Tuesday, February 26, 2013

It means "really very good"

It's Black Library Live this coming Saturday in Nottingham, home of the eternally burning galaxy. I hope we'll see you there.

But besides, that... Other business.  I do like to collect a good phrase, me. A nice, fresh, unexpected use of language. A few weeks ago, the writer Sarah Pinborough declared on her Facebook thread that "If I write more than four thousand words a day, my brain turns to wang." Turns to wang. I ask you. That's just brilliant. You don't see Shakespeare doing that.

Sarah's a great source of such elegant combinations of words. She said something about the Pope's resignation too. She described it as him "fucking off from his Popehood." Because that's what it should be called, officially. In the Vatican. On scrolls.

She's a fine writer, so it's no wonder she turns a memorable phrase. Another memorable phrase that dropped into my lap recently came in an email to this very website, which described one of my books as "pretty boss sausage". It means "really very good". I am now using it. I am also now using the "turns to wang" thing too.

Nik found something that was pretty boss sausage the other day (behold how I am using it in a sentence AND making a passable segue out of it? Yeah? Yeah? Get me and me fancy writing footwork). Anyway, it was this, a write up of Ravenor that properly made my day. Enjoy.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Mr Abnett,

The only reason I have any interest in WH/WH40K is your stories. Your books are the only thing I buy that is related to GW IP.

However, the reason I like checking on your blog on a regular basis is because I want to hear your Stuart Lee stories!

P.S. Any chance of an update on release dates for your upcoming books/comics? Loved The New Deadwardians.

Tom

Anonymous said...

Agreed with another anonymous =) Your novels coupled with Aarons complete my full black library read list. And now BL Live tour - awesome. Hope you will get to Europe eventually =)

Caleb Wachter said...

Going to have to work some of these phrases into my own stories, along with credit where it's due.

T. Ryan Arnold said...

I was recently trying to describe to my wife what it was I liked about your work in particular. Outside of Sandy Mitchell and James Swallow I'd say that yours are the only books that really capture a sense of the human beings in this crazy melodramatic (and frankly a bit silly setting). Lately I've been reading a lot more "serious" SciFi and I find the 40K stuff a bit hard to go back to. But on a whim I decided to re-read first and only and here again I just can't put it down. I think if you stripped away all the 40K stuff and just made this a story set in a unique (but perhaps slightly derrivative) setting it would still be just as a great a book. I hadn't really thought about the femisit / queer inclusive aspects of your books, but I think perhaps subconsciously this is why the only warhammer book I would ever recommend to a non-warhammer fan would be "Double Eagle" or the Ravenor omnibus. Anyway, keep up the good work. And do try to see your way clear to get back to north america at some point.

Anonymous said...

Mr. Abnett
Will you write another Iron Snake novel and will Guant ever get the planet that he was promised?

Nic