Iron Hands Series book 2: The Voice of Mars

[DarkChaplain]

Basically due to an incapability of accepting the Clan Raukaan fluff being official for multiple editions now, rather than a real problem with Guymer's novel, it sounds like.

[Iron Father Ferrum]

Basically due to an incapability of accepting the Clan Raukaan fluff being official for multiple editions now, rather than a real problem with Guymer's novel, it sounds like.

Because the Raukaan supplement fluff is nonsensical. The Sapphire King, for instance. Daemons are formed from emotion and draw their power from emotion given form (Chaos). The Sapphire King is a daemon formed from a *lack* of emotion! It's stupidity and that's why I refuse to accept it. If I have to head canon myself to 3rd edition so that my toy soldiers' backstory make sense then so be it.

[Morovir]

Actually, The Voice of Mars deals with that.

 

'I am the Phoenician's pain,' said one.
'And his exultation,' voiced another.
'His grief.'
'And his joy.'
'I am his love for his brother.'

So the Sapphire King has been semi-retconned into being formed from the emotions of Fulgrim when he killed his brother, which makes a lot more sense.

 

While I seem to be the only Iron Hands fan who enjoyed the novel, I still did have a few nitpicks with it.

 

The Brazen Claws are said to be the 34th Clan Company of Clan Morragul, despite the fact that in Feat of Iron the 34th are stated to have been from Clan Burkhar.
While the name-dropping of Gdolkin is appreciated, by the time of the 13th Black Crusade, Gdolkin had only been in service of the Chapter for two centuries, long after this novel.
The Clan Vurgaan Land Behemoth is called the Weyland, not the Ruination, and has been since the original Iron Hands novel.

 

Despite these rather minor concerns, I did nevertheless enjoy the novel overall, and appreciated the further detail that is elaborated from Eye of Medusa.

 

The Helfathers are essentially confirmed to be created using the Keys of Hel, with references to 'the Keys' being 'an abomination that should have died with the Legion' and an order to 'turn the Keys' in the creation of a new Helfather from an Iron Hands sergeant who got shot in the head with a fusion pistol.
The Death Cultists of Medusa are looked into in greater depth.
The confirmation that while not what they used to be in the lore, the Iron Fathers all still do train for the prerequisite 30 years on Mars, and so essentially still are all Techmarines.

 

Feel free to ask me any more questions on the novel, and I will do my best to answer.

[Hit0k1ri]

So it appears that if you are an Iron Hands "fan/player" you generally do not like these Guymer books...

 

I'm long-time (about 20+ years now) Iron Hands fan and I DO like Guymer books .

 

Nevertheless...

 

Brothers, it seems, my modest knowledge of English makes me misunderstand some of your thoughts on this topic ... Do some of our comrades really believe that David should have spit on OFFICIAL fluff from Clan Raukaan supplement and say something like: " Guys, forget all this nonsense with Codex-compliant companies, Sapphire King and other stupid stuff [well, there really is a lot of incompetent and hastily written ideas, 'nuff said], I'll get back your favorite independent Clan Companies, Iron Fathers as a mixture of Chaplains & Techmarines, etc.?" Lol'ed, just lol'ed  .

Guymer did everything he could within the current ACTUAL background about IH. Thanks to his books, dry lines from the supplement take on an artistic embodiment. And this is good! Maybe it's time to stop holding the old fluff by both hands? It was updated, no more older stuff. As a Black Templars player (my second favourite), I was wildly annoyed when GW took away our codex and then all those things for which we like guys in black - hatred for all the witches, vows, etc. But tempora mutantur, et nos mutamur in illis...

 

P.S. And once again about Wrath of Iron: I reeeeally like how Mr. Wright portrayed Heresy White Scars (his best) and even his not so popular take on 30k Vlka Fenryka. But SMB series 40k Iron Hands - nope. Plain boring, nothing memorable about them. Naked facts. So, no more Iron Hands Chapter by Mr.Wright, please.

 

P.P.S. IMHO, of course. No pressure . 

[Iron Father Ferrum]

Basically, yes. Is that a realistic expectation? Probably not. But I preferred Green's Iron Hands to Guymer's. That should tell you something.

[Xisor]

'Move about the Chapter just as easily as a Codex Chapter; no bloodshed etc"

 

Did you read the same books as I did? I think not, or not with much reading comprehension.

 

It's mentioned a few time that appropriating Battle Brothers from company to company is a resource-exhaustive/power-requiring move. If you can't force or entice them: you don't get the battle brother.

 

Similarly, in *dozens* (if not more) instances in the book, the Clan Companies riotously fight with each other. But, as also noted, the Iron Hands are basically "clever cowards",they eschew any fight where the chance of victory isn't overwhelming.

 

They don't waste resources on mad gambles. They've got the Lagos Calculi boosting their own efforts at ensuring their competition is "free market" and not kiddie-fighting in the same way that, say, the Blood Angels force a degree of competition on their aspirants. This is full scale consciousness, tempered by unwillingness to waste resources.

 

Finished VoM the other day - tremendous book. Really brutal and delicious.

 

Perhaps not as 'fun'/insightful on a day-to-day level as the first, but blimey was it good.

 

----

 

It seems fitting, both for the book, and the idea, and the lore, and the meta, that the only people who hate the Iron Hands more than <absolutely anyone> are Iron Hands themselves.

 

They're (appropriately) wrong about the bees in bonnets here, but blimey is it appropriate.

 

----

 

On quibbles, a few things leapt out at me too.

 

1-References to Ynnead. If memory serves TGS 2: Storm Gatherer and Valedor indicate that Ynnead isn't a commonly "believed in" God, more a forgotten bit of lore that no Aeldari really paid much attention to until Kysaduras the Anchorite, Iyanna, and Eldrad started dabbling.

 

2- There was a mention of "another Horus, or Huron, or Abaddon", but the Badab War wouldn't have happened yet.

 

Basically, another bit of "that seems a bit too early in the timeline". Nothing soul or enjoyment destroying though.

 

:)

[Morovir]

I forgot about that one. Well spotted!

[Hit0k1ri]

Basically, yes. Is that a realistic expectation? Probably not. But I preferred Green's Iron Hands to Guymer's. That should tell you something.

 

Brother, in short, you don't like David's books because they use a new fluff? Not because they are poorly written or characters are weak, etc.? So, you don't care at all about the quality of book, if only there is an old [insert yours] edition background? 

 

Up to this day, we had the following works about 40k IH (not considering Successors):

 

- Iron Hands 

- Iron soul

- Medusan Wings

- The memory of flesh

- The blessing of iron

- Wrath of iron

- Flesh

- Eye of Medusa

- Voice of Mars

- The calculus of battle (audio)

 

Out of pure curiosity, which of the above do you consider GOOD works?

[Scribe]

Wrath of Iron.

[bluntblade]

Some of the 30K stuff is very good.

[Roomsky]

Anyone else read this yet? I just finished Eye of Medusa, and this has become an auto-buy for me (in paperback). As I've said before, Guymer is a questionable fit for heresy-era stories, and maybe even too dark for m32 as seen in TBA. In right proper 40k though, man, the guy is absolutely savage, and I love it. His work is very dense, but to me he carries the torch set down by Ian Watson's excellent work more than much of the current stable. 

 

As an aside, since there's a thread about villains floating around, Kristos is probably a standout antagonist in recent novels. Dude is a bastard.

[RandomMarine]

I've read it . It's pretty great ,4story arcs stronos at techmarine school,Rauth playing spy in the deathwatch,techpriest woman doing the same but for the voice of Mars and the librarian looking into the dawnbreak tech on medusa.