Rate what you Read, or the fight against Necromancy

[Lord_Caerolion]

From memory, Kartash wasn't mistrusted though, that's partly the issue, that makes Anuradha doubt herself even more. Kartash had spent his time making himself invaluable to the other Spears, but the only ones that doubted him were Anuradha and Serivahn, no-one else.

 

Also, Ekene was shown in the companion book to Helsreach, showing the aftermath of the initial attempted destruction of the Lions. It is a bit of a criticism that you almost have to have read that to understand who this guy is meant to be. And yes, the pettiness of the ship being sent seems intentional, to show just how "evil" the Inquisition is, in this instance.

[Petitioner's City]

 

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.

 

Where does "soul-altering" come from?

 

I think your issue here is scale, though. So many chapters and we barely know any of them, instead with our views blinkered by the studio and BL's endemic focus on the legion-derived chapters (ie the first/second founding chapters and legions). I'm not sure what books have so deeply looked at chapters from much later on and can accept what Aaron presents as it is much more enjoyable.

 

You could also look at successors through a postcolonial lens, possibly, especially as this is important to the early medieval context Aaron researched for the Spears. Looking with a post-colonial perspective means that it isn't about needing attention but rather independence, but rather needing to strike a different path from what was ultimately colonisation. That charged subtext is true for both the Spears and even the Lions.

[Lord_Caerolion]

 

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.

Where does "soul-altering" come from?

 

I think your issue here is scale, though. So many chapters and we barely know any of them, instead with our views blinkered by the studio and BL's endemic focus on the legion-derived chapters (ie the first/second founding chapters and legions). I'm not sure what books have so deeply looked at chapters from much later on and can accept what Aaron presents as it is much more enjoyable.

 

You could also look at successors through a postcolonial lens, possibly, especially as this is important to the early medieval context Aaron researched for the Spears. Looking with a post-colonial perspective means that it isn't about needing attention but rather independence, but rather needing to strike a different path from what was ultimately colonisation. That charged subtext is true for both the Spears and even the Lions.

 

 

I think he's referring to the times where geneseed has been shown to not just alter the physical appearance of the implantee, but also to change their personality, such as the stubbornness inherent in the Dornian gene-line, etc. 

[SkimaskMohawk]

Wasn't the stubbornness created through their training and selection process? Like it was a trait they actively looked for and then cultivated?

 

Not magic "I got some of my dad's Taurus lol" .

[ACoolBird]

Ephrael Stern: The Heretic Saint.

 

I was able to pick this up, and was looking forwards to it quite a bit after reading Daemonifuge for the first time a few years ago. But I found it disappointing, I can't really go into it too much without spoiling it. 

 

I didn't think much of the writing, it felt like it was on repeat. It picked up again at points, and there were some rather cool moments in it. But a lot of the story is filled with Stern's doubt, which I can understand but it takes too long to go anywhere with it which doesn't make for a good read. Her personality doesn't feel there like it did in Daemonifuge as well

 

I love the Sisters, they are my favourite faction and I've enjoyed most of their books so far. But my rating is a 5/10  

[StrangerOrders]

Wasn't the stubbornness created through their training and selection process? Like it was a trait they actively looked for and then cultivated?

 

Not magic "I got some of my dad's Taurus lol" .

Nope.

 

The Black Books are fantastic resources as they use the insetting design notes from the Emps research cadres as their sources and usually make a pretty clear distinction as to which behaviors are inherent to genelines and which are the results of specific selection and training schemes.

 

Case in point, the Fists are stubborn and indomitable because of niether source. But instead a result of the gene-seed of the VIIth having the rather strange quirk of requiring an irregular amount of pain to trigger properly, whether this is tied to Malevolence noting that the Emp liked to use the Fists to bonk psykers and 'aetheric disturbances' over the head is an interesting question.

 

The 'its training' line also fails because, as books like Betrayal, Hammer of Olympia and The Night Haunter point out, the indoctrination of legion candidates tended to be streamlined into near-oblivion as a matter of course among the larger legions. With some like Pert pushing it into the frankly ridiculous span of what we deem acceptable boot camp, yet despite this Extermination notes that the IVth always displayed an emergent tendency towards having a high technological aptitude. Heck, skimping on Indoctrination is even directly linked to the corruption of some of the Legions where it was most endemic.

 

Which is hilariously at odds with the fact that Olympia was backwards at best at the time of discovery and specifically lacked the materials needed for alot of higher tech. 

 

There are also gene-lines which are mentioned to display inherent traits that the Indoctrination and training literally had to be structured to try and buffer out, like Salamander suicidal-tendencies or the Wolves berserker habits. 

 

Its also noted in alot of books that the Gene-Seed has psychic affects that do ingrain things. We see in Praetorian that Astropaths not only see Astartes souls as being at least as alien to the tech-bleached souls of the Mechanicum but that they (the Fists) explicitly mirror and seem linked to Dorn's souls, to say nothing of the fact that a big element of that book is how the gene-cultists were able to figure out alot of the XXth using just what they knew from their gene-template.

 

You also have books like Inferno noting that there is definitely something psychic in the gene-seed since it tends to auto-kill Blanks that alot of Legions tried inducting (a nice addition I think, since it solves the problem of the Primarchs seeming foolish for at least not exploring that avenue by stating that alot of them tried to do it).

 

There are more examples across BL I can dig up but those are the ones that I recall off the top of my head.

 

Tbf, Gene-Seed is weird stuff.

Edited July 20, 2020 by StrangerOrders

[SkimaskMohawk]

Sure it's weird. And sure there's weird aspects to it. But if you want to cite praetorian, we can talk about the structured discipline they instill in archamus throughout his training, or how he's tenacious and stubborn to start with, before gene seed.

 

The iron warriors whole shtick was mass warfare, logistics and mathematics. These things tend to apply well to maintaining and inovating on technology. Olympia was mostly stuck in the technology era because of the extreme scarcity of exotic materials, not because they were bad at technology.

 

The wolves and salamanders are cited specifically as being extra tinkered with in addition to the alpha legion.

 

There's definitely a nature and nurture complex to marines, but saying the gene seed transforms everyone to be like dad, without any pre-screening, legion bias/culture and hypno-indoctrination is a little odd.

[StrangerOrders]

Sure it's weird. And sure there's weird aspects to it. But if you want to cite praetorian, we can talk about the structured discipline they instill in archamus throughout his training, or how he's tenacious and stubborn to start with, before gene seed.

 

The iron warriors whole shtick was mass warfare, logistics and mathematics. These things tend to apply well to maintaining and inovating on technology. Olympia was mostly stuck in the technology era because of the extreme scarcity of exotic materials, not because they were bad at technology.

 

The wolves and salamanders are cited specifically as being extra tinkered with in addition to the alpha legion.

 

There's definitely a nature and nurture complex to marines, but saying the gene seed transforms everyone to be like dad, without any pre-screening, legion bias/culture and hypno-indoctrination is a little odd.

Never said exactly like Dad or that there are not other factors at work.

 

Your original comment was to the effect that gene-seeds did not have a psychological effect and that it could be purely attributed to selection and indoctrination.

 

Your line regarding Archaemus is curious to me though since I noted that the Imperial Fists Gene-Seed has the quirk of requiring an awful lot of pain and an ability to cope with it to activate. His conversion (which to my knowledge is perhaps the most detailed example we have) just affirms that. 

 

The 'just like Dad' thing does not work because, as I noted, alot of Primarchs had to go out of their way to iron out the issues with their sons.

 

There is also, if we want to the extremely weird, the Blood Angels incarnation as the horrific Revenant Legion. They were not even a particularly extra-tinkered Legion and they were weird as unholy nuts, with the added effect of being almost completely indiscriminate with intake. 

 

As to hypno-Inductrination, my point was actually that while it certainly has an effect you can't outsource all the psychological quirks of a gene-line to it when we have characters showing them and being noted to be the norm in Legions where the bulk of it was cut out to save time during the Crusade. 

 

This could arguably be its own thread and is straying from the topic, but my point is that yes we have a mountain and a half of proof that while there are a number of variables at play you cannot hand-wave the legacy of the gene-lines.

 

Amusingly, there is a subplot to that effect in Siege of Baal. Which is a book that I really should get around to reviewing since I rather loved it and I dont see it mentioned quite enough.

Edited July 20, 2020 by StrangerOrders

[Rob P]

I feel this is straying further and further off topic, but I've always read it as a bit of both.

 

When the legions split the personalities of the chapter masters dominated the new chapters and, over time, those, whether by skill or fluke, that survived emphasised the direction of the chapter through their knowledge and character and, later, their geneseed.

 

This is why

Meduson

was a tragic loss, because it sealed the Iron Hands to go down a particular route.

 

There appears to be a large cultural element to chapters that are similar in nature to there mother legion and they seem to stick together.

 

Obviously doesn't diminish the concept of the geneseed providing an innate steer.

[Noserenda]

I think you need to remember that the black books are written by a deeply unreliable narrator and a lot of these immutable geneseed traits are not in fact carried on by successor chapters and warbands which kind of swings it back towards nurture for me. But this really really should be its own topic.

On topic! I just started the second Fabius book and by god i once again already want to build a warband from the Consortium, my wallet is once again thankful their 40k rules bear no relation to the warbands in the books :D 

[StrangerOrders]

I think you need to remember that the black books are written by a deeply unreliable narrator and a lot of these immutable geneseed traits are not in fact carried on by successor chapters and warbands which kind of swings it back towards nurture for me. But this really really should be its own topic.

 

On topic! I just started the second Fabius book and by god i once again already want to build a warband from the Consortium, my wallet is once again thankful their 40k rules bear no relation to the warbands in the books

That falls dangerously close to the issue we have with folks dismissing any lore that doesnt fit an exact narrative with claims of unreliability but I will leave that untouched.

 

As to the merit of the Black Books? The author is routinely honest and extremely professional with where he(?) is guessing, guestimating and drawing authoritatively. The accounts note where he is sourcing his data, is very poetic where his opinion is coming in and most essentially offers several theories where the character is uncertain or has conflicting information.

 

Most of this addressing stuff that no one but the court records he somehow has access to can confirm or deny. (Alright, the Terran Legionaries but BL refuses to let those be interesting).

 

Its actually a bit unfortunate that the Black Books get tossed to the wayside as often as they do since I think that their lore beats the hell out of alot of BL stuff and is worthy of review, but FW's price gauging closes them off to just about everyone who is mostly into the fluff aspect of the setting.

 

Actually... Roomsky, since you are OP would you say that it would be fine to review the Black Books on this thread? I've been biting at the bit to but have been unsure.

 

Also, in the name of an actual Review (and my suicidal need to be blunt).

 

Lords of Silence

 

This book is an enthralling window into the slow decline into madness, where you doubt your own existence and what the world is around you as reality rots away into the sea of chaos.

 

To be clear, I'm not referring to the plot so much as my experience listening to and then reading the book.

 

I walked into this book expecting a magnus opus, a crystallization of perfection whose very sight would collapse my knees and prostrate me in awe and reverence. Since that is very much the opinion I've heard about this book.

 

Instead it honestly reads as a bog standard Chaos book and not necessarily in the fun way. Its several hundred pages of ruminating on how Chaos is very powerful all-consuming and unstoppable. Which is a revelation, apparently.

 

We follow the Lords of Silence, the most ironically named warband in the history of the Chaos Legions. A coterie literal meatbags who feel the persistent need to brag about their ability to draw metaphors about decay and their varying styles of being next to invincible. We follow them on their bog-standard rampage across the faltering Imperium as they engage in the time-honored tradition of man-splaining metaphysics to every unfortunate mortal within earshot while internally at odds over who is the best example of a Plague Marine stereotype.

 

I wish I could be kinder about this book, but I really can't. Half the cast is interchangeable with the big twist in the book being completely lost on me since due to a mix of bloat and having next to nothing unique about their personalities I was unable to actually tell who did it. To the point where the biggest shock was the next PoV being from the guy who I thought had just died. 

 

I can summarize the entire plot as 'Nostalgic War Vet gathers trivia while his senile friends bicker over to what degree he is senile except SURPRISE he is actually all knowing and chooses to be boring, meanwhile his cranky nephew is raging about going down the really high waterslide despite having no intention to actually doing it'.

 

The worst part was that it was so relentlessly bleak.

 

Before you say 'well thats what is great about it, its an honest look at 40k' let me stop you for a second.

 

40k is awful, its a horrible nightmare world where your elevator has a decent chance of being possessed by an ancient AI seeking vengeance against humanity for the one time a guy farted inside it.

 

But do you really need several hundred pages of the most uninteresting chaos lord in the galaxy expounding on how awful it is? I don't really care that he masochistically likes it (yes, being driven insane by horrible magic pain is still just masochism if you are liking it. You can only take so much of it before your eyes start rolling into the back of your skull and you start using the descriptions of war crimes by zombie demigods to help you sleep out of boredom.

 

Wraight is usually one of my favorite writers and I honestly thought that this acclaimed book would be my chance to see him tackle the interesting world of Chaos.

 

Instead, I am now doubting my reality more than that captain they corrupt (who was so meaningless I just recalled he existed).

 

I now submit myself to the tender mercies of the B&C-quisition for my horrendous taste.

 

EDIT: For the record, I went through it in both formats convinced that I was missing something.

 

4/10 Must Buy Apparently

Edited July 21, 2020 by StrangerOrders

[Roomsky]

If the mods allow it, reviews of Black books are accepted and encouraged. To this day I pray they'll eventually put out a compilation of the fluff by itself, even if ludicrously expensive. What I've seen discussed about it makes it clear they have a much greater understanding about what makes a compelling faction than the novels.

 

I do personally need many more hundreds of pages expounding how awful the galaxy is. I need it in every book, whatever the overall tone. Because reality is full of people who have forgotten (I am in no way accusing you of being one of those people).

 

My personal criteria for a good Wraight book begins and ends at 1: did he write it? 2: is it mostly fighting?

 

If the answer to question 1 is "yes" and question 2 is "no," then I tend to just absorb the shortcomings as inconsequential.

Edited July 21, 2020 by Roomsky

[StrangerOrders]

If the mods allow it, reviews of Black books are accepted and encouraged. To this day I pray they'll eventually put out a compilation of the fluff by itself, even if ludicrously expensive. What I've seen discussed about it makes it clear they have a much greater understanding about what makes a compelling faction than the novels.

 

I do personally need many more hundreds of pages expounding how awful the galaxy is. I need it in every book, whatever the overall tone. Because reality is full of people who have forgotten (I am in no way accusing you of being one of those people).

 

My personal criteria for a good Wraight book begins and ends at 1: did he write it? 2: is it mostly fighting?

 

If the answer to question 1 is "yes" and question 2 is "no," then I tend to just absorb the shortcomings as inconsequential.

Well Kelborn frequents here pretty often so I'll cross my fingers and pray to the dark gods that he sees the question and answers in the affirmative. 

 

As to the quality of the Black Books? I swear by them but I might well be in the minority since alot of folks on this thread are avid 30k players but dont reference them that often, although it might just be a taboo I am oblivious to.

 

And yes, I do strongly believe that they have a very strong theme of knowing how to make each faction enthralling. To put it bluntly, I think that alot of whether you think all Legions and Chapters are the same or not varies alot on whether you have read them, because they make each Legion out to be darn-near its own species.

 

They also serve to plug alot of the holes left by BL and to sew together alot of fragmented narratives and novels into a few (usually 150ish, but hey thats a Primarch novel and those can be great) pages of awesome fluff (the rest being game stuff). They also usually root out (not always though) inconsistencies and make almost everyone come across as far smarter and more interesting.

 

To give an example, they make the Space Wolves extremely awesome and actually make sense of their 'pretend to be dumb' thing. They give us stories like Russ ripping apart an Ork empire by basically using Viking raiding logic and having forged a close alliance with a strong Navigator house to basically wage a campaign that the Orks couldnt coherently respond to. Or doing things like taking a bunch of older and clunky Stormbird models to Prospero (and everyone thinking he wasnt very bright for doing so) and then revealing that he was hoping to exploit a little-known quirk of their Void Shielding systems to basically create an Aerial shieldwall to bludgeon past the orbital defenses and then land as a literal castle on Magnus's doorstep. 

 

I could say more, like the TSons using their tight coherency to take down Space!Boudica or the Alpha Legion trolling a race of parasites to death but I will await on the response to whether this is allowed.

[Rob P]

I'm projecting a huge amount in saying this, but the black books aren't referenced a lot because they're expensive, so most people don't have them.

 

I join Roomsky in hoping for a lore compilation but, bar the example of the HH art book, I'd struggle to show any precedent for it.

 

Edit: On topic, re Lord of Silence.

 

Thank you for this review - i reckon I'll skip that now.

 

I find expectations can really colour the feel of a book. I remember reading Eisenhorn around the time Horus Rising came out and the really positive reviews created a false expectation.

 

For what it's worth, the same thing happened for me with Chris Wraight. Imo, the 'Sword of' books were so good that I've not gelled with his 40k, which i, again, put down to expectation. Obvs his 30k was refreshing, but still no Sword of (imo).

 

Now don't read that duology because I've created an expectation!

Edited July 21, 2020 by Rob P

[Petitioner's City]

If we could review the fluff and art - not rules - in old rulebooks, codexes and imperial armour, too, that would be amazing. There isn't really a space for that here, an analytic space for how the setting is presented in each generation of books.

 

@strangerorders - ultimately I think plenty of people do read the black books, although as you say they are quite voluminous in content so I do think that it is easy to pick details from them, and sometimes drift from the whole. When you reference information from them I'd wish you'd list page and even quote the original text that supports your interpretation and wider context of that section - I do think that will help your argument more than just general information about the books.

 

I think, also, we must understand they are a different *genre* - both in what they present themselves as, a historical bricolage, and as sourcebooks for a gaming public - from a prose, generally third-person, fiction series told by authors doing each different things as creatives, experimenting with style, their own ideas, lore, real world ideas, etc. But for both novel books and sourcebooks - all texts are unreliable, authored and grounded in the moments and modes and media of their creation and existence, historically, so this affects how different people respond to them. But I do think we have mostly read the black books via the internet even if we don't own them. I also think we should remember they aren't lore manuals, totally - they are literary works of different media - we should enjoy them for this foremost, not just as lorebooks. They were written by authors experimenting themselves (I really enjoyed Anuj's Stormcast for a window into this).

 

Thus, I also think you should look at *who* writes each back book - not just Bligh, but of course Andy Hoare and John French, co-authored the original trilogy (a team who emerged from the FFG RPG books especially). This is worth remembering - how communication occurs within teams of GW and freelancer writer employees, how quite quickly info from.the black books entered into the BL series, but equally that the BL series is a worth of authors wanting to tell their own stories, even French whose works are now such a vital part - not communciate source book information.

Edited July 21, 2020 by Petitioner's City

[Gongsun Zan]

 

 

4/10 Must Buy Apparently

 

 

As somebody who generally enjoys Wraight's works, I would agree with you on this. I was hoping a fresh perspective on the DG akin to what Wraight did for the White Scars, but if you ask me today, I wouldn't be able to name a single character in the book. I can't help but feel the book was a rush commission job to tie in with the release of the model line.  

[byrd9999]

 

 

 

4/10 Must Buy Apparently

 

 

As somebody who generally enjoys Wraight's works, I would agree with you on this. I was hoping a fresh perspective on the DG akin to what Wraight did for the White Scars, but if you ask me today, I wouldn't be able to name a single character in the book. I can't help but feel the book was a rush commission job to tie in with the release of the model line.  

 

 

We must have read different books because Vorx is one of my favourite BL characters! He's trying to keep a semblance of his own normality and personality while being offered less-than-helpful "gifts" from Nurgle and dealing with the madness of his Primarch and other legionaries.

 

And this is the best Death Guard depiction BL have put out, imo.

It's worth it for the "Little Lords" scenes alone :)

 

Rob P, I wouldn't let this one review affect your opinion. Many people had this book on their best books of the year list, so check out other opinions before deciding not to read it. It also dovetails nicely with Guy Haley's Dark Imperium books.

[Noserenda]

 

I think you need to remember that the black books are written by a deeply unreliable narrator and a lot of these immutable geneseed traits are not in fact carried on by successor chapters and warbands which kind of swings it back towards nurture for me. But this really really should be its own topic.

 

On topic! I just started the second Fabius book and by god i once again already want to build a warband from the Consortium, my wallet is once again thankful their 40k rules bear no relation to the warbands in the books

That falls dangerously close to the issue we have with folks dismissing any lore that doesnt fit an exact narrative with claims of unreliability but I will leave that untouched.

 

As to the merit of the Black Books? The author is routinely honest and extremely professional with where he(?) is guessing, guestimating and drawing authoritatively. The accounts note where he is sourcing his data, is very poetic where his opinion is coming in and most essentially offers several theories where the character is uncertain or has conflicting information.

 

Most of this addressing stuff that no one but the court records he somehow has access to can confirm or deny. (Alright, the Terran Legionaries but BL refuses to let those be interesting).

 

Its actually a bit unfortunate that the Black Books get tossed to the wayside as often as they do since I think that their lore beats the hell out of alot of BL stuff and is worthy of review, but FW's price gauging closes them off to just about everyone who is mostly into the fluff aspect of the setting.

Its not so much dismissing them as comparing them to the objective evidence that opposes them and while the general tech knowledge of the Imperium is higher in 30k they havent let the marines loose in the wild for 10k years at that point to get the really weeeird changes :D 

 

As someone who once collected all the black books obsessively, i suspect the main reason they dont get referred to very often is just how damn unfriendly they are to read, i mean my current flat only has a table big enough to read one at if i clear my workbench and i have genuinely looked into buying a lectern for them before :D Fortunately i got a bunch of PDFs when i used to game with them to print off relevant pages (And keep the black books under the table/in the car) which are a bit handier to look through but that was only up til the red books got released  so 1-3? Though i guess the others are also out there :) 

[SkimaskMohawk]

Yea lords of silence is quite good. The characters are distinct, theres great insight the legion, its a good post-rift book and it picks up the white consuls plot from Dark Creed.

 

The problem comparing it to a scars culture look is that the scars had no novels. They had nothing past hunt for v....whatever his name is; they had a clean slate for interesting stuff and expansion on their core concepts. Death guard have way more novels; he isn't reinventing the wheel here. He can't, because swallow and Haley have written a lot about them already.

 

And ya, black books aren't the Holy grail by any means. They're great pieces of information, but inherently held back by the in-universe perspective. The "writer" only has the information they're allowed to see and that they want to see. Now this is true for any character in a novel, but when the narration says "X is so" in a novel, then it's so. When a character is narrating, then it isn't.

[Noserenda]

I think the problem with the Deathguard is they never got a foundational single novel until right at the end of the series, but were a mjor part of various books, usually as antagonists, with bugger all central control or planning. So they ended up a moustache twirling mess. :/ 

[StrangerOrders]

I think the problem with the Deathguard is they never got a foundational single novel until right at the end of the series, but were a mjor part of various books, usually as antagonists, with bugger all central control or planning. So they ended up a moustache twirling mess. :/ 

The sad thing is that I think their concept had potential, but they have the same problem as Salamanders.

 

You set up a Legion, give them cool traits and the things they excel at.

 

And then never actually show or use them at all.

 

Sort of like how Salamanders are never shown to use their craftsmanship to solve a problem and the more tragic aspects of their flaws arent played with. Its bog standard Marines with an extra slice of milktoast.

 

The Deathguard are supposed to have been this Legion where cross-training was the norm, one of the things I liked about Betrayal was that the idea that every single Astartes in their Legion was trained to be able to pick up and drop most of the baseline job descriptions at the drop of a hat and that they excelled at 'reading' where different assets could be used well.

 

Mort's talent was supposed to be as this sort of preternatural general that knew how to get the most out of everyone'e skillset and to have a singular ability for knowing how to control the flow of battle.

 

Heck, Garro is supposed to be an ancient veteran from a Legion that were the finest scions of massed heavy infantry and masters of combat positioning and breakthroughs.

 

Where is that in the actual novels? They are treated as being extremely grumpy pre-Chaos and obnoxiously cheerful after, their entire concept has been boiled down to 'err,,, Yeah! Lets talk about toxins for the eight hundredth time!'.

 

And the finest show of Morty's military genius was making his formation a giant fly shape for some reason... although i give Haley credit for at least the rest of the cast acting as if it was some masterwork of placement. 

 

But we never really see the things that could make them distinct outside of the whole poison and decay bit. When do you see Deathguard characters bring extra gear, change loadouts as needed between battles or display that sort of instinct for positioning?

 

Heck, Garro is actually particularly offensive because for all his complaints about Morty he never shows anything about the Duskraiders or his age and is boiled down to a really boring 40k Marine thrown back to 30k.

 

Thats sort of why I like the Black Books so much (and I acknowledge that, as I implied earlier, this opinion is in the minority), they seem much more willing to milk the concepts of the Legions and actually employ them in fulfilling ways.

 

 

 

 

 

 

4/10 Must Buy Apparently

 

 

As somebody who generally enjoys Wraight's works, I would agree with you on this. I was hoping a fresh perspective on the DG akin to what Wraight did for the White Scars, but if you ask me today, I wouldn't be able to name a single character in the book. I can't help but feel the book was a rush commission job to tie in with the release of the model line.  

 

 

We must have read different books because Vorx is one of my favourite BL characters! He's trying to keep a semblance of his own normality and personality while being offered less-than-helpful "gifts" from Nurgle and dealing with the madness of his Primarch and other legionaries.

 

And this is the best Death Guard depiction BL have put out, imo.

It's worth it for the "Little Lords" scenes alone 

 

Rob P, I wouldn't let this one review affect your opinion. Many people had this book on their best books of the year list, so check out other opinions before deciding not to read it. It also dovetails nicely with Guy Haley's Dark Imperium books.

 

I recall specifically saying that I was shocked because my read runs counter to popular opinion, and I think overhyping things is sort of how you end up begging for people to come out not liking stuff very much (hence why I caveat my love for stuff with 'I might be in the minority here' and because I dont like to come off as being dismissive of disagreement). 

Edited July 21, 2020 by StrangerOrders

[mc warhammer]

"hype" is a funny thing, sometimes it can let me down by raising expectations or other times, like for me with "lords of silence",  it made me look for or be more open to the good moments in a way i might not have been otherwise. sometimes the harsh criticisms lower my bar so much i unexpectedly enjoy a book more than i anticipated (like "vengeful spirit" or the early siege books. not quite the slog i was expecting them to be).

 

with LoS i did enjoy the lead death guard character and the corruption of the imperial soldier but i have to admit i'd have trouble naming any of the other characters or even remembering what they did in the plot, as opposed to say the ahriman or fabius books or the night lords trilogy, where i have very strong impressions of the cast.

 

with the blackbooks unreliable narrator thing, i think the "author" is fairly sincere in their approach, but even then it's helpful to remember the context of his/her writing of the text: raised and operating in a high propaganda culture...that seems to me that would naturally lead to biases. the imperium of 40k isn't one that seems overly concerned with objectivity from what i understand. the texts the author is working with as research may be unverifiable or heavily doctored in themselves (as i think the author admits from time to time). i'd compare it to the work of some of the irl historians of the roman empire or chinese dynasties in terms of overall accuracy.

Edited July 22, 2020 by mc warhammer

[Lord_Caerolion]

I've just never liked Garro. Both he and Loken were so cookie-cutter "generic hero" in personality, you'd be able to swap which Legions they'd been betrayed by without changing any elements of their personality whatsoever. This is why the whole "Death Guard got the Garro books to cover them" thing is so infuriating, because Garro didn't act like a Death Guard member in any way. He didn't act like a Dusk Raider either. He was just Standard  Space Marine Hero.

 

 

As for Lords of Silence, it was great at showing what Nurgle is like, but as a novel, it kinda fell flat. The characters were all so alike, and I had no idea who each character was, or what they looked like, other than Vorx. Everyone else kinda blurred together.

[Roomsky]

I've just never liked Garro. Both he and Loken were so cookie-cutter "generic hero" in personality, you'd be able to swap which Legions they'd been betrayed by without changing any elements of their personality whatsoever. This is why the whole "Death Guard got the Garro books to cover them" thing is so infuriating, because Garro didn't act like a Death Guard member in any way. He didn't act like a Dusk Raider either. He was just Standard  Space Marine Hero.

 

 

As for Lords of Silence, it was great at showing what Nurgle is like, but as a novel, it kinda fell flat. The characters were all so alike, and I had no idea who each character was, or what they looked like, other than Vorx. Everyone else kinda blurred together.

 

I think that's a greater sin for Garro than Loken, as Loken wasn't really guilty of that in his introductory book. Like the other members of the Mournival, his personality was simplified when Mcneill took over, and I'd argue that going off Horus Rising alone it's still uncertain which side of the war he's going to land on. 

 

Garro is just so archetypically heroic there's never a seed of doubt where he's going. It's bad enough Flight of the Eisenstein told us so little about the rest of the 14th (though it's somewhat forgivable for the time), but Garro himself isn't even unique amongst marine protagonists. Loken's questioning nature could have easily lead him into Chaos' clutches in a search for all the wrong answers, Garro's crisis of faith is only a matter of survival in Eisenstein, which I'd argue is much less interesting.

 

Back to Lords of Silence specifically, it did a lot I love in regards to the new edition as well like cementing the Abaddon vs Daemon Primarch dichotomy. To me it was all worth it for Typhus' exasperation about the Plague War and the primarch's return alone. 

[StrangerOrders]

I've just never liked Garro. Both he and Loken were so cookie-cutter "generic hero" in personality, you'd be able to swap which Legions they'd been betrayed by without changing any elements of their personality whatsoever. This is why the whole "Death Guard got the Garro books to cover them" thing is so infuriating, because Garro didn't act like a Death Guard member in any way. He didn't act like a Dusk Raider either. He was just Standard  Space Marine Hero.

Pretty much and that is sort of my problem with alot of Terran Astartes.

 

Like... literally every Legion came out of Sol with a pretty formed and distinct identity, and it has been two centuries with some of the oldest being in their 250s or even 300s.

 

How the heck do almost all of them have the personality of a stick? A very uninteresting stick at that. 

 

The outsider looking in is a very common (and painfully lazy) trope in most hands precisely because the outsider typically has nothing really going for them. No Terran marines should be interchangeable because a Revenant, a Duskraider and an Imperial Herald should have literally nothing in common.

 

Heck, the Imperium literally went out of its way in alot of cases to go after very specific Terran groups to produce dramatically different results by design. 

 

Alot of them also feel way too young, like seriously even in 40k a two hundred and something year old marine isnt exactly young.

 

 

"hype" is a funny thing, sometimes it can let me down by raising expectations or other times, like for me with "lords of silence",  it made me look for or be more open to the good moments in a way i might not have been otherwise. sometimes the harsh criticisms lower my bar so much i unexpectedly enjoy a book more than i anticipated (like "vengeful spirit" or the early siege books. not quite the slog i was expecting them to be).

 

with LoS i did enjoy the lead death guard character and the corruption of the imperial soldier but i have to admit i'd have trouble naming any of the other characters or even remembering what they did in the plot, as opposed to say the ahriman or fabius books or the night lords trilogy, where i have very strong impressions of the cast.

 

with the blackbooks unreliable narrator thing, i think the "author" is fairly sincere in their approach, but even then it's helpful to remember the context of his/her writing of the text: raised and operating in a high propaganda culture...that seems to me that would naturally lead to biases. the imperium of 40k isn't one that seems overly concerned with objectivity from what i understand. the texts the author is working with as research may be unverifiable or heavily doctored in themselves (as i think the author admits from time to time). i'd compare it to the work of some of the irl historians of the roman empire or chinese dynasties in terms of overall accuracy.

They definitely read like a Secret History but the author is also likely going to die, they say way to much to be suffered in post-Heresy 30k and the books were obviously never meant for anyone but maybe the High Lords.

 

A purebred fanatic does not take go through the trouble to include the Alpha Legion's testimonial or devout several pages to calling out the Emp for strategic blunders. The writer definitely has their biases but I'd argue we can actually decipher a fairly well-formed idea of who the 'character' is from reading all eight books. Their bias is definitely endemic but I'd argue the book is arguably one of the most weirdly objective works in the setting (and that is hilariously enough including alot of authors).

 

Hells I keep getting pulled into talking about them so I think I'm going to just ask the mods.