Let's Review the Black Books!

[b1soul]

Oh I was simply referring to the line in Malevolence saying that the period after Chondax and before the Siege is beyond the in-universe authour's ken

 

EDIT: ...in regard to the WS of course

[Sandlemad]

I agree about AK being a fascinating character and one who has become more fleshed out as the books progressed. Their reaching new depths of bitterness and despair in Malevolence was one of my favourite aspects of the book. I'd agree with StrangerOrders on the subject of their reliability, while agreeing with Petitioner's City's point about them being a very specific author and playing with a sort of fictional historiography. I didn't get the sense that AK would fabricate or invent things and their frustration at events or motivations or causality not quite lining up is palpable. It's still history from a particular and singular viewpoint but it's from the POV of someone who clearly once believed in a sort of objectivity and is finding that fall apart.

 

We don't need to reach for deliberate invention because the matter of general reliability and gaps in the knowledge as part of the black books' conceit gives us plenty, regardless of AK's intent. How that was executed made Chondax interesting to me but I think it's worth dwelling on as a deliberate artistic tool for specific outcomes, not just as a way of sweeping up contradictions between different BL/FW/in-universe 'sources'. Thinking here of how some of the confusion in Inferno comes off given that AK has no knowledge of Russ's attempt to contact Magnus, or the big Cabal-sized gap in their attempts to understand the Alpha Legion's motives in Extermination. These aren't just bodge-job fixes or clever re-workings, these are interesting in themselves, in part because of the irony that comes with them. Or you could point to the classic open-ended bits of worldbuilding that the black books' RL authors execute as well as GW proper used to, the ur-example being basically everything about the Rangdan xenocides. The shadowy nature of that whole thing seems to have firmly latched itself into the fandom because of its ambiguity and how Bligh and co played into the in-universe mystery without any desire to clean it up or 'solve' it.

 

I'd say the same for how this lack of knowledge was deployed for warp-related stuff, e.g. the wonderful temporal/causal anomalies at the end of Inferno or pretty much everything written about daemons and chaos in Malevolence. This is great stuff, pseudo-Lovecraftian in how AK gropes towards an doomed attempt at understanding, all from a semi-secular POV that is closer to us, I think, than that of a 40k inquisitor and one that doesn't have an inquisitor's confidence/10k of knowledge to draw upon. More horror, more X-files, less reducible to a taxonomy of daemon units, and quite tied to the format of a nervous and broken scholar putting down what they know, even where it's contradictory or riddled with holes.

 

It also lets the authors flirt with ideas that, if brought up in a BL novel, would probably cause a full-on meltdown in places like r/40klore which, let's say, have less of a grasp on ambiguity. I'm thinking here of the idea in Inferno that after Prospero, Ahriman was the only TS to survive, with all other members of the legion being simulacra created by Tzeentch to torment him. I love that idea, I think it's wonderful and cruel and appropriately twisty. But it only works because of the ambiguity and that it was presented as AK's hesitant presentation of a particular wild in-universe theory. It gains a creepiness from that but it's just not something that could easily be presented in a novel, or at least a BL novel, or that can reasonably be taken as confirmed fact without reducing the space hobbyists have to play in with their own DIY characters and stories. As a disturbing footnote to AK's account with all the historical uncertainty that comes with it though, it's fantastic. Perfect marriage of form and content.

 

@StrangerOrders: Great review but one quibble I'd make is with the WE background: I'd say that Matt Farrar's brilliant short 'After De'Shea' was the beginning of real characterization for the XII legion. You can tie much of Betrayer to seeds planted in 'After De'Shea', even if we put aside the specific call-backs. Betrayal did a lot though and it's a fine piece, but I wouldn't give it primacy on this count.

 

This is wandering a bit but I also wasn't wild about how in Betrayal the WE were, as you say, "shown to have always been monstrous bastards". That was there in 'After De'Shea' as well mind, there's a line where Khârn grins and says something about his axe not being dry for a month. But it still didn't make it so much of a fall when they met Angron as... a few steps down the path. You get this a lot with the various portrayals of the legions in the black books (e.g. the Night Lords or Word Bearers), where it's less of an about-face in character and more of an acceleration, or at least a relatively subtle cultural shift, the kind of thing that's prompted so many debates about the Emperor's intentions and nature/nurture on B&C.

 

I think it's broadly fine and probably stems from a desire on the part of Bligh and the other authors to avoid having 18 identical narrative switcheroos when a legion met its primarch but the WE are a bit of an odd duck in this regard. This image of them as always-berzerkers only vaguely lines up with how they're framed in Inferno and Malevolence, as the early crusade goodguy brutal-but-disciplined counterpoints to the pre-primarch VIth and IXth legions, with all the irony that accompanies that. I dunno, it's weird. It's like these later books sort of assumed that the pre-Angron WE weren't as brutal as they're portrayed in Betrayal. Like they hold to an interpretation that really isn't put across that strongly in the WE's own piece but seems to be popular in the fandom's consciousness anyway. Just thought it was odd. Probably reflects some change in tack between the various black book authors between 2012 and 2017.

[Taliesin]

I've really liked all the Black Books a great deal so far, its hard to rank them. Certainly Inferno, Malevolence and Tempest cover sections of the Heresy that I personally find fascinating.

The first trilogy definitely has so many highlights and interesting info too, and Conquest and Retribution are these intermediate volumes, of which I think Conquest was the more interesting to me. Retribution had the least for me.

[StrangerOrders]

I agree about AK being a fascinating character and one who has become more fleshed out as the books progressed. Their reaching new depths of bitterness and despair in Malevolence was one of my favourite aspects of the book. I'd agree with StrangerOrders on the subject of their reliability, while agreeing with Petitioner's City's point about them being a very specific author and playing with a sort of fictional historiography. I didn't get the sense that AK would fabricate or invent things and their frustration at events or motivations or causality not quite lining up is palpable. It's still history from a particular and singular viewpoint but it's from the POV of someone who clearly once believed in a sort of objectivity and is finding that fall apart.

 

We don't need to reach for deliberate invention because the matter of general reliability and gaps in the knowledge as part of the black books' conceit gives us plenty, regardless of AK's intent. How that was executed made Chondax interesting to me but I think it's worth dwelling on as a deliberate artistic tool for specific outcomes, not just as a way of sweeping up contradictions between different BL/FW/in-universe 'sources'. Thinking here of how some of the confusion in Inferno comes off given that AK has no knowledge of Russ's attempt to contact Magnus, or the big Cabal-sized gap in their attempts to understand the Alpha Legion's motives in Extermination. These aren't just bodge-job fixes or clever re-workings, these are interesting in themselves, in part because of the irony that comes with them. Or you could point to the classic open-ended bits of worldbuilding that the black books' RL authors execute as well as GW proper used to, the ur-example being basically everything about the Rangdan xenocides. The shadowy nature of that whole thing seems to have firmly latched itself into the fandom because of its ambiguity and how Bligh and co played into the in-universe mystery without any desire to clean it up or 'solve' it.

 

I'd say the same for how this lack of knowledge was deployed for warp-related stuff, e.g. the wonderful temporal/causal anomalies at the end of Inferno or pretty much everything written about daemons and chaos in Malevolence. This is great stuff, pseudo-Lovecraftian in how AK gropes towards an doomed attempt at understanding, all from a semi-secular POV that is closer to us, I think, than that of a 40k inquisitor and one that doesn't have an inquisitor's confidence/10k of knowledge to draw upon. More horror, more X-files, less reducible to a taxonomy of daemon units, and quite tied to the format of a nervous and broken scholar putting down what they know, even where it's contradictory or riddled with holes.

 

It also lets the authors flirt with ideas that, if brought up in a BL novel, would probably cause a full-on meltdown in places like r/40klore which, let's say, have less of a grasp on ambiguity. I'm thinking here of the idea in Inferno that after Prospero, Ahriman was the only TS to survive, with all other members of the legion being simulacra created by Tzeentch to torment him. I love that idea, I think it's wonderful and cruel and appropriately twisty. But it only works because of the ambiguity and that it was presented as AK's hesitant presentation of a particular wild in-universe theory. It gains a creepiness from that but it's just not something that could easily be presented in a novel, or at least a BL novel, or that can reasonably be taken as confirmed fact without reducing the space hobbyists have to play in with their own DIY characters and stories. As a disturbing footnote to AK's account with all the historical uncertainty that comes with it though, it's fantastic. Perfect marriage of form and content.

 

@StrangerOrders: Great review but one quibble I'd make is with the WE background: I'd say that Matt Farrar's brilliant short 'After De'Shea' was the beginning of real characterization for the XII legion. You can tie much of Betrayer to seeds planted in 'After De'Shea', even if we put aside the specific call-backs. Betrayal did a lot though and it's a fine piece, but I wouldn't give it primacy on this count.

 

This is wandering a bit but I also wasn't wild about how in Betrayal the WE were, as you say, "shown to have always been monstrous bastards". That was there in 'After De'Shea' as well mind, there's a line where Khârn grins and says something about his axe not being dry for a month. But it still didn't make it so much of a fall when they met Angron as... a few steps down the path. You get this a lot with the various portrayals of the legions in the black books (e.g. the Night Lords or Word Bearers), where it's less of an about-face in character and more of an acceleration, or at least a relatively subtle cultural shift, the kind of thing that's prompted so many debates about the Emperor's intentions and nature/nurture on B&C.

 

I think it's broadly fine and probably stems from a desire on the part of Bligh and the other authors to avoid having 18 identical narrative switcheroos when a legion met its primarch but the WE are a bit of an odd duck in this regard. This image of them as always-berzerkers only vaguely lines up with how they're framed in Inferno and Malevolence, as the early crusade goodguy brutal-but-disciplined counterpoints to the pre-primarch VIth and IXth legions, with all the irony that accompanies that. I dunno, it's weird. It's like these later books sort of assumed that the pre-Angron WE weren't as brutal as they're portrayed in Betrayal. Like they hold to an interpretation that really isn't put across that strongly in the WE's own piece but seems to be popular in the fandom's consciousness anyway. Just thought it was odd. Probably reflects some change in tack between the various black book authors between 2012 and 2017.

Drat! And I had been so sure that I checked the dates for all of the WE stories, how could I forget AD! I might as well be sure to forget about KNF when I go over Tempest! ;_;

 

Jests aside, I completely agree with your point and I honestly should have been more honest than to merely leave it at 'the weakest of the Legion sections'. It probably knocked 1 to 1.5 points off of my score (the remaining .5 being from my self-consciously not wanting to set my baseline at 9  ) and doesnt stress the tragedy as much as it could have. 

 

I think my relative forgiveness came from the fact that BL likes to bury the lead in purple prose at times which can make it hard to get what is really being said. I like that the entry tried to make Angron competent as a commander and justified his shenanigans politically. ADB's work is great, as is St. Martin's and Farrar's but I dislike that alot of the WE's methodology was boiled down to 'rawr, we are ferocious and savage, professionalism and literacy are for the weak rawr'. 

 

Which, aside from being objectively untrue if irl history is anything to go by (one-offs aside, the general pattern is that professionalism and discipline tend to be exceedingly helpful in armies), tells you so very little. I like that things like the Battle of Sarum give you the WE being true to form but actually making you buy why they had a good rep as fighters without either frying the brain of their opposition or handing them a billion and one advantages to the point a swarm of blind squirrels could have won the battle. 

 

That's not a justification mind you, more my explaining the fondness that lead me to not being harsh enough on the article. 

 

Fantastic points!

Edited August 24, 2020 by StrangerOrders

[bluntblade]

I agree about AK being a fascinating character and one who has become more fleshed out as the books progressed. Their reaching new depths of bitterness and despair in Malevolence was one of my favourite aspects of the book. I'd agree with StrangerOrders on the subject of their reliability, while agreeing with Petitioner's City's point about them being a very specific author and playing with a sort of fictional historiography. I didn't get the sense that AK would fabricate or invent things and their frustration at events or motivations or causality not quite lining up is palpable. It's still history from a particular and singular viewpoint but it's from the POV of someone who clearly once believed in a sort of objectivity and is finding that fall apart.

For my part, Malevolence falls down a bit there because the feel of the text is very different. Like, that doesn't seem like AK to the point that I wish they'd retired him with Bligh's passing, and had one of his acolytes carry the torch onward.

[b1soul]

Could AK perhaps even be the signature of an order? Perhaps at some point, the original "AK" received the Emperor's Grace and one of his faithful pupil's took up the pen, trying to continue the original's work without overtly changing his voice but it still shows

 

That would be a great parallel to reality

[Kelborn]

Wasn't it confirmed that AK is a servant of Malcador? Think it was in a short story or so. Possibly Gouldings "Lord of the Imperium"?

[Sandlemad]

 

For my part, Malevolence falls down a bit there because the feel of the text is very different. Like, that doesn't seem like AK to the point that I wish they'd retired him with Bligh's passing, and had one of his acolytes carry the torch onward.

 

I get it. I thought the AK of Malevolence felt more like the AK of past books coming to a boil under the stress of all of the warp-related stuff and certain conclusions about the imperial truth, so it worked for me and felt continuous, but I get what you mean about style.

[b1soul]

I think AK might actually have a full name?

 

I still like the idea of AK being similar to FW ; )

[Petitioner's City]

 

 

For my part, Malevolence falls down a bit there because the feel of the text is very different. Like, that doesn't seem like AK to the point that I wish they'd retired him with Bligh's passing, and had one of his acolytes carry the torch onward.

 

I get it. I thought the AK of Malevolence felt more like the AK of past books coming to a boil under the stress of all of the warp-related stuff and certain conclusions about the imperial truth, so it worked for me and felt continuous, but I get what you mean about style.

 

 

The thing is AK can be different people too - and an acolyte might carry on, taking on the persona of the elder or original writer. Or it could be a collective of writers. Either is quite suitable to the genre

Edited August 25, 2020 by Petitioner's City

[1ncarnadine]

AK may just be the lead professor on the project taking (or being given) credit for a load of grad student work

Edited August 25, 2020 by LetsYouDown

[StrangerOrders]

AK may just be the lead professor on the project taking (or being given) credit for a load of grad student work

Theoretically, AK could be a feral rat-badger pulling at the hair of a scribe. 

 

Going by the actual books though, there is piteously little reason to doubt about them being who they say they are. Waaaaaaay to many 'I's in there to question it without some hints at deceit, which there are none of that I can see at least as I near the end of Massacre. 

 

If we are talking assumptions though, the one thing that tends to get assumed about AK that there is actually no evidence for is AK being a he. I try to keep that in mind when referring to them but sometimes the 'he's slip out.

 

This is ultimately a work of fiction though and, given that, we have very little reason to doubt the stuff AK is saying since for all the theories I can find nothing that makes them questionable in there being who they say they are and at least believing that they saying the truth. 

 

On a lighter note, my favorite part of AK being at a loss is their commenting that they have no idea why the BAngels forbade more than five (I think) Servitors from being in Sangi's sanctum at a time. Since they dont know about that theatrical bit of Daemon summoning. 

 

I think that there is something to the AL's testimony being iffy but I think repetition of memes does tend to water down memory. Malevolence was a fairly recent read for me, as was my most recent reread of Scars. I think folks tend to have a rather rosy view of exactly how uncharitable both are to Jaghatai at Chondax, I tend to actually think that Malevolence paints him as considerably more capable and the enemy as deliberately obscuring stuff from him more effectively.

 

Scars is great but alot of the conflict in the book is basically the Khagan humming and ignoring people around him like the 'this is fine' meme. Its exceedingly well written but the notoriously independent Khans being so blase and hanging out in their not-cult is considerably more out of character than the idea that alot of Khans were having their comms messed with or busy running around putting out fires. 

 

By my token though, I think FW just wanted to expand a campaign in a way that would be resource efficient and clearly messed up for alot of WS fans. Don't think its really that fair to try and pin it on the 'character' telling the story. Heck, the full events from Scars would have taken a whole lot of pagecount and would have to address at least two more Legions and FW generally doesnt do that without allocating them art-space at the very least and a 'what have they been up to' section.

 

Including the DG and SW, would have bloated the book even if just to the small degree the AL did. We can argue whether cutting out the Talons would have compensated or not but thats a different can of worms. 

Edited August 25, 2020 by StrangerOrders

[Indefragable]

On a lighter note, my favorite part of AK being at a loss is their commenting that they have no idea why the BAngels forbade more than five (I think) Servitors from being in Sangi's sanctum at a time. Since they dont know about that theatrical bit of Daemon summoning.

 

Which part is that again? Is that Fear to Tread or Malevolence? Trying to recall.

[Sothalor]

I think it's both, if I remember correctly; there's a scene in Fear to Tread where a bunch of servitors get possessed and Sanguinius cuts them apart. Malevolence makes a kind of oblique reference to it.

[bluntblade]

 

AK may just be the lead professor on the project taking (or being given) credit for a load of grad student work

 

Theoretically, AK could be a feral rat-badger pulling at the hair of a scribe. :D

 

Going by the actual books though, there is piteously little reason to doubt about them being who they say they are. Waaaaaaay to many 'I's in there to question it without some hints at deceit, which there are none of that I can see at least as I near the end of Massacre. 

 

If we are talking assumptions though, the one thing that tends to get assumed about AK that there is actually no evidence for is AK being a he. I try to keep that in mind when referring to them but sometimes the 'he's slip out.

 

This is ultimately a work of fiction though and, given that, we have very little reason to doubt the stuff AK is saying since for all the theories I can find nothing that makes them questionable in there being who they say they are and at least believing that they saying the truth. 

 

On a lighter note, my favorite part of AK being at a loss is their commenting that they have no idea why the BAngels forbade more than five (I think) Servitors from being in Sangi's sanctum at a time. Since they dont know about that theatrical bit of Daemon summoning. 

 

I think that there is something to the AL's testimony being iffy but I think repetition of memes does tend to water down memory. Malevolence was a fairly recent read for me, as was my most recent reread of Scars. I think folks tend to have a rather rosy view of exactly how uncharitable both are to Jaghatai at Chondax, I tend to actually think that Malevolence paints him as considerably more capable and the enemy as deliberately obscuring stuff from him more effectively.

 

Scars is great but alot of the conflict in the book is basically the Khagan humming and ignoring people around him like the 'this is fine' meme. Its exceedingly well written but the notoriously independent Khans being so blase and hanging out in their not-cult is considerably more out of character than the idea that alot of Khans were having their comms messed with or busy running around putting out fires. 

 

By my token though, I think FW just wanted to expand a campaign in a way that would be resource efficient and clearly messed up for alot of WS fans. Don't think its really that fair to try and pin it on the 'character' telling the story. Heck, the full events from Scars would have taken a whole lot of pagecount and would have to address at least two more Legions and FW generally doesnt do that without allocating them art-space at the very least and a 'what have they been up to' section.

 

Including the DG and SW, would have bloated the book even if just to the small degree the AL did. We can argue whether cutting out the Talons would have compensated or not but thats a different can of worms.

Which is why they'd have done better to do a campaign of their own devising, that gets into Chaos shenanigans.

[Taliesin]

Stranger orders, or others who want to review the individual books, would love to see reviews for subsequent books!

[WrathOfTheLion]

They take quite a while to go through. I'm about halfway through book 1, then I will skim back through and write some down.

I don't think I'll be able to do them in order though. I may get through book 2, but I really want to see book 9 when that comes out.

 

One important thing is that they penned down a lot of the ideas at the beginning. For example, even as far back as Book 1: Betrayal, they speak of the I and VI legions as the most divergent. They must have had many of their ideas for how the DA and SW worked even as far back as the beginning.

Edited August 26, 2020 by WrathOfTheLion

[Xisor]

 

If we are talking assumptions though, the one thing that tends to get assumed about AK that there is actually no evidence for is AK being a he. I try to keep that in mind when referring to them but sometimes the 'he's slip out.

 

You should probably stay silent about that.

[b1soul]

I think AK refers to himself as an old man in one of the books?

 

http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/topic/360294-who-is-ak/

[bluntblade]

I think AK refers to himself as an old man in one of the books?

http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/topic/360294-who-is-ak/

Yep in Retribution. Someone brings him the morsel of data Crysos Moturg found, relating to what seem to be the Ashen Claws.

 

Personally, my favourite "historiography moment" comes with him admitting that the name Ashen Claws gave him trouble because it seemed to refer to a dozen different possible things.

[Sandlemad]

 

Personally, my favourite "historiography moment" comes with him admitting that the name Ashen Claws gave him trouble because it seemed to refer to a dozen different possible things.

 

That was particularly good, one of the most '40k' snippets when talking about the vagaries of knowledge loss across time and space, translation of seemingly distinctive names, and what's actually known in-universe to characters.

 

 

Indeed, a casual search of the Imperial Archives on Terra reveals but a few possible references: an Acheron-class battleship that was designated the Ashen Claw, a Solar Auxilia cohort whose unofficial designation was the "Ash Claws," and the patriarch of the knight house Moritain, whose honourary titles include "He whose claws rend all to ash."

 

That thing where people (justly) complain about certain bits of background or narrative choices making it feel like a smaller universe? This is the opposite of that.

[Taliesin]

Any thoughts on Book 9: Crusade?

[Fire Golem]

Any thoughts on Book 9: Crusade?

There’s a thread in the Heresy section discussing book 9 (not trying to dissuade discussion here, but probably worth a read to see people’s thoughts on it so far). 

http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/topic/366438-fw-book-9-crusade-fluff-discussion/

[StrangerOrders]

Any thoughts on Book 9: Crusade?

I personally had strong and negative feelings about Crusade.

 

I have spoken at length about it on the AoD forum and have passionately argued with alot of DA fans on the subject.

 

Which is why I do not want to review it until I have finished rereading and reviewing the rest (Massacre is almost done and I hope to post it after a final read-through in the morning), because I think I am honestly to close to it atm and I genuinely think you should absolutely not trust any reviews you see on it this far out. That would include mine.

 

I feel like I need to go back, take measure of everything and then sit down and think if it is really that bad, why it is or isn't and how to best articulate it.

 

This is a complicated one because the DA do tend to be left holding to bag alot and alot of positive reviews I see do strike me as having a hefty dose of 'who cares, its finally us being awesome' while myself and a handful of others that are ambivalent on the First sort of cringe at things like a Legion-scale wolverine regeneration factor or somehow being able to break alot of setting rules.

 

But that is obviously too black and white a view and it is making me not trust myself with it, especially because the arguments I have seen on it are so darned circular that I feel both sides are more busy agreeing with their own camp's points than actually providing a good exchange of pros and cons. 

 

So, this is a phenomenally overwrought way of saying my own personal thoughts are 'not touching this until I have all eight other books present in my head' and I can post a nuanced enough view on the subject.

 

Which is admittedly a bit of a silly amount of thought to put into a casual review, but I do put a really high premium on our discourse as a forum weirdly enough. I tend to think most folks here are really insightful and intelligent folks and I am not particularly interested in putting up a review that I don't feel lives up to that expectation.

 

Sorry for the remarkably useless answer!  

Edited October 7, 2020 by StrangerOrders

[WrathOfTheLion]

I liked it quite a lot. The Thramas conflict part is excellent. I quite like the Dark Angels lore part, but some folks do not. It has been well received in general however. The Night Lords part is also good. So the lore part is solid and good.

 

Rules-wise, most of it is fine. The main issue with it I see is that the Deathwing RoW is so comically bad, so nobody will use that.

 

There is some quite good art I think. I do think there should have been more Dark Angels Legionnaires shown artwise, there are only like 6 slates for infantry/dreadnoughts, and it's really missing some terminators especially I think, like just normal Tartaros or Cataphractii. It has a slate of an Inner Circle Knight Cenobium, but we can see models of that on Forge World. I think just a Tartaros terminator or Cataphractii for either the Ironwing or Deathwing would have serviced better.

 

Another thing that I think is missing is that they did not show some major factions art-wise. There are no slates of the Thramassi Nightwatch, the main Solar Auxilia regiment in the eastern fringe. There are also no slates for the Triplex forge worlds, the Forge World of Golghorad or the rogue forge world of Ulan Huda. This is a significant portion of the 'players' in the conflict that have no representation, which is strange to me. These are all excellent factions that I think many people would have a good time playing or even just seeing, and wouldn't need much but a description of colors, heraldry and a slate or two.

 

What really takes it down to like a 6.5/10 or so is the rules. Although I really liked everything in it, the fact that the book is only 200 pages, took so long to get out, and then doesn't include Dark Mechanicum where it obviously could have cannot be ignored.

Edited October 7, 2020 by WrathOfTheLion