Aaron Dembski-Bowden
Aaron is not Graham McNeil.
Aaron is a writer of 40K awesomeness for the Black Library and an occasional Fa/tg/uy, and a member of the Bald Brotherhood of Awesome 40K Writers, also known as the Bald Bards of Steel. He's also involved in the fan project The Lord Inquisitor, but is just one of many involved. He also has a blog. Also worked on Hunter: The Vigil. He also wrote a short story for League of Legends From the Ashes and wrote the short pieces of fiction, Dude, Where's my Land Speeder?, and What it's like.
He's also well-liked by Daemonhunter lore masters, due to his effort in at least making the new Grey Knights lore more palatable (given the rage-inducing material he had to work with). Where there was once just Mary Sues after the Glory Days of 3rd Ed, now there is at least a semblance of deeper character to the 5th Ed Grey Knights outside the idiocy written by a certain Spiritual Liege. He even ties them back into threads left from Ravenor, so that the influence of Saint Abnett can cleanse them. He's also pretty well-liked by Ultramarine players for making them cool again. In fact, he's pretty good at making all factions awesome but imperfect; see, for example, his portrayal of Angron. While Angron is indeed a dreaded unstoppable killing machine, he's also a pitiful character who blames others for his problems.
He also wrote arguably the best speech in the 40k setting in Grimaldus’ to the people of Helsreach. It’s on his page, go check it out. Seriously, it’ll give you goosebumps.
Lately, he has also committed himself to rehabilitating the reputation of Abaddon the Despoiler, with all the controversy that implies. Although he's certainly not above ripping into old Failbaddon either, as evidenced in the Night Lords trilogy where Talos has nothing but open contempt for him, point blank outlining all the reasons the Despoiler and his Legion suck, to his face. This is particularly noteworthy when contrasted with Talos' genuine respect for Huron Blackheart's power, authority, and achievements, even while planning on backstabbing the Corsairs. It's important to remember that ADB has claimed these are just Talos' views, and not his own, which is a common thing in his books.
Lest you think we're going soft, though, we should point out that he has lately received some pretty harsh criticism, mostly for his portrayal of the Emperor as a raging torrent of incompetence and jackassery the likes of which Earth had not seen since Mussolini made his last public appearance upside down at a petrol station (although, to be fair, said portrayals are from the point of view of traitor legions who have a... less than positive view of the guy). Some have even accused him of turning the Horus Heresy books into a public therapy session for his daddy issues, which is comparable to CS Goto using his books as a public therapy session for his depression at not having the chops to be a Hollywood screenwriter. He also has a major issue with making the characters he likes look perfect while shitting on other groups; see especially his Grey Knights book which just becomes a Space Wolves wank, and The First Heretic, which is utterly fantastic - except the two pages his beloved Night Lords show up and snark all over the Word Bearers.
Through ADB's novels you can notice a few common themes:
- He likes Chaotic neutral(ish) characters.
- With the above in mind, he is great at writing Robert E. Howard-styled characters (how is that he hasn't written any Conan pastiche?)
- He enjoys writing in first-point-of-view, although he can work in third-point-of-view.
- He mostly portrays Space Marines in his novels, although he has a few works with non-Space Marine characters as well.
- If there is a ship at one of his stories, expect him to make the ship be controlled by a young woman. He says he tries to balance the testosterone with female mortal characters.
- He also isn't really sympathetic to order-aligned factions.
- He tends to write events through the protagonist's perception and thus has to spend lots of time telling people not to take the opinions of said protagonist (for example, anything said by or about the Emperor in The Master of Mankind) at face value. To be fair, considering the average neckbeard's tendency to erect anything written as holy unalterable canon, it is a necessary reminder.
- He seems to have been at the forefront of breaking the classic image of the Emperor, turning him from a grimdark Sigmar into an emotionless Lex Luthor (though this is still the approximation of "good" in 30k and 40k).
- He considers the 40k franchise fated to be won by Chaos, which will make it funny seeing him getting charged to write some stuff about Age of Sigmar. Though to be fair, even the Grey Knights Codex indirectly conceded that Chaos will probably be the faction to eventually win, and eventually could mean any time from the next century to billions of years after the collapse of the Imperium.
- He is quickly approaching Dan Abnett's record of number of beloved characters murdered. Seriously. Reading his books, especially the Horus Heresy ones, is like watching him rip your heart out and chew on it while he coos: "Was it good for you too?"
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ADB goes and defends Failbaddon.
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