Genefather by Guy Haley

[Nagashsnee]

  On 10/20/2023 at 1:32 AM, Krelious said:

I hate to say this but I think this is one of those books where the limited edition short story is necessary to getting a bigger picture thematically. I found this book to be delightful, well paced and tight and what I mean by tight is I generally dont enjoy the larger sprawling books like the siege of terra novels or fall of Cadia because there's too many characters to keep track of.

 

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I purposefully read the book first, then went back to the LE short story as i like to see how 'needed' it is.  I would not say its necessary, only that it greatly enhances the experience. 

[Osteoclast]

Enjoyed the book, a couple thoughts

 

  Reveal hidden contents

Primus was definitely holding the idiot ball during this book. 
 

Frenk, the hostile interrogator, comes off as *way* too cliche to feel believable.

 

Porter has got to have absolutely insane caloric requirements. I know absolutely no sci-fi writers care about that, and the SM Codex says they hardly need to eat which is nonsense I ignore, but still. 
 

Oswa, the map dude, is 100% Inquisition.

 

Lots of zygotes in progenoid, as implied by ending, makes more sense than only able to create two space marines for every mature harvested marine especially with failures and rejection.

 

If Bile did successfully clone all the primarchs (doubt), what need does he have of the Sangprimus Portem or Primus?

[Dzirhan]

  On 10/20/2023 at 8:29 AM, Nagashsnee said:

I purposefully read the book first, then went back to the LE short story as i like to see how 'needed' it is.  I would not say its necessary, only that it greatly enhances the experience. 

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To Speak as One was available in Nexus and Other Stories for anyone who does not have the LE and want to read it

[lansalt]

  On 10/17/2023 at 1:05 AM, DarkChaplain said:

That's it. From this, we cannot actually tell how the whole multiple-versions shenanigans has affected him.

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Honestly, the "we don't know what happened since the last time we saw <insert character>!" is not a satisfactory explanation for me at all. If the author(s) do not provide explicit or implicit reasons, it just feels like a cop out or a plot hole at best. Specially when talking about important characters that are introduced with little background, and which the reader/watcher is expected to already know from previous works.
We can speculate or make excuses for this, but despite being quite entertaining the Fabius  in this book just doesn't match neither the one in his last previous story, or the one in War of the Spider. The presence of Butcher-Bird and Vesalius makes this even more evident. It feels like the author was checking out the boxes of fan favourites.

I really liked this book and I want more, but this was an undeniable weak point that robs the ending of the Fabius trilogy of a bit of his pathos and meaningful sacrifices.

[Lord Nord in Gravis Armour]

  On 10/20/2023 at 2:25 PM, Dzirhan said:

To Speak as One was available in Nexus and Other Stories for anyone who does not have the LE and want to read it

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It's also been available as an eBook since it was first released just before The Great Work.

 

Black Library link

 

Edited October 20, 2023 by Lord Nord

[Ubiquitous1984]

Thanks to everyone who has shared their views so far.  This was a really fun book, much like The Great Work.  I'd go as far to say that Cawl is my favourite 40k character.  He steals the scene every time he is featured.  I love him because of his flaws, and Haley writes him wonderfully.

 

I don't have much to add that hasn't already been mentioned.  The book was very focused, and I appreciate that.  Too many BL books ramble on with themselves.  This book, much less so and is all the better for it.

 

Finally, John Banks delivers yet another tremendous performance for the audiobook.  I am also listening to The End and the Death right now, and Jonathan Keeble gives a tour de force delivery to match the scope of the book.  We are so lucky to have so many great VA's working for BL (with only a few duds).  I implore those of you who have never listened to BL to give it a try.  

 

 

Edited October 23, 2023 by Ubiquitous1984

[theSpirea]

Finally got around reading this one. Glad I didn't go for the LE.

  Reveal hidden contents

Well, the usual Haley exposition dump.

It's a step down from 'The Great Work' and several steps down from Bile's trilogy, which is excellent. Bile's trilogy stands as one of the best works Black Library has to offer. As much as I like Haley, he can't quite match Reynolds when it comes to swiftly establishing compelling characters I genuinely care about. Many scenes read as if he included them solely for the sake of advancing the plot.

 

'The Great Work' achieved a semblance of balance: Cawl's silliness counterbalanced Scytches's 'grim.' Now, we're left only with the comical aspect. It's not just Cawl; other characters like Oswen, Frenk, and a few more come off as annoying and act or speak like fools. I do appreciate Cawl, but he needs other characters to provide balance, and the current ones fail in that regard. This gives the impression of reading young adult fiction.

Porter and Brutus also seem like mere plot devices. If Haley intended to introduce them properly to the story, the book should have been much longer. This is entirely on him, no need to blame BL for limiting the novel length, he had plenty of room to add another 50-100 pages. The entire Knights plot could have been easily omitted, as it lacked proper development and added nothing to the narrative.

 

All in all, it's a decent read. If I were to rate Bile's trilogy as 9/10 and 'The Great Work' as 7/10, this one should be a 5/10. However, I'm going to give it a 6/10 since Haley didn't completely butcher Bile's characters."

 

I forgot to add, the trial scene was as poorly executed as 'The Last Church.' Neither Haley nor McNeill seem capable of crafting believable arguments for both sides, resulting in one party appearing utterly incompetent and moronic.

 

Edited October 23, 2023 by theSpirea

[DarkChaplain]

  Reveal hidden contents

The "Trial" really held no legitimacy whatsoever in the first place, something the judge and jury made sure to state multiple times.

 

They were humoring an inquisitorial agent from their midst, but most of the ones invited were already convinced to join with Cawl - they were his fans even before being invited, after all. So not only was nobody besides Frenk looking to convict Cawl even if he was a heretek, they were actively looking for plausible deniability about his actions so they could shrug them off, bringing no harm to themselves. It's also noted that one of the motivations of some forgeworlds that'd ally with Cawl was to get that outlawed xenotech for themselves...

 

Frenk never had a chance, which was made clear from the first moment he appeared, being made to set down his shuttle the furthest away from politically relevant locations on the forge world he visited. He was in hotter water than Cawl was, already discredited as disloyal, offering Mechanicus secrets to the Inquisition and betraying their mandate.

 

Which is to say: The entire trial was a sham, something even acknowledged and joked about. Heck, Anaxerxes even said as much:

 

  Quote

‘I demand that Cawl is turned over to me once I have presented the list of charges,’ said Frenk.

‘Negative. We shall depart. Cawl will go free. Consider that a victory. It is the fullest extent of indulgence you shall have. Remember, this will be a debate. This is not the trial of Belisarius Cawl!’

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I wouldn't expect an earnest defense from somebody who already knows it's all just a circus to pay lip service to an outside authority by the judge & jury, who themselves even ridicule the prosecution. One side appearing incompetent and moronic so they could brush them off easily was the entire point to the in-universe characters, but to the reader, it was also meant to showcase the inherent Mechanicum hypocrisy as well as Cawl's outward mental gymnastics regarding his in principle outlawed experiments.

 

[Felix Antipodes]

Great read.  It restored my faith in the setting after a run of ‘less engaging’ novels of late.

 

I felt the whole ‘trial of Cawl’ sequence was aimed at the anti-Cawl fan base.  The ‘charges’ were almost straight out of various forums I’ve read here and elsewhere wrt how the character has destroyed the setting for them.  For those who thought Frank was over dramatic, he seemed almost sedate compared to some fanatics within my own circle.

 

While being very much a second of a trilogy, it didn’t suffer from the usual faults these middle books usually suffer from ie 200 odd ages of holding pattern.

[theSpirea]

  On 10/24/2023 at 1:06 PM, DarkChaplain said:

  Reveal hidden contents

The "Trial" really held no legitimacy whatsoever in the first place, something the judge and jury made sure to state multiple times.

 

They were humoring an inquisitorial agent from their midst, but most of the ones invited were already convinced to join with Cawl - they were his fans even before being invited, after all. So not only was nobody besides Frenk looking to convict Cawl even if he was a heretek, they were actively looking for plausible deniability about his actions so they could shrug them off, bringing no harm to themselves. It's also noted that one of the motivations of some forgeworlds that'd ally with Cawl was to get that outlawed xenotech for themselves...

 

Frenk never had a chance, which was made clear from the first moment he appeared, being made to set down his shuttle the furthest away from politically relevant locations on the forge world he visited. He was in hotter water than Cawl was, already discredited as disloyal, offering Mechanicus secrets to the Inquisition and betraying their mandate.

 

Which is to say: The entire trial was a sham, something even acknowledged and joked about. Heck, Anaxerxes even said as much:

 

 

I wouldn't expect an earnest defense from somebody who already knows it's all just a circus to pay lip service to an outside authority by the judge & jury, who themselves even ridicule the prosecution. One side appearing incompetent and moronic so they could brush them off easily was the entire point to the in-universe characters, but to the reader, it was also meant to showcase the inherent Mechanicum hypocrisy as well as Cawl's outward mental gymnastics regarding his in principle outlawed experiments.

 

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I don't argue the trial was or wasn't a sham, I'm saying it was poorly written from Frenk's perspective. This is fully on Haley and whether he's going for a joke doesn't change it.

[godking]

  On 10/20/2023 at 11:14 AM, Osteoclast said:

Enjoyed the book, a couple thoughts

 

 

  Reveal hidden contents

Primus was definitely holding the idiot ball during this book. 
 

Frenk, the hostile interrogator, comes off as *way* too cliche to feel believable.

 

Porter has got to have absolutely insane caloric requirements. I know absolutely no sci-fi writers care about that, and the SM Codex says they hardly need to eat which is nonsense I ignore, but still. 
 

Oswa, the map dude, is 100% Inquisition.

 

Lots of zygotes in progenoid, as implied by ending, makes more sense than only able to create two space marines for every mature harvested marine especially with failures and rejection.

 

If Bile did successfully clone all the primarchs (doubt), what need does he have of the Sangprimus Portem or Primus?

 

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Bile succesfully cloned 3 primarchs that we know of Horus Fulgrim and Ferrus Manus its not a big stretch that he was succesfull in cloning other Primarchs.

[Scribe]

  On 10/23/2023 at 8:40 PM, theSpirea said:

Finally got around reading this one. Glad I didn't go for the LE.

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Was on the fence, but only because I find the Bile trilogy to be very close to (if not the) best of BL.

 

Looks like I just wait for the next Siege book.

[Subtleknife]

I enjoyed it but I felt like there were too many things going on for such a short story. It has left a lot of threads dangling for other books and I look forward to seeing where they go

[theSpirea]

  On 10/24/2023 at 4:51 PM, Scribe said:

 

Was on the fence, but only because I find the Bile trilogy to be very close to (if not the) best of BL.

 

Looks like I just wait for the next Siege book.

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Don't let my opinion stop you from reading it. It seems I'm in the minority here and many people liked it. I didn't hate it - a 5/10 is still a decent rating, but Halye's info-dump style isn't my favorite.

[Orange Knight]

  On 10/24/2023 at 4:51 PM, Scribe said:

 

Was on the fence, but only because I find the Bile trilogy to be very close to (if not the) best of BL.

 

Looks like I just wait for the next Siege book.

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Well, if you read through that spoiler tag to form an opinion, I doubt you had serious intent on reading this novel.

 

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I have a very different opinion on the trial. I found it to be a very effective commentary and mockery against the status quo of the setting, the developments that have occurred that challenge it, and some of the more vocal and emotional real-life detractors of the events and characters made by famous in the Era Indomitus.

 

In a lot of 40k stories we encounter petty, puritanical and inflexible elements of the Inquisition, that we as outside readers recognise to often be causing more harm to the Imperium than good. A great example of this occurs in the "Spear of the Emperor" novel.

 

I found it extremely satisfying to see the Inquisition made to look and feel so impotent, and to simply be silenced and ignored. 

 

In general the Cawl books have a comedic element to them, Cawl himself being an extremely wry and sardonic character. This is intentional and not a flaw. This book, in tone, is probably most similar to something like "The Infinite and the Devine" which again, has a strong focus on comedy and a satirical twitst of the tropes in the setting.

Edited October 25, 2023 by Orange Knight

[theSpirea]

  On 10/25/2023 at 9:52 AM, Orange Knight said:

 

Well, if you read through that spoiler tag to form an opinion, I doubt you had serious intent on reading this novel.

 

  Reveal hidden contents

I have a very different opinion on the trial. I found it to be a very effective commentary and mockery against the status quo of the setting, the developments that have occurred that challenge it, and some of the more vocal and emotional real-life detractors of the events and characters made by famous in the Era Indomitus.

 

In a lot of 40k stories we encounter petty, puritanical and inflexible elements of the Inquisition, that we as outside readers recognise to often be causing more harm to the Imperium than good. A great example of this occurs in the "Spear of the Emperor" novel.

 

I found it extremely satisfying to see the Inquisition made to look and feel so impotent, and to simply be silenced and ignored. 

 

In general the Cawl books have a comedic element to them, Cawl himself being an extremely wry and sardonic character. This is intentional and not a flaw. This book, in tone, is probably most similar to something like "The Infinite and the Devine" which again, has a strong focus on comedy and a satirical twitst of the tropes in the setting.

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Except in The Infinite and the Divine where it's done well, and neither character comes across as a complete idiot. That's my main issue with that scene, and generally Halye's ability to pull this off.

Another example is Ghazghkull Thraka: Prophet of the Waaagh! - an excellent blend of grim, humor, and silly characters versus Brutal Kunnin' - juvenile writing, aimlessly hammering down the silly part in an attempt at humor.

[wecanhaveallthree]

  Reveal hidden contents

I feel like it was made very clear from the start that Fenk is a literal patsy. He's there because he's an idiot. He's not a rational, logical Inquisitor there to press proper charges and meet the Mechanicus on their own ground with rational discourse. If he was, nobody would have let him within sight of the meeting and Cawl would never have agreed to the 'debate'. He is a useful idiot, a vehicle for Cawl to answer his Mechanicus critics without engaging his Mechanicus critics. He signposts it himself. Arguing with them on dogmatic grounds would be a fraught experience, but Frenk is just part of Cawl's presentation. He's audience participation.

 

Frenk is manipulated and taken advantage of, and Cawl plays very heavily into the delegate's notions of superiority and independence while doing so. It's very relevant that during an appeal for help in doing something that is very forbidden that Cawl specifically attacks an authority, challenges proscription and 'triumphs'. He's playing on the ever-present Martian ego of 'nobody tells us what to do' and the Quest for Knowledge. Look at this small-minded guy, he's saying, are you going to let someone who can't even do proper binharic put barriers in front of us? Cawl is 'proving' the validity of his approach and his appeal by 'beating' Frenk - and trusting in Martian hubris that nobody will see how he's set such a soft target up to begin with. It's also signposted that Cawl picked his invitations with special care. He's playing to a home crowd here, too.

 

I don't think it's wrong to want a better argument. I think we were all short-changed from the novel description as a 'meeting of the greatest Martian minds', and to have Cawl peddle snake oil without challenge can definitely feel like a rip-off. But it's not a question of Haley not being capable of making a good argument but rather one of deliberate narrative choice. If that doesn't work for you, fair cop, but let's acknowledge that there's a lot of thought gone into the construction.

[Orange Knight]

Keep in mind that they weren't specifically the greatest Martian minds. They were chosen Magi from Forgeworlds that already had great support for Cawl and had benefitted from his discoveries. It was a curated crowd of his supporters.

 

Some of them were openly greedy for Xenotech. 

Edited October 25, 2023 by Orange Knight

[Scribe]

  On 10/25/2023 at 9:52 AM, Orange Knight said:

Well, if you read through that spoiler tag to form an opinion, I doubt you had serious intent on reading this novel.

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I didnt. I was only considering it because of how well the last set of books covered Bile. I've been either meh to disappointed with every Haley book I've purchased and so will save my money for the series that I care to see finished.

[Roomsky]

Genefather - Guy Haley (Audiobook)

 

Grabbed the audiobook for this so John Banks could give me the best continuity from the Bile series and probably elevate the prose some. Even so, I was pleasantly surprised by this.

 

Much like The Great Work, this is a pleasant read almost completely bereft of pointless action scenes. That the first fight is a good third into the book certainly endeared it to me more than it might have otherwise. It really is mostly Cawl being an amusing troll with a smattering of Bile here and there. Haley essentially created Cawl as a character, so no complaints on that front. Fabius doesn't measure up to Reynolds', but I wouldn't expect him to. That he's clearly the same character suffices for me - for all my problems with Haley, he works hard to respect the work of others (even if he often fails, IMO.) Bile is thankfully completely adequate here.

 

Haley has also graduated from vast swathes of narrated exposition swelling out of a barely related sentence. Unfortunately, it results in characters having conversations about things they already know, constantly, but at least it informs the characters instead of purely being useless trivia.

 

The overall plot is mostly just a vehicle for neat scenes, but the scenes are, in fact, neat. Even the Knight Titan scenes were okay this time, unlike in Titandeath, which were vile. Mostly, it's just good fun! Often clumsy, shallow fun, but fun! And I appreciate it knows where its priorities lay. It makes good use of its premise, IMO, as it was never going to be a proper Bile book. We got Cawl and Bile sniping at each other, and I'm satisfied with that.

 

7.5/10, probably a point less without John Banks' narration. 

 

Also I'm calling the police if y'all compare Guy Haley favourably to Terry Pratchett ever again.

Edited November 9, 2023 by Roomsky

[cheywood]

Guy Haley is the BL equivalent of Brad Pitt. To expand further on that outwardly ridiculous statement: Brad Pitt is often described as a character actor in a leading man’s body. He gets cast as a lead in movies because he’s attractive and charismatic, but he does his best work in supporting roles or ensemble casts where he can get a little weird with things. Haley, similarly, is often front and center for BL’s big novels - Dark Imperium, Devastation of Baal, Dawn of Fire - because he can write quickly and competently across most of BL’s major settings. But Haley’s best work, in my opinion, is done on the margins where he can play with quirkier characters. 
 

Genefather, in my opinion, is a perfect example of this. It’s a wonderful little novel. I enjoyed it as the piece of lighthearted (by 40k standards) fun it was, though the ending was surprisingly poignant. Haley’s mastery of Cawl is apparent throughout the book, and I was impressed by his portrait of Bile, who’s lacking in complexity but still highly entertaining. I do wish a little bit less time was spent on the side characters, as I’d have liked more interaction between the two geniuses at the heart of the story. Haley seems to have interesting things planned out from this book, excited to see where it all goes! 
 

I will say though, I’m surprised at how many people are calling this their favorite book of the year. It’s excellent but a little lacking in depth, which is how I feel about a lot of Haley’s work. It’ll probably end up just outside my top five for the year.

 

8.5/10

[MarineRaiderII]

I finished this last week. I liked it for the most part. You really have to suspend military practices when reading these books though. Cawl, his ship, his work would not be allowed to leave secure locations. If he needed to visit or explore worlds he would be doing it at first with Zoom calls 40k style and sending emissaries because he is far too valuable to lose or travel without a fleet and a few thousand Space Marines as a personal guard.

 

The fact a small force can even threaten him is annoying.

 

Is Cawl building SM on a constant basis for replenishment or is that at the Chapter level now only?

[Nagashsnee]

  On 1/10/2024 at 2:31 AM, MarineRaiderII said:

I finished this last week. I liked it for the most part. You really have to suspend military practices when reading these books though. Cawl, his ship, his work would not be allowed to leave secure locations. If he needed to visit or explore worlds he would be doing it at first with Zoom calls 40k style and sending emissaries because he is far too valuable to lose or travel without a fleet and a few thousand Space Marines as a personal guard.

 

The fact a small force can even threaten him is annoying.

 

Is Cawl building SM on a constant basis for replenishment or is that at the Chapter level now only?

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In a setting and period where even the high lords of terra can get into frontline combat/super secret black ops. Cawl going around in his giant ship full of major military assets to meet other armed ships (friendlys) full of military assets at a secret secure location is pretty sane by 40k standards.

 

Yeah anyone can make them now so no real need for Cawl to keep pumping them out. 

[Matcap86]

I recently finished this book and wow was it a disappointment for me. Where Sea of Souls was a return to the "good" old style of 40k novels. This was a return to the "bad" old style of 40k novels. Ramble of thoughts/opinion incoming:

 

I liked the Great Work fine enough so with the Bile trilogy being an excellent series, combining those two should be pretty good in my expectations. 

 

The interactions between Cawl and the other characters were... fine? Though him being an invulnerable Mary Sue did get grating at times. Where in the Great Work it felt like there were actual stakes, and Cawl was out of his depth at times, here every situation felt like a prompt for Cawl to grab another McGuffin from his back pocket to solve the situation. 

 

If: 

  Reveal hidden contents

Primus had died at the end, there might have been an option to add some depth to Cawl's character. Show some actual emotion/loss.

But nope, he's fine, fixed and it's just a setup for Bile to have his McGuffin in the next novel. 

 

The Dark Mechanicum characters were also severely underutilised in my opinion, being nothing more than vehicles to get other characters from A to B. 

 

One glaring thing that stuck out to me is that it has one of my pet peeves in BL novels; which is to have clear product placement with the Knight scenes and the chaos warband. Going out of it's way to clearly point out and describe every single purchasable miniature in the scene with their product names. I heard "AVAILABLE NOW IN STORES" every time a new description was done in my head. Those scenes were also only there to product place I feel, with no actual impact on the story. 

 

The one saving grace for me were Q'vo and Primus who get some much needed exposition, though far too little for my tastes. 

 

The book has some neat ideas: Q'vo, Primus, the multiple personalities from Cawl, but it falls short and does very little interesting with them.

 

Aside from that it made the Galaxy feel smaller. I prefer my 40k novels to be set in a giant universe with characters influencing their small sphere around them. Here we're more veering towards Star Wars and Marvel style storytelling, where the universe/world exists to provide a playground for a (small) group of characters, which is fine if you like that, but not what I enjoy in 40k. 

 

4/10 for me. 

 

Edited February 25, 2024 by Matcap86

[Nagashsnee]

  On 2/25/2024 at 10:59 AM, Matcap86 said:

Aside from that it made the Galaxy feel smaller. I prefer my 40k novels to be set in a giant universe with characters influencing their small sphere around them. Here we're more veering towards Star Wars and Marvel style storytelling, where the universe/world exists to provide a playground for a (small) group of characters, which is fine if you like that, but not what I enjoy in 40k. 

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This can hardly be pinned at the book or its author. Modern 40k lore IS small lore. Names characters are everywhere and can travel anywhere at will,  200 year time skips without a single notable marine death (safest profession in the galaxy) ,  high lords of terra on the front lines  and multiple primarchs leading the charge. 

 

Post primaris/time jump 40k HAS been made smaller by design. Sure there is still plenty of BL novels without the main dudes, but the 'main' story progression is 100% named character driven, always constantly and at no fear of anyone suffering any actual ill effects. 

 

Ragnar chops Gaz head off while taking mortal blows? Both ok!

Calgar goes mano a mano vs Abaddon, no issues either way see you all next time! 

Baal is invaded and the chapters suffer more loses in a day then the last 2 centuries? Again no issues for anyone of note. 

 

The main studio has decreed 40k be made to spin around named characters and primarchs and that means the galaxy NEEDS to be smaller and safer. 

 

And while i hate it with every fiber of my being its not this books fault.  If anything having Cawl admit in stages  that he did not in fact invent everything but instead has HUGE teams behind him/stealing any science not nailed down was something Haley has been doing in every Cawl book (or books with him like Darkness in the Blood and the new battle barges). 

Edited February 26, 2024 by Nagashsnee