Dark Imperium 3: Godblight discussion

[Ishagu]

Nah daemons have been shown in countless BL novels to be varied characters of all types.

 

Are you upset that some of them weren't one dimensional?

[Lucerne]

Nah daemons have been shown in countless BL novels to be varied characters of all types.

 

Are you upset that some of them weren't one dimensional?

You mean one dimensional like excessively human-esque caricatures with no gravitas or weight in narrative beyond giving exposition or going splat? Yes, that certainly would make for rather poor writing that only the exceptionally stupid would defend, wouldn't it?

Edited June 29, 2021 by Lucerne

[Ishagu]

You can believe whatever you want to in your own head-canon. Edited June 30, 2021 by Ishagu

[aa.logan]

 

Nah daemons have been shown in countless BL novels to be varied characters of all types.

Are you upset that some of them weren't one dimensional?

 

You mean one dimensional like excessively human-esque caricatures with no gravitas or weight in narrative beyond giving exposition or going splat? Yes, that certainly would make for rather poor writing that only the exceptionally stupid would defend, wouldn't it?

I’m pretty certain that I’m not exceptionally stupid; I liked the portrayal of daemons in the book- it was one of the few areas that *didn’t* disappoint. Don’t be so rude.I

[1ncarnadine]

I’m pretty certain that I’m not exceptionally stupid; I liked the portrayal of daemons in the book- it was one of the few areas that *didn’t* disappoint. Don’t be so rude.I

I'll offer my own perspective and hopefully it doesn't rub the wrong way or insult anyone's intelligence, but for me the daemons really were one of the weakest parts of this book. I listened to this on audio and John Banks honestly delivered a fantastic performance. He had some really fun voices going for the daemons.

 

That said... they don't feel like daemons. They felt like sinister muppets. They felt like the skeksis from The Dark Crystal or something. It really threw me out of the setting and it didn't feel like 40k to me, personally.

 

And I don't feel like Guy Haley missed the mark as much with the other two books as badly, but to be fair I kind of literally slept through Plague War a few times before it sunk in. Still, enjoyed the first two more than this one and felt really disappointed by this entry in general. There was a lot that didn't work for me here but I think other frater have said it better than I could.

 

I'm never going to revisit these. I wouldn't recommend this trilogy to anyone. There are better intros to 40k. I think the excitement of the new edition did a lot to propel me through the first entry and I'm not really willing to invest the time to re-read it or the newer version with revisions. Godblight was disappointing to me at first, but thinking back, I shouldn't have expected more anyway.

Edited June 30, 2021 by LetsYouDown

[DukeLeto69]

Blimey I am so glad I didn’t splurge £54 on all three hardbacks! Will still get these as a completist (want them to bookend the Dawn of Fire series) but happy I decided to wait for paperback! Edited June 30, 2021 by DukeLeto69

[Ishagu]

The overall opinion of the book is very high, take a look at the goodreads score as an example:

 

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/58189507-godblight

 

Remember that the opinions you see online can often be extreme, as the most unhappy minority are often the most vocal.

[SkimaskMohawk]

The overall opinion of the book is very high, take a look at the goodreads score as an example:

 

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/58189507-godblight

 

Remember that the opinions you see online can often be extreme, as the most unhappy minority are often the most vocal.

Goodreads ratings don't mean anything. Is battle for the abyss really a 3.2 out of 5? Are Horus rising, Praetorian of Dorn, master of mankind, bloodlines, path of heaven and scars the equivalent of lost and the damned at 4.2 (and therefore below Godblight)? Are betrayer, flesh and steel and curze the equal of Godblight at 4.3?

 

While negatives are what people remember the most, we tend to be pretty fair to books on this board and dive deep into the books we love AND hate. You can see roomsky, aa.logan and dark chaplain really unpack a novel. I've even done a nice review myself.

 

Like honestly just comparing Haley's own work, do we think Godblight is as good as flesh and steel, the great work and curze? Is it better than perturabo and devestation of Baal and plague war?

 

I've been slogging through this book since release. I still haven't finished it. All the characters I liked in other Haley works like Felix, guilliman, Mathieu and the Nova marine are just completely flat and uninteresting. This is why some people enjoy the daemons, because they at least have some personality; they're like Emperor Palpatine in revenge of the Sith.

[Ishagu]

Oh I completely agree, this is not Haley's best work at all. I still think this is the best in the DI trilogy however, due to having some very interesting moments and revelations.

 

I also think some people may have placed unrealistic expectations on the book, or some might view it unfavourably because of the characters and factions involved. The only character that I found disappointing was Mathieu, and only because he was no longer hiding or moderating his religious fanaticism, but at the same time I saw no reason for him to do so after the events in Plague War. The rest were pretty much as they had been prior - and I enjoyed Guilliman's struggle trying to grapple with things that don't abide to logical rules or conclusions. Guilliman's main shortcoming is that he tries to apply cold logic, truth and facts to everything - but the forces he's up against, and those that aid him, don't play by that rulebook.

Edited June 30, 2021 by Ishagu

[Bobss]

I'm the biggest Guy Haley book basher on this forum bar no one if I really let rip and went all-in on the negativity, but things get to a stage where you simply have to accept that Black Library publications are so varied in terms of writing style, how they portray the IP and where they would like to take the IP, that not every release is going to be enjoyable or mesh with your perspective of the galaxy. In addition to the closing stages of the Horus Heresy, we currently have Dan Abnett taking his Inquisition body of work to crazy new heights, Guy Haley leading the charge into '42nd Millennium', Marvel style, and ADB seemingly content to flesh out the 10,000 years between M31 and M41 from a Chaos perspective, alongside building his own Badab War. That doesn't even scratch the surface of what other authors are currently doing and trying to achieve

 

I get where people are coming from - I used to get mad as anything () when the Horus Heresy novels deviated from the 'untouchable template of Collected Visions,' with little to no understanding of what existed before those art books and the card game came into being, and would write extensive tl;dr on MSN/Skype/Discord depending on what part of the 2010s this was, about how they're ruining Warhammer. In my experience tabletop players can more easily distinguish between different editions of the game, and accept that in one decade Huron Blackheart is an alien shapeshifter, then he's a servant of Chaos all along, and finally he's a somewhat barbarous loyalist pushed to worship the Ruinous Powers by Imperial incompetence. The very rules of the game change from time to time and that's just how it is. The Black Library community on the other hand doesn't seem to be able to do this, largely because books can't be so easily compartmentalised due to a lack of clearcut editions (although GW 'eras' certainly exist) and series becoming more and more intertwined, leading to situations like me moaning about the IV Legion's retreat from Terra in Mortis because it diminishes the XVI's extinction during the Legion Wars. The Talon of Horus is creeping up to 10 years old now, and I can't keep pretending ADB has the monopoly on these events. I think he's the best at writing them, but that's a different kettle of fish entirely. This isn't to say Black Library are innocent in all of this - things like each Horus Heresy book being numbered, despite many different authors having many different interpretations of the Heresy within this same series, sort of promulgates this you have to read everything bollocks, when guess what, no you don't, and I'm free to enjoy Slaves to Darkness without enduring Titandeath despite what BL marketing says otherwise

 

Don't get me wrong, from the extracts I've read Haley's demons are pretty eye-rolling and I'll never forget some of the extremely cringe-inducing dialogue in The Lost and the Damned between primarchs any time soon, and I much prefer Abnett's none-of-these-will-ever-get-models demons or ADB's 'demons emit such a strong sense of wrongness that even servitors start self-harming in their presence', but in no universe does the former harm the latter. I'm not really into it - so I don't care for it. I think pasta is a vastly superior food to rice, but billions of people probably disagree with me. I don't know if this bizarre obsession with can(n)on has bled over from TV series, films, anime or whatever, but I think it's a pretty harmful tool in trying to understand the 40k universe. That being said, some people seem to love Haley's demons, perhaps because they draw from demons being these comical, cartoonish, mischievous sprites in the warp from the Realm of Chaos days. tl;dr due to the fundamental nature of the 40k IP and how BL is allowed to more or less freely draw from it, I feel like there needs to be this 4th wall intervention from each reader where they say ''I don't like this, and I probably won't engage with this writer's stuff again, but I accept the galaxy is big enough to contain this, and if it isn't, then it will in someone else's galaxy.'' I know this sounds pretty preachy, but as someone who used to tie themselves in knots about this, it bothers me to see other, genuinely good posters do the same

Edited June 30, 2021 by Bobss

[DarkChaplain]

and I much prefer Abnett's none-of-these-will-ever-get-models demons

 

I actually had to laugh at this one, because Abnett's own Samus ended up being somehow one of the major Chaos/Daemon models pushed by ForgeWorld these days, suddenly promoted to Prince of the Ruinstorm and all that.

 

To me, Samus always was about the creeping, insidious nature of Chaos, the corrupting influence that whispers in everybody's ears, to the point of possessing them temporarily. To suddenly have a selection of artworks and a model with such awkward, beastlike composition, hunched over with an arm extended way above his head, all while also almost crabwalking, and being literally gigantic compared to Marines.... That model completely killed the appeal of Samus as a daemonic entity for me.

 

The moment Forgeworld gave it a distinct form and larger overall role, with a clearly khornate aspect, was the point where all the horror of Samus disappeared for me.

 

On the flipside, I honestly don't have an issue with Nurgle daemons specifically. They've always been much more whimsical than the other Gods' daemons. "Grandfather" Nurgle was always more jolly, because he's about a cycle of death, decay and rebirth. His daemons have always bickered in one way or another, but they've also felt less selfish overall compared to the rest. In a sense, they're comfortable in their inevitability.

In that sense, there's always been a bit of a contrast between Nurgle's mortal and immortal Servants. Mortarion, Typhus and co take things way more seriously than the daemons do. They got baggage ten millennia in the making, whereas the daemons may have their rivalries, but aren't nearly as bitter.

 

The models, too, have a lot more variety for Nurgle than the other gods, I'd argue. With Bloodletters, you're basically painting the same model 10, 20 times, whereas with Nurgle, there are a lot more variations - and his children tend to be smiling, too. Maliciously, sure, but smiling.

 

Contrasting the effect Nurgle daemons and their plagues have on real space and people with their comedic nature is a source of horror for me. The utter disregard of them being torn up and leaking organs to the floor, including their Marines, makes for more terrifying imagery than Khorne ever really did. That they often act as if they're doing humanity a favor, too, is grotesque.

 

Nurgle's champions and daemons being a source of grotesque comedy isn't new. It's been done forever. Heck, Josh Reynolds' Nurgle characters for AoS are some of the best among both settings - they're hilarious at times, like, laugh out loud level. His depictions of the invasion of the realm of life by various named and new characters and daemons was colorful and funny, but also a source of dread as a result.

 

Really, at the end of the day, it's Morty's problem that he's such a bitter tryhard. He's the odd one out.

[Lord Marshal]

The overall opinion of the book is very high, take a look at the goodreads score as an example:

 

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/58189507-godblight

 

Remember that the opinions you see online can often be extreme, as the most unhappy minority are often the most vocal.

 

Goodreads rate almost everything 4/5 when it comes to Black Library. It's exceedingly rare you'll find anything with a score lower than 3 there and typically you'll spot the same reviewers who tend to lap up literally everything BL put out anyway.

 

Even Wars of Secrets has an average rating 3.5 despite generally being considered absolute trash most places.

 

Godblight feels like it's deliberately written as a power fantasy for the Marine audience, so it's no surprise that 40k's biggest fanbase lap it up I suppose.

Edited June 30, 2021 by Lord Marshal

[Ishagu]

It's rated even more highly on amazon? lol

[Lord Marshal]

It's rated even more highly on amazon? lol

 

Amazon isn't any better. It's the site with Star Wars: Aftermath sitting at 4/5 despite having such wonderful writing as "The TIE wibbles and wobbles through the air, careening drunkenly across the Myrrann rooftops-it zigzags herkily-jerkily out of sight."

[DukeLeto69]

The overall opinion of the book is very high, take a look at the goodreads score as an example:

 

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/58189507-godblight

 

Remember that the opinions you see online can often be extreme, as the most unhappy minority are often the most vocal.

I really value the views on this forum. Several folks have similar taste to me, so when they recommend (or the opposite) I listen. I still ultimately make up my own mind by comparing +ve and -ve “reviews” and finally apply my own filters based in past experience of the author or if the book is part of a series I want to collect anyway.

[Scribe]

I'm pretty sure Good reads has Wrath of Iron rated poorly, so that sites scores are invalid anyway.

[Kelborn]

I'm pretty sure Good reads has Wrath of Iron rated poorly, so that sites scores are invalid anyway.

Wha-?

The only decent/ great Iron Hands story is not appropriately celebrated?

 

Load the guns, boys. Exterminated is calling!

 

Seriously though, Wrath of Iron is awesome. <3

[Scribe]

My fanboyism of Wrath of Iron has been stated many times.

 

I finished it, took a deep breath at that closing scene, and started it over again.

 

One of the best Imperium books ever printed.

[DukeLeto69]

My fanboyism of Wrath of Iron has been stated many times.

 

I finished it, took a deep breath at that closing scene, and started it over again.

 

One of the best Imperium books ever printed.

Been on my shelf for many years after getting burned too many times by Space Marine Battles books. Looks like I may need to add to the reading pile!

[Scribe]

My friend, look at the author and consider some kind of penance.

[DukeLeto69]

My friend, look at the author and consider some kind of penance.

I know, I know! Battle of the Fang was great. Not sure why I didn’t read this??? Apart from that and Helsreach the other SMBs I read were meh! I have several unread on the shelf

[Osteoclast]

 

That said... they don't feel like daemons. They felt like sinister muppets.

 

I can't get the image of Statler and Waldorf as Greater Daemons of Nurgle out of my head after reading this and I'm torn as to how much I'd love to see it.

[DarkChaplain]

I've started a re-read of the Uriel Ventris books, via the new audiobooks, and two things have sprung up so far:

 

1) The narrator really has no business reading pseudo-latin and greek terminology, my god, what terrible pronunciation and

 

2) It's really adding another layer of contrast with Dark Imperium and Dawn of Fire already. The early scenes of Uriel at the Fortress of Hera, talking to Marneus Calgar, and then basically praying in front of Guilliman's stasis tomb hammer home the fall of reason pretty effectively, if taken in concert with the works featuring Guilliman since his return. Even Calgar is speaking of "Holy Guilliman" with religious veneration.

 

Considering Ventris' role in Dark Imperium, in awe of the Primarch, it's really unsurprising how Uriel went into a bit of a fangirl mode at first. Just comparing these two lines of work really makes you respect the Ultramarines' resistance to cultural whiplash post-Rift. Roboute's return threw their own Chapter into disarray for sure. He may be denying his own demi-god status even in Godblight, but his own sons spent millennia putting him on that same pedestal - he can't win against this perception within the wider Imperium, and I doubt he'll have full success even among his own Chapter.

 

Also, another few indicators that the whole Devastation of Baal plotline hasn't happened yet: In Dark Imperium 1, Guilliman talks to the Cawl Inferior about plans to begin the reconquest of Imperium Nihilus after dealing with Mortarion. Studies on Blood Angels gene-seed haven't happened within their own Chapter yet, only with Successors founded so far, and in test-tubes, pretty much. Adding this scene to the pile of "we gotta go to Nihilus" references from Plague War and Godblight, it's pretty damned obvious how the timeline works.

[Ishagu]

Interesting thought I had regarding the book.

 

The Eldar farseer that Guilliman keeps around confirms that the Chaos Gods are not reliant on humanity's belief to persist. This indicates that the Cabaal in the 30k books, the one that was apparently trying to stop Chaos by destroying humanity, were not correct in their belief. The Alpha Legion were mislead and should have simply helped the loyalists instead of joining the traitors under their pretences.

[jaxom]

Maybe? Warp mechanics are definitely the most hand-wavey part of 40k, though that makes senses considering its nature. The chaos gods may not be reliant on humanity's belief to persist in the future, but they may need it to wax and wane in relation to each other. Beings of the warp have been said to always exist once they exist; their presence extends backwards and forwards in time. However, their ability to "be" as a discrete warp entity requires certain temporal or ritualist conditions. New daemon prince Mortarion notes that he can extend himself into the past, but cannot interact with it. Slaanesh's midwives were a group of Noise Marines circa M36. By M42, the extant conditions are there for the chaos gods to "be," but wiping out humanity might lock them into a sort of power stasis for further down the time line?