Fabius Bile: Manflayer - HYPE THREAD (by Josh Reynolds)

[nagashnee]

Cannot wait for this, tho it will be  a sad read knowing its the last one.

[Sandlemad]

The Ahriman comparison Petitioner's City made is apt, I think, because we know that Manflayer will ultimately come with a reset to the status quo of Bile's activities or something like it, at least for big plot points. That's an oversimplification, mind, Bile does have his arc through Primogenitor and Clonelord. But Manflayer has to close off a bunch of threads and do things like account for why, in-universe, the gland-hounds aren't a prominent Thing in the 41st millennium or at least mothball them in such a way that GW/another writer can pick them up.

 

Beyond its qualities as fiction, the whole trilogy will have added depth to Bile's character but probably won't provide great direct hints about "what GW plans to do with Bile" on a metaplot scale (some fans talk up the

cloned Fulgrim thing from Clonelord

but I honestly think that is what it is and won't be a grand hint of anything in the future).

 

Same with Ahriman, French's books were amazing and did a lot for his backstory but there's not much there that featured prominently in the 8th edition background or the Thousand Sons codex. They're historical fiction, if you like.

 

EDIT: should have been Clonelord in the spoiler

Edited June 9, 2020 by Sandlemad

[nagashnee]

But thats perfectly fine, adding depth to a character is what the books SHOULD do. Leave the metaplot to the studio. The bile books are the only bit of actual characterisation i have seen him get, other then 'evil scientist dude'.

[Sandlemad]

Couldn't agree more. Paradoxically having a closed off metaplot result is probably rather freeing, means it doesn't have to be tied to whatever the latest studio developments are.

 

And yeah, this is a better portrayal of Bile than we get anywhere else. Kyme's 'Chiurgeon' had a good germ of some of what Reynolds developed and Ian St. Martin's portrayal in Faultless Blade was characterful but there's not much that compares.

[DarkChaplain]

I think a few of Kyme's shorts added a good bit to him, by approaching the whole near-extinction Emperor's Children pre-Fulgrim stuff. It's just nowhere near close to what Josh did with the character.

[Sandlemad]

So the Manflayer ebook and audiobook are up for preorder: https://www.blacklibrary.com/prod-home/new/fabius-bile-manflayer-ebook-2020.html

 

The extract has the prologue, the first chapter, and a bit of the second, which I mention because it features the return of a character I was not expecting: 

one Oleander Koh. Captured by the harlequins after Bile fled Lugganath and handed over to the dark eldar, where he's been getting the works, every torture a bored haemonculus can deliver as well as being locked into some sort of pain-collar as a pet.

I'm excited.

[Bobss]

So the Manflayer ebook and audiobook are up for preorder: https://www.blacklibrary.com/prod-home/new/fabius-bile-manflayer-ebook-2020.html

 

The extract has the prologue, the first chapter, and a bit of the second, which I mention because it features the return of a character I was not expecting: 

one Oleander Koh. Captured by the harlequins after Bile fled Lugganath and handed over to the dark eldar, where he's been getting the works, every torture a bored haemonculus can deliver as well as being locked into some sort of pain-collar as a pet.

I'm excited.

 

I just listened to the abstract on the main site and it seems to follow

Melusine on the Pleasure Planet, going to have a chat with real-demon-Fulgrim, which is absurdly cool and brings the trilogy around full circle somewhat. Also, the description of the demon world seems to be on par with Chris Wraight's description of the Plague Planet in The Lords of Silence. Booyah!

 

Oleander being saved by the Harlequins is a theory I've heard before... actually. I think there might be a reference to it in Clonelord? I never saw it myself, but I've seen this discussed before for sure. Either way Bill sort of went on to do in Clonelord what Oleander strived for him in Primogenitor. I feel like things are going to go swimmingly for Bill in this book... until they don't

[hopkins]

Pre order from FLGS got cancelled, can't see the book on BL site, so now have to order from GW?

[theSpirea]

Pre order from FLGS got cancelled, can't see the book on BL site, so now have to order from GW?

 

Yup, that's the only option now. This is the message GW sent to the retailers "We want to inform you that we will not be making Fabius Bile: Manflayer (Hardback), available for independent retailers so please do not continue to take orders for it."

 

I'm honestly getting tired of how incapable they are at managing the book releases.

[DarkChaplain]

Just another nail in the coffin of one author's mistreatment, it appears to me...

[Sandlemad]

 

 

Pre order from FLGS got cancelled, can't see the book on BL site, so now have to order from GW?

Yup, that's the only option now. This is the message GW sent to the retailers "We want to inform you that we will not be making Fabius Bile: Manflayer (Hardback), available for independent retailers so please do not continue to take orders for it."

 

I'm honestly getting tired of how incapable they are at managing the book releases.

They’re not very good at this whole ‘publishing’ thing.

[Taliesin]

Luckily their core business is bed & breakfast though, so its not like they need it.

[Sandlemad]

Working through this now and damn but it’s good to see Reynolds writing dark eldar again. Just like in the Lukas book, they’re hilarious. I like how one archon ostentatiously namedrops “my friend Aurelia, you know, Lady Aurelia Malys? I’m certain you’ve heard of her”.

[RedDragon]

Powered through this, this morning and afternoon.

 

It's excellent - If not what I was expecting.

[Morovir]

*slow applause*

 

Just finished it - a fitting swan song for both Fabius Bile and Josh Reynolds.

[mc warhammer]

i'm torn between buying it and knowing i have no time to read it for at least the next month or just straight up begging for spoilers

[Bobss]

I'm surprised there isn't a bulletpoint-spoiler-thread on Reddit, but then again that would require someone over there to actually read a Black Library book to write one

 

I've just gorged on spoilers and flicked through the digital version because my hardback is coming in the next few days and I can't wait, and as brilliant as this looks, I can easily recognise what got stripped out when compared to Josh's Tumblr notes. Definitely looks just as, if not more amazing than expected though!

Edited June 21, 2020 by Bobss

[SkimaskMohawk]

This was a weird one to read. The first two books felt a lot more tightly linked despite the chronological time between them. We're thrown into this one and I felt like I'd missed about 2 short stories or novellas; what do you mean he went to and left commoragh already? What happened to urum? Why did the gland hounds split?

Now a lot of these questions get answered by about the mid-way point, but the start of the book feels very disconnected from the rest of the series as a result. Maybe that was the point, since the first two books were ultimately about fabius making gains (the 12th and the gene seed cache) while this book is about him losing.

I do feel like I need to give this book a re-read. There's stuff in there that I only really got a surface level understanding of, like melusine vs vielwalkers goals for fabius, or what him choosing the stone really means. Other things like that. Is lady malys vielwalker?

I also found it amusing that the old James swallow blood angel series is reaffirmed as happening.

[Bobss]

I also found it amusing that the old James swallow blood angel series is reaffirmed as happening.

 

Josh Reynolds isn't one to bulldoze previous material, even if said previous material is bad or mediocre

 

One of his many talents now lost to the Black Library stable!

Edited June 21, 2020 by Bobss

[StrangerOrders]

I liked this. 

 

Really, really liked this. 

 

Infinitely amused at the sheer number of King Arthur allusions though.

[Marshal Loss]

The humour in this book is 10/10

 

‘Death is but a transition, Duco,’ Khorag said cheerfully. ‘And Grandfather would not pluck a flower before its time. Even one so crooked as you.’ He clapped the Night Lord on the pauldron, and Duco grimaced. He sprayed an antibacterial solution on the spot, filling the air with an acrid odour.

[SkimaskMohawk]

 

The humour in this book is 10/10

 

 

‘Death is but a transition, Duco,’ Khorag said cheerfully. ‘And Grandfather would not pluck a flower before its time. Even one so crooked as you.’ He clapped the Night Lord on the pauldron, and Duco grimaced. He sprayed an antibacterial solution on the spot, filling the air with an acrid odour.

The dark eldar's monologue (well, one of them);

‘We were the masters of this galaxy, you know. Every world was but a garden for our pleasures, and every species a source of entertainment. And then it all came apart in our hands. And as we lay in pieces, you ugly little mon-keigh came down from the trees and decided you were in charge.’

‘There used to be a saying on Terra, about possession being the whole of the law.’

Not only was the dark eldar channelling some major frieza, but the interjection about obscure, ancient terran knowledge has been established by like 3 other books to be a thing the EC did.

[Lord_Caerolion]

Ok, having Reynolds writing Dark Eldar in this book has pushed it up to a must-read for me.

 

EDIT: I'd read the first two, and liked them well enough, but the Lukas book is one of my favourite Black Library books, because he gets the Dark Eldar so right. 

Edited June 22, 2020 by Lord_Caerolion

[Sandlemad]

I liked this a lot. As a novel overall, I'd say I liked it more than Primogenitor or Clonelord while thinking that it's quite a different kind book by virtue of wrapping up the trilogy. Rambling thoughts below.

 

Felt more personal than the last two. The stakes are considerably lower on the galactic stage, no broken craftworlds or cloned primarchs, but more significant for Bile himself.  I think this probably comes at the cost of some other characters? The expanded cast still has more vividly drawn randos than most BL books, the dialogue is seldom less than sparkling, and many of them are genuinely likeable, but those other characters get maybe a little less in this final book than I would have liked.

 

There's a lot more about fatherhood, legacy, inheritance, sacrifice, love... Bile and Fulgrim (the scene between them was one of the best). Fulgrim and the Emperor. Bile and Melusine, Bile and Igori, Igori and her granddaughter. It's excellent stuff. Melancholy. There's a lot of excellent character work about this weary, worn-down Bile, he's genuinely changed since the last two books. And that character work is what this book is about, it's not like the final Ahriman book where it builds and builds to an apocalyptic crescendo at the end. I'd put the battles of Lugganath and Solemnace over what we see on Belial IV. Hexarchiles and his DE are a threat but, y'know, he's not Trazyn.

 

As a specific example about Bile thinking about his legacy, I really liked the bit where Bile compares himself to Magnus and emphasises that unlike the primarch, he is not going to let his ego take precedence over his work. This isn't Prospero and if he has to die, so be it, as long as his grand project endures.

 

 

Fabius was silent for a moment. ‘Do you recall Prospero?’

‘The world?’

‘Yes. When Russ and his curs burned it, a wealth of knowledge unequalled in the galaxy burned with it. I have always held that Magnus’ greatest sin was not what he did to his sons, or to his world, but that he allowed the Space Wolves to erase all that wisdom from the universe.’

He fixed Skalagrim with a hard stare.

‘I am not Magnus. The knowledge I have gathered, it will live on. In you and the others.’ 

And then too how he's switched from constantly transferring his brain/mind/unique person to increasingly short-lived clone bodies to instead 

(i) growing clones that will no longer be burdened by his 'issues' but will have some of his experience and knowledge, and (ii) carrying out secret surgery on his apprentices to rewire their brains to work more like his.

Bile's no longer concerned about his own personal survival and has moved on to solutions that prioritise the continuation of his philosophy and his schemes. It's still monstrous and egotistical but it's development from the previous two books. Bile's scheming but he's not trying to escape trap after trap himself. He's tired, defeated, self-critical, regretful. Did he let his children grow up when they should have? Could he have? Is this his chance to put things right? 

 

There's a bit more of a cosmological bent here as well, picking up on Clonelord's discussion of the gods' paying so much gleeful attention to Bile. The IIIrd legion geneseed growing into some sort of proto-daemon, no longer just a physiological thing that creeps back into his body. This I think I'll need to re-read to fully grasp. It was interesting and led to some wonderful scenes - that bit where Narvo Quin talks to Fabius about what the gods 'want' is good - but I think some of what Melusine and Fulgrim and Veilwalker was a bit unclear to me. 

 

The Pater Mutatis stuff was curious. The idea that Bile was forming his own chaos god through his work and the devotion of his creations was not the kind of stuff I'm terribly interested in, usually. But the point about how to his vatborn and glandhounds he really is quite a good god (by the standards of the grim darkness of the far future) was nice. This thread overall felt like it wasn't completely fleshed out, maybe? Unless I'm missing the significance of the ending, was that worship what brought the OG Bile back?

 

 

I liked how dangerous the DE are. Still funny, still disorganised, but Manflayer makes no bones about them being Bile's most dangerous foe. More than any of the traitor legions, more than the imperium, they're able to come after him. A bit like with Ulthwé hunting Talos in Void Stalker (and maybe the growing threat was slightly less well-conveyed than that) but as a reminder that actually the eldar are very, very dangerous, it's solid. There were a few instances where Fabius would mention or bring up a bit of tech or some gruesome innovation, and then the next scene would have the haemonculi casually display something similar but better (e.g.

the wonderfully creepy scene of the chiurgeon breeding, good god, and surrounded by infant chiurgeons... then shortly followed by Hexarchiles casually deploying technorganic near-microscopic spider-probes he'd developed as spies

), showing how far beyond him in certain regards they are.

 

Lots of excellent little moments, thoughts and characters as well. 

• Fabius meeting Abaddon's projection again in the wraithbone grove and just insulting each other for a few pages.
• The Alpha Legion, with characteristic Alpha Legion pragmatism, seeing the worth of the gland-hounds as aspirants while still being quietly confident that Bile's conditioning wouldn't be a problem in the long-term.
• Fabius saying to Fulgrim how he pities him and feels some responsibility for not keeping him honest, which he extends to the rest of the legion. The idea that the whole IIIrd legion were too in awe of Fulgrim not to pamper him is a fascinating idea. "We gave in to your whims and petulancies, rather than standing firm and teaching you as the Emperor asked.’" Like, I know the relationship between the old Terrans and their primarchs is a fan-favourite topic and this is a fresh and interesting take on it. They should have been better... sons? And made their father a better father? But it's different to the usual run of things. Good stuff.
• Savona being the fairly unquestioned leader of the 12th Millennial of the IIIrd legion. Yes they've fallen far from what they are but here's a mortal champion of Slaanesh - and a woman at that - in power armour, with a power mace, sufficiently blessed by her god to be able to take any of her warriors in one-on-one combat. She's intelligent, lazy and perfectly open about how she's really in this for the hedonism and crushing skulls under her hooves.
• Bellephus the polite gutter poet. A stoic warrior who was almost embarrassingly eager to share the doggerel he scratches into any handy wraithbone.
• The princeps Gorgus was likeable. Like a bluff, gregarious, big game hunter. Not in it for the long war or the veneration of the chaos gods, not even really part of a titan legion anymore, but by golly Fabius did him a good turn by rewiring his brain so he could control a pack of warhounds as, well, hounds from the cockpit of his reaver. Good chap that Fabius, will have to help him out.
• Fabius feeling something inside as he recalls kneeling down in the nursery while baby Igori toddles over to him and happily pulls his hair. Awww.
• Arrian finally letting all his meditation, pain-suppressants, drugs and calming botany get washed away by the Nails and just going hogg wild on a pack of grotesques.
• Bile finally feeling like he understands that "[t]he Emperor of Mankind was wise, if ruthless, and I understand Him better now. We have no purpose but this. We are tools. To be used and cast aside when our use is completed.’ "
• Saqquora's heel-face turn near the end as he comes to the conclusion that the gods put him there to be with Bile, turning into a sort of content hermit-priest.
• Ramos having a rather touching moment with Bile. Not friends, not brothers, but fellow travellers of sorts with similar ideas beyond that of eternal war, they can recognise something in each other.
• The low-key, hesitant civil war between the two factions of gland-hounds, as well as the subtle differences of loyalty between those who were born in vats vs those who were born of other gland-hounds and only ever knew Bile as a distant god.
• The apocalyptic vistas of Fuglrim's recreated Chemos as he keeps obsessively re-running his own childhood over and over to see if it would be different. And of course this is at the cost of billions of lives, the equivalent of six generations' population of two planets.
• The bickering between the last few members of the Consortium, seeing who considered who a friend and who hated whose guts. Like when X says something like "I liked Chort, he was a good guy" and then later you see Chort think how he didn't care for X at all.

 

I also liked the epilogue. It does what we discussed earlier in the thread, wrap things up such that the status quo is sort of maintained, albeit in a pleasingly meta way.  

Since the events of this book, there have been a dozen of so Biles at any one time, working across the galaxy on different projects.

 

In-universe, they're starting afresh, without most of the various accruements/allies/etc that Reynolds gave them (including the vat born, the Consortium, the gland hounds). Out of universe they're largely freed from the need to refer back to the events of this book. Why didn't Swallow's or St Martin's Fabius Bile drop lines about Solemnace or Belial IV? Because they were clones and had limited knowledge. Every variant or differently written Bile fits now because hey, that was a Bile with a different life. The Doombot solution for dealing with a loose canon and the various takes a character will get from different authors at different times. I thought it elegant and characteristic of how well Reynolds deals with a shared universe.

 

And it benefited from Reynolds slipping in the bit about how practically speaking, this many BIles can get a lot done.

 

 

And Fabius was mad. Utterly and completely. His actions over the past centuries attested to that. Whatever the drukhari had done to him, it had removed all inhibition from him and loosed a roaring daemon upon the galaxy.

 

He had burned worlds, enslaved populaces and devised such exquisite tortures for his enemies that even the courtesans of Slaanesh blanched to witness them. He had littered the Eye and its immediate surroundings with monsters both subtle and horrific. He had committed acts of such gross malignity that the Imperium had initiated multiple crusades to purge his works from afflicted sectors. The name Fabius Bile had become synonymous with atrocity. Once, Skalagrim knew, such a thing might have amused him. Fabius had always thought himself above such things. But this was different. Even Abaddon was disturbed by some of it, though he had never said as much. Not that he would have, in Skalagrim’s hearing.

 

Which... I found it a bit sad. You can see Skalagrim is disturbed to see it himself. Here is the witty and often endearing old monster of Reynolds' books now living as something of a butcher, something closer to the relatively flat Fabius Bile as summarised in a codex entry. What about his unique gear, practically part of his personality?

 

 

But the weapons… the chirurgeon…’

‘Chirurgeons are plentiful and daemons are cheap,’ Fabius said, glancing at Saqqara. ‘The lesser variety, at any rate. Though it takes some effort to trap them and tame them, once broken they are quite placid.’

He held up Torment. ‘And one daemon-infused weapon is much like another, in my experience.’

 

Oh. That's a Bile that's lost something and a scene that has rather pulled the rug from under the feet of fans. Bile without the Consortium, Bile without his friends and allies, no vat-born, no gland-hounds, no daughters. Even his own gear is made up of copies. Subversive and done in Bile's own mocking way. Which, cool I guess, but seemingly wilfully brushing everything we liked about Bile that was added in Primogenitor and Clonelord.

 

But then, last few pages, what do we see? That all along, all these Bile-clones had been feeding their information and data back to the preserved body of the OG Bile. And he's just woken up, had a stretch. A primarch come back to life and new astartes things to study? The Bile of this trilogy of books, Reynolds's version of Bile, is back. "Now, let us see what has become of the galaxy in my absence, eh?"

 

Which is no less spine-tinglingy good an ending than Decimus looking at the assembled Night Lords and telling them he's the prophet of the VIIIth legion. Draws a line under the trilogy, pulls from what has been written and opens up something new. It's only tempered by the knowledge that Reynolds almost certainly isn't going to touch Fabius Bile or 40k or AoS again. It's bittersweet but he clearly set out to explore some interesting subject matter with Bile and he wrapped it up well.

 

As a last note, there were a few lines that I couldn't help but read as freighted with meaning beyond what they have in the context of the story, for all that they touch on themes Reynolds has shown an interest in in the past. Lines that feel like they touch on bigger points about the nature of licensed fiction and shared universes and readers' expectations and editorial oversight from a miniatures company. They're not quite fourth-wall breaking and it's irresponsible to read too much of the background situation with this being Reynolds's last book for BL but when you read things like this from Narvo Quin:

 

 

Sometimes the gods wish us to be as insects in amber – preserved for all time, so that they might take joy from our unceasing struggle. Maybe that is your fate.

 

or this from Bile himself about the Primaris:

 

 

‘Ezekyle wants something to counter them, doesn’t he? How predictable. They make oversized warriors, we make oversized warriors.’ He shook his head. ‘A galaxy of children, squabbling over their toys.’

 

or this rather good one from Syndri Veilwalker:

 

 

‘The story never ends. It goes round and round, through infinite permutations. Each one closer to perfect than the last. The moment you see before you has already happened, and will happen again and again and again. Because the gods are easily bored, and forget what they’ve seen. Like children, they demand to be told the same story over and over.’

 

It makes you go hmmm and think about what can change and what can't, what ideas get dusted off and reused again, what gets proposed to editors and what gets published. But I may be reading too much into it.

 

TL;DR: Excellent book, 'smaller' in some ways and much more character-focused than the previous two Bile books, wraps up the trilogy very well.

Edited June 22, 2020 by Sandlemad

[Roomsky]

Fabius Bile: Manflayer – Josh Reynolds

 

Well if you weren’t feeling the big sad about Reynolds leaving BL before reading this book, you certainly will after you’re done.

 

This is exactly what a finale should be, bringing the characters to dramatic and logical conclusions without unnecessary galaxy-shattering events as a backdrop. The excitement comes from the cast we’ve grown attached to, rather than how the stakes have “never been higher.” Fabius is dying again, and Reynolds has a clever way of making that have actual stakes. Arrian has set further into his role as Fabius’ right hand, and Saqqara has some surprises up his sleeve this time round. Igori, Savona, and any other significant character appearing previously generally get a very solid conclusion this time through, including a few faces you may not expect.

 

The Thirteen Scars Dark Eldar are the baddies here (mostly), and everything great about Reynolds’ DE writing present in Lukas The Trickster is on full display here (and with protagonists who aren't Space Wolves this time round (this is a positive)). As always, Reynolds is balancing surprising character depth and intriguing ruminations about the universe with taking the piss, and it works great with such a comically evil faction. As others have mentioned, it’s also nice to see them as a genuine threat rather than a nuisance; Fabius’ small, hidden redoubts and vast network of contacts work against him here.

 

Plot-wise, it’s an excellent finale but has a couple weaknesses as a story. A few characters get lengthy introductions and then essentially disappear from the story, while others are exposited about and suddenly have payoff without much setup. Again, this isn’t an issue with the core cast, but there are a few surprises that come more from missing scenes rather than anything intentional by Reynolds. I can only assume this is because the final version was cut down from his initial drafts, so I don’t lay the blame on the author. As noted in this thread, there’s also a few major plot points that happened off-screen, and it makes me wonder if this was intended to be a trilogy in the first place, rather than 4 or 5 books. I’ll also say that while the character work is stronger than ever, the premise of Clonelord was a tad more intriguing.

 

I could say more but I wanted to do up a spoiler-free review for any curious about the book. If you liked the previous entries you’ll probably like this, and while Clonelord remains my favourite, it’s a very close thing. Final chapters are the most difficult part of the story to make satisfying, and Reynolds hit a home run here. It’s incredibly frustrating we won’t get more from him moving forward (maybe he’ll return one day, if Mitchell and King did anything can happen.)

 

Must Read

ANR: 9/10