Nick Kyme

One of the many ex-Games Workshop staff members who now works for Black Library. It would of course be completely unfair to point that Black Library does seem to hire a lot of people they already know.

Has written a lot of mediocre stuff for BL, including a series on the Salamanders and a tie-in novel for the Assault of Black Reach box set. The Black Reach novel tie-in is actually a bit of an outlier in that it's actually good. He has written almost all of the Salamanders and Salamanders-related material using his position as an editor to actively block anyone else. After all, his prize possession is a Vulkan dakimakura. He has been reviled by many fans as his work takes priority over more popular authors; Kyme’s books always get published, regardless of their quality or demand. Seriously though this guy has a hard-on for the Salamanders. It should be said tho that the books Deathfire and the Anthology Born of Flame are not only quite good in this writers opinion, but also do a great job of characterizing the Salamander legion. The Born of Flame anthology is a slog to get through, and Deathfire.. where to begin? He's tried to structure it to match Ulysses, including matching up story elements, having them meet the cyclops on the way (vision of Magnus in the warp), and having it split into chapters to match it. Of course, Nick Kyme isn't James Joyce, and Deathfire sure as fuck isn't Ulysses. And let's not forget the horrendous finish, where they literally burn the life eater virus out of the atmosphere with giant flamethrowers. Kyme's characterisation of the Salamander legion is the same here as in every other Horus Heresy book he wrote; that is to say, every Salamander has almost exactly the same personality, simultaneously bland and overdone in their aggressively self-sacrificing nature.

Though he does do some writing, it appears his main function at Black Library is as an editor, and has worked on many anthologies through the years. As such, he is thought to be the subject of much rage and hatred from fans who quite rightly blame him for Black Library's spotty editing and the way he wilfully ignores the contributions of more popular BL authors. Thankfully he isn't connected to the commissioning process any more, and has no control over (Black Library's continuing search for new talent).

It's worth noting that while he is the editor of other writers, he apparently does not have an editor for his own books (which explains a lot).

Kyme's main flaws are as follows:

1. He is bad at giving space marines a personality, especially when they are Salamanders, the legion he has a hard-on for.
2. He tries to do pretentious things, like making Deathfire into a 40k Ulysses, or trying to go through the stages of grief with the trials in Vulkan Lives. Tries and fails.
3. The dialogue from his characters reads like it's lifted from a consumer-friendly action movie script (think Avengers). There are exceptions where this is so bad it's good, such as when something is also a hammer.

As long as his books sell reliably well and he does not commit any truly grievous errors, we're stuck with him. He is also the only person cursed-willing enough to write Sicarius.

He is not Ben Counter.

He's also one half of the Kyme-Thorpe law which states 'all Dark Angel and Salamander books must be shit.'