Rate what you Read, or the fight against Necromancy

[DarkChaplain]

I actually like that part. It's just another facet of Konrad's ongoing striving for self-justification, pushing away the blame for his atrocities, and reaching some sort of vindication by telling himself, and others, that he was acting precisely as he was meant to.

 

Perturabo is ruthless. Horus can be. Corax can be cruel in his "liberation" campaigns. But Curze? Curze is beyond them all. Among all of his brothers, I'd find it hard to argue that he is not "evil"; he most assuredly slipped into ever further acts you could label as evil. You can even try to justify his acts as necessary in that galactic setting, but it's tricky to dismiss them as anything but evil on an individual but even societal level.

 

But then, that line is peak Night Haunter to me. He's fleeing once more into that self-delusion of not having a choice to be different. He's crawling further down the abyss while blaming his creator. Whether it was an intentional design choice is completely irrelevant, really - Curze needs to believe it was, so as to shrug off his own responsibility for his choices. It's his coping mechanism, his one link to a perceived spark of sanity - but he has to follow insane levels of self-deception to reach it. He'll turn the tables on himself just to make the hollow, meaningless claim that he wasn't wrong. Frankly, that might be what I find most terrifying about the character as a whole.

 

It's not the butchery, the wall decorations made of human skin, the flesh-sculptures, the claws or whatever. It's his willingness to be an ever greater monster just to avoid facing himself earnestly and acknowledging his sins as his alone. He can't go back or reach nobility like some of his brothers' not because he is incapable of it, but because he will never allow himself the possibility, as his entire reality would come crushing down on him the moment he considered it.

[Roomsky]

I appreciate the perspective, DC, and will give Haley the benefit of the doubt that’s what he was going for. But I can’t help but read it as more primarchs-as-manchildren writing. It, and the whole book, is so matter-of-fact and on the nose that I can’t take it seriously. I can’t suspend my disbelief for this version of the character, because he reads like a high school thesis on Curze rather than a living creature.

 

I can buy the primarchs having stronger emotions than us baseline humies, but Haley’s way of going about that just rankles at this point. He writes that characteristic as simplifying their personalities rather than making them more complex.

[SkimaskMohawk]

Im pretty sure I said this the night I got the limited edition (and finished it because I was so hooked), but Curze is pretty much textbook depression, much how dark chaplain outlined it. Every choice he makes seems like the obvious wrong one but is self justified as being the only way. He monologues to an important person and tries to explain his inner thought process. And then he commits suicide.

 

It's matter of fact and on the nose because that's how he (curze) is trying to explain his decisions, under the delusion that it was all inevitable and he did the only thing possible. He self-simplified his choices to the most self-harmful route.

 

 

@stranger orders, I think the reason Angron comes under fire is soft ret-cons of the time line. Khârn gets the nails first in the primarch book, but states he wasn't one of the first to get them in betrayer. Perturabo gets tons of hate for a single decimation, but angron decimates constantly for far more dumb reasons and it never gets brought up. Stuff like that.

[StrangerOrders]

Im pretty sure I said this the night I got the limited edition (and finished it because I was so hooked), but Curze is pretty much textbook depression, much how dark chaplain outlined it. Every choice he makes seems like the obvious wrong one but is self justified as being the only way. He monologues to an important person and tries to explain his inner thought process. And then he commits suicide.

 

It's matter of fact and on the nose because that's how he (curze) is trying to explain his decisions, under the delusion that it was all inevitable and he did the only thing possible. He self-simplified his choices to the most self-harmful route.

 

 

@stranger orders, I think the reason Angron comes under fire is soft ret-cons of the time line. Khârn gets the nails first in the primarch book, but states he wasn't one of the first to get them in betrayer. Perturabo gets tons of hate for a single decimation, but angron decimates constantly for far more dumb reasons and it never gets brought up. Stuff like that.

Well if we take all of his books as a whole, lies of omition are sort of Khârn's bit and the man is nothing if not a master of handing out blame like candy. He wasn't the first to take the nails, just the first to get the 'not-go-kablooey' variant. 

 

The Decimations also make a ton of sense in this book with how twisted and horribly petty Angron is, something that has been a pretty strong constant in his character. It also lines up pretty strongly with their secretive streak and their general habit of only acknowledging facts when it suits them.

 

It sort of annoys me that I always feel like the authors go out of their way to show a pretty steep disconnect between who the XIIth think they are and what they actually are, yet it gets taken at face value alot. 

 

 There were a number of actual retcons to timelines of course, but BL playing fast and loose with those is not very new sadly. The Black Books are where I personally go for the coherent setting, BL has gradually become where I go to for stories set in said setting. 

 

And it has been pointed out elsewhere on this forum that the entire company seems to have no darned idea of what they are doing with Dreadnought Model Development timelines. So a Lucifer and Contemptor getting mixed up is nowhere near as confusing as things like that guy who somehow managed to be the most daring officer of the World Eaters given that he somehow got crippled at Rangda decades before it was meant to happen (only a true visionary gets crippled on a battlefield years before the battle he got crippled in! ).

 

This is all relative actually and I think your opinion on the book likely has alot to do with how much you want to empathize with the XIIth. I personally think alot of selective memory is at play with them so I'm very comfy with the book.

Edited July 13, 2020 by StrangerOrders

[SkimaskMohawk]

Khârn being the first not to die doesn't change the contradiction. He thinks to himself how he hasn't had the nails as long as some, like jeddek (his standard bearer). He can't be the first to have them successfully implanted while also not having had them as long as other legionaries.

 

And I'm not saying angron wouldn't do decimations for spiteful reasons, I'm saying that it undermines the whole reason why perturabo got a bad rep. The world eaters aren't secretive about their actions, they simply don't care about outside authority; there would have been no cover up, because there never was with any of their massacres, mutilation of marines, not following the edict of nikea, etc.

 

You can't hand wave "oh ya they all pick and choose what they want to remember because they have a different take on the night of the wolf". The best books respect the timeline and continuity; books that can't respect pre-established facts just to tell a story have far less merit.

[Harlan Skorus]

To finish up the trilogy of "Harlan reintroduces himself to something he never knew all that well really", I have completed a mission almost two decades in the making and finally read the followup to Execution Hour, Gordon Rennie's Shadow Point.

 

There's a lot of good stuff in it. Leoten Semper has learnt his lesson and stays on his damn ship, for one. Things rocket along at a fairly constant pace; it feels like a good reflection of how the Gothic War would've progressed after the initial panic. There are Xenos - yes, Xenos, front and centre! - all over the damn place, which I gather is a rarity these days. It's nice to have a look at another type of society and slots nicely into the 'and now for something that isn't giant cathederal spaceships" role that the Arbites filled in Execution Hour.

 

Not only are there Xenos, but the mad lad only went and made them POV characters as well (albeit less of an accomplishment considering this book features almost everyone and the cleaner as a POV character at some point). Darodyros goes out like a boss, I didn't super warm to the character earlier but the rolling thought monologue as he went out was fantastic. Also, a special shoutout to the Avatar's webway road trip, in which even a troupe of Harlequins lose control of their bowels in fear at his passing. The Dark Elder are suitably menacing, but in a fragile way that kinda makes sense. Erwin Ramas does his thing of being a Chekhov's gun again, but this time it is both foreshadowed and lampshaded and works far better than in Execution Hour.

 

Unfortunately, there is also a lot I liked less. The plot feels far more rushed - there's basically two conflicts/situations, and only the second has any large story impact. So much so that it kinda feels like two seperate novellas that just happened to be stitched together. The Shadow Point itself never seems to really have an explanation, which is a thing I generally like - but only if the characters don't understand it as well so you can empathise with their ignorance. This isn't the case and it just reads like rushed writing missing an explanation for something.

 

Maxim Borusa. When he was a regular terrifying human he was far more fun. There's something about him toting around a heavy bolter that just seems silly. Almost redeemed a bit at the end when he gets mauled by a single Mandrake and you remember he's mortal, but then unredeemed when you are left with a great big question mark as to who/what exactly saved him. Horst suffers from a lack of description and you never really understand how the ENTIRE CHAPTER of him doing stuff at the beginning relates in any way to the later plot.

 

Overall... eesh. I'm going with Diehards only. If you want more Xenos flavour and some good snappy character moments, go ahead. If you want a coherent and impactful plot, or something to dig your teeth into and get lost, much less so.

[mc warhammer]

Khârn being the first not to die doesn't change the contradiction. He thinks to himself how he hasn't had the nails as long as some, like jeddek (his standard bearer). He can't be the first to have them successfully implanted while also not having had them as long as other legionaries.

 

And I'm not saying angron wouldn't do decimations for spiteful reasons, I'm saying that it undermines the whole reason why perturabo got a bad rep. The world eaters aren't secretive about their actions, they simply don't care about outside authority; there would have been no cover up, because there never was with any of their massacres, mutilation of marines, not following the edict of nikea, etc.

 

You can't hand wave "oh ya they all pick and choose what they want to remember because they have a different take on the night of the wolf". The best books respect the timeline and continuity; books that can't respect pre-established facts just to tell a story have far less merit.

just regarding WE covering up...my memory isn't the best...but wasn't the attempted coup covered up?

[StrangerOrders]

 

Khârn being the first not to die doesn't change the contradiction. He thinks to himself how he hasn't had the nails as long as some, like jeddek (his standard bearer). He can't be the first to have them successfully implanted while also not having had them as long as other legionaries.

 

And I'm not saying angron wouldn't do decimations for spiteful reasons, I'm saying that it undermines the whole reason why perturabo got a bad rep. The world eaters aren't secretive about their actions, they simply don't care about outside authority; there would have been no cover up, because there never was with any of their massacres, mutilation of marines, not following the edict of nikea, etc.

 

You can't hand wave "oh ya they all pick and choose what they want to remember because they have a different take on the night of the wolf". The best books respect the timeline and continuity; books that can't respect pre-established facts just to tell a story have far less merit.

just regarding WE covering up...my memory isn't the best...but wasn't the attempted coup covered up?

 

Yap, and they tended to cover up the Night of the Wolves (and to misrepresent alot of stuff) in alot of books. 

 

The Black Books actually make note of the fact that the XIIth literally could not care less about reports or record keeping.

 

Heck, alot of folks forget that the novel deals with the plothole of their sustaining their numbers and that they deliberately obfuscated it from the rest of the Imperium. Or the part where Angron more or less admits that his mission plan was to take the bloodiest read he could of any order he got from the nails on. 

 

Their history of being shady isn't quite Nightlord or Word Bearer tier but its pretty shady.

[byrd9999]

Fire Caste, by Peter Fehervari.

 

Some scattershot thoughts:

 

A great read. This is in many ways a "simpler" book than his later two novels (Spiral Dawn/Requiem Infernal), and features less twists and turns. If the Dark Coil is spiralling inwards, then this is more towards the outer edges as the coil starts to take shape. This is totally understandable from a first novel, too.

This is probably a good starting point for Fehervari's works, especially when paired with the short story that precedes it chronologically "A Sanctuary of Wyrms".

 

Fire Caste has a large cast (no pun intended) of characters, who are sketched well enough to avoid confusion. I liked the way the threads of the story start out separate but gradually come together as the story progresses (Iverson, Trinity, Cutler and the witch), and it's always nice to read a story where the author isn't afraid to kill off the characters.

 

The T'au are well presented too, and I really liked seeing the war of Phaedra from their point of view. The great idea that the T'au don't have the forces to engage in a long-term war, so they recruit rebel Guardsmen to fight the fresh influxes of loyalist Guardsmen, leaving the T'au free to mostly withdraw from the planet. Getting the Imperium to fight itself in a never-ending stalemate of a battle is a delicious twist of the Coil.

 

There are also some good points raised about who and what loyalty/rebellion means in the Imperium.

 

I really enjoyed Audie Joyce yelling "Blood for the God-Emperor" while toasting everyone in sight with his beloved flamer :)

 

The book was a very smooth read and the final 100 pages just zipped by.

 

9/10

[MegaVolt87]

I must be dense and missed it, but can someone explain how Konrad in his primarch book

 

Hidden Content

Was sealed in the Hanibal style box and drifting through space in battleship/ Gloriana (?) wreckage? thus missing the siege of Terra entirely. Also I always thought Konrad WAS at Terra for the seige in old lore ?

[Roomsky]

I must be dense and missed it, but can someone explain how Konrad in his primarch book

 

Hidden Content

Was sealed in the Hanibal style box and drifting through space in battleship/ Gloriana (?) wreckage? thus missing the siege of Terra entirely. Also I always thought Konrad WAS at Terra for the seige in old lore ?

 

Sanguinius shoved him in stasis and fired him out an airlock at the end of Ruinstorm. Skraivok takes command of the Night Lords forces at Terra by a combination of default, and killing his immediate challengers.

[Kelborn]

Happened in Ruinstorm. He was aboard one of the loyalists ship, confronted by Sanguinius and put into said box.
There was also a little moment of seemingly redemption for Konrad up until Sangi crushed this hope entirely and threw him out.

[MegaVolt87]

Happened in Ruinstorm. He was aboard one of the loyalists ship, confronted by Sanguinius and put into said box.

There was also a little moment of seemingly redemption for Konrad up until Sangi crushed this hope entirely and threw him out.

 

Oh  , thats savage. I thought there was a battle or something. Very unexpected. Cheers guys. 

[Lord_Caerolion]

It was done to really mess with Curze. If fate really is set the way Curze thinks it is, then he's destined to be rescued, so he can be killed by the assassins. If not, then he's almost certain to drift through space for eternity. Strangely, this is the thing that almost does prove Curze right, that his fate was set. Although, with the information from his Primarchs book, that Curze did indeed see multiple possible futures earlier in his life, but that things became more singular as time went on, it seems that he was at least partly locked into a pre-determined fate, even if that wasn't the case for the entirety of his life. 

 

True, at the end of his time on Nostramo, Curze was set into a pre-determined fate, dying at the hands of the Emperor, etc. However, it was his choices on Nostramo that set that in motion. It became inescapable, but only because he made it so.

 

 

EDIT: Which reminds me of my favourite part of the Night Haunter book, where he's rambling to himself/his "visitor" about how different and alike he and Sanguinius are, wondering if he'd be different if he'd grown up on Baal, whether he'd be good and Sanguinius evil, or whether Sanguinius would have saved Nostramo and he'd be a "devil of the desert" or something like that. He seems at times to be coming close to lucidity, and accepting his own roles in things, but always goes back to rationalizing his behaviour, that the Emperor made him that way, so it's really the Emperors fault, not his, etc.

Edited July 15, 2020 by Lord_Caerolion

[Rob P]

Spear of the Emperor

 

This should be the benchmark for a good (but not excellent) 40k novel.

The writing is easy to follow and, in ADB's style, it is high on character and low on action.

The plot is generally good and I liked the story/character arcs. I also like the way the antagonists were treated and how he made me feel about them.

Weaknesses include slow burning in first half (though I didn't mind that), the framing that sets you to think 'how is it going to happen?' as opposed to 'what is going to happen', the execution of the main climax of the plot (which relies on the characters being bafflingly stupid), and lack of elaboration on something near the end.

As an aside, i didn't realise the gender of the protagonist until a long way in (possibly over half way in) - this could be due to my reading, the way it's written or author intention.

I'd give it 3 stars as a benchmark, but it's much better than a lot of 40k novels and I've given much weaker novels 3 stars. So 4 of 5 stars.

 

Certainly not a must-read in terms of the setting, but a very good one to recommend to someone who has read a couple the intro novels and wants to read more.

Edited July 19, 2020 by Rob P

[mc warhammer]

i don't personally mind "how is it going to happen" as a framework. don't see it as a weakness, though it's an approach that is trickier to sell.

[Rob P]

Yeah, it's not an objective negative. I'm not a fan of opening with a 'spoiler' of sorts then the inevitable '6 days/weeks/years earlier' thing.

 

It slowed down my reading of it because i could kind of see where it was going and my anticipation and eagerness to get there was dulled.

 

I don't get the function of it other than novelty.

[Bobss]

Certainly not a must-read in terms of the setting, but a very good one to recommend to someone who has read a couple the intro novels and wants to read more.

 

I totally agree here. Spear of the Emperor is my personal pick for the best book for new Black Library readers right now. It might not give you all of the answers to the post-Fall of Cadia setting, but there are codices and other source materials out there for a reason. Unlike the Dark Imperium series or other books, Spear. isn't Herohammer either, and simply drops readers into a previously-unknown corner of the galaxy that acts as a microcosm for things at large - which is, to this day and in my opinion, the best route for Black Library books to take

 

And while the events of Alara's Veil might be pretty mundane compared to the Death of the Emperor's Dream or We Are Returned, I nevertheless felt Spear. was ADB's most mature novel to date. There's plenty of restraint in his writing compared to his previous works. The scene where Anuradha reflects on Amaedus annihilating the 'traitor' Imperial command squad during a truce, but not actually showing the butchery, was much more powerful than going into detail on how First Claw are cutting their way through serfs during a boarding action. Not to :cuss on an author's previous works or an iconic series for that matter, but Spear. has a lot of these underappreciated nuances and improvements IMO. My biggest pet peeve is when people claim 'ADB has peaked,' when in reality The Master of Mankind, Black Legion and Spear of the Emperor blow Soul Hunter, Helsreach and The First Heretic out of the water on almost every level

[byrd9999]

imo, Spear of the Emperor is where ADB surpasses Dan Abnett. The plot, the development, the lore, but most importantly, the amazingly strong characters. His most mature work so far. Of all the potential ADB in the pipeline, Spear 2 is what I am most excited for.

[Lord_Caerolion]

Spear of the Emperor

the execution of the main climax of the plot (which relies on the characters being bafflingly stupid)

 

I don't think it's them being stupid, I think it's partly that they discounted the possibility of dishonesty from their superiors due to the incredibly regimented and honourable mindset of the Mentor Legion, combined with the mental and spiritual trauma that Anuradha/Amadeus go through in the middle of the book. The concept that

Kartash was an embedded Callidus Assassin, with the entire concept of their supposed mission just being a front to get it in place

was just laughably unthinkable for them.

[DarkChaplain]

Personally, I just didn't feel the sort of emotional resonance with Spear of the Emperor as I did with most of his previous works. There a lot of merit in what you said about it being a more "mature" novel stylistically, certainly, especially looking at, say, The Emperor's Gift and the showdown with Angron in there, or Grimnar going on a sudden rampage, or surfing Sevatar, or Angron holding up a Titan. But then, while they were awesome setpieces no doubt, they weren't the reason I liked The Emperor's Gift or Helsreach, either.

 

Spear just didn't really have me invested to the same degree. Amadeus, while having a bit of an arc, left me cold for the most part. Yeah, sure, there was intent behind the way he's depicted, but I just couldn't find myself really caring for him as a character in his own right (and on top of that, I'm still miffed that Josh Reynolds never got to write more Mentors teaching humans after the Angels of Death micro short he did. I honestly prefered that version of the Chapter over what they were here).

 

Anuradha had some great moments, touching, especially her change in relationship with her rival. However, a lot of her journey placed her outside of the spotlight, while showcasing her suffering in a multitude of ways, with her captivity spanning a rather lengthy time both in-universe and in terms of pages. I liked her well enough, and I'm a sucker for first person narratives told in hindsight, but I think there could've been more done with that framework. It's also certainly more interesting to have a story narrated by a character who plays a tangible role in what's going on in general, like Cain, while Anuradha was, again, more of a bystander with limited agency of her own. This improved towards the end, but still came with some frustrations.

 

And the Spears... I just don't think I got to see enough of them to properly form an attachment to them. It's not that I disliked them, the opposite for various characters, and they certainly got a nice vertical slice of characterization both as a Chapter with its own culture and for their role in their dark corner of the galaxy, but I didn't spend enough time with them to really care if they last another 20 or another 1000 years before going extinct.

I hated what the Inquisition did to the Lions back in Blood & Fire, and their fate surely is tragic here as well. But again, I don't think I've gotten to spend enough time with the chapter in this novel for the climax to really hit home with its full potential. And I can't really fathom how what I got out of the book would've been diminished had I not "fought alongside" Ekene before.

 

I mean, it's a solid novel that does a lot of things right, and it'll only grow stronger with the benefit of follow-ups. But for me, it also somehow managed to lack the heights of some of ADB's other books. It's very concerned with worldbuilding and establishing cultures, but the ongoing plot and its protagonist/narrator didn't grip me as much as expected. It's good at what it does, but in the end, I'm recalling plot points and events as "oh, this happened too" moments, rather than things I'm fondly recalling and feel excited about in their own right. It's left me largely ambivalent over the book as a whole, to the point where even were it to release tomorrow, Spear 2 wouldn't be a priority read basically at all. There's little to no eagerness to dig into the novel's sequel, like I'd usually have expected.

 

All the elements on their own are fascinating for one reason or another, but the combination of them made me feel like the plot didn't bring them to bear to their full potential.

Edited July 19, 2020 by DarkChaplain

[StrangerOrders]

I'm... wary of touching on ADB books and to be frank there is a reason I try to avoid touching on them, I've been burned by that particular bush before and I am wary of them.

 

Granted, no one has ever accused me of being particularly bright so I might as well stick my head into the proverbial furnace.

 

I did not mind Spears, in fact I found it one of the less interesting Space Marine books I have read.

 

Amadeus is a textbook space marine, I dont mean in the sense of him being standard so much as I literally find him to be the result of animating a textbook into the form of a space marine. Only bleeding out the flair or humour some of the more well written textbooks can have. He and the Mentors as a whole seem painfully incompetent to be brutally frank in their stated purpose.

 

I'm kind of tempted to draw a comparison to ADB's own Grey Knights for a much more well executed example of socially clumsy simpletons interacting with humans. Those interactions came across as being a result of a gap in social context and were very fun. Yet somehow the Mentors, who mind you are actually meant to be good at working with mortals, seem to only have a singular talent for inserting their feet into their mouths at every opportunity. Less like a strange abhuman trying to make sense of humanity and more like someone fed their description to a Biologis recluse who hasn't seen a non-servitor in a few millennia. 

 

That he was meant to be an officer at that is just painful.

 

As to the Spears... oh boy do the Spears make me angry. I am not fond of the 'wise savage who knows far more than the civilized fool' trope and they are that trope on steroids. That trope should have died with the romanticization of the Gauls but it seems to cling to western literature like a particularly persistent daemonic cancer. 

 

Also ADB tried way to hard to make them sound like they dont care about Guilliman. It starts to sound suspect when you go out of your way repeatedly to say how little you dont like your progenitor chapter, to the point where they come off more as if they are crying out for acknowledgement than being believable.

 

The most ironic thing is that ADB in a later interview claimed that Successors are somehow divorced from their founders (which is starkly at odds with the fact pretty much every other author has cleaved pretty closely to the more soul-altering aspects of gene-seed), which in light of Tempest noting that the XIIIth Legion had both the weird tendency towards liking distinct heraldry and being a bit obsessive, sort of makes both the Spears and the Mentors the most perfect exemplars of the XIIIth gene-seed on record.

 

Although I am tempted to chuckle at the fact that Guilliman is one of the friendliest and most affable Primarchs yet his sons seem to be endemically inclined to be at a weird place between antisocial and snide as a norm. 

 

I'll be honest in saying that I am a bit wary of sharing this opinion but I do want to note that I respect both the man's skills and that others have a different view to my own.

[mc warhammer]

i love adb's work but i can still lol at the idea of an animated textbook

[StrangerOrders]

i love adb's work but i can still lol at the idea of an animated textbook

For the record I do like his work, although for some reasons I tend to like the ones that more folks seem to dislike and dislike his 'best works'.

 

I liked MoM and EG most for example.

 

Although the guy is a living example of why BL really should record Afterwards in their audiobooks since I honestly think that they are required reading to really get most of his stuff. Since those seem to be growing popular but his work can be really incomplete without them.

 

Heck, look at how often people seem oblivious to his thoughts on the Emp as noted in the MoM afterward. 

 

My issue with him is that he has a certain aura of infallibility when it comes to how folks rate him which can make his stuff really annoying to discuss. A guy can be really talented without being perfect after all.

Edited July 20, 2020 by StrangerOrders

[Rob P]

Could equally say that the afterword shouldn't be required reading to get the book. In terms of MoM (i book I think is by far his weakest*), i reckon people are wilfully ignorant when they reference the Angron scene. The whole book is 'the Emperor is what people want him to be'.

 

With regard to Spear of the Emperor, the subtleties are subtle. I didn't get the straight laced impression of Amadeus, no matter how much it was pushed by the protagonist. In fact, everytime the Spears ask him to deviate a little he bends.

 

I also think it's interesting what different people enjoy from their BL fiction and how this affects weighting of rating. Like the point about maturity of the author, just goes over my head.the low action and low description, and just trusting the reader to know stuff, really helps with my reading. Even the climactic scene is 90% aftermath.

 

On that event,

here is why I didn't like it. Okay we have a couple of elements of setting this up including the oils and the betrayal on the Hex. But we also have the scene with the witch where one thrall has his future read and the others are conveniently absent; the lead up to the assassin where we get this leader we haven't seen before and paragraphs are dumped on the page trying to say what a great guy he is and how everyone loves him (almost as if he was a proxy added late and it was a Spear killed in an earlier draft) felt rushed; the fact mistrust was built up around Kartash but no one monitored him to the extent that he managed to boobytrap a bunch of servitors; and just the absurdity of sending a single vessel on a perilous journey for the opportunity to carry out the assassination attempt against a political enemy that is probably already dead (although very 40k).

 

 

 

 

*That i've read.