Rate what you Read, or the fight against Necromancy

[lansalt]

 

the massive new 40K DK book

That's pretty much a mini catalogue with slightly fancier descriptions, not even a cross sections book, right?

[byrd9999]

Mini catalogue?

 

336 Hardcover pages, and DK books are circa A4 size. You'd be surprised how time consuming it is to produce.

 

Not just writing, but planning, organising, cross-referencing. It's a different headspace. Writing a novel is much more straightforward.

[The Scorpion]

 

 

In the depths of my wishes that probably won't come true, that's what I'm hoping Robbie MaNiven is coming back to do. First, the Carcharadons, last weekend Oaths of Damnation came out about the Exorcists, hopefully, there will be more. I'd like to see books for a host of different chapters, Raptors, Novamarines, and Howling Griffons to name a few

We have a Howling Griffons short story... but it's by R S Wilt, so just like the Flame Eagles story, it is not really about the eponymous chapter.

[Krelious]

So I finished the End and the Death vol 2 earlier today and I kinda just sat down for a few days and chunked through the entire thing. My sense again is that while its a good book or theres some quality in there, its just way too much. I had already skimmed the ending of the book previously to get the dark king spoiler and the sanguineous fight so theres that but it didnt really ruin anything. 

 

At this point I dont even know what to say beyond I just want to get Vol 3 over and done with. These all feel like one book so its hard to even just say Vol 2 is better or worse, its just more of the same just a bit longer.

 

I enjoyed the part where Erebus got smacked in the face a bunch of times and then sort of blown away. Is Actae the best character? I honestly dont even remember her from before End and the Death vol 1. 

 

 

 

 

 

[lansalt]

 

Mini catalogue?

336 Hardcover pages, and DK books are circa A4 size. You'd be surprised how time consuming it is to produce.

Not just writing, but planning, organising, cross-referencing. It's a different headspace. Writing a novel is much more straightforward.

I'm not denigrating the work of the people involved, but if we're talking about this book: https://www.dk.com/us/book/9780593847114-warhammer-40000-the-ultimate-guide/

...It looks like a miniature catalogue with shallow descriptions for people not already into 40k. Nothing wrong with it, but hardly interesting for fans looking for new content.

[grailkeeper]

 

I'm not denigrating the work of the people involved, but if we're talking about this book: https://www.dk.com/us/book/9780593847114-warhammer-40000-the-ultimate-guide/

...It looks like a miniature catalogue with shallow descriptions for people not already into 40k. Nothing wrong with it, but hardly interesting for fans looking for new content.

Yeah, it's hard to see what extra that book gives you over printing out pages from the GW webstore.

 

[Paceyjg]

Warhawk - 9/10

Edited August 29 by Paceyjg

[Scribe]

 

So I finished the End and the Death vol 2 earlier today and I kinda just sat down for a few days and chunked through the entire thing. My sense again is that while its a good book or theres some quality in there, its just way too much. I had already skimmed the ending of the book previously to get the dark king spoiler and the sanguineous fight so theres that but it didnt really ruin anything. 

 

At this point I dont even know what to say beyond I just want to get Vol 3 over and done with. These all feel like one book so its hard to even just say Vol 2 is better or worse, its just more of the same just a bit longer.

 

I enjoyed the part where Erebus got smacked in the face a bunch of times and then sort of blown away. Is Actae the best character? I honestly dont even remember her from before End and the Death vol 1. 

 

The lack of any meaningful development (re: Actae) is part of the issue. Mortis is when that whole Ol' plotline actually comes back, not Saturnine, for some weird reason.

 

Book 3 is an improvement, vastly, over 2 and Book 1 could be deleted its so bad.

[Krelious]

 

 

The lack of any meaningful development (re: Actae) is part of the issue. Mortis is when that whole Ol' plotline actually comes back, not Saturnine, for some weird reason.

 

Book 3 is an improvement, vastly, over 2 and Book 1 could be deleted its so bad.

Yeah I skipped Mortis, because it was so bad I stopped reading it.

I actually didnt mind Vol 1 and Vol 2 so much its just they are so long its just too much but there was never any moment where im like this is so bad I cant read it anymore.

 

Vol 3 id give 8.5/10 my thoughts on it are 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Erebus

Edited September 5 by WAR
Swearing Dodge

[DarkChaplain]

 

Mini catalogue?

 

336 Hardcover pages, and DK books are circa A4 size. You'd be surprised how time consuming it is to produce.

 

Not just writing, but planning, organising, cross-referencing. It's a different headspace. Writing a novel is much more straightforward.

 

On that note: Haley also once wrote & edited a huge Sci-Fi encyclopedia thingy, published in 2014 (Jesus, how long it's been since I picked that tome up from the post office....).

 

"Sci-Fi Chronicles: A Visual History of the Galaxy's Greatest Science Fiction", around 600 pages. It's well worth picking up if you're interested in the genre as a whole, and it's history and road to modernity, and I was pleasantly surprised by how much niche stuff is accounted for in there.

 

So yeah, Haley's good at this stuff. If the DK book turns out to be just a catalog (which funnily enough GW used to publish themselves, basically annually, until they suddenly figured they needn't bother anymore), then that's probably more to do with what was licensed out under which mandates. That being said, from the preview pages alone, it is difficult to say if this is representative of the whole book. For stuff like that they'll rarely show you text-only pages, not flashy enough. We'll find out come Halloween, I guess.

[SkimaskMohawk]

Mortis>>>>eatd1

[Rob P]

 

Mortis>>>>eatd1

Hard to measure imo. I was cheering for Perturabo when he did what he did in Mortis though. I'll probably enjoy the EATD books on another read but they failed the impossible task of completing the series to my subjective standard.

 

Beasts in Velvet

 

I struggle to not engage positively with The Old World.

 

So, unsurprisingly, I loved this book of mystery. It starts a little disjointed but it fuses together all the strands into a satisfying conclusion.

 

It's not R rated but it certainly has a few PG-13 themes that don't occur in the novels today.

 

A criticism? It's not a vampire Genevieve novel. Are any of them really?

 

4.5/5

 

 

[DarkChaplain]

Beasts in Velvet is excellent. It keeps you on your toes just enough while making the mystery feasible to figure out on your own with what you are given along the way. But it constantly builds on top of the world, adding depth to its setting and beyond. It's an incredibly fun experience - and very gritty.

[darkhorse0607]

Carcharadons: Red Tithe (audio) by Robbie MacNiven. Narration done by Shogo Miyakita (who apparently re-recorded Scars a few months ago? Which I just realized as I was checking the spelling of his name. I'm due for a re-read of that soon so that'll be interesting to compare versus Keeble)

 

This is a re-read for me. I have the paperback copy in my collection but hadn't touched it since I first read it in 2018ish, with Oaths of Damnation recently coming out, and feeling a bit more interested in the Badab chapters I wanted to go through Carcharadons again.

 

I'll say up front as I normally do, the narration was good. I'm not hard to please when it comes to that but there are a few narrators that I just don't care for and won't buy the book, most are in between, and then I have my personal top-tier ones. Miyakita in this instance falls in the middle. Better than most, not as good as Banks or Keeble in my opinion but I could see how someone would rate him higher

 

The story without spoilers: Zartak is an Imperial prison world. Both the Night Lords and Carcharadons plan to recruit from its population. Night Lords attack the prison, Carcharadons attack Night Lords

 

One thing I kept in mind as I was finishing this, is that in the Oaths of Damnation discussion, one of the Fraters said that the Exorcists felt soulless and that did not particularly work for them (the Frater). I would say largely in Red Tithe the Carcharadons are portrayed the same way. There are some "brother" comments here or there, but they, at large, don't have the comradeship that other Chapters like the Black Templars or Ultramarines might. For me, this works but if that is not how you like your Astartes then you probably won't like this. The Carcharadons are hunters, and that's how they're portrayed. Their story is based around Sharr who is new to his position as Reaper Prime and 3rd Company Captain, and Te Kahurangi, the Chief Librarian

 

The Night Lords get a good showing, typical Night Lords stuff, skinning, terror attacks, etc. Their sections revolve around two characters, much like the Carcharadons. Cull is the leader of the warband and isn't a Veteran of the Long War, Shadraith is the sorcerer has been around since the Heresy (infer from that what you will).

 

There are also a few human characters, a prisoner who for non-spoilery reasons both factions want, and a few Arbitrators

 

One thing that I do like about Macniven's books which speaks to his background as a military history author is the inclusion of small details. I recognize that most won't care but it's a nice bonus to me when the author includes what pattern of armor someone is wearing, what kind of bolter, etc. MacNiven includes those small details which I'm thankful for.

 

Final rating: I'd recommend it. The third act gets a little boltery, but it's well done. It's nothing groundbreaking but it's solid overall and I'm looking forward to Oaths of Damnation and hope MacNiven sticks around for a while

 

I do have one or two nitpicks, particularly in how late some things are revealed/how it's told, but seeing as though I cannot find the spoiler button anymore, I'll end it here

 

 

 

 

 

Edited September 5 by darkhorse0607

[byrd9999]

For spoiler tags, type:

 

[spolier]

 

And to close them, type:

 

[/spolier]

 

I have deliberately misspelled spoiler so it doesn't trigger the spoiler box, so pls use correct spelling!

[grailkeeper]

I'm about a third of the way through Death of Integrity based on a recommendation here and am finding it very enjoyable. 

[grailkeeper]

Death of integrity makes me wonder where GW got thr idea for space hulks from. Obviously alien is a big infulence as are ghost ships. Is there any other fictional example of loads of ships mashed together?

[wecanhaveallthree]

The Sargasso Sea Stories, perhaps?

 

I'd be very interested to find the 'root' of this, too, and I suspect it comes from some nautical horror story. The idea of 'collection of ensnared ships in strange seas' has been a thread woven through a few of my favourite stories/settings. 

[LemartestheLost]

 

I'm about a third of the way through Death of Integrity based on a recommendation here and am finding it very enjoyable. 

 

Just reread this one as it has a soft spot in my heart for being the second 40k novel I ever cracked open. Dual successor chapter action is always so, so hawt. Especially with Space Hulks and Terminators.

[Jareddm]

 

Death of integrity makes me wonder where GW got thr idea for space hulks from. Obviously alien is a big infulence as are ghost ships. Is there any other fictional example of loads of ships mashed together?

Haley wrote a handful of harder sci-fi novels before Death of Integrity. I feel DoI is a great showing of him putting that research and comfort in applying a little more physics to 40k.

[Roomsky]

Since it is now out in normal paperback, I'm most of the way through a re-read of The End and the Death Volume 1. I've found the latter half much more pleasant this time round, since I know what to expect from it. Still, l far from a perfect read.

 

But instead of a proper re-review, what I actually want to write about is this: The End and the Death is the finale to the finale of a 60+ book series. Why couldn't it have just been the whole finale? The Siege is encompassed in 10 books, but contrary to the initial author interviews, this was not because they had to tie up so many loose ends, it was because they chose to add new elements on top of what we know happens in the Siege, and the character arcs that already needed wrapping up.

 

The End and the Death captures a scale of events, and an apocalyptic atmosphere, the preceding books never match. This is the battle of 40k. Surely we can survive without every detail of the mundane opening salvoes? Surely we don't need every follicle of Pho's :cuss:ing foreskin described to us. When I think Siege of Terra, tonally, I mostly think of what we get in The End and the Death. So… why did we need 7 other books?

 

Here's a breakdown of what really needed to happen before The Solar War came out, by my estimation:

 

List A:

 

Dark Angels - Nothing, not at the Siege

Emperor's Children - Need to get distracted by torturing civilians. Fulgrim's arc is done, Bile's and Lucius' arcs continue/peak post-Heresy

Iron Warriors - Perturabo needs to gleefully tear down Dorn's defenses. The Storm of Iron characters get resolution in Storm of Iron.

White Scars - Jaghatai rides on a tank. Shiban and Ilya have arcs to complete.

Space Wolves - Nothing, not at the Siege.

Imperial Fists - Rogal and Siggy need to finish their arcs, Siggy becomes Emperor's Champion

Night Lords - Curze not present, Sev not present. Lucoryphus on the walls can be a few paragraphs in the Fragments chapters. Ditto for Skraivok getting kicked off a wall.

Blood Angels - Sanguinius holds the Eternity Gate, kills Ka'Bandha, is killed by Horus. Azkaellon, Amit, and Raldoron could use more focus but do not have character arcs to complete. Zephon's role in EoE is more for Land's benefit than his own character evolution.

Iron Hands - Nothing, not at the Siege.

World Eaters - Khârn needs to devolve completely and die. Angron should probably give his challenge to the defenders and die.

Ultramarines - Nothing, not at the Siege.

Death Guard - Nothing needed besides maybe a final pissing match between them and the Scars. Garro dies.

Thousand Sons - Ahriman's Rubric is post-Heresy, Magnus is present for his own devices. Something like Fury of Magnus is probably appropriate.

Sons of Horus - Heresy wrap-up for Aximand, Abaddon, Argonis, Loken, and Marr. Horus provides some kind of leadership, kills Sanguinius, cripples the Emperor, dies.

Word Bearers - Layak's already finished his arc. Have Sor Talgron do something. Lorgar, Kor Phaeron not present. YMMV on Erebus. Narek doesn't kill Lorgar so he needs a cameo at best.

Salamanders - Have Vulkan ready to blow everything up if the Emperor dies.

Raven Guard - See Dark Angels, Space Wolves, etc

Alpha Legion - No defined role, but present.

Imperial Admin - Some kind of resolution for Valdor. Malcador sits on the throne. The Emperor boards the Vengeful Spirit, kills Horus, sits on Malcador. Inquisition founders probably need a cameo.

Civilians - Ollanius and co. arrive on Terra and do something. Keeler does something saintly. Sindermann is present. Oliton is in jail and doesn't need another appearance. Ideally, resolution of Cyrene.

Misc - Dies Irae does something. Protagonists of short stories like Haar should probably get a Fragment.

 

Why did I itemize this? Because, please consider: divorced from character consistency (which we didn't get anyway) Abnett is quite good at establishing character in a relatively small wordcount. For all the blunders in the Volume 3 prologue with Lorgar, Perturabo, and Guilliman, all 3 of them got what I would call a short but meaningful scene. Scenes you could really chew on. Consider also: the Fragments chapters, essential for the feeling of colossal scale, are the perfect place to give satisfying cameos for characters like Haar, Marr, Lucoryphus, Narek (which we got, for the latter 2.) Consider also also how much of The End and the Death was taken up by things that didn't need wrap-up, and things invented exclusively by the Siege novels:

 

List B:

 

Dark Angels - Zahariel and Corswain do fighting and fighting and fighting

Space Wolves - get in an argument with Imperial Fists

Imperial Fists - Rogal is trapped in an empty desert for 500 pages. Rann does fighting and fighting and fighting.

Blood Angels - Sanguinius chats with Ghosts. Zephon fights and fights and fights. Amit cries.

Death Guard - Typhus fights and fights and fights

Thousand Sons - Ahriman bullies Sindermann

Sons of Horus - Abaddon has trouble wrangling his own people, beats up Valdor. Loken helps stop the Emperor's apotheosis.

Word Bearers - Erebus kills loose ends.

Salamanders - Vulkan tries to deduce what Malcador is thinking and decides whether to press a button for 500 pages.

Alpha Legion - Ingo Pech reveals Alpha Legion stores beneath the palace, kills Herzog

Imperial Admin - Hassan spends several chapters doing nothing. Malcador stresses about seeing the future but not being able to tell anyone. Xanthus follows Pho around. Valdor experiences OOC set-up for Pandaemonium. The Emperor almost accidentally ends existence.

Civilians - Ollanius and co. wander around the palace aimlessly, have a crisis of faith, decide to proceed anyway, get lost in time and space, get mostly killed by Erebus, stop the Emperor's apotheosis, leave, come back, and get atomized by Horus. Keeler doesn't know where she's going and then sacrifices her followers in the Hollow Mountain. Sindermann and Mauer read and read and read.

Misc -Samus is here. Pho does science and science and science. Some soldiers squat in a haunted house.

 

The book already has quite a bit of content from List A. Could we not, perhaps, have swapped out list B for the rest of List A? I think we could have, and I think Abnett has the appropriate writing chops to do so. We did not need 7 books to get there. You all remember Abnett's near-universally beloved Know no Fear? The book where he established the sheer scale of the Word Bearer's opening attack in a few chapters? Boom, Abnett does the solar war in 2 chapters, it feels bigger than The Solar War novel. Abnett doesn't need to have every traitor primarch be banished (except for Angron, I guess.) Mortarion's arc is done, he doesn't need a fight (honestly, I'd have preferred he pulled a reverse-Sagyar Mazan Decoy on Jaghatai and strand him in the Space Port or something.) Fulgrim's arc is done, he doesn't need his nose broken by Dorn. Magnus is here for his own devices and can just leave when he wants. Vaguely describing Perturabo's strategic genius would have been a damn sight more flattering than a novel dedicated to his outwitting Dorn by sending his most inept commander out with his forces. Pho's superweapon is new material. The Dark Angels in the Hollow Mountain are new material. Andromeda being a turncoat, Katsuhiro, Mersadie's Odyssey, Keeler's fighting a Corbax, Mauer, Shiban's desert walk, the Saturnine Gambit, Zenobi, Sindermann's Interrogators - all new material. That's not even all of it. That's not even speaking to repetition that hurts the Siege as a narrative like several "mutual kill" finales to unneeded primarch duels, or Samus showing up twice.

 

This isn't me saying The End and the Death is the best part of the Siege we got. I've said before, I'd have preferred the author-victory-lap model that only Echoes really fulfilled if we were going multi-author for the Siege (and that is why Echoes remains the best entry.) But when I pick up The End and the Death, and I'm in awe at the prose, the sense of scale, and the economy of information (when Abnett feels like being economic,) and I consider the sheer scope of what he managed to convey with this 1500 page monstrosity, I can't avoid the feeling of "well, why didn't we just do this from the start?"

Edited September 18 by Roomsky

[Rob P]

The Emperor's Legion by Chris Wright

 

Solid 4 stars.

 

Plot was great even if just a prologue to Indomitus era. It set things up nicely, bit of political plotting, gets the characters doing stuff, a few reveals, then the required battle scene or 2

 

Custodes were the most boring element but still relatively interesting.

 

Grumpy Sister of Silence was something I could dig as I thought they were straight laced.

 

Final, pov being the old bureaucrat complimented the others perfectly. Probs my fave pov.

 

I can't not recommend. It's too important for setting the scene for everything set after.

 

....

 

Now on to Flesh and Steel. Guy Hayley clearly inspired by The Bridge / The Tunnel getting this one going.

Edited September 17 by Rob P

[wecanhaveallthree]

>why didn't we just do this from the start?

 

Well, that's obvious, Roomsky. We couldn't put any of that in other books, because Abnett had it all planned out for the end, and Abnett had to jam in all that stuff in the last few books, because we forgot to put it in earlier. Duh?

 

>but that's insane circular reasoning, that makes no sen-

 

SILENCE

 

They didn't do it from the start because whatever passes for fury among your misbegotten kind editorial at BL apparently couldn't find their ass with two hands and a teleport homer. 

 

You are absolutely correct with 'victory lap' stories. Sons of the Selenar, for example, deals with 'what about those guys?' efficiently, conclusively and - to my mind - satisfactorily. I've said it a million times: this was the capstone of the series. Every 'mainline' book should have been pared down to the absolute bone of necessary, meaningful content and everything else dumped in anthologies or short stories (FOR DAT CASH MONEY YOOOOO). Instead, they're all full of fat and fluff and authorial :cuss:. End and the Death's gravest sin - and it has many - is that it a monument to authorial hubris. It's Abnett having the last word on everything. He defines it all. He links it back to his stories, and if you had forgotten that his characters are the best, and the most important, well here's ten billion pages of refresher. Don't think I've forgotten ADB doing the same thing in Echoes. Don't get it twisted: the Webway Project is... LE BAD. The Emperor is... LE BAD. Land is... LE FUNNY MONKEY MAN. And here's what really went down when Magnus met the Emperor, OK?

 

Nobody was talking to each other. They recognised that the HH had become an enormous, sprawling, glorious mess and were like 'OK :cuss: we need to clean this all up, we need to hurry and just get to the Siege and we need to make it clear that this IS the Siege, for real, and we are gonna GET IT TOGETHER and be ON POINT'. 

 

...and then we spend half of Solar War playing murder mystery with Oliton (remember MERSADIE OLITON?) and teleport the Traitors into Terran orbit instead, because 'how did the assembled Traitor forces fight through the rarely-explored Solar System and all its mysteries and Dorn's defences' is much less interesting than Loken running into Mersadie Oliton... again and beating up Samus... again.

 

The Siege started off by showing that nobody had learned anything from the mess of the Heresy and that it was always going to end up in an Abnettian trainwreck. 

[grailkeeper]

I've thrashed out my problems with TEaTD when it came out. One problem Abnett may have is one that JKRowling and George RR Martin have. As they became more successful they started to listen to editors less and the books became longer and more bloated. Compare the size of the first few Harry Potter books with the last few. Maybe the editors were too awed with Abnett to tell him that a lot of this can end up on the cutting room floor. The excessive verbosity really detracted from the book for me. Sure no other author might be able to write like that but it reminds me of something someone said after a Jazz Concert "Sure it's hard to play, but it's also hard to listen to". It may be technically brilliant but it made the read unenjoyable.

 

A couple if things I would have liked to see during the Siege books generally. These are all very minor but would have been nice.

 

Dorn say "give me 100 space marines, failing that give me 1000 of any other soldier". When better for him to say that than during the Siege?

 

The Emperor giving the order that land raiders be restricted to marines.

 

I'd have liked to see ADB at least have a reference to the battle between Malcharion and Raguel the sufferer. ADB doesn't like this kind of fan service as many of the characters in 40k weren't too important in 30k. But the Nightlords books made clear that those characters were important during the Siege but were mostly forgotten by the 41st millennium. ADB handled the BA, why not have one of the characters at least reference him.

 

There was another old Iconic 40k quote I'd have liked to have seen but I don't recall it off hand.

Edited September 17 by grailkeeper

[Roomsky]

Land is... LE FUNNY MONKEY MAN.

I mean, I don't think anyone else did anything of substance with Land. The McNeill novels are in the same realm with his characters. Land is ADB's character as much as the Sisypheum crew are McNeill's.

 

And here's what really went down when Magnus met the Emperor, OK?

As I am the eternal ADB stan, I think it's an uncharitable habit to always take his portrayals of certain characters as retroactive law instead of just another puzzle piece. Vulkan is by most metrics the least violent of his brothers, and the Emperor was bordering on possessing him at the end of their second fight. I find it just as likely that Vulkan was the mistaken one, his mind being twisted so he'd have no qualms about the order that was "go into the webway and bash your brother's skull flat with that big hammer of yours." 

 

Agreed besides that, though.