Awakening, George Mann

[Knockagh]

This is a great read. I’m not always a fan of George Mann but this is an excellent book. One of the finest inquisition novels out there. Certainly beats John French’s efforts by a long distance. The customary final fight scene is fairly 40K standard but aside from that a really excellent enjoyable 40K romp. It’s left wide open for further development so I hope this isn’t the last we see of her. 
Can see why the book was delayed, it’s quite obviously been tweaked to reflect current going's on. 

[Ubiquitous1984]

In the special edition the author does comment along the lines that he would like to re-visit the character.  

There is a website that has the old comics that cover the interrogators backstory.  I’m afraid I have now lost the link to it so hopefully someone here can help us out.  

[Taliesin]

Interesting, what is the story about?

What makes it better than the French books in your mind, since I seem to recall you did like those?

[Knockagh]

I did like the cut and thrust of the French novels. Particularly the short stories, which are excellent. Awakening though has I think much better character development and much better characters. French’s inquisitor is a poor character in my opinion, he is just of very little interest, bland. Some of the others characters he creates are excellent but when the main man is a bore it’s hard to keep peoples interest. This mostly applies to the first book. I find Manns inquisitor fascinating. I want to know everything about her. 
 

The story itself is nothing particularly fancy. It’s in the solid 40K tradition of a heretical planetary leadership being discovered and investigated. A few nice twists that add to the story. Some bits and pieces feel a little ill fitting and I think they might have been inserted to fit it into the new setting. A common fault now a days but it’s just part and parcel of it all and not worth complaining about.

Good stories have good characters and I think this book has them in spades.

[Scribe]

10 hours ago, Knockagh said:

A common fault now a days but it’s just part and parcel of it all and not worth complaining about.

To my dying breath... ;)

[cheywood]

Say one thing for the Inquisition, say they usually have great novels. Between Abnett, Wraight, French and the numerous authors who have used Inquisitors as secondary characters there’s 15-20 excellent books dealing with the left hand of the Emperor. You get great characters, nigh-unparalleled insight into the Imperium, interesting philosophical concepts and cool mysteries all dripping with atmosphere. Awakenings replaces most of that with action and the occasional quip. It’s the Inquisition in comic book form (which fits with Sabbathiel’s history as a comic book character). It’s not a bad book by BL standards, the writing’s good enough and I liked the character interplay even if everyone largely comes across as bland archetypes, but compared to what’s come before it’s distinctly lacking.

The good:

Quotes. There are quotes at the beginning of each chapter. Mann puts some of his best writing into these. I don’t know if they’re all original or taken from elsewhere in the setting though.

Prose. Mann’s a pretty good writer in terms of sentence construction and dialogue. Nothing exceptional, but it moves quickly and has a sense of wit to it from time to time, like a marvel movie.

Character interactions. I wasn’t too impressed with the characters, they felt bland and cliche, especially Sabbathiel. However I liked the way they all bickered with one another at times.

Bledheim: the most interesting member of Sabbathiel’s retinue, I think he’s more appealing than the title character if I’m being honest.

Neither good nor bad:

Accessibility: you could probably hand this book to a 40k newcomer or a younger readers and they would be able to understand and enjoy it. It’s still violent, definitely not a kids book, but it has the simplified structure of a young adult novel. Mann writes young adult fiction, so that’s not totally surprising.

The bad:

Atmosphere. 40k is dripping in atmosphere, something the Inquisition novels usually capture perfectly. This book has none of that. It’s a series of loosely described places that could fit in with most sci-fi settings. Most of the attention is on the characters.

Plot: it’s an extremely generic plot that does nothing to expand on the setting. If anything it seems to flirt with relevance and intrigue then actively reject it.

Sabbathiel: We spend a lot of time with her POV. I would’ve much preferred to stick with the members of her entourage who aren’t so earnestly and unrealistically naive.

Lack of believability: the way the characters meander through their investigation kinda undermines the notion of the Inquisition as competent. It’s clear Mann was heavily inspired by Ravenor but Abnett’s just on an entirely different level. His characters plot and plan where Sabbathiel mostly just marches into places and asks obvious questions. 

This review is more negative than I expected, since I generally enjoyed reading the book. I just don’t think it stands up well in the face of consideration or comparison. 7.0, to taste.

Edited October 11, 2022 by cheywood