Imperator: Wrath of the Omnissiah

[Roomsky]

At the risk of being slapped, I won't argue it's a total cesspool, but /tg/ is not an insignificant part of the fanbase, our good ADB once even posted there (and has since made the wise decision to distance himself from it.) 

 

One might also look to Forgeworld's "Escher are exotic and vindictive because they're women", and the following response to the apology issued, for an idea of the sort that populate the hobby. 

 

Not to say I see everyone as such, the people on this forum are largely lovely. I would not, however, dismiss that portion as insignificant.

[SpAcEGhOsT095]

If a fanbase is anything like politics, you will find most are a "silent majority". Having went through the archives going back years, I would say /tg/ is not really that big. It has a small core of regular posters, in the wh40k areas at least. I base this on the love turned to hate for the works of ADB and the repeated claims leveled against him. The Master of Mankind is not only a good story, but also reveals the reading comprehension, or lack thereof, of posters on different forums. That is one reason why The Bolter and Chainsword is the only forum I have an account with. 

So I would say no matter how loud the shrieking, it is only a minority doing it.

 

I hope this isn't too off topic, if so, just delete it.

[nagashnee]

What if they realised the plot was weak, and inserted the pronoun issue to distract from the core issues of the novel #BLCONSPIRACY  .

[Roomsky]

What if they realised the plot was weak, and inserted the pronoun issue to distract from the core issues of the novel #BLCONSPIRACY  .

 

Well, it's giving the book's discussion legs it wouldn't have had otherwise, so it's certainly working.

 

Imperator: Wrath of the Omnissiah

A Brief Review

 

Well, it was certainly better than Warlord, which I didn't even bother finishing. I don't know if frustrating is the word I'd use to describe the book, because it was frankly more interesting than I expected it to be, but it was marred by a myriad of issues.

 

In the way of non-objective, totally-just-Roomsky-bitching-again issues, I stand my ground on the topic of Gav being a poor fit for the writing of AdMech. His dry style has certainly been growing on me of late, but it feels shallow when applied to the machine cult. Too much machine, not enough cult, is what I'm getting at, despite his best efforts it doesn't feel like a believable religion. It's shallow, passing over far too many details to be convincing. This is why, for all his faults, I think Sanders is a great fit for the faction, his prose is dense enough to reflect the intricacies of the cult. The nadir here is the using of "Omnissiah" in place of "Mississippi" for the counting of seconds. I don't expect christians to count by the "Jesus."

 

My other big issue was the Inquisitor. Gelsa raised a good point: what was his plan, exactly? And that question is never answered, we're lead to believe that a supposedly intelligent member of the Inquisition, defined at least in part by his pragmatism, believes his badge of office is going to do him any good in prosecuting a Heretek, in a god machine, surrounded by a faction infamous for their bordering-on-treasonous behavior. It's some rather stupendous ineptitude.

 

That said, there was a lot to like here. Exasas (and Exasas and Exasas) were quite interesting, a pleasing look into the strange headspace of a thuroughly advanced tech-priest. Gelsa was servicable, but I was always hoping we'd bounce back to Exasas` fun mix of logical redundancy and non-standard rising action. The whole story taking place on the various decks of an Imperator was just wonderful, and really communicated the scale of the god machine, as well as some interesting sub-cultures. 

 

There's plenty more nitpicks and fun touches, but the main point is that Gav had a lot of good ideas here, but wasn't especially well suited to execute them. I'll always value uneven ambition over pleasant predictability, so this book gets a pass, if only just.

 

Arbitrary numerical rating: 5/10

[Knockagh]

I took this on holidays to force myself to finish it and just did so this morning.

If I ignore the battle of the pronoun i stick to my earlier assessment. I really liked the story. The characters were solid and Gavs world building and ability to build a sense of atmosphere was superb once again.

I thought the internal battle scene at the end dragged slightly. I agree with earlier posters that the external battle scenes were unrealistic particularly given the orbital bombardments and continued operations of the titans, but honestly this type of thing doesn’t annoy me in the slightest. I’m no military strategist so intend to just go with the flow of the book when it comes to these things.

I do find the number of Titan deaths very annoying. But this isn’t isolated to this book it’s a flaw in all Titan related BL books. I don’t get why they don’t just make it clear they are left inoperable but salvageable as you would imagine they would be fairly often in their long careers. The number of Titan deaths takes away from the viablity of overall 40k Titan lore. So it is annoying.

 

Overall though I enjoyed this. (But I’m doing the book a massive service by ignoring the exceedingly annoying gender thing) I would love to see Gav develop the inquisitor who appears at the end to gather a new team mate. Who knows it might happen...

[shandwen]

I had read this thread before but forgot why I hadn't picked this book up... a page in I was left wondering how a typo could reoccur, three pages in and I said nevermind.