Rate what you Read, or the fight against Necromancy

[Roomsky]

Well it all comes back to taste, don't it? King didn't justify the narrow focus, to me. Berate me all you like dear Fraters, but King is no ADB.

 

Lemuel is fine, in fact I was indeared to the middle sections of this story because Anton and Ivan were basically not present. He's out of his depth, and a very effective conduit for the story being told. Anton and Ivan are flat characters who run out of momentum by the end of book 2 - I needed more from them than the same characters they've been before, because by book 3 they're just canned interactions masquerading as people. The Undertaker? He's got one scene. This is assuming this is Leo's story, in which Macharius happens to feature. If that's the case, than the supporting cast was very ill-equipped to populate a trilogy.

 

You know by now I don't need a character to have spotlight-focus or a POV for the book to effectively make them intriguing and awesome. I love Angron, The Red Angel, I love Sanguinius, the Great Angel, it would be great if there was another example to fit this pattern, a third angel. My dissatisfaction comes down to, in part, what I brought up in my Angel of Fire review. Alexandros is the template for a charismatic military leader, which every other charismatic military leader in Black Library steals from in equal quantity. It is not enough for me that he knows his men's names, almost never loses, is hungry for glory, and takes massive self-centred risks. I need the man that wears that coat and we never get to meet him.

Sure, the Imperium ate him because he actually lived up to the legend, that's neat. But if that's the angle, I personally needed more of him subverting the human moments instead of being really awesome off-screen. Book 1 is him distantly being awesome and saving the hive with Lemuel. He rejects the daemon despite his hunger for glory, a strong enough start to this arc. Do I then get to see him hold together a bunch of warlords who no one man should be able to unite? Do I get to see him accomplish the impossibility of making this many worlds stable in his wake? Do I get to see him thwart the Byzantine plans within plans levied against him at every turn, and pulling a "Give unto Caesar" moment every time a Terran representative tries to trip him up? Not really, I get to see him wage an amusing campaign against Dark Eldar and thwart the Imperium's most predictable assassination attempt.

I needed more interesting triumphs, or I needed a more vulnerable man. I don't think King succeeded in giving me either. Emperor damnit, I needed more Sejanus.

If King wanted to subject me to a plodding campaign against Nurgle, I suppose he succeeded. I just would have rathered that time be devoted to something more interesting, like Macharius' conquest starting to eat itself after he died. A crime, I know.