Rate what you Read, or the fight against Necromancy

[Fedor]

I just get jacked up on cocaine and speed, then read all the books while pacing about like a maniac. An old shmup transcendency technique the video games industry taught me well.

 

This tends to get me past any issues with a vulgar prose stylist.

Edited May 12, 2021 by Fedor

[Roomsky]

Audiobooks are also a drug-free alternative to removing the quality of prose from the equation. Gate of Bones was excellent as a listen but would probably not do as well on the page.

 

Alternatively, drugs.

[Noserenda]

What Roomsky said :D I havent read much from Clarke but Gate of Bones was excellent as an ebook in the main, some sections i drifted through but some of the early bits are great, especially the things in the catacombs :) 

[Sothalor]

Celestine

by Andy Clark

 

Another Black Library work covering one of the setting’s named characters, Celestine frustrates me because I really enjoyed about half of it. This short novel is comprised of two parallel narratives: one following Celestine in the warp – presumably – as she undergoes her resurrection process, the other atop a crusade she leads on a planet under siege by Chaos. The narrative alternates between the two a chapter at a time.

 

One of these is a trippy allegorical personal spiritual journey packed with wonderful 40k high fantasy imagery. The other is a cliched mash of two-dimensional characters, unconvincing arcs, and tepid battle porn.

 

You can probably guess which of these I liked.

 

I’ve already said more than my piece about Clark’s prose; my experience and opinion remains unchanged by this.

 

Celestine is at its best when focusing on the titular character’s mystic journey. I hope it’s not a spoiler, but Saint Celestine’s shtick is that that she doesn’t stay dead, reappearing in another warzone whenever she falls. Part of this book delves into how that process happens from her perspective, offering a peek behind the scenes as it were.

 

Without giving too much away, the core gist of it is that after each death Celestine wakes up in a spirit realm (I’m assuming the warp, though it’s not explicitly stated here) with no memories, no possessions, and only a vague intuition of a light and warmth off somewhere in the distance she has to reach. She has to piece herself together – physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. The process entails a series of trials and encounters while she makes her way towards the light, rediscovering herself, her motivations, and her capabilities along the way along the way, and reaching the light sends her off to the next place in the galaxy she needs to be.

 

I loved this stuff. Call me a sucker for mythological allegories and meta-physical journeys of self-discovery. Add in a healthy does of the hero wandering the underworld thematic archetype. There’s also just something about sublime (in the archaic sense) angelic women with longswords that spikes my brain’s happy center.

 

The nature of where/not where this is happening opens the door for some delightful fantastic imagery. Mountains formed from the bones, armor, and weapons of uncountable slain. Great decaying cities raining burning ash. Immense worm-burrows of trapped souls. Unimaginably vast seas of every color, where leviathan things lurk just beneath the surface.

 

Furthermore, compared to Clark’s prior Shroud of Night (of which this is an indirect sequel to), Celestine actually gets to be a character here, as she relearns not just who she is but also what she has to give up in pursuit of her eternal, Sisyphean task.

 

At its best, Celestine reminded me of Dante’s Inferno and C.S. Lewis’ The Great Divorce – fantastic mythological imagery as the backdrops for journeys of personal discovery and epiphany.

 

And then the chapter ends and we go back to cliched cutouts of Battle Sisters and Imperial Guard and Khornate cultists charging gunlines and hamfisted characterization and tedious battle scenes and I pull a Darth Vader at the end of Revenge of the Sith.

 

This entire plotline did not need to exist. Showcasing Celestine’s effect on the faithful and doubtful from the perspective of the not-saints is probably the biggest waste here, as basically everything else GW has published with her has focused on that aspect. If you want a story of ordinary soldiers coming face-to-face with the numinous quality of a living saint and the ecstatic awe and terror that experience compels, the Gaunt’s Ghosts Saint arc does it way better. All this does is eat up page and word count from the far more compelling narrative of Celestine rediscovering herself.

 

And that’s what’s so frustrating – what’s good here is really good, and the raw potential of what could have been something magical shines through like the sun behind a veil of clouds. I would have loved to have seen this expanded, focusing just on Celestine’s personal Inferno-Purgatorio-Paradiso journey with some more personal flashbacks as she wanders the spiritscape, more trials and temptations (say, by each of the Chaos gods?), and written by the likes of Harrison or Wraight or French.

 

So do I recommend Celestine? For half of it, hell yes (heaven yes? Warp yes?). The other half, not so much. On balance then, call it a halfhearted recommendation. Let me echo and contrast what I said about Clark’s Shroud of Night.

 

You probably won’t regret reading it – but it does change your idea of what a 40k novel could be. It’s just a shame it does so more in the conceptual potential it hints at than the execution achieved.

 

 

Arbitrary rating:

6.6 7 due to personal preferences angel swordswoman simping/10

 

 

P.S.: Could some game studio please make a 40k rogue-lite a la Hades where we play as Celestine busting out of the warp? Pretty please?

[aa.logan]

The Master of Mankind.

 

Aaron Dembski-Bowden.

 

I was a tad underwhelmed by this the first time round, so was looking forward to revisit it because plenty of folk enthused about it and made be feel I’d missed something.

 

They were right.

 

Other people’s reviews put it better, but it’s really very good. Yes, it explains why so much of 40k is why it is in terms of events but it also does so in terms of mentality. From the very start of the book it makes it clear that the Imperium only functions because it consumes it’s citizens- from the children of defeated rulers being turned into Custodes to the lowliest grunts being windwiped to function as servitorsthe Imperium ran on human sacrifice long before the Golden Throne started feeding on psykers; this thematic throughline would be enough to set The Master of Mankind apart from much of the HH series even if it wasn’t for the great character work, wonderful world building and cracking action scenes. It sets the context for the Heresy almost as much as The First Heretic and for the entirety of 40k better than anything I can currently think of.

 

10/10, essential.

[byrd9999]

The First Wall, by Gav Thorpe.

 

Wow. This far exceeded my expectations. Gav's best work to date, in terms of plotting, prose, characterisation.

 

The lore developments of the proto-Commissar and the cult of the Emperor were handled well. An unusual subtlety from Gav, which shows how he has really grown as a writer.

French, Haley and now passing the baton onto Thorpe, they have all raised their game in the Siege of Terra.

 

and i did not see the twist coming with Zenobi and the Addaban traitors! It made me go back and re-read certain passages. Great stuff from Gav not tipping his hand.

 

9/10

[SkimaskMohawk]

A contentious rating to say the least lol

[Roomsky]

Ciaphas Cain: Duty Calls (Audiobook) – Sandy Mitchell

 

I think this is the last Cain book I’ll be reading/listening to. The audio performances are still great, the humour is still snappy, and this is probably the best plot since the series began in For the Emperor. But, as has been said by sharper minds, every book in this series is the same. If I have to listen to Vale apologize for Sulla’s prose or Cain reflect “if I’d known how bad X was going to be” one more time I’m going to stab something.

 

To Taste – you’ll have infinite patience for Cain or you won’t

6/10

 

 

re: byrd9999. I flip-flop on that book a lot, but I don't think it deserves all the :cuss it gets. I'd rather Zenobi have been in her own novella, but I did really enjoy her parts of the book the most.

[SkimaskMohawk]

For me, it has nothing to do with the Zenobi arc. I actually rather liked it and thought it was the best written part of the book.

 

First wall just has too many things that are dumb in it, from characters to the entire premise of the Lions Gate port still being intact. Forrix, Khârn, perturabo, abbaddon, Sigismund, zardu, dorn; Thorpe mangled them all.

[cheywood]

Zenobi’s arc would’ve made for a decent novella, but overall I’m meh on The First Wall. Very by the numbers for me. I seem to only like Gav when he’s writing in first person. Edited May 27, 2021 by cheywood

[aa.logan]

A contentious rating to say the least lol

I agree with every word of the review; it’s really odd how polarising the book is.

[DukeLeto69]

My two pence - I recently finished The First Wall (bit behind but reading SoT 1-5 back-to-back).

 

I enjoyed it but found it a bit hard going in places and started speed reading some sections.

 

The SoT books were always going to be hard going for me as I am ironically not that interested in the “war” element of warhammer. That is why books like Farrer’s Calpurnia, Abnett’s Eisenhorn etc, Wraight’s Vot & WotT, Fehervari stuff, and the WH Crime books are my favourites.

 

So I found it was the Astartes sections, the Iron Warriors stuff, ie the actual siege stuff, that I started skipping.

 

However, I really enjoyed the Zenobi stuff and the Amon/Keeler stuff. Thought those bits were excellent, really excellent.

 

Now reading Saturnine and, it really is another level. Abnett is a fine writer and even the battles are interesting (to me).

[byrd9999]

Sons of the Selenar, by Graham McNeill.

 

Definitely in the "meh" camp, but at least it was quick to read and didn't mess up the main Siege narrative.

 

Tymell and Dark Chaplain summed up my thoughts about the contrivance and frustration involved in this book in the main SotS thread, so I won't bother to repeat what essentially they said first and said better than I could, but McNeill does his usual job of tooth-grindingly shoddy writing.

 

Three examples that really ground my gears:

 

1. "Snapped". Space Marines act like petulant children when McNeill needs to create dialogue, so they act passively-aggressive and "snap" at each other. Thankfully this only happened a mere 4 or 5 times in this novella.

 

2. Loyalist Space Marines are well-trained, highly disciplined, masters of combat with minds and visual feeds that help them parse difficult tactical situations quickly. So when the bone-headed Sisypheum crew find out that the traitors have covered the "main entrance" to the Luna labs, they are flummoxed and cannot think of how to gain access. Thankfully the bene gesserit luna witch is there to tell them there is a side entrance.

 

3. Numen spends the first half of the book acting like a child and refusing to accept Tyro's return, even staring off into the distance and pretending not to hear when being spoken to, but is later described as "ever the pragmatist". It's like McNeill doesn't even know what words or characterisation or continuity mean.

 

Petty rant over...

 

 

5/10.

[Roomsky]

Of Honour and Iron - Ian St. Martin

 

This is an odd one. I read plenty of books that I'd say are pretty decent, despite the author not really getting 40k. Of Honour and Iron is the rare opposite. It's also the Space Marine Conquests book that probably delivers the closest thing to an Indomitus-era Space Marine Battles book, and I don't think that's a good thing.

 

I really liked Slave of Nuceria and Lucius, so I expected this to deliver a lot more than it did. There is certainly a lot here I like. It's a much more sober look at Indomitus Era Guilliman and the Ultramarines than is given in Dark Imperium, and I like it much better. Guilliman makes quite the impact despite his very short appearances, and is depressed but driven in a way I find really convincing considering his situation. I know there's some contention about the religiousness of Helios, but it doesn't bother me at all because it makes him a: the most compelling Ultra in the book and b: I never bought into the idea that astartes didn't get religious in the first place, I don't think it's believable at all.

 

The primaris too are handled well conceptually, being met with caution upon arrival and, despite their physical superiority, having a lot to learn from their vanilla astartes brethren. There's even a reference to the Thunder Warriors! Despite how incredibly well the loyalists do here considering their numbers and resources, the whole book seems set on smacking the Ultramarines in the face with the realities of this era, even if they win. Altruism and courage are often met with futility and death, and it makes for a great tone. 

 

Unfortunately the plot and characters are pretty weak. We don't know what either side is looking for until near the end, and it's neither competent intrigue nor a compelling reveal. Side characters often get a one or two chapter spotlight with no real follow-through or payoff. The main cast outside of Helios is an amorphous blob of Primaris Ultramarines with no individually identifying features. And without a strong cast the book is far too full of action scenes to be compelling. Lucius, by contrast, had a load of interesting characters and that's why the book succeeded despite being nearly all set piece battles.

 

The exceptions were Helios and the Iron Warriors. Helios is just too extra to not be compelling, and his single-mindedness combined with the surprisingly astartes-relevant "five or one" lesson made him a lot of fun to witness. The Iron Warriors are just so single-mindedly hateful I can't help but find them entertaining. I definitely believed they've had a good 10,000 years to ferment their bitterness into something much worse, but are still just barely clinging on to a few old principles. 

 

But the highs aren't really enough for me to say this was good. St. Martin understands 40k, and I wish more books would have this tone, especially in Era Indomitus. There are some interesting characters here and there, a few fun tidbits, but overall it's just a bland book about a bland battle. I love it conceptually, but it doesn't deliver on its promise.

 

5.5/10

Diehards Only

[aa.logan]

Like you I’d really enjoyed Ian St Martin’s other works and was rather disappointed by this; it was a real slog to finish it- were it not for the Iron Warriors I’d struggle to say a single positive thing about it.

[Scribe]

Fabius Bile: Manflayer - Josh Reynolds

 

After the 2nd book, I thought 'this is a love story'.

 

Book 3 confirms it. It is a story of family, of fatherhood and parenting, within a backdrop of insanity, obsession, and the entropy which encapsulates 40K.

 

Its simply so good.

 

I cant really fault anything in the book, and the only regret is that Josh is no longer within the BL stable.

 

9.5, and if you actually like 40K, you wont pass on this one.

[Fire Golem]

Agreed on Manflayer, I read it recently, just so good. The whole trilogy is excellent.

[DukeLeto69]

At some point I will have to give the Fabius Bile books another go.

 

Right now I have Primogenitor in HB on my shelf with the bookmark at page 181. Bought when it came out but clearly didn’t click and I just stopped reading.

 

Lots of folks on here rave about those books (and Reynolds is a stand up guy) but I struggled.

 

Maybe it is Reynolds slightly irreverent tone? It comes across to me as a bit “wink wink nudge nudge you guys aren’t taking this stuff too seriously are you?”

 

Currently I categorise this in the same group as Atlas Infernal. Another book many loved and I hated. Like really hated. It was IMO just Dr Who in W40k.

 

Maybe I don’t like smart alec protagonists?

[Bobss]

Fabius Bile: Manflayer - Josh Reynolds

 

After the 2nd book, I thought 'this is a love story'.

 

Book 3 confirms it. It is a story of family, of fatherhood and parenting, within a backdrop of insanity, obsession, and the entropy which encapsulates 40K.

 

Its simply so good.

 

I cant really fault anything in the book, and the only regret is that Josh is no longer within the BL stable.

 

9.5, and if you actually like 40K, you wont pass on this one.

 

I could wax lyrical about this trilogy, there's just so many incredible elements to it... I can't think of any other body of work that better showcases how vibrant and esoteric 40k can be (McNeill's Mars. trilogy is probably second place fwiw). Every aspect of this trilogy is top-tier from Josh's gorgeous prose to his secondary and even tertiary characters having distinguishable personalities. I can recall and broadly define every single Emperor's Children in this trilogy - that's how damn good Josh's writing is. Even ADB's Ezekarion can't match this. UHHHHHHHHHH IT'S SO GOOD

 

Perhaps my favourite thing however is how Josh is able to bring so much to the table, but never attempts to bend the setting to his will, which I believe other authors are guilty of (for both good and bad reasons). This trilogy slots perfectly into McNeill's gore-crusted Fabius from the Horus Herey and Swallow's gore-crusted Fabius from his Blood Angels books. I've seen some readers criticise Fabius' character development from A to B to 'A' but I think it works from both an in-text and beyond-text perspective. It is what it is, and it :cussing rocks fyi

 

I still remember seeing Primogenitor in my local bookstore a few years ago with his goofy backpack. ''Fabius Bile? The book? LMAO, no thanks.'' I was very, very, very wrong to dismiss this brilliant series

 

I could rate any of the three books as the best. I think Primogenitor is the best in terms of structure and style - our 'hero' Bile gets one over on the baddie and trashes a giant floating greenhouse in the process, but Clonelord has perhaps the most content to it (this book, basically, having a sneaky 'Fulgrim' backstory on 'Chemos' that's threaded through the major hits of the book is just absolutely hnnnrrrggg) whereas Manflayer nails the trilogy's overreaching themes like no other

 

I currently rate the following Chaos Space Marines trilogies/series/whatevers thusly:

Fabius Bile

Black Legion

Ahriman

Night Lords

Lords of Silence(book #2 when)

Word Bearers

Iron Warriors

 

Iron Warriors is sorta weird because in some ways McNeill nails Chaos Space Marines the best of the bunch, but sadly drops points for permanently gluing his work to his Horus Heresy/Ultramarines projects

Edited June 15, 2021 by Bobss

[cheywood]

I just finished Manflayer myself and, while I greatly enjoyed aspects of the books, for me they don’t really touch ADB’s work in terms of emotional impact. Fabius is just the right mix of compelling and horrifying, Josh does a wonderful job with the supporting cast as usual, and the prose is as sharp as anything he’s written, but I found the major story beats and character deaths to be relatively unaffecting. Can’t totally put my finger on why. Edited June 15, 2021 by cheywood

[Scribe]

I think (for me) that part of that is down to a few things.

 

1. We are told throughout, the troupe is going to lose, or already has, lost. They know the game is over, and death is coming.

 

2. There's a thread of fate running through the book/series, and we are told throughout, it's unavoidable.

 

3. I don't think the other characters are relevant in comparison to Fabius. It's all about him.

 

The climax really, is in him dedicating himself.

 

4. I'm certainly imprinting myself onto the text a bit here, but the emotional potency for me, is in the behaviors of a Father towards his children.

 

Hope, Expectation, Command, the need to let go and give the children a chance to grow, but ultimately trying to put your foot down and 'just do what I have asked.'

 

This is why 40K is my favorite setting.

 

Every character in this book knew they were either damned, or insane, we have madness running rampant, we have exposition on Gods, we have debate on fate, but ultimately?

 

It's about the love between a Father and his children lol.

[Jareddm]

Maybe it is Reynolds slightly irreverent tone? It comes across to me as a bit “wink wink nudge nudge you guys aren’t taking this stuff too seriously are you?”

I absolutely get this.  At the same time, if any factions in 40k were going to portray this mindset, for me the Emperor's Children are the perfect ones to do so.

[Marshal Loss]

Re-read Manflayer myself over the last week while in quarantine, and couldn't agree more with all the praise. Makes me sad that he's no longer working for BL - would have loved to see him to a tie-in novel for any EC release the way Wraight did for DG with Lords of Silence.

[Roomsky]

Imperial Glory – Richard Williams

 

Uh, why does nobody talk about this book?

 

Seriously, this is one of the best works I’ve read out of Black Library, and yet it’s barely ever mentioned. I have no hesitation in calling this the Guard book, it’s actually amazing.

 

The backdrop is simple: Guardsmen vs Orks, but that’s sort of like describing Lord of the Rings as a very long walk. This is a book about the cyclical futility of war, about the scars it leaves on its combatants along with the bonds they forge, and about what it means to command. What’s more it, understands that the Imperium at large is evil, but the people who make it up (especially the grunts) are just people doing their best. Good people are forced to commit atrocities by their society – a society embodied here by the most chilling portrayal of a Commissar I’ve ever read.

 

I’m no soldier, but as a layperson I’ve never seen a more believable cast of soldiers with this many characters developed so effectively in so few pages. Carson, Reeve, Stanhope, Ducky, Trouble, Van Am, Mouse, Red, all these and more I could tell you about and name a favourite scene for. The skill with which Williams builds these characters is extremely impressive, and by themselves make this book worth your time. You can’t help but want to see their stories evolve throughout the novel, they’re just so well drawn and believable.

 

The writing is very smooth and has a surprising amount of levity sprinkled throughout. Scenes don’t overstay their welcome and the book isn’t afraid to have a couple of characters just chat for a while. Williams flexes his creative muscles here as well – some of the things he describes are incredibly evocative (good God, Reeve’s cannons.)

 

The plot is about a lot and a little. An Ork Rok has crashed on a world that for a hundred years has essentially lived free of Imperial rule, and its government has had to sacrifice that freedom to call upon the Imperial Guard – thus drawing the Imperium’s attention to their lives. What is on the surface level Guardsmen vs Orks is really just a backdrop for several character arcs and themes. By the end of things, you'll notice the book isn't really about Orks at all.

 

And while it is mostly brilliant, the plotting is where my only real issue with the book comes from. The last third of the book is very strange.

 

We suddenly have interludes that weren’t present prior, and while they’re all excellent (CHOPPA!) they seem oddly placed. Stanhope, previously just another cast member, hijacks Carson’s role as nominal protagonist while the pacing begins to accelerate into quite the rush by the end. I’m not sure what happened here, if Williams ran out of pages or if this is supposed to be Stanhope on the way to the afterlife, or in some kind of drug-induced fugue state. Thankfully, the last chapter is exactly what it needs to be, but I’m still trying to figure out what was up with the 30-odd pages before it.

 

But I only bring that up because like a select few other Black library works, I think this one deserves to be evaluated just as a book, not as a Warhammer book. It’s brilliant, and if you enjoy Guardsmen stories it’s absolutely worth a go.

 

8/10 as a novel, 10/10 as a 40k novel.

Must Read

[Sothalor]

Unfortunately, it got overshadowed by other releases that came out in the surrounding months of that year; Blood Reaver, Salvation's Reach, Battle of the Fang, Path of the Seer, even Atlas Infernal.

 

Each of those was either some fan-favorite series/author, a relatively novel (forgive the pun) work from a xenos POV, or had some big "oh the implications for the greater lore/setting" that sometimes drives fan interest in the books.

 

Unfortunate, but such is the reality of publishing and tie-in fiction.