Appreciation for the Abnett-verse - finding the links

[malika666]

It's a standalone book so it works fine on its own. But it's extra nice if you're a little bit familiar with the Sabbat Wars stuff, but it's not a dealbreaker.

[Sothalor]

Titanicus is stand-alone. It is part of the Sabbat Worlds Crusade (the little sub-setting of Gaunt's Ghosts), but requires no prior or extra-textual knowledge to enjoy on its own.

 

The Heresy novel Mechanicum by Graham McNeill does provide some neat contextual background to some of the internal Mechanicus schisms, but again, not necessary nor connected to the plot and characters.

[Ubiquitous1984]

Thank you!  I do have the option of starting the Gaunts Ghosts audiobooks first.  Would you recommend I do that instead, or just go straight into Titanicus?

[cheywood]

Thank you! I do have the option of starting the Gaunts Ghosts audiobooks first. Would you recommend I do that instead, or just go straight into Titanicus?

Gaunt’s Ghosts is absolutely wonderful. There are other good Guard novels, but nothing matches the scope, inventiveness and satisfaction of the Ghosts’ adventures in my opinion. That said it is an extremely long series (15 books and counting) and the first two books, while not bad by any means, are the weakest in the series by far. Titanicus as a stand-alone is equally wonderful and probably more immediately satisfying.

 

If it makes a difference BL has yet to make every Gaunt’s Ghosts book available in audio format. Specifically books 9, 10 and 11 still have to be recorded/published. Hopefully that happens soon enough but maybe worth waiting if you want the whole story (so far) accessible.

[Sothalor]

^^ Cheywood here is right on. 

 

Gaunt's Ghosts is a seminal classic in the 40k literature catalogue. It is also a long-running, ongoing series that may be intimidating to jump into, and a significantly larger commitment than the stand-alone Titanicus.

[malika666]

If you wanna read anything beforehand, see if you can get your hands on the Titan graphic novel. It's not obligatory reading, but it gives you some basic info on the Titans' workings. :)

Edited May 13, 2022 by malika666

[Urauloth]

Finally made a start on the first Urdesh book, really liking it so far. Interesting to get a look at Sekkites who aren't Sons. I really like

the guys with cloth facemasks with hands painted on them, as a stealthier way to display allegiance and as a poor-man's alternative to making a mask out of human leather.

That also seems like a boon to anyone wanting to make Sabbat Worlds themed kill teams, on the painting and modelling side of things.

[Sothalor]

I'll be honest; some of the details about the Chaos forces has always bugged me.

 

The human hand masks of the Sons of Sek is one of them. Where do they source them? What's that logistical chain look like? The mask materials must be treated/preserved in some way, to deal with the inevitable issues that'd arise out of clamping decaying human hands to your respiratory and gastronomic tracts, right?

 

Or the Blood Pact and Urlock Gaur - per the Sabbat Crusade sourcebook, every member of the Blood Pact personally gashes their hand upon Gaur's serrated armor when they're inducted. Really? There are millions of Blood Pact soldiers across the Sabbat Worlds. He'd have to be doing that fulltime, nonstop, all of the time. While leading and coordinating an interstellar war.

 

Frankly, some of that stuff I just take as hearsay exaggerations among Imperial forces.

[Felix Antipodes]

Nothing to say that Gaur is in the said armour, or that he only owns a single set.  Wear it once and send it off to a Blood Pact training camp.

[malika666]

I guess that whole thing works in the same way as how one Santa Claus brings gifts too all the children in the world.

[Urauloth]

I think it's kind of like how every Crux Terminatus has a fragment of the Emperor's own armour in it.

Besides, if you were a Blood Pact trooper, there's absolutely no way you'd be the guy to admit your scars didn't come from the Archon's armour when he swore you in personally, right? I mean, what kind of second-rate effort would that make you? The others would probably sacrifice you on the spot.

 

Nothing to say that Gaur is in the said armour, or that he only owns a single set.  Wear it once and send it off to a Blood Pact training camp.

 

I like this, but what I like more is the idea that Imperial scholars have probably brought this up for debate somewhere.

 

 

The human hand masks of the Sons of Sek is one of them. Where do they source them? What's that logistical chain look like? The mask materials must be treated/preserved in some way, to deal with the inevitable issues that'd arise out of clamping decaying human hands to your respiratory and gastronomic tracts, right?

 

 

Pretty sure they just cut them off whoever they're murdering at the time, and they do a ton of that. I don't think they're fussy. Since they're described as "human leather", it's safe to assume they're tanning the skin rather than just slapping the whole severed hand on their face raw - although if they were, the warp lets you get away with doing all kinds of decidedly unsanitary things.
As for the logistics involved... you know, the more I think about it, the more I'm absolutely certain Sek had a whole industry for this in his corner of the Sabbat Worlds. There could be millions of cultists, mutants and forced labourers on occupied worlds stuck with the thankless task of tanning hands.

Edited May 22, 2022 by Urauloth

[Xin Ceithan]

Isn‘t the whole Sabbat Worlds Vrusade book supposed to be written by some Imperial scholar anyway ? 
so it wouldn‘t be to far a stretch that some things are a bit.. muddy … on retrospect.

 

On another note, I am making my way through „Kingmaker“ right now … love the bit where one of the household leaders names their hunting canines after Imperial Generals (Yarrik, Maccarius, Creed)  and named thus the replacement for Creed (who „lived up to his name“ by being “too stubborn”  to back down from a fight after Ibram Gaunt. 
(Because “ isn’t that what the Militarum is all about.. flushing the heretics  out of  the bushes  so we can shoot them?”)

[Petitioner's City]

So who else read Vincula? Much love for it, although the Rawne in it felt too late books compared to early Rawne - but it's good, because early Rawne was a bit flat, nice to see the smarter man he'll emerge to be here.

 

Anyway, I loved that Dan brings some depth to the Sanguinary Worlds in it, from an ethnographic perspective, and the idea of imperial fringes/nominal identity (something part of real world understandings of empire, which are nodal rather than all fixed). Loved the ideas of cultural archetypes too - again some wonderful real world history blown up to the scale of thousands of years across space. And loved the elements of the recent Volpone book - the Sloka, for example.

 

Just bloody brilliant, and very intriguing, especially the idea of a parallel Tanith line - and the idea of tattoos, bodyart and symbols connecting the Sanguinary worlds and "near-Imperial" worlds of the region. Happy art historian here :D

 

Also as a bridging novella, it does do so well at following on from the first two Ghostmaker chapters, and of course Dan's delight at writing characters he hasn't in years due to death, with the exception really of Gaunt, Rawne and - briefly recently - Milo. Just such a delight. I wonder where the next novella will take us, and how far it jumps ahead/who will be the focus of it?

 

So much love for this wee tome.

Edited May 24, 2022 by Petitioner's City