LotDM: Genestealer Cults by Peter Fehervari

[DarkChaplain]

Finally we're getting a second novel by Peter Fehervari, even if it is packaged as a generic Legends of the Dark Millennium book.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The galaxy is vast, and worship of the God-Emperor by His faithful takes many forms.
The Spiral Dawn is one of the countless sanctioned sects of the Imperial Cult. As a gathering of Spiralytes make their holy pilgrimage to Redemption, the sect's world of origin and a shrine world of the Imperium, they find not a haven of enlightenment and introspection, but a soot-choked hellhole where their order's founders and an unorthodox regiment of Astra Militarum maintain an uneasy coexistence. As tensions between the serene congregation and the superstitious Guardsmen mount, the new arrivals begin to unravel the dark secrets concealed at the heart of their faith.

 

It's a typically thoughtful and bizarre tale from Peter Fehervari that exposes just how insidious and devastating Genestealer Cults can be.

 

Can't wait to dig into this one and discover the ties to the Dark Coil.

[Kelborn]

ooooooh :O

 

So it's mortals (and not SM) against genestealers?

 

Sounds interesting, especially when it also has some pov from the cult as well.

[DarkChaplain]

Its the kind of story Fehervari has done really well with in the past, too. This should bring up some pretty nasty psycho horror

[Soldier of Dorn]

What else did this guy write??? I don't recognize his name.

[DarkChaplain]

I just listed his stuff to another user on another thread. Should cover it all.

 

DukeLeto69, I'd recommend anything written by Peter Fehervari to you, if you haven't read it. Seems like you'd appreciate that. His works are as follows:

 

Fire Caste (novel),

The Crown of Thorns (short story)

Legends of the Dark Millennium: Tau Empire (Fire and Ice (novella), Out Caste (short story), A Sanctuary of Wyrms (short story)),

Deathwatch: Ignition (The Walker in Fire (short story),

The Space Marines Omnibus  / Heroes of the Space Marines (Nightfall (short story)) and

The Omnissiah's Chosen (Vanguard (short story)).

 

All of them connect in one way or another, creating a thicker mystery and mythos. It takes some digging sometimes, but when you get behind it, it feels damn rewarding. It is grim, often psychological horror, and less about the action. The order you read the stories in isn't really relevant, but the more you read, or revisit, the more engaging it becomes I've found.

[Augustus]

Thanks for bringing this guy to my(our) attention DC. I'll definitely pick up his work and give it a go.

[DukeLeto69]

I just listed his stuff to another user on another thread. Should cover it all.

 

 

DukeLeto69, I'd recommend anything written by Peter Fehervari to you, if you haven't read it. Seems like you'd appreciate that. His works are as follows:

 

Fire Caste (novel),

The Crown of Thorns (short story)

Legends of the Dark Millennium: Tau Empire (Fire and Ice (novella), Out Caste (short story), A Sanctuary of Wyrms (short story)),

Deathwatch: Ignition (The Walker in Fire (short story),

The Space Marines Omnibus  / Heroes of the Space Marines (Nightfall (short story)) and

The Omnissiah's Chosen (Vanguard (short story)).

 

All of them connect in one way or another, creating a thicker mystery and mythos. It takes some digging sometimes, but when you get behind it, it feels damn rewarding. It is grim, often psychological horror, and less about the action. The order you read the stories in isn't really relevant, but the more you read, or revisit, the more engaging it becomes I've found.

 

Whoa that's a bit spooky. Dark Chaplain recommends I read some of this guys work and then bang...it is announced he has a new book coming out (first for a while I think). As I am also looking forward to finally getting a Genestealer Cult Codex (purely for the fluff as no longer play) this is pretty exciting stuff!

[veterannoob]

yeah, thanks DC. Another author to interview . But I'm excited about your recommendation so I'll pick this one up next weekend.

[DarkChaplain]

Please do, his ideas deserve the attention.

 

Right off the bat, there's a quote to open it, attributed to the protagonist from Fire and Ice. And like in Fire and Ice, there's some close-up with a Xenos species. Just reading the prologue and having the Genestealers' role and evolution explored is great. I don't think its ever been done on this level. And then it switches back and forth to Sororitas, which we can always use more of.

[Kilofix]

Read it. Good book.

 

Not bolter porn. Lots of character interaction. Some plot twists. Provides insight into Cult working (i.e. Not just "hey my baby is purple and has claws but I don't notice"). At the start I couldn't tell who was Cult and who wasn't.

 

Includes:

 

 

 

Insight on how Genestealer Cult appropriates and falsely aligns with Imperial Cult.

Insight on Patriarch metamorphosis from regular Genestealer.

All levels of cult infiltration from uninfected but unwitting cult followers, to newly infected humans, to cult born hybrids.

Insight on hybrid birth (quick but not instant).

Aberrants.

Magus interacting with humans.

Internal Cult dynamics.

Guard dynamics.

 

Plot involves Cult infiltration and takeover of Sororitas planet. Cult becomes dominant faction on planet. New Civillians arrive. Interaction between Cult, Guard stationed on planet and Civillians. Other factions show up towards the end. Plot twist.

 

 

[SchultzChaos]

I loved Fehervari's Fire Caste, so I threw myself on this book when I noticed the author. Good plot points and some interesting characters. Though what saddened me was the length of the book, which really isn't working for its own good. There's alot of things happening and they don't get to shine nor being properly explored. Give this book maybe 200-300 pages more and it would have been a killer.

 

So many Black Library pieces suffer from this baffling policy that they need to be short and fast paced. Alot of great plots and characters just vanishes for the page count. Please, please Black Library! Grow up!!!

[DarkChaplain]

The "Cast a Hungry Shadow" short story released on monday ties into the novel too, set between prologue and first chapter, but best kept for after from what I gather.

 

I'm 33% through the novel and enjoying it massively. Really spot on depiction of the cults, with the usual thick atmosphere and plenty of ties to Fehervari's other works. If you've read Fire Caste and Fire and Ice, you'll even see some more or less familiar characters again.

[Kelborn]

Sounds really great.

Exactly what I was hoping for. :)

I'll maybe save money by purchasing this novel instead of their codex. ^^

[Taliesin]

I loved Fehervari's Fire Caste, so I threw myself on this book when I noticed the author. Good plot points and some interesting characters. Though what saddened me was the length of the book, which really isn't working for its own good. There's alot of things happening and they don't get to shine nor being properly explored. Give this book maybe 200-300 pages more and it would have been a killer.

 

So many Black Library pieces suffer from this baffling policy that they need to be short and fast paced. Alot of great plots and characters just vanishes for the page count. Please, please Black Library! Grow up!!!

 

1) So how many pages is the book? I would be getting the hardcover.

2) Agreed with the page count limits. It struck me when I started with the HH series how all the books are around 400 pages. And those are the ones that they allow to be bigger than 40k books. But even then, it's all a bit odd that every HH novel is written with a clear guidelines of about 400 pages in mind. You see it with this year's releases as well. It's all between 400-430 pages. That is no coincidence but clear guideline by BL.

[veterannoob]

Re: book length I suggest (and would appreciate) sending a request to BL email and asking for them to commission longer books. It seems like a very common piece of feedback and I did earlier in the year and encourage anyone else who feels this way (Teh Internetzzz) to do the same. At least that way they receive the feedback. Address the letter to the one in charge of how long commissions will be.

[DarkChaplain]

I think the shorter novels are here to stay. It is an inevitability of GW/BL's release policies. They have to balance the quantity of output to keep up with the rule of thumb of "a novel a week" while keeping their workloads, and those of their authors, manageable. We're getting a massive amount of new stuff over the coming 6-8 months, even if we're just looking at Amazon for sneak peeks.

 

That wouldn't be possible if authors had to put in roughly double the time to write the books, and editors had to invest probably three times as much time as right now to read through the drafts and make adjustments, working with the authors. Their authors have been pumping out a lot more individual books lately, on many more different topics than in the past, where they'd spend many months on even just one.

 

Of course, I too would love to have more longer novels again. Even just comparing books like Crusaders of Dorn, Khârn: Eater of Worlds and Sons of Titan to your average Space Marine Battles book from the past years, while seeing the same exact pricetags on them, is making me mad. But then I also get why this is happening, and can support it on some level.

 

Raw length isn't really a concern for me. Classics like Angels of Darkness and other novels from yesteryear weren't much, if any, longer than new releases right now. They were still good books. There are also plenty of longer novels which don't need to hit 400 pages and feel padded and spread too thinly. Then you have novels that could well use another 200 pages to flourish. Some stories are best told as novellas, others may even just need a short story. I don't mind that at all - I just think that the editors at BL need to recognize that just commissioning a "50k word novel on topic x" isn't the way to go in some cases.

 

Things at BL have been changing again lately, and they've come from being almost purely about putting up topics with certain requirements and authors calling dibs to being approachable with authors' pitches again. Robbie MacNiven, for example, managed to pitch his Red Tithe Carcharodons novel to them, something that before wouldn't have been possible. Peter Fehervari is finally back in action after a few years where his approach to 40k wouldn't have gone through with the higher ups' requirements.

 

What I'm trying to say is that, at last, BL is improving on the communications front with their authors again. We had a few dire years and many of the decisions made then still cast a hungry shadow ( ;) ) on us for the foreseeable future. But things are improving, and I'd rather have editors and authors discuss the right format for a pitch than having them get stuck with *any* specific format requirement, whether it be 50k or 100k or 120k words. Or even just 25k. The right format for every story. BL needs to maintain a somewhat coherent lineup of novels, but they need to become much more flexible and realize that they have many different demographics interested in their products. Which, I think, they might just be on the verge of doing.

 

And yes, bloody hell, GW, have appropriate prices on your stuff. C'mon.

[Taliesin]

I generally don't mind the prices for the hardbacks, they are fine at some EUR 25.00. They also have plenty of collections.

 

The Limited Editions are absurd though, and what you get for that sort of money really isn't worth it even if you do like the story. EUR 55.00 for a LE of Leman Russ or Roboute for instance, that is just not in keeping with the product. These books are under 200 pages.

 

And of course there will always be people saying "yes but look at how fast they sold them" but that is another matter entirely. It's not a reasonable price of course, but there will always be fans or collectors happy to pay it for whatever personal reason.

 

The other thing are the novellas which are sometimes priced as novels, that too is something that sticks out pricing wise.

[DarkChaplain]

Eh, they barely manage to sell out on limited editions these days. Even ignoring Age of Sigmar which hasn't sold out even a single one so far, limited editions struggle. That's something that has affected the Horus Heresy and 40k for the past year or two. Arjac Rockfist was available for at least half a year and Garro: Vow of Faith was in stock until recently too.

 

Hardback novellas are often priced at 20€ now, originally 17,50€ when they started making them. Now the short novels are priced at that, which seems a bit awkward.

[HeritorA]

Peter Fehervari  - I'm sold! author of the 'Fire Caste' - DOUBLE SOLD!

It's an excellent continuation to his previous work and greatest novellas of them all 'Fire and Ice', that is atmospheric, brutal, and filled with horror. If the previous tale was about a man lost in his own 'heart of darkness', this one is about the humanity darkness in general.

[Kelborn]

A book/ author even Heri has nothing against it/ him?

 

Need that pic with Dicaprio

 

First, I was curious

Now you got my attention

 

;)

[HeritorA]

A book/ author even Heri has nothing against it/ him?

Need that pic with Dicaprio

First, I was curious

Now you got my attention

There are some authors, which are so brilliant - you can't say something bad against them even if you want to.

[Jareddm]

I haven't read 'Fire Caste', but I did read 'The Crown of Thorns' and it was absolutely wonderful.

[DarkChaplain]

I'd encourage reading Fire Caste, Jareddm. Knowing Crown of Thorns, you'll be able to connect some dots there! One of the characters from CoT is also featured in the Deathwatch story The Walker in Fire.

[Kelborn]

are these books still obtainable? At least as book?

[Taliesin]

^{So how many pages is this book, roughly?}

 

 

 

are these books still obtainable? At least as book?

 

Available here:

 

http://www.blacklibrary.com/warhammer-40000/40k-novs/shaso-hardback.html

 

and 

 

http://www.blacklibrary.com/all-products/lotdm-tau-empire-ebook.html