Dan Abnett

This article is awesome. Do not fuck it up.

Dan Abnett is the most popular author of Games Workshop paper book publishing division, the Black Library.

Even his Spess Mahrines are godly.

Series include Gaunt's Ghosts (an amazing starter book for people getting into the 40k fluff), Eisenhorn (fantastic) and Ravenor (OMGAWESOME-ICRIEDBUKKETS). Also, he saved Ollanius Pius from Squat territory. He. Fucking. Saved. Ollanius. Motherfucking. Pius.

Dan is known for fun action writing and for occasional throwing off Warhammer fluff in favor of the rule of Awesome, like Imperial Guardsmen weapon teams toting around Autocannons the size of a howitzer. And being able to fight anything the 40k Universe can throw at them including killing tanks with tennis balls. Unlike a certain molester of pen and paper, this is not done flippantly but mostly for the betterment of the work itself.

Suffice to say, his characters are very well developed, and are both distinctive and original; he can write a god-damn action scene better than any; the areas Dan describes sound achingly beautiful; he's a versatile writer and... look, he's won tons of awards for his stuff, many believe he's the best Black Library have got, he's written around 20 books for them and each one is brilliant. He even made his own (awesome) Space Marine chapter known as the IRON SNAKES, that comes off looking like the Ultramarines if they were actually intelligent, adapted their battlestyle to suit each enemy (they do have a disdain for tanks though), and came across as likeable individuals AND godlike beings.

His graphic novels Imperial Gothic, Damnation Crusade, Lone Wolves and Condemned By Fire are pure sex.

TL;DR: Dan Abnett is a godly writer who expresses Humanity, fuck yeah! in the most epic way possible. Perhaps his only weakness is his marked preference for human vs human works. The number of his works that feature Xenos prominently can be counted with your hands. For those who are tired of Chaos, this can be a bad thing.

Dan Abnett has also teamed up with another BL author Mike Lee to make the Malus Darkblade Warhammer Fantasy book series.

Dan Abnett also wrote the script for the Ultramarines movie. It's a fair assumption that he only wrote for about 45 minutes worth of the (90 minute) movie, as the actions scenes are excellent and the dialogue is solid, but there's a whole lot of silent walks through the desert.

He, along with Sandy Mitchell and Graham McNeil make up the holy trinity of awesome 40k writers. Obviously, Dan takes the role of God. (WHAT DOES THAT MAKE ADB THEN, VIRGIN MARY? They're the Chaos Gods of awesome 40k writers, obviously, with Abnett as Khorne, Mitchell as Nurgle, McNeil as Tzeench and ADB as Slaanesh. Obviously. Given ADB's love for World Eaters, this makes the comparison hilarious.)

He also writes some pretty cool comics with his probably-best friend Andy Lanning. Surprisingly, this list includes IDW's ongoing Transformers series. Even more surprisingly, these comics are complete shit Heart of Darkness was awesome GTFO. So maybe, just maybe there is a teeny tiny hope of a Transformers-Warhammer 40k crossover somewhere down the line. Because we've all wanted to see Optimus Prime as a land raider.

It should be noted that his cosmic Marvel comics with probably-best friend Andy Lanning are not at all shit, and are in fact some of the greatest modern Marvel comics. The Thanos Imperative stands out amongst them, and is worth a read even if you have no familiarity with Cosmic Marvel or the Marvel Universe at all. Like, seriously, go get that shit right now. I'm not fucking kidding. It's what got me into comics.

He also helped write a Judge Dredd Comic called Insurrection, not sure on quality but the villains look like Necrons on the cover. [Judge Dredd, Transformers, WH 40K crosssover anyone?]