What Are You Reading?

[Major Rawne]

So The Warmaster was excellent. It was great to finally be back with Gaunts and his Ghosts, so much happened and so much was cruely left open ended for the next book.

Moving away from BL for the next read, Welcome to Night Vale. Very weird so far, like what I heard of the podcast.

[Aristedes Colettas]

Finished Devastation Of Baal – Wowee 10/10 for me again. This one had everything. Mysterious visions by Mephiston. Guy Haley made me actually feel how old and weary Dante is after 1500 years made me weary to try to fathom living that long. Interesting point of view and sad if it’s true by Gabriel Seth from the Flesh Tearers regarding his opinion on the Primaris Marines. I was expecting Deathwatch to show up but a mysterious chapter of Black Space Marines adorned with f****s and s****s show up. This book surprises and amazes. Highly recommended. Hope Guy Haley writes more Blood Angels and hopefully Sanguinius in the Primarch series.

Now back to the Horus Heresy Reading Book 36 – The Path Of Heaven – Chris Wraight.

Cheers

[Aristedes Colettas]

Taking a pause on The Path Of Heaven and then resuming from Chapter 12. Going back to the Scars novel to Read Chapters 20-23 Confrontation between Jaghatai Khan and Mortarion.

Cheers

[Chun the Unavoidable]

A Ramsey Campbell novella next: Needing Ghosts.

[Chun the Unavoidable]

Grass, Sheri S Tepper.

[Xisor]

I finished up Devastation of Baal last week (tremendous, btw), and nipped right on into Ruinstorm by David Annandale.

Got to a point where I'm really enjoying the monumental weirdness of it. (Classic Annandale style, now let free to fly quite bonkers.) That said, I did take a step back at one point and think "I can remember almost none of this Imperium Secundus business", so now I'm partially stepping aside from it to have a big re-read of:
- The First Heretic
- Fear to Tread
- Vulkan Lives
- Know No Fear
- Barry of Espandor
- Macragge's Honour
- The Honoured & the Unburdened
- Betrayer
- The Unremembered Empire
- Deathfire
- Heart of the Pharos
- Pharos
- Angels of Caliban
- Ruinstorm (not yet read)
- Sons of the Forge (not yet read)
- Old Earth (not yet read)

I should probably see about getting Prince of Crows in there, and possibly The Lion too, but already it's a huge list!

[Aristedes Colettas]

Wow that’s a whole lot of novels to get through Xisor.

Finished The Path Of Heaven wow 10/10. Excellent work Mr. Wraight. That creature Mortarion had the “djemdja falak” was utterly grimdark.
Now someone write a novel for Revuel Arvida Sorcerer of the Thousand Sons who becomes something else…..(Not telling). Also I wonder if there are any Thousand Sons remaining currently in the lore that are somewhere out there still in their red and gold armour loyal to the Emperor. That would be cool.

Now off to read Lucius: the Faultless Blade by Ian St. Martin

Cheers

[Xisor]

Wow that’s a whole lot of novels to get through Xisor.

Perhaps too many, I got a third into 'The First Heretic' and found myself wanting to nip back to the Ant Reynolds one in Tales of Heresy! I then grew impatient about getting back to 'Ruinstorm', so I'm... bookmarking the idea!

Finished The Path Of Heaven wow 10/10. Excellent work Mr. Wraight. That creature Mortarion had the “djemdja falak” was utterly grimdark.
Now someone write a novel for Revuel Arvida Sorcerer of the Thousand Sons who becomes something else…..(Not telling). Also I wonder if there are any Thousand Sons remaining currently in the lore that are somewhere out there still in their red and gold armour loyal to the Emperor. That would be cool.

Couldn't agree more - I thought Wraight did amazing things with Scars, but Path of Heaven managed to sustain and even surpass it. Gorgeous novels!

----

'Ruinstorm' is surprisingly decent - I really like a lot of the constancy of the madness Annandale's had the opportunity to play with.

I'm not as enamoured with his depiction of the Primarchs directly, but their dance against the storm is a hugely satisfying read - compared to somewhat similar novels like "Unremembered Empire", "Fear To Tread", "Deathfire" and such, it feels like a much tighter vision of a novel, one that has a lot more internal consistency and integrity and vision - which for a cosmic horror epic, is surprisingly human and relatable. Some really terrific stuff.

[Rob P]

I've been reading more Lincoln Rhymes over the last few weeks (books 4-6). So far so good but library doesn't have the next one.

I've just picked up Old Earth and i'm contemplating The Last Hunt after that.

[Aristedes Colettas]

Finished Lucius The Faultless Blade. I must say this was a good book. 9/10 for me. Congrats Ian St. Martin.
Best line was from Lucius to Apothecary Cesare and Fabius Bile.

‘Enough,’ growled Lucius, interjecting himself between the two fleshsmiths. ‘I did not cut my way out from the Eye to listen to lover’s quarrel, Fabius.’

Up next starting the Space Marine Battles novel “Overfiend” by David Annandale.

Cheers

[Major Rawne]

Raced through the last Welcome to Night Vale last night. It was good, just a shame that all the weird stuff I enjoyed about the book drifted away as the storyline solidified.

Going to continue on with The Ashes of Prospero, which I started over my lunchtimes last week. It's interesting so far and much like Devastation of Baal, Gav seems to really be tying it into the recent events involving the Space Wolves.

Also took delivery of Magos back end of last week and made a small dive into the short stories, the first couple of which I don't remember having read before, which was a nice surprise.

[Rob P]

I've skipped the books i've mentioned above and gone for Ashes of Prospero.

I'm 2/3 in at the moment and i've got mixed feelings about it.

I'll try and set them down here when i've finished.

[Lord of the Night]

Finished Lukas the Trickster last night. It was quite an enjoyable book and one of the truly better Space Wolf novels, which I found rather impressive given that Josh told me he hates the Wolves and still didn't care much for them after writing this book, but his portrayal of Lukas as the necessary outsider, the wild card, among a Chapter of tradition bound glory-seeking warriors was brilliant. And the impeccably devilish Duke Sliscus was a true delight, one of my favourite 40k characters finally got to appear in a novel and he didn't disappoint on even a single page, keeping me guessing at what he would do and giving some of the funniest lines in the entire book.

Some of the best parts though, apart from Space Wolves breaking Dark Eldar with their bare hands and Lukas trolling the living hell out of the Kabalites, was the Strifeson's unexpected views on Fenris, the Space Wolves, and Leman Russ. I won't spoil them but it was very intriguing to see such a point of view, and it only makes me want the return of Russ even more so that Lukas can have his chance to ask his gene-father some important questions, and hopefully take the Wolf King down a notch.

Next i'm returning to an old and missed friend, the man known only as D! The 25th volume of Vampire Hunter D titled Undead Island, it's been more than a year since I read one of the great D's adventures and it feels good to be getting back to the Frontier.


LotN

[Rob P]

Review of Ashes of Prospero - I don't think it spoils, but better to be safe than sorry.

Spoiler: I'm going to preface this by saying that I don't particularly like the Space Wolves. This is a culmination of reading various novels where the authors do a good job of showing both sides to the Space Wolves. They are honourable and heroic but they also ooze hubris and often have egotistical certainty in their actions.

I found this book difficult to review because there is a massive amount of things I liked and an equal amount of things I didn't like.

It''s set in the Dark Imperium era and the setting appears to follow on from the events in Warzone Fenris (which I haven't read).

I'll throw out the Black Library blurb as the amazon one contains different information and typos:

The grand halls of Fenris grow ever quieter following arduous campaigns. Concerned by his Chapter’s diminishing numbers, the Great Wolf Logan Grimnar entrusts Njal Stormcaller to uncover the remedy of their plight. When a 10,000-year-old enemy embeds itself in the Rune Priest’s mind, it claims the salvation he seeks lies where it all began. On Prospero. Alongside an eclectic company of injured Space Wolves, Thralls and a Trickster who is more hindrance than help, the Stormcaller sets forth. But it soon becomes apparent that greater mechanisms are at work. It is no longer only the Sons of Russ’ fate at stake, but the entire Imperium.

I felt that the tone was not quite what I was expecting, the writing was uneven and the pace was not quite right.

Let's start with the tone. The book has Lukas Trickster in it (I don't consider this a massive spoiler as is says as much in the the blurb). This sets the tone of the book. It's quite cartoon-like rather than, say, the Horus Heresy which feels grandiose with an undercurrent of being serious. There is nothing wrong with this, because 40k is often done this way (Think Space Wolf versus Wolf King), but I didn't particularly expect it or want it. It was insufficiently dark. Also, there were a couple of scenes that felt too staged - think the Crazy 88 scene from Kill Bill.

Next is the writing. When I say it's uneven, I might be using the wrong word. I liked a lot of the dialogue and some of the hints at more from the characters that didn't quite make it to the page. There were a couple of fighting scenes that I really enjoyed because they were focusses on the combatants rather than the fight as a whole. And, in case I forget to say it later, I enjoyed what I considered to be plot A which was the relationship between Njal and the '10,000-year-old enemy'. I was incredibly satisfied with how that ended.

There were two main issues I had. The first is that I found a lot of the combat scenes boring to the point I was practically skipping over them. I didn't care for the overall context of a lot of the fights. In defence of the action, it's standard fare for this sort of action in 40k. As mentioned above I engage a lot better when the action is the background to what the characters are doing rather than at the forefront. I also found a lot of the descriptive paragraphs said a lot more than I needed. For example, there is a scene where some of the characters go in a port tower and the inside is described in some detail and I was internally screaming for the story to move on. I just didn't care.

The second issue was how some of the characters behaved. Lukas just does not work for me - though I though his big scene was excellent. Also there were some early bits with Njal where he 'goes to mum and she says no, so he asks dad' and it felt like that rather than something else.

In terms of the pacing I felt the first 1/3 took too long to set the story up or that it lacked sufficient content to justify taking so long to set the story up. Once that was overcome it felt that the pacing really sped up and get into a groove. I'm surprised that the book is 350 pages as it felt like it was a lot shorter, hence I felt I was losing pages on not a lot happening.

In terms of plot, as I said above I was happy with the conclusion of the 'Njal and the Enemy' story. Some people might be disappointed if they wanted something bigger than the story from the story (e.g. a massive shift for the Space Wolves into the Dark Imperium) - though there is something of a smaller change to the universe by the end of the book. The big unknown threat hinted at in the blurb comes a bit too late to really have a punch. That didn't bother me too much but I think it was a misstep in placing it in the blurb.

Overall it fits well into the theme of Conquests (aka Space Marine Battles 2). It has some nice plot points and it has a LOT of action.

[Therion]

WARHAMMER IS FOR EVERYONE EXCEPT FOR ME

[Duke_Leto]

Reading The Magos. Working through the short stories first and how great it is to be reacquainted with those wonderful tales. I really thought I had read absolutely everything Abnett had ever written for W40k but both Pestilence and The Curiosity were new to me so that was a massive bonus.

Had contemplated re-reading Malleus, Xenos, Hereticus, Ravenor, Returned, Rogue yet again (but chronologically with the shorts as detailed in the contents page - nice touch that) but I simply could not wait to get to The Magos itself. However, I do expect to re-read Pariah (again) after The Magos.

[Major Rawne]

Took the time to race through the last half of Ashes of Prospero over the weekend. On the whole it was good and I did enjoy it, though I find myself agreeing with a lot of the points that Rob raises. There's a lot going on in this book but it never felt like all of it was given the right amount of time to develop and flourish and so detracts from what should have been an epic saga in the history of the Space Wolves.

Up next is Crusaders of Dorn from Guy Haley, so my expectations are high for enjoyment.

[Chun the Unavoidable]

The Erstwhile, B Catling.

[Xisor]

I found I really liked the non-Prospero-related bits of "Ashes of prospero". Not that I didnt enjoy the rest, but that that early portion of the novel was by far the more interesting and engaging. Well, for me at least!

----

I've been reading "Damocles" at the moment. Four novellas - hooray. Reading Josh's (the fourth) at the moment and I'm a touch perplexed why it's the last when it's chronologically before the first, but not to worry- they're all grand.

Phil's first was a bit shaky, but Guy's and Ben's were terrific. The 'twist' in Ben's is such a clever and yet utterly pedestrian and believable insight into the Tau. But it's all good too, especially given the bad rap these all get from Tau fiends online (ATT really despise this lot, I understand - the fools).

Quite looking forward to some more Tau stories too. And damn, I wish Andy Chambers wrote more. His "The Arkunasha War" was amazing stuff.

[Duke_Leto]

Finished The Magos. Awesome. Brilliant. Loved it. Loved being back amongst Dan Abnett's Inquisition stories after such a long wait (Pariah came out in 2012). Really really cannot wait for Penitient now (Dan promises in the foreword he is writing it and the next one Pandemonium).

I do wonder if folks read The Magos first and then Pariah whether it will spoil some of the mystery and joy (IMO) that came with that book. The Magos provides a fair bit of explanation for Pariah taking away much of the "wrongness" e reader feels at first when reading Pariah which I believe is a shame.

Anyway, I am now going to read Pariah again...I just have to!