Mortis

[Scribe]

Fine, great.

 

I just want the Emperor vs Chaos. I want the Spaceport. I want Man vs His Inner Demons. I want Khârn taking the breach and falling on a mountain of the dead. I want Blood Angels falling to madness, and I want the Emperor to expose the Imperium is based on a deal with the Warp.

 

I'm not interested in some cave man, turned Argonaut, turned devout Catholic, turned Soldier, turned traveler through space, time, and a slice of reality.

 

The latter, is not part of the former.

[Just123456]

I want all of that.

[b1soul]

Upper Paleolithic would refer to upper, more recent strata of earth when excavating Stone Age artifacts and bones...so definitely still Homo Sapiens, though Oll's birth date (if we're still going with circa 15,000BC) is more Mesolithic, I think. Mammoths went largely extinct around 8,500BC, so Oll may have hunted them if he ventured into the northern ice caps.

 

The oldest "archaic" Homo Sapiens fossils (found at a site called Jebel Irhoud) were recently dated to roughly 300,000BC. I recall the dating range was roughly 285,000 to 315,000 before present, so looks like Perpetuals showed up pretty late in human evolution.

Edited May 8, 2021 by b1soul

[SkimaskMohawk]

Scribe you're just getting baited at this point. It's pretty much what black blow fly does in the news and rumor section.

[DarkChaplain]

Honestly, I don't think this is deliberate bait, unless it's literally an alt account. One look at the post history makes it look like that one genuinely likes Oll... to fanfic level.

But I concur, deliberate or not, the bait's not worth taking.

 

On a different note, it's another Saturday without a Mortis audiobook even being mentioned, so the headscratching continues.

[drooling blood]

Havent really liked Frenchs work since his Archon book. Hes a bit dry.

Siege is already over anyway.

Iron Warriors, packed up gone home.

Emperors Kids. Doing nothing, and wont be doing anything.

1TKs not enough of them to do anything.

SOH if the first has been destroyed, doesnt bode well for any of their other company.

 

Were just at the stage of better put other loyalist legions in there, cause they have to be doing something.

Its all a bit of drivel tbh. They effed it all up as expected, even after they had a trial Beast Arises. The lessons werent learnt.

[Matcap86]

After thinking a bit on the book and the Siege at large. Am I alone in missing the "siege" part throughout the series? Solar War and Saturnine have been the only ones who really got the Climactic/Claustrophobic elements across. 

 

With Mortis the different arcs seem almost to take place on different planets, with Keeler and co. Noticing very little from the siege, and Oll and Dark Angels also only noticing it as a sort of backdrop to their own adventure. The titan combat, while decent, barely has any repercussions on the other characters experience. I'd think 200+ titans duking it out with several imperators involved would at least cause a bit of disturbance for the rest. 

 

Maybe that's my biggest issue with the book. It felt like 4-5 very loosely connected novellas who all didn't get the space to truly tell the story they wanted to tell. It would maybe have better served as a sort of anthology than as a mainline book. 

[Urauloth]

 

Damon Prytanis’ experience and the delineation the audience made that he shot MLK was really well written and it built into his persona after it was mentioned once.

 

This actually encapsulates better than anything what I don't like about perpetuals. I want my Warhammer stories to remain in the realms of fiction as much as possible, so if I'm reading about a reincarnating immortal who's off to stab another immortal with a magic knife at the behest of some aliens (you'll forgive me if I'm fuzzy on the details of how this went down) I don't want that story garnished with details about how, whoa, he was actually responsible for this that and the other tragic events in real life, in our time! It's crass, and it completely destroys my immersion. Let me read about space wizards in peace, please. It sets a terrible precedent, too - perpetuals shot JFK, perpetuals did 9/11, perpetuals sank the Titanic - where does it end?

 

I don't mind Oll being an Argonaut anywhere near as much because that's at least within the realms of myth and folklore (although it does, in a way, make these books a work of crossover fiction) and there's space to explore ideas like fantastical creatures of ancient legends being warp entities as French does in Mortis, but in general if we must the perpetuals - and they're hardly going anywhere now - I'd really like it if they could stay artefacts of the Warhammer universe.

[Bobss]

Couldn't even finish this. While some segments of it are admittedly interesting such as John French's iconic Horus/Emperor warp confrontations (as always, simply brilliant and should've popped up in other Siege books), the unique culture of the Legio Ignatum (this is really, really cool tbh), anything involving the Third Legion and the general portrayal of the Siege's devastation, overall it's just an absolute and utter slog. At this point in time after reading maybe a hundred or so Black Library books I've got to the point where I know what I like and what I don't like. I'd rather wait for Warhawk and just bridge the gap between that and Saturnine during future rereads. This certainly isn't The Solar War which was a far clearer and much cleverer book in my opinion. I read that book once in 2019, once in 2020 and once in 2021 and I loved it more each time I finished it. This feels like it was written by a different person entirely

 

I've also developed a nasty habit with John French books where I'm constantly rereading passages over and over and over to understand them. I didn't have this problem with his Ahriman trilogy, despite those books being very heavy with metaphors and general warp/psyker/stuff, and I certainly didn't have this problem with something like Praetorian of Dorn despite all of the complex intricacies with the Sol System orbits or the Alpha Legion shenanigans. Interestingly, I did have this problem with The Horusian Wars books and I wonder if it's something French has moved towards naturally. Having dense prose is one thing, but large chunks of this book are straight up unreadable in my opinion. He isn't writing this book in Greek or a different language, I just frequently don't understand what he wants me to see or be aware of

 

This is also the last time I drop money on a hardback. Warhawk might not be available in mass-market paperback until 2083, but I'm waiting nonetheless

[b1soul]

Sorry, not trying to bait anyone.

 

I think Oll is an interesting character with potential for development, but don't think it's weird or silly for some posters here to dislike or even despise his presence. People have different taste and different attachments to the setting.

 

I guess we can all just wait and see how BL handle him in the final SoT novel or two.

 

Edit: Ah, I see that was probably referring to Just123456, but oh well...above is how I feel. To those who don't like Perpetuals, they haven't shown up even once in M41, no?

Edited May 9, 2021 by b1soul

[Just123456]

It might be out of nowhere, but John French in the afterword for the Solar War said the Emperor views triumphing over the age old darkness that stalks humanity as ULTIMATE victory and that he is cornered with the fact he did save humanity, but doomed it. So the Emperor wants to protect humanity.

[Just123456]

Upper Paleolithic would refer to upper, more recent strata of earth when excavating Stone Age artifacts and bones...so definitely still Homo Sapiens, though Oll's birth date (if we're still going with circa 15,000BC) is more Mesolithic, I think. Mammoths went largely extinct around 8,500BC, so Oll may have hunted them if he ventured into the northern ice caps.

The oldest "archaic" Homo Sapiens fossils (found at a site called Jebel Irhoud) were recently dated to roughly 300,000BC. I recall the dating range was roughly 285,000 to 315,000 before present, so looks like Perpetuals showed up pretty late in human evolution.

Alright. You have Saturnine, yes? Edited May 9, 2021 by Just123456

[Sothalor]

Am I the only one who wasn't taken by Legio Ignatum's depiction? They came across as "Arrogant Titan Legio #69583", with such brilliant tactics "walk forwards in a straight line" and "shoot at that enemy in front of us." 

 

Their culture appears to consist of "We're the best. Because... because we just are! Now feed more Titans into the meatgrinder piecemeal harder!" Their viewpoint character kind of... doesn't have character, and that undercuts the stakes and tension of one of the major plot lines of this novel.

[RedFurioso]

Am I the only one who wasn't taken by Legio Ignatum's depiction?

I don't like these punk looks from Rogue Trader era, it's Titan Legio, not some Necromunda gang. It's the only thing that disappointed me during the reading - I expected from ancient Ignatum something different.

[SkimaskMohawk]

Am I the only one who wasn't taken by Legio Ignatum's depiction? They came across as "Arrogant Titan Legio #69583", with such brilliant tactics "walk forwards in a straight line" and "shoot at that enemy in front of us."

 

Their culture appears to consist of "We're the best. Because... because we just are! Now feed more Titans into the meatgrinder piecemeal harder!" Their viewpoint character kind of... doesn't have character, and that undercuts the stakes and tension of one of the major plot lines of this novel.

I think it's because they're actually supposed to be "arrogant titan legio #1" . They're the only loyalist of the original 3 titan legios and were also given the honour of being trusted with defending the webway project. Their fluff is also about being almost stubbornly suicidal like how their princeps did the last stand in MoM or another fluff blurb about a similar thing during Ullanor.

 

The problem is, people don't really know that. It's almost book 60 of the series and the only titan legion anyone is really familiar with is Audax; ignatum's stuff being in black books and AT books doesn't particularly help.

[RedFurioso]

I think it's because they're actually supposed to be "arrogant titan legio #1"

The most arrogant Legio ever is Astorum (which is strangely absent from the Siege series). Not #1, though :p

[mc warhammer]

 

 

I've also developed a nasty habit with John French books where I'm constantly rereading passages over and over and over to understand them... Having dense prose is one thing, but large chunks of this book are straight up unreadable in my opinion. He isn't writing this book in Greek or a different language, I just frequently don't understand what he wants me to see or be aware of

nice to know i'm not the only one.

 

thing is, there's so much about his work i really enjoy,  he's easily one of the best in the BL stable at subtle yet deep characterisation but adb and abnett are both better at guiding the reader through their text

[SkimaskMohawk]

 

I think it's because they're actually supposed to be "arrogant titan legio #1"

The most arrogant Legio ever is Astorum (which is strangely absent from the Siege series). Not #1, though :p

I mean, maybe? Ya astorum are arrogant and proud because they're old and and got a lot done during the crusade. But it's subjective in whether one is more than the other. What isn't is that ignatum were OG and had an establishe rep for being very stubborn.

[Knockagh]

 

 

 

 

I've also developed a nasty habit with John French books where I'm constantly rereading passages over and over and over to understand them... Having dense prose is one thing, but large chunks of this book are straight up unreadable in my opinion. He isn't writing this book in Greek or a different language, I just frequently don't understand what he wants me to see or be aware of

nice to know i'm not the only one.

 

thing is, there's so much about his work i really enjoy, he's easily one of the best in the BL stable at subtle yet deep characterisation but adb and abnett are both better at guiding the reader through their text

I’m with you guys. I find french is much better for short stories. The Horusian wars shorts are superb he doesn’t have room to get lost in endless pointless rambles. Mortis is probably his biggest physical book I’ve read of his yet so I found all his weaknesses are accentuated.

[DukeLeto69]

*sigh* was looking forward to this but now...!!!!

 

The word “slog” doesn’t get me very excited!

[Bobss]

 

 

 

I've also developed a nasty habit with John French books where I'm constantly rereading passages over and over and over to understand them... Having dense prose is one thing, but large chunks of this book are straight up unreadable in my opinion. He isn't writing this book in Greek or a different language, I just frequently don't understand what he wants me to see or be aware of

nice to know i'm not the only one.

 

thing is, there's so much about his work i really enjoy,  he's easily one of the best in the BL stable at subtle yet deep characterisation but adb and abnett are both better at guiding the reader through their text

 

 

It's very frustrating. It's like someone has tattooed a wordsearch onto my eyeballs. If this continues in French's future projects like Abomination, the Iron Cage (maybe) and a possible necrons-related Ahriman novel, then I won't be picking them up. I care not from whence the sentences flow, only that they do. The very first true chapter of Mortis, for example, begins with French describing a sunset/sunrise across the Imperial Palace, but it's written like the opposite of what it's supposed to be, so I'm wondering if it's supposed to highlight the sheer size of the Palace by stressing the sun's arc across the sky, and... my brain just :cussing melted. I had to give Jubal Khan Vs. Abaddon a quick reread just to picture exactly what happens, and I was fine. This though? It feels like some kind of exercise designed to unlock my third eye, and it's not just the example I provided, but one after another to the point of nausea

[Apothecary Vaddon]

I've described it as a 'word salad' in the past. But weirdly enough I don't remember the Ahriman series being like that...maybe it was and I just don't remember, but these days I just skim everything until i get to some kind of lore tidbit that seems pivotal or whatever

[b1soul]

French likes to indulge in rather detailed descriptions, some of which (to me) aren't very easy to understand intuitively...

[Fire Golem]

I didn’t have that experience with this book, for what it’s worth. It’s not French’s best novel, but I read it in one day, and didn’t really struggle with dense prose or anything. 

[RedFurioso]

 

The very first true chapter of Mortis, for example, begins with French describing a sunset/sunrise across the Imperial Palace, but it's written like the opposite of what it's supposed to be, so I'm wondering if it's supposed to highlight the sheer size of the Palace by stressing the sun's arc across the sky, and... my brain just :cussing melted.

I laughed so hard when the Sun rose in the west and moved to the east.