Indomitus novel

[SkimaskMohawk]

I was talking about Emperor's Legion lol...

[Noserenda]

Ventris pops up as 4th company captain in one of the Dark Imperium books set after this so thats a thing :D 

[Kelborn]

Than I stand corrected, SkimaskMohawk

;)

[b1soul]

Yeah...now that I think of it, the GK were fighting the Bloodthirster with multiple SoS around in Watchers. Didn't that severely hamper the GK? Though I suppose it weakened the Bloodthirster as well.

[Prot]

So I really hate ragging one an author, especially Gav. At this point I am forcing myself to not buy any of his marine writings again. I hope he never reads this forum. I really don’t like being negative to any creative types and he comes across to me as a really nice guy. 
 

That said I’m halfway through and the story is so dry, I might just call it quits. The things he has people say, or his version if a ridiculously over descriptive scene just wears on me.  Why are the necrons  such moustache twirling goof balls? Ah, Don’t answer that. 

I am glad it appears Guy Haley has Avenging Son.  I like the way he writes Guiliman. 
 

I will say I understand the need for product placement, but I’m forgiving of those stories and there was one I really enjoyed. Great action and it featured Reivers which was so interesting it made me want to make a squad of them. 

[Marshal Rohr]

If you follow him on Twitter Gav has joined the ‘space marines are evil’ caucus and as I’m working through this book you can see him falling into the ‘Incompetant Authoritarian’ tropes with the relationships between the space marines and how they act. It’s more like a 40’s movie portrayal of German commanders or Cold War era Action Movie Soviets than the Bronze Age/Dark Age Demi-Gods we get in ADB novels.

[Lord_Caerolion]

I mean, yeah they're evil by today's morality, but they're still supposed to be competent. It's just a shame this was so ham-fisted. The tie-in novel for the latest AoS starter set was absolutely amazing, but that was Josh Reynolds.

[Marshal Rohr]

I think most people get that but several BL authors have been vocal on Twitter about emphasizing more of it and it’s coming across poorly. Emperors Spears was great at showing it. Amadeus has literal slaves. They executed civilians, etc. no mustache twirling just solid story telling.

[StrangerOrders]

To draw a comparison.

 

No one (well, no one sane) is arguing that Argel Tal did alot (and boy was it alot) of evil stuff, the book beat you bloody with the horror of what he did and how complicit he was in it. He was still a sympathetic commander and you understood what drove him. But again, the book explained that he was horrible, his Legion was horrible and that they condemned the galaxy out of selfish reasons. But damned if he wasn't competent and sympathetic.

 

Fabius Bile is one of the most complex and lovingly detailed characters in the franchise, and almost as much pagecount goes into showing you how mind-bendingly horrible the things he did for the sake of mere convenience are as it go to establishing that. His horrors typically have a shape and function and you get whats driving him. The book also unambiguously shows you that he is a madman whose perception of 'necessity' needs some serious work (and a heavy flamer).

 

The Valdor novel makes it pretty damned clear that Terra and the Emp created a brutal regime that was pretty willing to massacre anyone that so much as looked at them funny. And it goes into great detail as to why their society became like that and the pressures that shaped them. Unless actual magic (powered by ideology and emotions of all things) is an issue and pack of Mad-Max flamethrower-wielding cannibals are far more common than I had suspected, I think you would be hard-pressed to argue that it is a glowing endorsement for autocracy. 

 

Frankly, that is why I think that writers have to be extra-careful when injecting political points into science fiction and even moreso fantasy. Its really hard to argue about religious freedom and tolerance for example in a setting where its a reoccurring problem that your local religion might start eating children and actually gain superpowers out of it, not least of which because I am not aware of any real-world ideologies that facilitate successfully invoking the powers of spirits to Sith-Lightning the guy who didnt cut his grass. 

 

Like... There are ways of making things political and making a statement, and more power to you if you are competent enough to present them well. But its usually a sign of either you not putting much thought into your beliefs and wanting attention over persuasion when the best that you have is making a series of buffoons that actively break setting logic through sheer incompetence.

 

When I read alot of the good Imperium writers, you get a sense of why and how the things they do are evil. And that doesn't require making them idiots, because an idiot can have any ideology, their incompetence doesnt do anything more than tell me that they are an idiot.

 

To hijack Rohr's comment with Amadeus. It tells you alot more about his sheer brutality and cold-blooded disdain for people that he executed those civilians by beating them to death with his own hands in order to conserve ammo and about his society that this is acceptable behavior. You can even it spin it easily into the heavy 'cargo-cult' themes of the setting and the fact that Bolts really arent cheap.

 

Its competent, its logical and it is also nothing someone with a shred of humanity would even consider doing.  

 

That single action tells me more about the Imperium's evil than a lengthy diatribe will ever be able to. 

[Lucerne]

If you follow him on Twitter Gav has joined the ‘space marines are evil’ caucus and as I’m working through this book you can see him falling into the ‘Incompetant Authoritarian’ tropes with the relationships between the space marines and how they act. It’s more like a 40’s movie portrayal of German commanders or Cold War era Action Movie Soviets than the Bronze Age/Dark Age Demi-Gods we get in ADB novels.

I mean, these are Ultramarines and space marines were never all that great by default. So the UM "cursed" fleet being a clownshow led by someone unfit for command who sort of muddles along due to not being a priority

who eventually gets himself killed after throwing his weight around and overruling people who know better

is fine by me.

 

I think the real issue here is one of perception. Every faction has had stories where the character involved is a caricature that is doing their side a favor by dying towards the end- usually CSM antagonists in SM centric stories. The script got flipped and muddled a bit here, but UM having a disposable idiot is nothing revolutionary or upsetting for how BL storytelling sometimes works. What's good for the goose is good for the gander, after all.

 

The Newcrons being drama queens can be blamed on editorial mandate, honestly, and is part of a wider issue with how they're written.

 

(personally I have a bigger issue with Gav's hot takes on how all renegades have to become chaotic)

Edited August 12, 2020 by Lucerne

[StrangerOrders]

 

(personally I have a bigger issue with Gav's hot takes on how all renegades have to become chaotic)

 

Laughs in Ashen Claws.

[Roomsky]

Going through this as well atm. I'm a pretty rabid proponent of an Imperium that is not only evil, but generally unjustified and quite... let's call it illogical rather than stupid, for the point. 

 

I don't think the people of the Imperium are illogical and cruel because they're stupid people, but rather they're raised that way, produced by a 10,000 year-strong theocratic nightmare. It's a near-endless, byzantine institution and culture that pervades everything about the lives of its citizens, and it has slowly grown into more of a parody of itself after the sheer amount of time its been running. It's why I dislike how common the secular voice of reason is as prevalent as it is in the setting, and why I dislike that it's even allowed in all but the most revered of Space Marine chapters. I don't support notions that the Imperium as it is now is cruel because it's necessary, or born of pragmatism. The Imperium now is an abomination where everyone short of Guilliman is so far removed from logical policy they can't even comprehend that what they're doing is insane. 10,000 years is a ludicrous amount of time, look at how many have forgotten or twisted the principles of the people they claim to idolize from a few hundred years ago.

 

But within that framework, characters still don't need to be idiots. Establish a cruel and hidebound view of the universe: yes. Establish characters who are aware of the impositions on them and, rather than quipping about how clever they are for not buying it, look for solutions that don't step on the toes of the principles their very lives are built upon: also yes. And hey, if we're going to have Primaris from Guilliman's time I guess they can be a bit more logical as well for our growing community of new fans.

 

But... not many people seem interested in writing that, apparently. Thorpe certainly didn't in this book (nor did Kelly in War of Secrets.) It's just a whole bunch of nothing characters yelling at each other instead of thinking. You can be a strategic mastermind and an overzealous monster at the same time, and sometimes, when the moon is full and the planets are in alignment, we even see that out of the right author.

[Lord_Caerolion]

Hey, I'll just be happy if we can get a Chaos Marine warband falling from something other than "and then they touched the Chaos Thing and all magically turned into Chaos Marines".

[StrangerOrders]

Going through this as well atm. I'm a pretty rabid proponent of an Imperium that is not only evil, but generally unjustified and quite... let's call it illogical rather than stupid, for the point. 

 

I don't think the people of the Imperium are illogical and cruel because they're stupid people, but rather they're raised that way, produced by a 10,000 year-strong theocratic nightmare. It's a near-endless, byzantine institution and culture that pervades everything about the lives of its citizens, and it has slowly grown into more of a parody of itself after the sheer amount of time its been running. It's why I dislike how common the secular voice of reason is as prevalent as it is in the setting, and why I dislike that it's even allowed in all but the most revered of Space Marine chapters. I don't support notions that the Imperium as it is now is cruel because it's necessary, or born of pragmatism. The Imperium now is an abomination where everyone short of Guilliman is so far removed from logical policy they can't even comprehend that what they're doing is insane. 10,000 years is a ludicrous amount of time, look at how many have forgotten or twisted the principles of the people they claim to idolize from a few hundred years ago.

 

But within that framework, characters still don't need to be idiots. Establish a cruel and hidebound view of the universe: yes. Establish characters who are aware of the impositions on them and, rather than quipping about how clever they are for not buying it, look for solutions that don't step on the toes of the principles their very lives are built upon: also yes. And hey, if we're going to have Primaris from Guilliman's time I guess they can be a bit more logical as well for our growing community of new fans.

 

But... not many people seem interested in writing that, apparently. Thorpe certainly didn't in this book (nor did Kelly in War of Secrets.) It's just a whole bunch of nothing characters yelling at each other instead of thinking. You can be a strategic mastermind and an overzealous monster at the same time, and sometimes, when the moon is full and the planets are in alignment, we even see that out of the right author.

Largely agreed, although I kind of have to chuckle at one point you raised.

 

There is a weird amount of authors hellbent on treating 30k works and 40k works as if they were contemporaneous rather than, as you note, a 10k gap in a horribly different environment and history. 40k comes across as way too logical at times and 30k comes across as weirdly hidebound and downtrodden for a supposedly recently-murdered time of idealism and (literal) Iconoclasm. As much as I like ADB, he is probably the only one that really falls head-first into this hole of the generally good writers, but alot of them do it and it seems counter-intuitive to me at times (although he is ironically one of the best ones showing the knowledge-lost in the gap). You are sort of left wondering what Guilliman is perplexed about at times when reading things that arent Dark Imperium and Plague War.

 

One of the writers that does the gap very well is Wraight, especially looking at Custodians and the Administratum over time. He is also interestingly one of the only ones that seems that interested in showing how different classes of people can react to a situation, his Vaults series being a work of pure grimdark that make the Imperium pretty awful (but far from stupid) while Valdor shows how horrendous it was before the Imperium and why the 30k Imperium seemed like an improvement to the people at the time. 

 

Thats one of the weirder things in this book.

 

We have seen Macragge in 40k and how it compares to the rest of the Imperium, its still repressive but the Captain in the book is really at odds with the planet's culture. Heck he is violently at odds with the Planet's culture, Cawl and Guilliman's preferences and seems weirdly uneducated for an Ultramarine. I actually laughed when one of them actually had the gall to start trying to use UM didactic because at that point it seemed like they weren't really the sort of people that could understand it. 

 

Granted, I have a bone to pick with how many Space Marines are treated as idiots in their writing in general. Psychotic and cruel fanatics for sure, but the basic gene-seed alone and the amount of time they spend training sort of leaves you in awe at how poor a grasp on tactics and basic knowledge most of them seem to be left in. 

Edited August 12, 2020 by StrangerOrders

[caladancid]

Going through this as well atm. I'm a pretty rabid proponent of an Imperium that is not only evil, but generally unjustified and quite... let's call it illogical rather than stupid, for the point.

 

I don't think the people of the Imperium are illogical and cruel because they're stupid people, but rather they're raised that way, produced by a 10,000 year-strong theocratic nightmare. It's a near-endless, byzantine institution and culture that pervades everything about the lives of its citizens, and it has slowly grown into more of a parody of itself after the sheer amount of time its been running. It's why I dislike how common the secular voice of reason is as prevalent as it is in the setting, and why I dislike that it's even allowed in all but the most revered of Space Marine chapters. I don't support notions that the Imperium as it is now is cruel because it's necessary, or born of pragmatism. The Imperium now is an abomination where everyone short of Guilliman is so far removed from logical policy they can't even comprehend that what they're doing is insane. 10,000 years is a ludicrous amount of time, look at how many have forgotten or twisted the principles of the people they claim to idolize from a few hundred years ago.

 

But within that framework, characters still don't need to be idiots. Establish a cruel and hidebound view of the universe: yes. Establish characters who are aware of the impositions on them and, rather than quipping about how clever they are for not buying it, look for solutions that don't step on the toes of the principles their very lives are built upon: also yes. And hey, if we're going to have Primaris from Guilliman's time I guess they can be a bit more logical as well for our growing community of new fans.

 

But... not many people seem interested in writing that, apparently. Thorpe certainly didn't in this book (nor did Kelly in War of Secrets.) It's just a whole bunch of nothing characters yelling at each other instead of thinking. You can be a strategic mastermind and an overzealous monster at the same time, and sometimes, when the moon is full and the planets are in alignment, we even see that out of the right author.

This is a great point, and post.

 

There could be ways of showing what Gav Thorpe is trying to convey- but he isn’t doing it well.

[DukeLeto69]

There is a weird amount of authors hellbent on treating 30k works and 40k works as if they were contemporaneous rather than, as you note, a 10k gap in a horribly different environment and history. 40k comes across as way too logical at times and 30k comes across as weirdly hidebound and downtrodden for a supposedly recently-murdered time of idealism and (literal) Iconoclasm. As much as I like ADB, he is probably the only one that really falls head-first into this hole of the generally good writers, but alot of them do it and it seems counter-intuitive to me at times (although he is ironically one of the best ones showing the knowledge-lost in the gap). You are sort of left wondering what Guilliman is perplexed about at times when reading things that arent Dark Imperium and Plague War.

 

One of the writers that does the gap very well is Wraight, especially looking at Custodians and the Administratum over time. He is also interestingly one of the only ones that seems that interested in showing how different classes of people can react to a situation, his Vaults series being a work of pure grimdark that make the Imperium pretty awful (but far from stupid) while Valdor shows how horrendous it was before the Imperium and why the 30k Imperium seemed like an improvement to the people at the time. 

 

Totally this. If we go back and read Horus Rising there is clearly an attempt by Abnett to make 30k distinct from 40k. I think he could have perhaps gone further but nonetheless it does feel different. Over the course of the HH (and the injection of many other authors) I think this has largely been forgotten apart from an odd throw away line like "the imperial truth".

 

I think anyone new to the setting who picked up a mid-to-late era HH novel and read it back-to-back with any 40k novel would be hard pressed to sense the difference - which is a shame.

 

Yes the HH resulted in the delivery of the 40k nightmare but surely that is the ultimate outcome following the "death" of the GE and the Scouring, not during a 7 year civil war?

 

Actually The Beast Arises series tried again (and succeeded in places, failed in others, again perhaps down to the strengths of individual authors) to convey something a bit different to 40k - almost a transitional step.

 

Then again maybe it is just me - maybe a newbie would sense the difference more acutely than someone like me who is so familiar with the lore and has read so many (probably too many) BL books that it all kind of merges in my head anyway!?

[rookie40K]

I hate to say it, but the book was crap and it was because of the author. Necrons are going to be based on ancient Egyptian dynasty and Primaris are going to be portrayed as newbies that can learn from seasoned old marines.

 

There are a handful of authors that would have written a good book here like Abnett, AbD Wraight, French, and Haley. One issue I noticed is the over the top portraying of Primaris as undisciplined children, instead of a lack of experience facing Chaos or other horrors of the universe in real combat. It takes grimdark and makes bad comedy of Primaris the way some authors, like Kelly, make Primaris annoying bickering, defiant kids. It ignores the psycho conditioning process and training they were suppose to go through completely. Rookie Navy Seals don’t break discipline and respect for the chain of command due to lack of experience. It was instilled during training.

 

If you want to portray a bad Ultramarine, make him a too rigid and inflexible or have too much ego.

Edited August 12, 2020 by rookie40K

[Felix Antipodes]

I've got to admit that I was put off by the portrayal of the Primaris characters, I'm seeing it as a couple of swings and misses on what he was trying to achieve. I was getting a bit of a mid-war vibe - young reinforcements sent to the front lines and clashing with the veterans there from the start - but it got lost and muddled IMHO.

The second miss was his portrayal of the Primaris themselves. I felt he was attempting to show them as somewhere between human and Astartes in their actions and emotions, but came off as high strung teenagers.

Strike three and out (for me) was that the plot was just too close to PA Pariah. Same plan different place and the Imperials had no idea of the similarities when the stories are approximately 25 years apart in the setting.

For what it's worth I quite liked the Necron dynastic shenanigans; their dialogue not so much.

[Roomsky]

Indomitus – Gav Thorpe

 

This was not good. I know it’s got a bit of momentum here for morbid curiosity, but it’s really not worth your attention. It’s not offensively bad, it’s offensively dull.

 

I’ll give credit where I can. I actually liked the narrator for the audiobook, despite the mediocrity of the story I never felt that age-old feeling of “shut up or get on with it.” It’s nice to see Necrons as antagonists, and the escape from the becalmed warp was neat; as always with Thorpe there’s at least one cool bit of lore to take in.

 

But it’s by-the-numbers at best and offensively bland at worst. I disagree the Necrons are a highlight, anyone on this forum with a similar writing mandate could have done as much, if not better. Like Kelly’s Tau, they’re the most basic extension of what’s written in codices imaginable. The Ultramarines are no better, oscillating between surprising incompetence and espousing how you should buy their models. They display none of the tactical acumen they are so known for, and when given a chance to at least show the principled brutality of the Imperium (involving an Imperial Commander), they’re suddenly reasonable. They’re like the opposite of what a marine should be.

 

I wish this had been a simultaneous duology instead: a Necron book by Thorpe where he could hopefully flesh out the space-skeletons properly, and an Ultramarine book by someone who can write marines. They made two LEs anyway, it would have been an easy sell.

 

Don’t read it. If you want Necrons read Severed. If you want Indomitus Ultramarines read Of Honour and Iron or wait for Avenging Son.

 

 

Re: StrangerOrders

 

Largely agreed also. I think Horus Rising did a great job of showing how different the outlook of the time was, but it seems to have been somewhat forgotten as things have gone on. This is actually something I think Thorpe did well with his Raven Guard stuff, the atmosphere of free thought and speech is quite refreshing in a sea of “40k marines thrust into the distant past”. As for ADB, I think I can see the point but, in something like say Master of Mankind, one may also argue that being at the centre of things, the veneer of the Emperor’s dream has been stripped away to show what it actually is (a brutal regime in a nice coat of paint.) BUT I’ll admit Diocletian being morally detestable could probably have been substituted for something a little more optimistic.

 

100% Agreed with Wraight, one of the reasons I’m so stoked for his Siege book is for more 30k to 40k contrast of the planet (and the custodes), even whilst being invaded.

[Fedor]

It's surprising that Thorpe would bungle a genero tie-in book like this. With his GW lore background and the amount of books he's churned out in the setting over the past two decades, you would think he could produce a phone-in that most would end up feeling was 5 or 6/10 fare in his sleep by now.

[b1soul]

Thorpe's stuff is mediocre on his best days, I feel.

 

I've heard some good things about his Eldar stuff, but I'm not an Eldar fan and judging by how he's handled the RG and DA (utterly bland and mediocre with an almost juvenile one-track emphasis on !SECRETS!)...I don't want to risk wasting my time and money.

[Marshal Rohr]

I think Gav is obviously prolific and knows a ton about the setting but it’s like he writes books as write ups for RPG one shots and that why things turn out to be overly complex. I enjoyed the last Dark Angels book he wrote. Tons of solid characterization and cool battles. I didn’t hate the last wall, but I thought he fell in the power up trap. Most Black Library authors forget even if they have demon allies and can call upon the power of the warp they have to fundamentally incorporate that into military strategies, but instead go for the big marvel movie climax. I don’t think it makes them bad, but it definitely drives a wedge between the military fiction authors (Wraight, ADB, French, Abnett) and space fantasy authors (Haley, Thorpe, Kyme)

[byrd9999]

I think Gav is obviously prolific and knows a ton about the setting but it’s like he writes books as write ups for RPG one shots and that why things turn out to be overly complex.

 

That would explain the ridiculous dungeon-crawl Corax & Co endured to retrieve their gene seed from the Emperor's Vault in Deliverance Lost :) 

[DarkChaplain]

Honestly, that was the weakest part about Deliverance Lost. It's what soured me on the book on launch, but coming back to it when Corax released, I actually found myself enjoying the book as a whole quite a lot, especially with the benefit of knowing whodunit

[Fedor]

I think Gav is obviously prolific and knows a ton about the setting but it’s like he writes books as write ups for RPG one shots and that why things turn out to be overly complex. I enjoyed the last Dark Angels book he wrote. Tons of solid characterization and cool battles. I didn’t hate the last wall, but I thought he fell in the power up trap. Most Black Library authors forget even if they have demon allies and can call upon the power of the warp they have to fundamentally incorporate that into military strategies, but instead go for the big marvel movie climax. I don’t think it makes them bad, but it definitely drives a wedge between the military fiction authors (Wraight, ADB, French, Abnett) and space fantasy authors (Haley, Thorpe, Kyme)

Interesting distinction, though i i'd personally consider all of BL's authors falling on the space fantasy side of things, except Richard Williams or maybe Steve Parker. French's inabiity to use the warp advantages of the traitors in an interesting way and just have them as a big hamfisted win button throughout Solar War was an issue i couldn't get past in that book, and i'm not usually one to look for harder military fiction in a 40k book.