Rate what you Read, or the fight against Necromancy

[Scribe]

23 hours ago, cheywood said:

This is the Imperium at its most brutal, its most uncaring and perhaps its most honest. Wraight never explicitly condemns or celebrates that reality (how could anyone truly celebrate it?), only presents it to us.

Fundamentally, the book is a story of the sacrifices the Imperium demands of its servants without care for their well being, which is perhaps the defining reality of the setting for all the trillions of imaginary humans who inhabit it. It’s about the question of whether it’s even worth it to exist in a world so clearly damned. There are more entertaining and better written books in the canon, but I struggle to think of a book that better captures how it feels to be an ordinary human in the Imperium of Man. 

 

 

I've said it for years. If you want to distill the Imperium down to a single book. Its this one.

[Krelious]

Garro  8.7/10

 

Solid book and a great follow up to Flight of the Eisenstein. I feel kind of late to the party in exploring Garro's character and plotline which is easily becoming my favourite of the series.  I rather enjoy Malcador as I would describe him as the Emperor's sneaky weasel where it seems like loyalists generally dont trust him but are forced to follow his authority.  

I'm feeling that its obvious Garro and the whole Malcador storyline in the heresy are creating a blueprint for the creation of the Greyknights which I think needs some sort of origin story although after reading Fury of Magnus I think im missing a story beat. I am currently waiting for the Burried Dagger and then to folllow it up with the Garro Knight of Grey as ive kind of been exploring creating thematic sequenced reads of the Horus Heresy. If I had one question its that if Fear to Tread is worth reading or not because it seems it has gotten very poor reviews. 

 

The Purge 9.4/10

 

One of my favorite stories of all time which left me wanting more and it makes me feel dissapointed as I do not think we will see Sor Talgron in action on Terra. If I am not mistaken.

I found the unique story telling shift in this novella shifting between past and future events to be a very interesting method of getting a point across and of character development. I very much like the idea of faith as well as the ironic concept of how far the Ultramarines would fall along with the Word Bearers in terms of their methods of war when nothing is held back, that the Ultramarines would surprise the heretic Word bearers in engaging of methods of war thought unthinkable and breaking vows just to spite them for their treachery. It makes me sad that Anthony Reynolds has not written more stories for BL as I think he is excellent.  I think this is a great story to follow up from Garro as it continues on a theme of faith and loyalty where the previous story is about Garro exploring his faith and proving his loyalty to the Emperor, the Purge is about a solider rationalizing his loyalty to his primarch along the lines of following orders and then discovering his faith in the dark gods. I think it really goes well into the mindset of why the average word bearer would suddenly become a space satanist and turn his back on the Emperor as without this story it comes across as insane. It seems like overall the plan of the Emperor to starve Chaos backfired on him big time as it not only resulted in Chaos worship becoming a religion but also the worship of the Emperor coming back strong as it seems overall humanity has a mighty need to believe in something higher than themselves and be in service to it. The whole origin of the heresy and the ongoing theme of faith in the 30k/40k series reeks of wonderful irony in that the loyalists who worship the Emperer were caused by the ones who werent allowed to worship him and turned to Chaos as a last resort that hearkens back to an infamous scene in Black Legion.

 

 

[Nagashsnee]

Horus Herest Know No Fear 8/10

 

This is one of those book i go back to every 3-4 years . The basic outline is that the Word Bearers and friends betray the Ultramarines and friends during the opneing stages of the HH heresy. It is also the novel that  'redeemed' the Ultramarines to me in the post Matt Ward years. 

 

I think the reason i love this book is that it manages to bring all the factions of the HH into it, and give them their time in the sun while still being very much a ultramarines book. The mechanicum, army, deamons, the lost and the damned are all there. They all play their parts and this to me ( plus the fantastic writing) is what makes this one of the best HH books. The Imperium on both sides IS an imperium of many factions/races/beliefs/people, its a realm in the stars with everything that would logically entail. Oh that army regiment is singing weird songs and covered in bones? Weird but they HAVE seen way way weirder. Everyone in the book feels competent on both sides with their own strengths and weaknesses. Sometimes the skitarii bail the ultramarines out sometimes the ultramarines bail the skitarii out. 

 

Secondly this book is one of the few to buck the HH series trend of making it that  the 30k  Imperium was always grim dark and terrible like the 40k imperium just...in the making  and shows that the 30k imperium WAS actually trying to build something. BL seemed to forget the  for a while that the REASON the HH is a tragic event is because it derailed the attempt to make a better existence for the species ( tho far from perfect and with brutal ways). The ultramarines are the perfect legion to showcase this and calth is to them the new jewel in the crown of ultramar/the imperium/humanity, but just one more step towards a brighter future. Quality of life matters, history matters, art/museums/food/people matter. No one is perfect but they are trying to make/leave things better then they found them. It makes the betrayal actually tragic on a grander picture.  

 

The only big detriment to this book is the introduction of perpetuals, the false ollanius pius/argonaut/mcguffin ( why dan why)  and his merry band of DEAR GOD THEY WONT GO AWAY.  But i acknowledge that's also personal preference, and that at this point the potential for...something was there. 

 

Overall great book, cornerstone of the HH for me and i wish the rest of the HH books were all to this caliber. 

[Jareddm]

8 hours ago, Nagashsnee said:

The only big detriment to this book is the introduction of perpetuals, the false ollanius pius/argonaut/mcguffin ( why dan why)  and his merry band of DEAR GOD THEY WONT GO AWAY.  But i acknowledge that's also personal preference, and that at this point the potential for...something was there. 

The funny thing for me is that all of Abnett's use of Perpetuals I have really liked.  It's when any other author tries to use them that I feel they become useless baggage. I would even say Abnett's Perpetual stories have ignored any other author's use of them, making those other appearances easier to skip.

Edited May 27, 2023 by Jareddm

[EverythingIsGreat]

12 hours ago, Krelious said:

Garro  8.7/10

 

The Purge 9.4/10

 

 

I have read these books and broadly agree that they were above average (although the Garro component stories were a bit uneven imo). I cannot go into more detail, it has been a while since my reading and I should probably refresh. However, my post is mostly to say that I'm impressed with the rating system. Personally I don't think I have ever encountered decimal resolution in rating a book. This speaks of an exacting review system, I think?

[SkimaskMohawk]

13 hours ago, Krelious said:

I do not think we will see Sor Talgron in action on Terra. If I am not mistaken.

 

If only you weren't. Abnett does not do the character justice by any means.

[Krelious]

On 5/27/2023 at 1:56 PM, EverythingIsGreat said:

 

I have read these books and broadly agree that they were above average (although the Garro component stories were a bit uneven imo). I cannot go into more detail, it has been a while since my reading and I should probably refresh. However, my post is mostly to say that I'm impressed with the rating system. Personally I don't think I have ever encountered decimal resolution in rating a book. This speaks of an exacting review system, I think?

I have another system I call the ADB system due to the fact ADB is so good everything he writes is a 10/10 and the baseline parameters of the ADB system is how close they get to ADB

but I would call the system a necessity because I feel like reading too many ADB books in a row will overload your brain. As an example I read Spear of the Emperor followed up with Echoes of Eternity and despite not smoking I felt like I needed a cigarettes afterwards and a break from ADB. So really afterwards you need a book that is at least a 7.2/10 ADB but an 8/10 ADB is preferable like say Mcneil's Crimson King. I see it as kind of like a mind palette cleanser where you need to read slightly lesser books to get back to appreciating the really good stuff.

 

I would add this post is slightly satirical as I dont think any of ADBs or anyone's books are a perfect 10/10 and generally the highest  im going to give is a 9.7/10 or a 97/100.

But again I would say when Im reading an ADB novel I get a special feeling in my body kind of like a warm summers day in the forest from late August to October. That's what he does to me.

 

 

[EverythingIsGreat]

Well, yes. I mean I appreciate that you are taking the time to respond

 

I am currently reading Peter Fehervari stories I own largely due to fawning commentary on this forum. They are inconclusive (I am not saying this in a bad way). So I am just traveling along with the telling, much as imo he is traveling along with the writing. Setting a baseline 10 for Fehervari's Reality-Unreality-Entanglement (RUE) story-telling I would rate your post 5.387/10 RUE (PF scale). Which is probably a very good rating. However the rating may be inverted, to mean something I will let you know about when it becomes clearer. Or cloudier.

[Valkia the Bloody]

I had had "Betrayer" sitting on my Kindle for years and years now.

Yesterday, on a whim, I decided to finally read it.

I have been breezing through it and am nearly halfway through by now.

This book deserves all the praise it gets.

It is utterly fantastic.

I absolutely love how ADB manages to write about the biggest and baddest monsters in Warhammer lore, and make them seem human and especially showing that in some twisted way, they do have a point in what they are doing.

The reason I hesitated in reading this for so long was, to be frank, that the previous World Eater novels left me disappointed and I just could not stand Lorgar.

But now I stand corrected.

Even Lorgar comes across as a worthwhile character, and the brotherhood between Khârn and Argel Tal is tangible.

In general, this book is crammed with great, well written characters.

I am so much in love with this, I right away also got the anthologies "Sons of the Emperor" and "Eye of Terra" as well as "Angron, Slave of Nuceria" just to read more about all these characters and learn more of their stories.

[Paceyjg]

Requiem Infernal - 10/10 Possibly the best I've read and definitely the best piece of writing in any 40K book I've ever read - II Page 276 to 277

 

 

[sitnam]

I just finished Stephen Fischers Witchbringer, and I utterly loved it. I think Fischer handles grimdark very well. Definitely recommended if you haven't checked it out yet 

[DukeLeto69]

On 6/22/2023 at 9:23 PM, Paceyjg said:

Requiem Infernal - 10/10 Possibly the best I've read and definitely the best piece of writing in any 40K book I've ever read - II Page 276 to 277

 

 

I get some real satisfaction when a fellow frater discovers or enjoys some Fehervari!

[Colman]

I'm about 1/3 of the way through the Leviathan audiobook and I'm rooting for the Tyrannids to win.

 

I didn't expect a lot, but it's painful: Ultramarines that don't talk or act like Ultramarines, more portenting than you could shake a flock of chicken's innards at, the obligatory extra opponents, characters even more paper thin than usual for tie-ins, stretched and random similes.

 

I'm sort of hoping the hive fleet defeats them soon and  the last couple of hours of the book is just crunching, chomping noises. 

[Nagashsnee]

53 minutes ago, Colman said:

I'm about 1/3 of the way through the Leviathan audiobook and I'm rooting for the Tyrannids to win.

 

I didn't expect a lot, but it's painful: Ultramarines that don't talk or act like Ultramarines, more portenting than you could shake a flock of chicken's innards at, the obligatory extra opponents, characters even more paper thin than usual for tie-ins, stretched and random similes.

 

I'm sort of hoping the hive fleet defeats them soon and  the last couple of hours of the book is just crunching, chomping noises. 

 

I have been wondering why no one anywhere is talking about this book.  This would explain it.

 

Tho i think GW insistence of making it Ultramarines everywhere all the time also hurts, i feel if they had gone any new/not well know chapters then at least marine players might go for it on that basis alone. 

 

I am avoiding until well reviewed as i am still suffering PTSD from the 9th edition tie in book. 

Edited June 28, 2023 by Nagashsnee

[Colman]

2 minutes ago, Nagashsnee said:

I am avoiding until well reviewed as i am still suffering PTSD from the 9th edition tie in book. 

It's worse the Dawn of War books. Worse than Iron Kingdom. 

 

6 minutes ago, Nagashsnee said:

Tho i think GW insistence of making it Ultramarines everywhere all the time also hurts, i feel if they had gone any new/not well know chapters then at least marine players might go for it on that basis alone. 

 

The only sign of them being Ultramarines is the repeated use of the word "Ultramarines" in reference to them. Every time. I'm not a big fan of them, but they have a distinctive style and this isn't it. 

[theSpirea]

Curious if it's going to be worse than Indomitus, that was unreadable.

[darkhorse0607]

2 hours ago, Nagashsnee said:

 

I have been wondering why no one anywhere is talking about this book.  This would explain it.

 

Tho i think GW insistence of making it Ultramarines everywhere all the time also hurts, i feel if they had gone any new/not well know chapters then at least marine players might go for it on that basis alone. 

 

I am avoiding until well reviewed as i am still suffering PTSD from the 9th edition tie in book. 

 

 

I mean, I'll say this as an Ultramarines fan, I am even struggling to get through it. Part of it is the audio narrator which, while I don't want to sound mean, sounds like he is sleeping through the book.

The book starts off really strong IMO, you get glimpses of the effects of the Tyranids on a population as they approach and it leans more into semi-horror like he described in the article on WHC. And then it just kind of stops there with that. It's missing some of the smaller details which aren't necessary by any means but I enjoy, like mentioning MKs of armor, doing a more thorough introduction of the Apothecary Biologis since it's a new concept (at least to me) and how it's different in role from a normal apothecary, same kind of topic, doesn't really introduce any of the characters that well for example,

Spoiler

There's a fight with the Norn Emissary on board a ship which is destroyed in the first few chapters. During the evacuation, the Apothecary Biologis finds a dying named Ultramarine covered in Tyranids with kill markings on his armor. It reads as this moment of relief that this character is still alive, but because we never got any time with him other than a mention of his name, it rings kind of hollow

Again those are small nitpicks, but given how it's going so far (I'm about 4 hours in), I'm noticing more of the things I wouldn't have if the novel was a bit better.

 

That and for the life of me I don't know why Agemann isn't in it (so far at least, someone correct me if I'm wrong). From the Ultramarines side you get a Librarian and two previously unnamed LTs commanding a large chunk of the 1st Company. There are some Cadians, some civilians, and political staff. All of the characters are semi-one-dimensional so far, but again that might also be because of the narration, everything kind of blends together. Like someone else already said, the Ultramarines don't feel like Ultramarines, they just feel like generic grumpy marines, and not particularly smart ones either. Two examples from the first bit of the book are in the spoiler section below

 

Spoiler

1) Castamon, whos the main LT for the Ultramarines and who is said to be a good tactician, wise, etc, finds out that the Tyranids destroyed the three ships (which I think are the only ones they have, but I could be wrong, I don't think it's explicitly stated), and 2/3s of the Ultramarines they have, his first reaction is to try and jump in a shuttle and go out there to see what happened. He doesn't, at least not yet where I'm at, but still. Don't circle the wagons now that you know the Tyranids are coming, don't foritify defenses, just hop in a shuttle and go to the location where you just lost 3 ships.

 

2) During the fight with the Norn Emissary, the other LT is seperated from the rest of the marines while it hunts him. He knows it's on the other side of the wall because it's so big that it's footsteps are shaking the ship. He has a chainsword and bolt pistol. You'd think that he would take cover, get some space, get an advantageous position, etc. No. What does he do? Walk right up to the wall and yell at it. Which, predictably, goes badly for him.

 

Ventris and Sicarius make some dumb mistakes in their books, but they look like Guilliman compared to the Ultramarines in this one

 

I don't know. I'm hoping that it picks up and gets to be a bit better, but it definitely isn't great so far. I'll probably go back to Fall of Damnos for a while and then come back to this as I wait for The Chapter's Due audiobook to come out so I can finish that series

Edited June 28, 2023 by darkhorse0607

[Colman]

3 minutes ago, darkhorse0607 said:

 

 

I mean, I'll say this as an Ultramarines fan, I am even struggling to get through it. Part of it is the audio narrator which, while I don't want to sound mean, sounds like he is sleeping through the book.

 

To be fair, he’s not being given much to work with. I feel if I was reading it I’d have trouble not skimming long passages.

[Lord Nord in Gravis Armour]

I just finished Leviathan. My impressions were similar to what has already been said. It wasn't BAD, but Lord it wasn't good. I suspect that after Dark Imperium, Black Library has been under a mandate to make their edition-entry tie-in novels substantially lighter on the lore so as to grab as much of that "wider audience" as possible. But in the case of both this and Indomitus, that has simply resulted in a light and largely meaningless "opening salvo" to the new conflict underpinning the edition.

 

Which would be FINE if that story ever went somewhere. Remember the Pariah Nexus? Which we actually were first introduced to at the tail end of 8th Edition? Yeah, we're still waiting for any real advancement on that war, probably because GW decided to make the resolution part of an animated series that they should have had ready in 2020, or AT LEAST sometime during 9th Edition. But now 10th Ed is upon us complete with a new main storyline featuring a new enemy... and we still don't know how things turned out in the Nexus with the Necrons.

 

I mean, It's not like Warhammer+ has had such a heavy lineup that they couldn't find time to work Pariah Nexus into the schedule. I think we've had three non-anthology 40K series, one of which was almost monochrome, another WAS monochrome, and the third was only three episodes.

 

It's possible I've drifted off-topic...

[DarkChaplain]

On 6/28/2023 at 12:17 PM, Nagashsnee said:

 

I have been wondering why no one anywhere is talking about this book.  This would explain it.

 

Tho i think GW insistence of making it Ultramarines everywhere all the time also hurts, i feel if they had gone any new/not well know chapters then at least marine players might go for it on that basis alone. 

 

I am avoiding until well reviewed as i am still suffering PTSD from the 9th edition tie in book. 

 

To be fair, people here haven't been talking much about nearly every single new release that's come out this year. Even Dawn of Fire has been light on discussion. The only thing that'll be discussed to death, even pre-release, is the Siege of Terra. That's it.

Part of that is obviously the lack of availability and frustration with the GW store.

 

I mean, have we really seen much discussion of the Warhammer Crime novels the last year or two? Not really. Pilgrims of Fire is only now getting some new attention, about a month after becoming available. Shadowsun and Warboss haven't been talked about much since the limited editions dropped. Angron had some reception, but honestly not all that much for a Primarch-billed novel. Wrath of the Lost's existence is forgotten, Witchbringer was barely mentioned, and I don't think I've read anything about Kasrkin or Helbrecht here.

Harrowmaster's claim to fame is the missing audiobook rather than the content... I could go on.

 

Discussion has died down massively the last year or two, in part due to the problems with actually buying print copies, but also because some users who would normally have contributed left and/or others have stopped paying as much attention to BL releases for whatever reasons (which includes myself; I'm going on 50 novels read this year, and I think a mere 8 of those were Black Library entries - almost all of which released in prior years; I started on various more recent novels, but finishing is a different story).

 

Which is to say: This is hardly something we can ascribe to Leviathan. It's a general issue with apathy.

 

 

I'm currently re-reading the Assault on Black Reach novella, and I can clearly say that the mandate to keep it light on the lore isn't a new thing. Kyme's prose has improved significantly since then, but it's been incredibly simplistic and on-the-nose with its product placement, exposition and so forth. It's often over-explaining to target absolute newcomers, and avoiding to go outside of the immediately relevant stuff you'll find in the box.

 

And yeah, I'm re-reading that (and even took my ancient print copy of the novella off my shelf) because I, too, have been wanting to read Fall of Damnos; realized after two or so chapters that I'd rather familiarize myself with the cast in chronological (and publication) order, seeing how there's some references. It's also featured in the Sicarius omnibus, so I'm gunning for the whole thing; only Black Reach and Spear of Macragge (plus that micro short story) aren't available in audio at this point, so this is pretty accessible.

 

I'll expect it'll be a while until I get to Leviathan, seeing how much stuff I've got to finish at the moment, but I'm expecting a reasonably good time from Hinks, even if hampered by mandates. And there's simply no way in hell it'd be worse than the "Dawn of War" novels as stated up there - though I believe this to be an error, actually referring to "Dawn of Fire" instead, which wouldn't say much for me because I've enjoyed the whole lot so far, and went to bat for The Iron Kingdom on that book's thread already.

[Colman]

It didn't get better. It didn't even do the product placement well. 

 

Ultramarine officers and biologis who don't know what a gene stealer cult is - I mean they even wore their orange jumpsuits from the box, not hard to recognise! - or the Imperial classifications for Tyranid organisms. Front-line tanks with Earthshaker cannon. Is 1st company terminators? I have no idea. The Librarian was. The rest? Who knows? When did Tyrannids develop Farseers with tentacles? Another pyrrhic victory enabled by a deus-ex-machina.

 

3 hours ago, DarkChaplain said:

though I believe this to be an error, actually referring to "Dawn of Fire" instead, which wouldn't say much for me because I've enjoyed the whole lot so far, and went to bat for The Iron Kingdom on that book's thread already.

Yup, not sure how I achieved that, since I've never read the Dawn of War anything!

[Scribe]

8 hours ago, DarkChaplain said:

Part of that is obviously the lack of availability and frustration with the GW store.

 

Every store I go into now, the shelves are mostly bare of BL items. We cannot buy them direct, and retailers cannot seem to get them either. Hard to build support for the product when it cannot even be purchased off a shelf.

[DarkChaplain]

Fun fact btw: BL messed up Assault on Black Reach's title in the ebook of Knight of Talassar (including the Extract's publication listing at the back). They keep writing it "Blackreach" on the story's title page, table of contents etc. Which is funny, because the book's description on the BL store page is actually correct, and they still sell the ebook as well.

[Sothalor]

The Vorbis Conspiracy – Various Authors

 

This is an anthology in the Warhammer Crime line. It stands apart from the others in its structure; this one is seven stories with one central, spinal event that more-or-less connects them. Right up front, I’d say that I enjoyed the conceptual framework and the idea of this more than the final content comprising the actual work. Using an anthology of disparate characters and short stories is a great way to piece together a broader tapestry about an event.

 

The Vorbis Conspiracy starts off strong. The first story kicks off with the central catastrophe, its immediate fallout, and sets up larger involvement and tendrils of machinations and maneuvering by greater powers beyond the street-level, “little people” perspective that distinguishes the Crime line. Each subsequent story follows different characters, with some minor overlap. The idea here is that each story peels back another layer of mystery to reveal more of what happened with the inciting incident and the broader conspiracy around it.

 

Unfortunately, Vorbis doesn’t quite stick the landing for me. It loses steam halfway through with a bizarre, pointless story from McNeill, regains momentum with a solid story from Hinks, and then disappoints with Worley’s and Wraight’s wrap-up stories. Which is, incidentally, kinda weird to me given their track record and prior reception.

 

This is definitely a case where your mileage may vary, based on your reaction to the underlying ‘truth’ of the titular conspiracy.

Spoiler

The reveal that the conspiracy is that there was no conspiracy, that everything was just a sequence of unfortunate events, fell completely flat for me as an anticlimax. All the buildup felt wasted, and in particular Wraight’s Zidarov story suffers as an expository dump of “psych, you all thought there was something going on and you’re wrong.” I can see the argument that it’s fittingly Grimdark for there to have been no greater reason or cause for it all, and if that works for you, absolutely fine (and you’d probably enjoy Vorbis more than I ultimately did).

 

So overall hit and miss. The first three stories in particular are good – really good. Jude Reid’s and Noah Van Nguyen’s stories are dripping in atmosphere and world-weariness and fantastic perspectives from people “on the street” caught up in horrible events. Haley’s pseudo-follow up to Flesh and Steel is a great insight into Lux and Mechanicum investigations. Unfortunately the subsequent stories and core mystery don’t quite hit the same levels.

 

Overall, while it’s neat to see some of the returning characters, this one gets a To Taste recommendation. That said, I like the idea of a linked anthology to create a sort of “miniseries” about a central event, and I’d like to see this applied more often not just to Crime but to other 40k works as well.

[EverythingIsGreat]

Thanks for the review. As the HH Series has shown, employing multiple authors to handle aspects of a significant event/situation has its own advantages and pitfalls. Apart from divergent story telling ability and coming up with exciting ideas one challenge is keeping the overall tone more or less consistent across stories.

It is fun to wonder what the HH Series for example would be like if it was written by a single author.