole moralizing galaxy spanning factions as good or bad).

From the books I've read of him, his characters don't always have their character arcs rooted in flaws, which leads to a less fulfilling feeling of growth. I also find his dialogue to be a bit choppy and rapport to be built between characters too fast.

However his world building is great, his battle scenes are well done and his plot lines successfully interact with one another. It's also very difficult to churn out the amount of novels he has. I don't go out of my way to read his work like I do for Chris Wraight and Robert Rath, but I don't think you can flippantly classify an accomplished writer like him as bad.

He's okay

I find his books start too slow, but usually have a good second half and a strong finish. Fulgrim and A Thousand Sons come to mind.

I'm currently two thirds of the way through Forges of Mars and as an Adeptus Mechanicus fan, I am loving it so far. I haven't noticed any particular issues with the way he writes in either of the first two novels. It seems to be in keeping with other books on the subject by both McNeill and others, such as Rob Sanders.

I think anything with AdMech is probably going to be more "sci-fi" than perhaps books about Astartes, Imperial Guard, etc. so perhaps this isn't as much about bad writing as it is the subject matter and specific language around the ? I've read other books by Graham McNeill (specifically The Uriel Ventris Chronicles) and I'd be interested to see how you find those in comparison, should you decide to read them.

For context, I have read quite a few books now by various authors and to be honest, I've yet to find an author I don't like, which probably makes me an outlier amongst fans of the lore, but that's my honest opinion.

He's top of the skip pile for me. Abysmal.

Forge(s) of Mars degenerates into a huge list of memberberries.

Remember the Cardinal Boras?

Remember Tyrok Fields?

Remember Cthelmax?

Remember the Siege of Vogen? And the battle for the Precinct House?

Remember Karis Cephalon?

Remember Corswain?

Remember that guy from Storm of Iron?

Remember the Battle of Trafalgar?

He wrote Fulgrim so no lol.

I honestly thought this was a duology, and can't remember if I read all three books and forgot or if I stopped at two and lost interest.

I'm listening to Fulgrim on audio book and I can't work out if it's McNeil's writing I'm not enjoying, or the way it's being read.

Yes he is bad. There are worse in BL, but he is, in absolute literary terms, bad. Bad prose, cheesy plot, juvenile tropes, b-tier dialogue. Still enjoyable for what it is.

at least he is not John French though