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Finished reading ist a few weeks ago.

Aside of the World building of pre unity terra I found the closing words of malcador to valdor.

He seems slightly annoyed at emps and Talks about him having taken to calling the prinarchs his sons. They hope its just a Phase.

Also they talk about the timetable for the crusade being accelerated again.

Also after astarte, the creator of the astartes stages her Little Coup, the dungeon burns out and there is talk of another huge sevecret project being moved there.

The Webway Project

Well yeah.

I think its a nice tidbit to know that they were planning that before they even had All the legions finished.

Also they talk very directly about the chaos gods as their direct opponents. In a way like you would talk about people.

  • 2 weeks later...

 

I'm not sure it was proscribed said much as Martian designs were better, so the Imperium made those standard issue.

I thought it was more Mars' production capacity and infrastructure was way ahead of Terra's at the time.

 

 

However isn't all the Custodes tech Terran though, and it exceeds a lot of Mars stuff as well in capability? Seems the only downside to Terran tech is its exorbitant expense and production times in comparison to mars stuff. Also wasn't volkite a Terran weapons tech also? 

  • 4 weeks later...

Got the regular edition from Amazon today. Wow fast, I pre-ordered two days ago for 2/4/20 and came on the day of...love amazon. Anyways totally looking forward to this. I wonder if this book is being used to gauge the general interest in the Unification stuff? 

 

Anyways I love the Thunder warrior stuff and I hope there is more in this time period...would total kill. I would prefer this time period more to the scouring. 

Edited by Izlude

Volkite is Strife-age tech, no?

 

Would love some insight into some distinctions between Dark Age tech and Strife tech

 

Is Strife era tech generally bulkier but less powerful or did some crazy Strife era scientists actually manage to improve upon some DAoT stuff

Volkite is Strife-age tech, no?

Would love some insight into some distinctions between Dark Age tech and Strife tech

Is Strife era tech generally bulkier but less powerful or did some crazy Strife era scientists actually manage to improve upon some DAoT stuff

I think it was a mix between that and some warlords hitting the jackpot in finding Dark Age Tech vaults/ facilitues that was so advanced you couldn't really improve it, or replicate it at the same potency. But what you did find worked out of the vault etc.

Got the regular edition from Amazon today. Wow fast, I pre-ordered two days ago for 2/4/20 and came on the day of...love amazon. Anyways totally looking forward to this. I wonder if this book is being used to gauge the general interest in the Unification stuff? 

 

Anyways I love the Thunder warrior stuff and I hope there is more in this time period...would total kill. I would prefer this time period more to the scouring. 

About 30 pages in. I have intentionally avoided the spoilers except it sounds like issues with inconsistencies with what is in the old fluff. I think i have a good feel for what has been written but don't think I wold pick up the subtle stuff. After reading Sons of the Selenar and First Wall (both great reads by the way), it makes me realize that Chris is in another league for sure. Right off the bat in the first 3 pages he had me hooked. The pre-imperium world building with the place and the current state is just plain awesome.

 

I was going to space out the reading to just plain enjoy it...like when you order a 100 dollar steak and want to eat it slowly (I never ordered a 100 dollar steak but I am sure I would eat it slowly). I might end up devouring this one by the weekend. Will write more after but awesome...I want more!!!

Valdor: Birth of the Imperium - Chris Wraight

 

I want to say this is a great book. I'm pretty sure it is. More important than it's quality is that it definitely needs a second read to give a well-rounded opinion on. There is quite a lot of world building and intrigue and to really grasp the importance of either you sort of have to know how the book ends. 

 

I can easily say, however, that it is up to Wraight's usual standard of quality, and is probably a bit denser than his usual output. Valdor definitely benefits from a slow read to really take in everything being described. I certainly had a great time reading and it was hard to put down past the second half.

 

I will warn people that while Valdor features heavily, his name being on the title strikes me as a bit of a marketing gimmick. Birth of the Imperium on its own would have been a more apt title. The book is not, despite all its world building, a codex about Thunder Warriors or the Pre-Unity Emperor or any big secrets people have been theorizing about since time immemorial. The book is about the first breaths of the Imperium as we know it now, and is a better book for it, it's essentially free of pandering of any kind. It does deftly discuss the idea of the Emperor, the Custodians, the Thunder Warriors, the Imperium as it was, etc, but only in service of the narrative.

 

Definitely worth the read, and the second read. I don't want to go too in depth because people should be forming their own ideas about this one.

Finished this book yesterday. First off, need to say I'm a huge Chris Wraight fan, the Emperor's Legion, Carrion Throne and Hollow Mount are all 10/10 for me. Also, I am a huge fan of Valdor and started a Custodes Army due to reading about him.  

 

I plan on reading the book again this weekend, but I was not blown away. As the previous poster said, Valdor wasn't the focus of the book, which was a let down for me. There are several story lines, such as Fat High Lord who's actions I didn't fully understand, and some others which were very good.  

 

The world created in the novel are first rate, and background on Terra during the rise of the Empire are very vivid and descriptive.  Maybe on a re-read I will appreciate the novel more. I'm not saying it's a bad novel at all, but I think my expectations for more background and depth into Valdor were not met, but that is my fault for having expectations for the book in terms of character development of him.  

 

my expectations for more background and depth into Valdor were not met, but that is my fault for having expectations for the book in terms of character development of him.  

 

But.... is it really your fault? I honestly don't think so. The book prominently shows Valdor on the cover. His name is up front. It was marketed as being about Valdor. If it, in fact, isn't about Valdor, then the fault is both with the author and the marketing surrounding the product, not with the reader for expecting what he was teased with at every turn. Either Wraight wrote a good book that didn't really fit the brief by the time it was finished, or marketing either deliberately or ignorantly mismarketed it to the audience. Either way, the reader is not at fault for expecting, say, a Harry Potter novel being about Harry Potter, not about his pet owl Hedwig's daily life carrying letters and packages about, only featuring Harry himself in passing.

 

Wouldn't surprise me if this was another Prospero Burns situation, where the book wasn't nearly finished by the time they started marketing it, including title, and warped into something that clearly didn't fit the marketing anymore. But instead of correcting that at the time, they just decided to stick with it anyway. It's not that rare for BL anyway.

You know it's funny, Valdor appears more in this book than Ferrus does in his, but I still think taking his name out of the title would be more apt here. Gorgon of Medusa was about Ferrus Manus, about how he operates and what his actions cause, even if we don't get that much time with the man himself. Arkanuada hogs much of the spotlight but he exists mostly as a foil to Ferrus, he was included for the title character. Birth of the Imperium has more Valdor, it has interviews with him and ruminations about him and discussions about his place in the world, but really only to flesh out his character within the story. It's about Unification coming to a close, through and through, he's just a major player. 

 

I think it will be a very enjoyable read for people so long as they know what to expect. It is a very Valdor-adjacent book, be ready for that when you pick it up.

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