Black Library Big Brother

[Bulwyf]

I voted for Lord of the Night. I still prefer that version of Konrad Curze as a legit split personality with the Imperium literally sending out assassins and forces to stop the Night Lords before the Heresy started. It makes the Night Lords sense of betrayal as seen by Sahaal (and you as the reader) that much more poignant.

[Cleanse And Purify]

Drachenfels totally deserves the win. Kim Newman is a great author, his Anno Dracula series is some seriously mighty stuff. Wish he still wrote for BL.

 

Also Brothers of the Snake is pretty good IMO. Really captures the "Astartes as mythic demigod warriors" angle. Also manages to pack more flavor and character into the Iron Snakes than the Ultramarines have ever gotten :p

[Sandlemad]

Good for Kim Newman then but I always thought his vampire books were sort of... re-skins of non-WHFB stuff. Felt more 18th century than holy roman empire.

 

Didn't care for the Brothers of the Snake but yeah, it gets the greek demigod-hero thing down better than almost anything else in the BL back catalogue. A good intro for new readers - particularly in that give the perspective of someone to whom astartes are only legends, good to really hammer it home - if sadly lacking in the primo weirdness that Space Marine brings to the table.

[Arkangilos]

Ah, Space Marine . . .

 

I'm not sure which I enjoyed more, the novel or this review

 

http://ferretbrain.com/articles/article-288

I have no idea where he is getting the gay undertones from. Nothing he listed gives the impression of that. I don't know, maybe it's because I'm infantry and so everything but the level of pain seems like a normal thing to me.

[Cleanse And Purify]

Some of that review is just the internet's tendency to see any friendship (occasionally any interaction at all) between people of the same sex as romantic/sexualized. C.f. tumblr, or any fandom that falls prey to the idiocy that is 'shipping.' That being said, I did get a kind of repressed homosexual feelings vibe from Yeremi, but the novel also intimates that all the normal sexual feelings the Marines have become rerouted into violent urges that they learn to control through self-discipline and hypno-conditioning. There is one part in particular when the young neophytes are feeling "hormonal," as it were, but can't understand what it is they are feeling anymore or even recognize it (Lexandro and Biff, at the very least, were not virgins upon induction, IIRC the start of the novel implies they both had had sex with women in their respective gangs) and instead they become hyper-violent and get unleashed on some primitives that the Fists keep for just that purpose.

 

Could be remembering it wrong though, read the novel a while ago.

[plastic_slug]

The only thing more disappointing than the final results was the amount of support the terrible Space Marine novel got here. It is a curiosity of 40K history, but not a good book. 

[Arkangilos]

Clearly a lot of us disagree :p

[Felix Antipodes]

One out of two as my voting went (Drachenfels) but happy with the results over all. Best result would be BL taking a hint and begins restoring their back catalogue to print starting with the runners up in this vote.

[Ascanius]

From that review of Space Marine:

 

I can understand why Games Workshop chose not to reprint it; whilst I'd be the first to condemn them if they discontinued a book because it contained a gay relationship, I can see why they might object to Watson implying that an entire chapter of Space Marines are butt-branding sadomasochists.

 

Oh, yes, and there's a sequence where the Space Marines eat some people's brains to get their knowledge. I don't think they can do that any more in canon.

 

Very funny to read that second paragraph so recently after reading Black Legion, where they do exactly that.

 

I voted for Drachenfels as well, incidentally. I love Kim Newman's Anno Dracula novels, and hopefully it will serve as a gateway drug to them since one of the protagonists of Anno Dracula is an alternate-universe version of Genevieve, with a backstory tied to the France of Jeanne d'Arc rather than Bretonnia.

Edited August 25, 2017 by mhacdebhandia

[Arkangilos]

Space Marines still do eat flesh to gain memories.

 

And again, I've read most of it, my dad's read it all multiple times, and neither of us have gotten a gay feel from it.

 

No offense, but I've seen "gayer :cuss" than that in the army, and it's definitely not gay.

 

Maybe it's just a civilian lack of understanding how the military can be that gives that impression.

Edited August 24, 2017 by Arkangilos

[Cleanse And Purify]

Multiple interpretations of a text can exist and remain valid. I think the reviewer reads a bit too much into it, but there is a subtext there IMO, with Yeremi at least. It was the 80s, after all, and 40k was initially created by anti-Thatcher British punks, so the desire to portray a future that contravened conservative societal norms is not that far fetched. Was Ian Watson ever a member of the military, does anyone know?

[tdemayo]

I first read -Space Marine- when it was rereleased as an book a few years ago. I'm not sure I'd call it "gay," in the sense of promoting gay rights or depicting gay relationships. There was an unmistakable homoerotic undertone to it, but more than that I was struck by how .... disturbingly anal it was. And how scatalogical. There was the pooping Chaplain. The naked initiates crawlings through a flexible tube. The sergeant who was eviscerated by a chaos sorcerer who read his poopy entrails as an augury. And then there was the boarding torpedo going up a tyranid ship through its ... uh, excretory sphincter.

 

Just a really strange and disturbing read on a number of levels. Especially because for most of the book, the characters are under aged. It seemed like a novel that an immature 14 year boy old would write, mingling violence, and poop, and nervous, repressed sexuality.

 

I got the impression Watson didn't like the game much and was mocking the setting and what he thought of the players.

Edited August 25, 2017 by tdemayo

[Cleanse And Purify]

I believe most of Watson's work contains sexual undertones. Or else why write a novel called Orgasmachine? I don't think he disliked the setting: I think he wanted to portray a sort of weird, dystopian future, and he succeeded in my opinion. It's weird, and scatological (don't they preserve their bowel movements in amber to commemorate the implantation of some organ or another?) and shows the future as violent, religious and nonsensical at times. Which was totally in keeping with Rogue Trade, IIRC.

[Knockagh]

Disappointed with the outcome of this, but that's democracy! I try and steer clear of space Marine books these days, not a hard and fast rule but I'm just enjoying other things. I would have loved Zavant, I'm not really into vampires too much but will probably give Drachenfels a go, particularly if it gets a swanky limited ed.

It was an interesting exercise though to see what the readership wanted. I'm kind of suprised by iron snakes as most people have complained that they are bored of marine shooty books. Maybe the Abnett factor was decisive or maybe the silent majority just love space marines blowing things up. Who knows

[HeritorA]

The only thing more disappointing than the final results was the amount of support the terrible Space Marine novel got here. It is a curiosity of 40K history, but not a good book. 

I feel your pain my Excoriator battlebrother. And now all the hounds of bad lore and fanfillerism will attack us with all their might

[Claws and Effect]

Maybe I view things differently than some. 

 

For me, my criteria for a good book can be summed up in one question: Did it entertain me? 

 

If the answer is yes I can overlook some flaws in it. But if the answer is no I probably couldn't tell you how it ended. Not everything has to be a Pulitzer candidate for me to say it's a good book. Some of my favorite books have been written by authors viewed as hacks in some circles, but for some reason it just grabbed me. I'm a firm believer that every author has at least one good story in them. Whether or not they will ever write it is a different question altogether. 

 

I'm actually looking forward to having the chance to read Brothers of the Snake. Given the description I've read here, I like the idea of Astartes who aren't cookie cutter killing machines. 

[HeritorA]

Maybe I view things differently than some. 

 

For me, my criteria for a good book can be summed up in one question: Did it entertain me? 

 

If the answer is yes I can overlook some flaws in it. But if the answer is no I probably couldn't tell you how it ended. Not everything has to be a Pulitzer candidate for me to say it's a good book. Some of my favorite books have been written by authors viewed as hacks in some circles, but for some reason it just grabbed me. I'm a firm believer that every author has at least one good story in them. Whether or not they will ever write it is a different question altogether. 

 

I'm actually looking forward to having the chance to read Brothers of the Snake. Given the description I've read here, I like the idea of Astartes who aren't cookie cutter killing machines. 

 

If entertainment is the only thing that should be a criteria to call something a good book, well half of the world and sci-fi, horror and battle fiction would have been dumb as hell by now.

 

Thanks all the Chaos Gods authors strife to create entertaining, interesting, storydriven and worldbuilding books that answer questions and provide new ones. In my humble opinion.

 

If Abnett would have written everything like Brothers of the Snake - he wouldn't have been so famous. Same goes for A D-B in mistical scenario where he writes everything 100% the same as the 'Cadian Blood'.

Our eyes and lore fundamental truth would have bled.

[Jarl Kjaran Coldheart]

Didn't Brothers of the Snake just win a popularity contest to return to print?

 

Sounds like there is something right about the novel

[bluntblade]

Drachenfels totally deserves the win. Kim Newman is a great author, his Anno Dracula series is some seriously mighty stuff. Wish he still wrote for BL.

 

Also Brothers of the Snake is pretty good IMO. Really captures the "Astartes as mythic demigod warriors" angle. Also manages to pack more flavor and character into the Iron Snakes than the Ultramarines have ever gotten :p

Kim Newman wrote for 40k? I must read this

[Sothalor]

He wrote several self-contained, extremely dated stories for Warhammer Fantasy, way back in the day.

 

To the best of my knowledge, he's never done any 40k work.

[HeritorA]

 

Drachenfels totally deserves the win. Kim Newman is a great author, his Anno Dracula series is some seriously mighty stuff. Wish he still wrote for BL.

 

Also Brothers of the Snake is pretty good IMO. Really captures the "Astartes as mythic demigod warriors" angle. Also manages to pack more flavor and character into the Iron Snakes than the Ultramarines have ever gotten

Kim Newman wrote for 40k? I must read this

 

in Abnett skin, lol. IMO BofS 'captures the "Astartes as mythic demigod warriors" angle' only in the first chapter - then it's a story about BIG SUPERHUMAN ROBOTS with human (childish) ideas and aggravated respect to everything golden

 

 

He wrote several self-contained, extremely dated stories for Warhammer Fantasy, way back in the day.

 

To the best of my knowledge, he's never done any 40k work.

Yeap. I think he ment that Abnett wrote like Newman