Rate what you Read, or the fight against Necromancy

[DukeLeto69]

IMHO Kyme’s Horror and Crime entries have been excellent and, for my tastes, far better than his Space Marine work.

[SkimaskMohawk]

I was pretty bummed out on Mortis not having the best reception; I loved Solar War and reread it multiple times, and I really wanted French's second book in the series to be as good as the first. So I didn't buy it on release, only just got it on the weekend because I needed to be up to date for Warhawk, and wrapped it up this morning.

 

I can understand why a lot of people found this book hard-going. It features a lot of Titan action, proto-inquisition, and perpetuals; Shiban shows up to go on a spirit journey so he can be in the next book. None of those things are usually the main focus of a book and have been used as the B plots throughout the series.

 

I quite liked Mortis. I'm invested enough in Titanicus that I found the Ignatum and Solaria parts really engaging and enjoyable. I liked the psititan and how it affected both traitors and loyalists. I even liked the Warmaster wave at the end and the decision to rush them because the shield coverage was so strong. I thought it was appropriate that we didn't see any POV from Mortis or the other threats; Mortis was the first corrupted legio, and the fluff in AT2018 drives it further with how set in the rot really was. 

 

The whole warp corruption being the main threat is kind of central to the book actually. All the foes are extremely in thrall to the warp at this point; mortis, dark mechanicum, daemons, noise marines, paradise. All of our non-antagonist characters oppose the warp and the corruption that's being spread by the siege (in various ways), even to the extent of Perturabo and Actae. The entire point of Saturnine was to show how the civil war was completely off the rails and slipping into something uncontrollable, with Perturabo and Argonis quick to pick up on it as well in this book. So when we don't get Legio Mortis POVs its because Legio Mortis doesn't exist any more; they're daemonic tools of the warp. So maybe the title is less about the legio as the encroaching threat to the wall, and more about the full death of the Crusade-era Imperium and it's transition to daemons, the inquisition, faith and all that stuff. French's afterward also touches on the death of hope and corporeal warfare.

 

As an aside, I think that Actae/Cyrene is almost definitely Morianna. I just got that vibe, and french's afterward kind of reinforced it.

 

I'd give it a subjective 7.5/10, to taste.

[sitnam]

My Godblight review:

 

Guilliman drools, Mathieu Rules

[Ubiquitous1984]

I've just been listening to the excellent Horus Heresy Audio Collections 3 + 4.  Highlights have been Honour to the Dead and The Binary Succession.  There was also another one featuring Noise Marines with incredible FX, the name of which now escapes me, but the audio drama format really brought the titans to live and helped elevate the stories to the next level.  

 

I hope they will start to release more 30k audio dramas once more!

[DarkChaplain]

Huh, now that you mention it, I think the lack of audio dramas on more immediate character moments is something that contributes a lot towards my Siege-apathy. An audio drama here or there, leading into a B-Side anthology, would definitely have been appreciated.

 

My only issue with The Soul, Severed, the Noise Marine audio, is that it is obviously set after The Path of Heaven, but makes no reference to Mortarion asking Eidolon to go fetch Typhon for him. But then, neither does The Buried Dagger, Typhon just shows up. Seems more like an editorial change or oversight and not something you can criticise the audio drama itself for.

 

The Binary Succession was such a treat! It's the first time in forever that I've felt awed by Titans.

 

Now, here's mine:

 

I just finished my re-read of both Unmarked and Perpetual, the two short stories about Oll and his merry band of friends, on their way from Know No Fear to Mortis.

 

First off, I did it via audio - and my god, I miss Gareth Armstrong so much. Going from Unmarked (which was printed in Mark of Calth) and Armstrong to Perpetual (which was a stand-alone audio drama originally, but printed and re-recorded as an audiobook in The Burden of Loyalty) as voiced by Keeble... I had whiplash.

 

There's something about Gareth Armstrong that makes him suit the Abnett-prose just perfectly. Keeble lacks the matter-of-factness, the gravitas, of Abnett's phrasing and pace. Considering that both these stories feature the same cast, on the same journey, with somewhat different problems but overall the same quest in a natural progression from story A to story B, it's extra apparent just how much more appropriate the narration was handled by Gareth Armstrong. As a narrator, he carried The Beast Arises for me as well, and was the reason why I enjoyed listening to Prospero Burns so much back in the day. He's a quality narrator, and his voices don't feel jarring like Keeble's often do.

 

And here's the big-fat irony about Gareth Armstrong being replaced for Perpetual in BoL: Armstrong actually narrated the original audio drama version of the story - and does a significantly better job setting the mood.

 

Beyond the narration-angle, which I suppose most people won't care about anyway, I have to say that I find Oll's stories - as they are - largely inoffensive on their own. Immortal dude trying to be a decent human being in the 31st Millennium and keep out of the wider conflict for the galaxy works for me. There are enough little references to his personal drama and grief, like his dead son, that I can see myself caring about Oll.

 

His journey through space and time isn't a bad one, either, on the surface. He's got a magical macguffin that allows him to play the host of a discovery channel production towards his tourist troupe. It can give context to the setting, especially when it brings up the Dark Age of Technology during Perpetual. It's a clever tool to deepen the setting and fill some niches that the Great Crusade couldn't touch on.

 

But then, my bugbears come out to play.

 

More often than not, the storytelling is too convenient. At first we're led to believe that Oll is actively being guided by John Grammaticus. Some modern weapons, some rations, yeah, I can see that. I can't see how John would ever be able to direct Oll through space-time from halfway across the galaxy and plan the route in advance, but okay. But then he also "leads" Oll to places and times that John wasn't even remotely alive during, and most assuredly wouldn't even know about, but hold a lot of personal significance to Oll himself. On its own, it would make sense that Oll might be drawn towards emotionally significant places through the warp.

In combination, though, it just feels awfully contrived.

 

Worse, it also fails to fully utilize the gimmick of space-time exploration. I'd go as far as to say that the Dark Age nomnomnom planet and the early hop to Crusade victims are the only times the hopping is used to actually enhance the setting - the rest is more or less a thing to allow Oll to reminisce and ask the reader if he/she recognizes this or that reference to human history, like the trench warfare at Verdun, or Oll being in Dresden. It's played for recognizable references rather than more interesting views of 28k missing years of human existence.

 

Likewise, Oll's age is being placed at roughly 45,000 years. He's old as :cuss. But the people he recognizes and mentions are conveniently those from mostly intact human mythology, mostly greek, which doesn't even go as far back as his relative youth. He'd have been thousands of years old by the time Theseus founded Athens or Jason screwed over Medea. References are just so concentrated in this particular area, had the Oll stories been written in 2020 rather than all those years ago, I would not have been surprised to find out from an interview that Dan is a huge fan of Stephen Fry's Mythos and Heroes books.

 

Now, it obviously makes sense that somebody immortal would be disproportionally nostalgic about their early periods, and for all we know, Greek mythology is a riot. But there's got to be other things that Oll would reminisce about, with even just the last 30k years to draw on. He's had to have experiences that stayed with him outside of popular myth, which we conveniently still recognize today.

 

In summary, it's not so much that Oll remembers these people, but that he remembers them to the exclusion of everybody else.

 

As far as his team is concerned, I'm not convinced, either. The distance between Oll and the lot makes sense if you consider that he's trying to not get them too involved and is doubting his motivations for even saving them, because a clean death on Calth might have been kinder. Katt breaches that distance pretty swiftly, and as a character, she benefits from this. She's also the one with the most development over the stories, including her parts in Mortis.

But the others? Graft aside, they're nondescript, more like redshirts who haven't gotten dressed yet. They contribute numbers and a tendency to panic, some bullets for scenes where they have to drive off ape-men, and that's about it. I cannot consider them true characters on their own merits in these stories; granted, they're shorts, so room to illustrate them is limited.

It doesn't help that the only one who actually matters narratively is Katt.

 

And... Graft. The Servitor. The Servitor who acts like a dumb dude with brain damage, rather than a lobotomized man with a couple of algorithms driven into his brain. He comes across as too aware, sometimes even a little snarky (in particular when it comes to "believing" in something). It's one of those things where I can't help but feel that Abnett plays by different rules from other authors, or bends them harder.

 

The third major problem I have with Oll's narrative is that it just seems so far off from the series. By the point of Mortis, they've journeyed for SEVEN years. By Perpetual, they've been through six, spending two entire years waiting for something to change so they could move on. Perpetual suffers a great deal from its brevity - the audio drama was 27 minutes, the audiobook reading shaves a couple of minutes off that still. It's far too short to fully encompass the gravity of the situation. It cannot truly highlight the strain on the group, to sit in place for two years, or depict the arduous journey up to this point. And by the time we see them next, in Mortis, they're entering the end game already. There's a spark of doubt within the group regarding Katt, then, but this is stuff that would have been needed in the intervening SEVEN years.

 

Narratively, it just feels extremely half-baked, half-abandoned even. Like somebody remembered Oll existed and had Abnett whip something up after he decided to return post-GW/BL-schism. There's not enough actual meat to the journey for what it signifies, which leads it to feel more like necessary handwaving to have an unknown factor with beef with the Emperor enter the Siege.

 

Which is to say: These stories, taken outside of their role within the overarching Heresy narrative / the goal of doing something on Terra that we have yet to witness in the endgame, say nothing. They're so utterly inconsequential as their own stories, I wouldn't ever recommend them to somebody who isn't specifically seeking more info about Oll as a character - but even then, he is easily enough summarized whenever he appears. They exist because the character was introduced at the end of the first 20 books with a big job in the final section, and he had to get there somehow, not because these stories on their own merits are something that was truly worth telling, or reading. They're superfluous.

 

You could say similar for a bunch of stories in the series, for sure, but even those that people here have traditionally slammed, like The Damnation of Pythos or Nemesis, I felt had enough merit of their own that I had a narrative that made a point of its own. There are a lot of shorts that didn't need to exist, didn't touch on important parts of the series, but still contributed something tangible.

 

Unmarked and Perpetual didn't. They exist for their own sake, but give very little. Funnily enough, I think among all the Perpetual shorts we've got, they're unique in this. Say what you will about McNeill and Alivia Sureka, but her stories do show us the setting from unexpected angles. Wolf Mother has her on a refugee transport, with cultists trying to steal her daughter for cult stuff. We got to see how screwed this whole refugee crisis has been - something we've seen from the other end in other stories, like Sword of Truth, where the blockades at Sol prove to be a civilian nightmare. This time, we're on the other side. Similar with Old Scars, New Wounds, which also involves John and Alivia's experiences throughout human history - but still couched in Heresy drama.

Oll's route to Terra is isolated by necessity, but this did not need to hurt the narrative the way it did. That's something that Abnett messed up, not the concept.

 

Bottom line, I don't think Unmarked and Perpetual are terrible stories - but pointless ones, whose greatest merit is characterization for a character who did not need to exist and has not contributed anything truly valuable by his existence, all while being carried by the assumption that at some point, 10 years after he first entered print, will maybe matter. But even if he eventually does, Unmarked and Perpetual will have done very little to make that payoff feel earned.

[Roomsky]

DarkChaplain when they start an audiobook read by Gareth Armstrong: "Hell yeah, I've missed this excellent narration."

 

Me, in the same scenario: "Oh, god damnit."

[byrd9999]

The Fury of Magnus, by Graham McNeill

 

 

After the disappointment of The Crimson King, I was dreading this one. In many ways, it was another frustrating read, full of the McNeill-isms that grind my gears. The "snapping" retorts from teenaged Primarchs and Marines, the clumsy ham-fisted metaphors, the constant references to "all is dust", the use of exposition instead of natural dialogue. And even at a svelte 250 pages, it was at least 50 pages too long. The first half of the book was pointless action-porn, and featured way more of the Salamanders than was necessary.

 

The prose is McNeill's usual fare, but here he frequently strains for literary aspirations that fail to come off. The silly maleficarum dragons that George RR McNeill conjured for Abidemi and Bjarki. Yet another tired and obvious regicide metaphor. The mawkish and obvious oak-tree metaphor during Alivia's death scene. The heavy-handed and obvious metaphor of daemon Magnus staring into his mirror. Subtlety is not his forte.

 

However, I didn't hate it, and at least there is a point to this book. Magnus gets to do something proper. The shard plotline (and pretty much the entire contents) from The Crimson King is rendered a pointless diversion, as if McNeill himself wanted to retcon elements of it, and this book covers the events that should have happened in a HH main series novel in place of TCK. The discussion with Malcador and the Emperor over what happened on Prospero, the chance of reconciliation, Magnus' refusal, and ascent to daemonhood. We see a humanitarian Magnus contain a phosphex bomb explosion into order to save some civilians. This might be damning it with faint praise, but there were points near the end of the book where I wanted to turn the pages to actually find out what was going to happen next, rather than just to get this out of the way so I can start Mortis.

 

However, being McNeill, he wants to have his cake and eat it. Magnus' justification (in the novella and in the afterword) for refusing to sacrifice even one member of his Legion in order to rejoin the Emperor doesn't really match up with his willingness to sacrifice everything when Leman Russ and the wolves invaded Prospero. Edit: not to mention the fact that Magnus himself exploded every atom in the body of one of his sons just prior to this encounter with the Emperor... but whatevs. Just pick and choose what you want, when you want it...

 

Overall, I'm glad I read this book, it redeems Magnus a little in the series, and thankfully it means that The Crimson King's place in any HH reading list is now utterly redundant.

 

5/10

Edited October 7, 2021 by byrd9999

[DarkChaplain]

To be fair,

 

The Fury of Magnus, by Graham McNeill

However, being McNeill, he wants to have his cake and eat it. Magnus' justification (in the novella and in the afterword) for refusing to sacrifice even one member of his Legion in order to rejoin the Emperor doesn't really match up with his willingness to sacrifice everything when Leman Russ and the wolves invaded Prospero. Edit: not to mention the fact that Magnus himself exploded every atom in the body of one of his sons just prior to this encounter with the Emperor... but whatevs. Just pick and choose what you want, when you want it...

 

To be fair, in A Thousand Sons, Magnus actually orders his sons to stand the hell down, not to engage, letting the Wolves come in relative peace because they're coming for him and he doesn't want them to get involved in his punishment.

 

He then gets involved when it all comes crumbling down because his sons did not listen. They weren't supposed to fight and surrender calmly, not mind-blast the Wolves. And in that light, I cannot actually call it a contradiction, because Prospero was not intended in any way to be a sacrifice of his Legion, but of himself.

 

....him exploding the redshirt in the novella, though, is a massive contradiction that highlights Magnus' hypocrisy in a very hamfisted way. The intent clearly was for the reader to call Magnus out as a hypocrite, but it was handled very poorly on a narrative level.

[byrd9999]

Yeah, I think you're right about the Prospero sacrifice bit. I'll blame the missing shard from my memory that was fragmented after reading The Crimson King :)

 

As much flak as I give McNeill for overwriting and overexplaining everything, there are two occasions in FOM when he (potentially) sets himself up to convey grand themes/narratives/plotlines and he fails to take full advantage of them.

 

Firstly, the Magnus-as-hypocrite mentioned just now, but also the Emperor's offer of a new Legion of marines for Magnus to lead. I had assumed He meant the Primaris marines, especially with them being on McNeill's mind in the previous Siege novella. However, having read the FOM thread, I much prefer the Emperor to be offering the Grey Knights to Magnus. But the lack of specificity here means that either McNeill didn't mean it, or he failed to stick the landing with his own and Chris Wraight;s fantastic set-up. if Magnus' main concern was to be reunited with his sons, then he could have done this if Revuel Arvida was to be the template for the GKs. Just a sentence or two more was needed for the Emperor to mention this twist. Not only would it have elegantly tied up plot threads, but would have made Magnus' decision all the more gut-wrenching, having to decide between which of his sons to side with. For once I wish McNeill had written more.

[DarkChaplain]

He definitely offered the Grey Knights, considering his missing shard as incarnated in one of his sons - one who beat the flesh change as a result - is leading the whole endeavor. To me, the offer was a very obvious one. The Emperor didn't plan Primaris, after all, that's something that came to pass more by chance through the tech being fetched.

The Emperor could have made a new Legion given time, but the Grey Knights were the only project to actually exist at this point, and with a great deal of resources involved - recruits and serfs have been collected from across the galaxy for many years at this point, all in absolute secrecy. He makes reference to their psychic nature, too. It's the only thing he could have offered during the Siege in the first place.

 

I agree, though, that I wish he'd made mention of Revuel Arvida and the shard in him, as Ianius. Then again, Malcador was the guy properly in charge of the project, and he was.... a pile of ashes.

[mc warhammer]

i felt largely the same as you about this book, byrd.

 

i'll just add that even if magnus' actions on prospero did contradict, that's not necessarily out of character. magnus is at two different points of his life in those two examples, he wouldn't autistically make the same choices

[Noserenda]

Dark Imperium 3 Godblight

Just finished this one in fairly rapid time because i want to get on to Warhawk but its just compelling enough for me not to skip it and come back later, which is probably a good short review ;)

Im kind of mixed on this book tbh, i found it really hard to get into initially as the opening scenes are kind of eyerollingly stupid but once it gets going its compelling enough, nice to tie up the Plague war storyline and see all the returning characters and the Daemons are as ever a highlight, mostly in their scenes with each other but that imagery of a certain daemon being tempting in a library was very 40k in its mix of humour and horror :) 

Some of the battle scenes were a bit meh, the Frateris Crusade was interesting though and i did find myself trying to stat them and even sketched out a scenario for the Cadians notable engagement in my head which i think is a good sign. That and repeatedly planning out a massed Great Unclean one army i could never afford which i think is a win for GW marketing :P 

So yeah, a few big fluff drops which i liked and support psychic awakening, though kinda confirms the Pariah Nexus is not the next big threat to the galaxy the marketing at the time implied. Ah well. Sisters of Silence will come to the rescue somewhere else! 

Arbitrary numbers? 7/10
The Weakest "modern 40k" book but still worth a read/listen. 

[Cherubael]

I just finished The Damnation of Pythos and despite the criticism of it not contributing to The Horus Heresy proper I enjoyed it and thought it was well written.

 

I'm reading The Horus Heresy in order of release and had a few questions about The Damnation of Pythos and it's ending.

 

Is the possessed Iron Hands ship ever seen or spoken of again in the later Heresy titles?

 

What was the one word message that the astropath sent to Terra?  I assume it was the demon's name but didn't know for sure.

 

Was Atticus resurrected by the Omnissiah?  He has a strong disdain for faith in the Emperor as a god and weakness of the flesh but the end makes it seem like he dies and then says something along the lines of his humanity being removed from him and he seemingly resurrects and charges the demon with a battle cry of "flesh is weak".

 

Where does this book rank in Annandale's writings?  First time reader of Annandale and I'm wondering if this is his usual quality.   

[Roomsky]

 

Is the possessed Iron Hands ship ever seen or spoken of again in the later Heresy titles?

 

Where does this book rank in Annandale's writings?  First time reader of Annandale and I'm wondering if this is his usual quality.   

 

Fuzzy on the others, but:

 

1 - Yes, you'll know it when you see it.

 

2 - This is on the upper end. His Horror works are probably his best stuff, which I would almost honourarily include this with due to its tone. I would definitely check out Deacon of Wounds, House of Night and Chain, and his Yarrick series. Ruinstorm is already on your list, presumably.

 

His other stuff ranges from mediocre to absolutely horrid. Most of his work involving astartes (excepting Pythos) is absolutely drowned in boring fight scenes.

[Kelborn]

Started rereading Battle of the Fang and it still holds up to what I remember.

 

It's brilliant and imho one of the best impressions of the Vlka we ever had, thus far.

 

Easily the best out of the SM Battle series among Helsreach and Wrath of Iron, imho and a must-read for every member of the Rout.

 

Additionally will I start the Ahriman series by John French in audio format. Got the omnibus but never managed to get myself reading it. Probably gonna do the audios first, then jump to the omnibus for the third part plus the short stories. Eager to see if my mind will be as screwed as I was told a while ago. ;)

[byrd9999]

Started rereading Battle of the Fang and it still holds up to what I remember.

 

It's brilliant and imho one of the best impressions of the Vlka we ever had, thus far.

 

Easily the best out of the SM Battle series among Helsreach and Wrath of Iron, imho and a must-read for every member of the Rout.

 

Additionally will I start the Ahriman series by John French in audio format. Got the omnibus but never managed to get myself reading it. Probably gonna do the audios first, then jump to the omnibus for the third part plus the short stories. Eager to see if my mind will be as screwed as I was told a while ago.

Having read the trilogy omnibus, I would recommend reading/listening to the stories in the order they are presented in the omnibus.

 

I.e. start with the micro-short about Helio Isodorus. It's a great appetiser for what is to come

Edited October 28, 2021 by byrd9999

[Kelborn]

Thanks, I'll keep that in mind.

Already started Ahriman but will catch up on the shorts after finishing Battle of the Fang. ;)

[DukeLeto69]

Had that huge Ahriman omnibus on my shelf for years. Heard such good things but the sheer scale of it is daunting. It’s like committing yourself the Breaking Bad years after it came out, knowing the hype but seeing so many episodes/series laid out ahead of you...!

[Roomsky]

I normally prefer to collect individual books instead of Omnibusses - easier to carry around, more convenient to revisit your favourite entry, etc. But the Ahriman Omnibus really is the way to read it, IMO; each book is very much a single story's beginning, middle, and end, (for better or worse) and you're really missing out without the shorts or novella in there too.

 

The thing is a 1000+ page epic in a way most Black Library stuff isn't.

[mc warhammer]

Started rereading Battle of the Fang and it still holds up to what I remember.

 

It's brilliant and imho one of the best impressions of the Vlka we ever had, thus far.

 

Easily the best out of the SM Battle series among Helsreach and Wrath of Iron, imho and a must-read for every member of the Rout.

 

Additionally will I start the Ahriman series by John French in audio format. Got the omnibus but never managed to get myself reading it. Probably gonna do the audios first, then jump to the omnibus for the third part plus the short stories. Eager to see if my mind will be as screwed as I was told a while ago.

on a slight tangent: i remember BotF and wraight getting slammed a lot on release. how the turn tables. it's on my list to read after the siege is done.

 

know no fear was too and now i see almost unanimous praise for it

 

i don't know if i have a point, but it's interesting to me

[Noserenda]

Battle of the fang has always been a classic, part of the really strong start to the battles series that made a bunch of the follow ups so disappointing.

I mean you could write a literally perfect 40k novel and still have 3 people slag it off on forums for oft times very strange reasons. 

[Kelborn]

 

 

Started rereading Battle of the Fang and it still holds up to what I remember.

 

It's brilliant and imho one of the best impressions of the Vlka we ever had, thus far.

 

Easily the best out of the SM Battle series among Helsreach and Wrath of Iron, imho and a must-read for every member of the Rout.

 

Additionally will I start the Ahriman series by John French in audio format. Got the omnibus but never managed to get myself reading it. Probably gonna do the audios first, then jump to the omnibus for the third part plus the short stories. Eager to see if my mind will be as screwed as I was told a while ago.

on a slight tangent: i remember BotF and wraight getting slammed a lot on release. how the turn tables. it's on my list to read after the siege is done.

 

know no fear was too and now i see almost unanimous praise for it

 

i don't know if i have a point, but it's interesting to me

Ha, didn't knew. I loved it right from the beginning.

Characters are intriguing, the battles are good and though it's part of a "bolterporn" series, this one is certainly an exception of the likes like Helsreach quality, imho.

Helsreach is more focused on characters, but BotF does a lot to bridge Dans Burning of Prospero Wolves with the 40k ones and it's also the foundation on Chris' take on them which led to stuff like Wolfking, etc.

[mc warhammer]

no doubt, it always sounded great to me. i just remember a lot of moaning to the point adb had to come out to defend this new wraight guy

 

and here we are now

[DukeLeto69]

 

 

Started rereading Battle of the Fang and it still holds up to what I remember.

 

It's brilliant and imho one of the best impressions of the Vlka we ever had, thus far.

 

Easily the best out of the SM Battle series among Helsreach and Wrath of Iron, imho and a must-read for every member of the Rout.

 

Additionally will I start the Ahriman series by John French in audio format. Got the omnibus but never managed to get myself reading it. Probably gonna do the audios first, then jump to the omnibus for the third part plus the short stories. Eager to see if my mind will be as screwed as I was told a while ago.

on a slight tangent: i remember BotF and wraight getting slammed a lot on release. how the turn tables. it's on my list to read after the siege is done.

 

know no fear was too and now i see almost unanimous praise for it

 

i don't know if i have a point, but it's interesting to me

I have no memory of that though back then I had different warhammer hangouts.

 

For my money BotF is one of the very best SMB novels by some margin.

 

Similarly KNF is one of the best HH novels by some margin.

 

Nice to know the zeitgeist finally caught up with me LOL

[Roomsky]

Just gonna sit over here in the corner, pretending I could even finish Battle of the Fang.