Peter Fehervari’s Dark Coil

[cheywood]

What's the [REDACTED] book supposed to be?

It’s an unannounced short story. If you scroll up the thread there’s a link to a video interview with Peter where he mentions having two short stories finished, one about Sarastus (Nightbleed) and another about the Angels Resplendent/Penitent.

Edited October 31, 2020 by cheywood

[Beren]

Finished Reverie. It drew me in just as his works usually do.

I suspect the crystalline disks released from the Reverie when the knife was removed are the same ones responsible for near-destroying the Excordio void breachers in Requiem Infernal.

Edited November 1, 2020 by Beren

[byrd9999]

Michael from Track of Words has put together a Traveller's Guide to the Dark Coil, with the help of, among others, Peter Fehervari himself. What a great resource!

 

https://www.trackofwords.com/2020/10/31/a-travellers-guide-to-the-dark-coil/

[Gongsun Zan]

Finished Reverie. It drew me in just as his works usually do.

I suspect the crystalline disks released from the Reverie when the knife was removed are the same ones responsible for near-destroying the Excordio void breachers in Requiem Infernal.

 

Yes, and I suspect that the reference to the figure in gray power armor shortly after is probably Sister Indrik

 

[Hergrmir]

Oh wow, I'm glad I came across this thread. I read Fire Caste an age ago while on a Tau kick and while initially puzzled at how not-a-Tau-book it is, I came to really enjoy it, and I enjoyed everything PF has written so far. Haven't read either Reverie or RI so far, but looking forward to doing so based on this cracking discussion.

[DukeLeto69]

Oh wow, I'm glad I came across this thread. I read Fire Caste an age ago while on a Tau kick and while initially puzzled at how not-a-Tau-book it is, I came to really enjoy it, and I enjoyed everything PF has written so far. Haven't read either Reverie or RI so far, but looking forward to doing so based on this cracking discussion.

Do it! Buy/read everything by Peter Fehervari. You won’t regret it.

 

As I wait for my copy of The Reverie to arrive I am currently re-reading all his short stories and novella in the order of the list of track of words (as opposed to when they were written). Loving it.

 

Not re-reading novels as won’t have time but will do in future.

[DarkChaplain]

My print copy of The Reverie arrived on Wednesday, thankfully, and I listened to the first couple of chapters over the weekend. However, I figured I'd better wait for the print to arrive before going further in. After all, it's a Fehervari, and you'll want to flip through the pages with relative ease and cross-reference. Would've annoyed me to no end having to seek through an audiobook while connecting the inevitable dots. Best to dual-wield.

 

I've had a similar idea about re-reading, actually. Considering that Nightbleed is chronologically the earliest story, and just released, followed by The Reverie, it seems like the perfect time to start the long-overdue re-read of the entire Coil.

Might take me a while, but at least it seems like management got my neighbors to reduce their noise levels significantly (still a nuisance, but I'm starting to recover my focus at long last!) and with early nightfall (pun intended) due to winter, the mood fits.

[Roomsky]

Finished up The Reverie today, and it’s the usual Fehervari experience (which means it’s excellent but hard to review.) As always it’s beautifully poetic, dreamlike, and often deranged, all of which makes it require another reading to rate properly. I will say it’s one of the best novels to feature astartes I’ve yet read, and the most compelling portrait of legionaries descended from Sanguinius we’re likely to ever see. I’m also quite pleased to see authors like Fehervari and Harrison push the antagonist faction as something infinitely varied rather than a series of models.

 

I hope the Horror imprint is going to let Fehervari continue to write whatever he wants to, how he wants to. The greatest criticism I can give off of one reading is that like most Horror entries, it’s not especially scary.

 

Go read it.

[Taliesin]

Finished up The Reverie today, and it’s the usual Fehervari experience (which means it’s excellent but hard to review.) As always it’s beautifully poetic, dreamlike, and often deranged, all of which makes it require another reading to rate properly. I will say it’s one of the best novels to feature astartes I’ve yet read, and the most compelling portrait of legionaries descended from Sanguinius we’re likely to ever see. 

 

Could you go into why its one of the best novels featuring Astartes? What does it do differently? Is it a bit like Spear of the Emperor where you see how extraordinary they are from a human POV, or is it something else?

[Roomsky]

There are astartes POVs, Fehervari just writes them in the manner I think works best for them. They have *some* human emotions that allows the reader to relate to their individual struggles, but are completely lacking in others, which in my opinion leads to some lines of thought more terrifying than any of the story’s creepy goings-on. It’s just a great balance of dialogue, chapter culture, and knowing what would and wouldn’t be on a marine’s mind.

[caladancid]

Oh wow, I'm glad I came across this thread. I read Fire Caste an age ago while on a Tau kick and while initially puzzled at how not-a-Tau-book it is, I came to really enjoy it, and I enjoyed everything PF has written so far. Haven't read either Reverie or RI so far, but looking forward to doing so based on this cracking discussion.

 

Don't forget Cult of the Spiral Dawn!

[Sandlemad]

Just finished Reverie. A fine book. As good as Fire Caste, Cult of the Spiral Dawn or Requiem Infernal? I don't think so, or at least not quite as much to my taste. That's in part down to the kind of book this is though: less feverish, tottering, twisted, on the edge of a scream, all of which is my jam. This was still poetic and generally subtle and often (though less often than Fehervari's other work) dreamlike, but it felt more... stately? More toned down? Less contorted, a little more straightforward, though even there the narrative is structured as to give us a sort of time loop. It had a weird rhythm. Where would you say the climax was? I'm hard pressed to identify it exactly.

 

Reverie came off as more directly inspired by Poe and early horror/horror-adjacent writers, I think. There's a creeping terror lurking behind some sort of artistic decadence that's nevertheless signalled somewhat early on. 

 

And yet it's still a very restrained novel.

What stands out to me is that though we get (in a roundabout way) the main actors of the chapter's earlier reformation and turn towards aesthetic pursuits and how they 'beat' the twin curses of the Sanguinius's blood, we're never out and out told exactly the details of how they did it. I may be misremembering but it seemed like some sort of psychic ritual on the part of their first chapter magister and change in practice was what did it (and damned them) but Fehervari doesn't spell it out for us. That's cool. Something happened, something creepy following the mild takeover of the chapter by the magister's faction, but it's glided over as something so obvious to the characters involved, even Satori, that it doesn't need to be mentioned. That takes guts to put in your novel.

 

Other things I liked:

 

- How the Resplendent seem very decent and likeable at first, as individuals and as a body. They're not like the rest of the Imperium, they value art and progress and so forth. That's the impression that holds through the first third-ish of the book. But then they still have a toy city staffed largely with servitors. They still have picturesque waterwheels that don't do anything except be picturesque, because they have plasma generators. Their 'Muses' are basically pets, bickering and infighting and resenting the chapter, and frequently committing suicide in a beautiful artistic manner which the Resplendent don't particularly mind.

 

- As Roomsky mentioned, this is a very solid depiction of a chapter that deviates from the codex in a number of ways. We hear about the projects of the different companies in a chapter that has decided it has loftier aims than simply war, about the roles and rituals of their various officers, about the layout of their fortress monastery, about their politics at an in-company and inter-company level. It's good, as good as the better Space Marine Battles books for getting into the meat of a chapter culture and paying attention to how that culture is shaped not just by founding or geneseed but by history. There's a good sense for how long a generation of marines is (though the age ranges for the Angels Resplendent seems at odds with space marines in general, let along BA successors) and how cultural drift can happen and happen unevenly. At no point are the Angels Resplendent reducible to 'marines but they like stealth' or whatever, all their differences are philosophical.

 

- The little decadent touch of referring to "cherveau-skulls" and "cherviteurs" was fun.

 

- The whole Alpha and Omega thing made for one of the more compelling techmarine characters I can think of.

 

- Having marines named after prominent old Terran artists was delightful, as was the small-c catholic taste in who was recorded. Czervantes, Glass, Borges, Vonnegut, Caravaggio, this was great. Visibly pretentious as is appropriate to the Angels Resplendent.

 

- How most of the characters never really had a chance, they were all swept along by circumstances formed by figures in the chapter's past. Fate is inexorable, that sort of thing, they can nudge events in a direction but ultimately they're all working in currents defined decades before.

 

- Satori's grand plan and involvement with Glass. There's room for further development her but Borges's letter was a real shocker.

 

I'll leave it to others to find how exactly this interacts with the other Dark Coil books - the specific reference to the 'Dark Heart' strain of corruption was interesting, and I definitely spotted multiple references to Requiem Infernal - but there's clearly a lot there. I liked this quite a bit but feel like it's doing something fairly different to Fehervari's previous novels. 

[Knockagh]

Reading Reverie today, so far so good. Unsurprisingly it’s very similar in style to other books of his I’ve read. Very very similar feel in fact to Requiem Infernal.

[DukeLeto69]

Finished re-reading all the Fehervari shorts and the novella Fire and Ice. Wonderful. I had forgotten just how good Fire and Ice is!

 

Having read the others closer to their original release (although not all as came a little later to my coil travelling) it was very interesting reading them in chronological order.

 

My copy of The Reverie arrives end of the week so I have now decided to re-read Requiem Infernal.

 

Surprised we don’t have more reviews of The Reverie yet?

Edited November 23, 2020 by DukeLeto69

[DarkChaplain]

I'm still working my way through it. Things have been rather.... rough lately. I can't help but feel terrible about not giving the Dark Coil my full attention and brain capacity, though, so I've been holding off for a bit chewed through a lot of old but familiar german audio dramas lately.

 

That being said, I'm in the Third Movement section of the novel, and already had moments of glee seeing the dots connect. The Angels Resplendent might be glorious and supposedly pure, but you can definitely see the cracks, and the cracks below the cracks. I'm damn excited to see how Varzival is going to end up here, in particular, seeing how he was originally mentioned in The Crown of Thorns as a beacon of hope sadly absent during the Chapter's fall towards penitence. Things are a bit rough for him, to say the least.

[DarkChaplain]

I'm done with it, and while it is more straightforward than the other Fehervari novels, I'd argue it is deceptively so. It's certainly gotten me back into cross-referencing mode, flipping through far too many books to draw connections and giggle at tiny nuggets left for old travelers like me.

 

Frankly, I need more. Until I get it, I'll go for the full reread as planned, though I am tempted to skip ahead and re-read The Thirteenth Psalm and The Walker in Fire next. But that ain't gonna happen, gotta stick to the map lest I get lost in the Reverie as well.

[Fire Golem]

Finished it last night too. As I often find with Fehervari, I’m not sure I 100% know what was going on (although not helped this time by mainly being read over lunch breaks with a few days in between in some cases) but I still really enjoyed it. Will definitely need a re-read I think, I might try and reread all of his stuff over Christmas.

[DarkChaplain]

What in particular were you lost on?

[Fire Golem]

What in particular were you lost on?

I think I pretty much got it all by the end, just as I was going through I didn’t feel like I had a grasp on what was happening. It’s a combination of the writing and the fact that I tend to skim read, and I read it over lots of short periods with a while between them, I’m sure. I also didn’t pick up a lot of the connections to the wider Coil-verse but that’s also pretty normal. I haven’t really read the whole thing in close proximity yet. It’s not a negative at all, I think they’re meant to be somewhat disorientating, and I love the ride every time. I just don’t know if I could explain what was happening if someone asked me.

[Preliminary Bombardment]

Finished this at the weekend, enjoyed it again but it didn't have the same golly gee moments that Requiem Infernal or Fire Caste had.

 

Definitely liked the focus on one chapter, and also the sense of just how much a culture like theirs could change over the many thousands of years, you wouldn't expect any human culture to be unaffected over long periods of time. The naming conventions of the Resplendent was imaginative too. Got Annihilation vibes at sections too.

[grailkeeper]

Its very dream-like in its tone- as was Requiem Infernal.

 

I stopped reading halfway through and devoured Infinite and the Divine. I'm not sure I'll return to it.

 

Its a very unusual style of writing and not my cup of tea. With relatively few adjustments this book (or the parts I've read) could be a non warhammer book. The fugue state feeling combined with the non-linear story telling made it very difficult for me to engage with the book. I'm not that interested in what happens next.

 

I'm not going to say this is a bad book and I quite liked the more straight forward Fire Caste, but these vague nightmarish books aren't for me. Maybe I'm just not smart enough to appreciate it properly. This could be pearls before swine with me. Ulysses is a difficult read but people still dress up and act it out once a year. But I was a bit disappointed.

Edited December 2, 2020 by grailkeeper

[DarkChaplain]

I didn't think I'd ever see somebody call Fire Caste more "straight forward" than The Reverie. Guess 2020 still had some surprises left :')

[Fire Golem]

I must admit, I don’t remember Fire Caste (or any of his works, particularly) being any more straight forward than The Reverie. It has been a while though. I’m about to start rereading it. 

[DukeLeto69]

Personally I would say Fire Caste is the most complex of his four novels. Huge cast and multiple POVs. Really need to pay attention or risk getting lost.

 

Am halfway through The Reverie. I love it. Agree it has a dreamlike quality and (so far) I am not sure what is “real” or not. Quite metaphorical too (I think as not good at reviewing or explaining books - this just “feels” that way)

[grailkeeper]

Its a while since I read Fire caste so I might have simplified it with hindsight. Despite a large cast I remember it being a story that starts a the start and ends at the end. I'm roughly halfway through the Reverie and couldn't really tell you what the overall story is.