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Gods of Mars


Ash Da Flash

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The Dark Mechanicium have released the Gods of Mars ebook itno the noosphere (interwebz). Gonna give it a trial read and then purchase once it's available. I enjoyed the first title more than "Priests" and it features everyone's favourite lucky guardsman "Hawke" from Storm of iron etc. Will leave thoughts once the preliminary read-through is complete.

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

I was actually a fan of those novels. McNeill is at his best when he's not writing Space Marines as the primary protagonists.

 

The books are still a bit clumsy and McNeill demonstrates a sadly typical lack of attention to detail (a Space Marine loses his hand but then has two hands later, the Space Marines run out of ammo but have more ammo in the next scene), and there are a fair number of bizarre, nonsensical similes that sound pretty but make no sense ("Like a spider at the centre of its web, Magos Hirimau Dahan drank in the volumes of information" Wait, wat? What does drinking have to do with being a spider at the center of a web?).

 

But overall the trilogy was a fairly interesting narrative that explored its own space in the 40K mythos. Compared to the first two though, Gods was a little tedious as it basically devolved into almost 200 pages of battle scenes, which I'm guessing was a side effect of not having enough material for three full novels, but having to push a minimum page count demanded by TBL.

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Just finished it - have been devouring it, and did thoroughly enjoy it! Perhaps the weakest of the three, but still a good read from start to finish. Nice to tie up lots of things, and still leave a few more open for future. Almost feel as though there could be a spin-off or another... perhaps shorts may be better to explore some of the more subsidiary characters who were great in their own right.

 

 

The books are still a bit clumsy and McNeill demonstrates a sadly typical lack of attention to detail (a Space Marine loses his hand but then has two hands later, the Space Marines run out of ammo but have more ammo in the next scene), and there are a fair number of bizarre, nonsensical similes that sound pretty but make no sense ("Like a spider at the centre of its web, Magos Hirimau Dahan drank in the volumes of information" Wait, wat? What does drinking have to do with being a spider at the center of a web?).

But overall the trilogy was a fairly interesting narrative that explored its own space in the 40K mythos. Compared to the first two though, Gods was a little tedious as it basically devolved into almost 200 pages of battle scenes, which I'm guessing was a side effect of not having enough material for three full novels, but having to push a minimum page count demanded by TBL.

 

Completely agree with some of those nonsensical similes - but that's just McNeill. I simply smile and continue. 

 

Unsure if it was a symptom of the mythical page count (as other authors have mentioned this doesn't exist...) - but it almost felt as thought we were pushed towards just that conclusion, and the end was almost too quick. Could've been expanded further. That said, I did enjoy it - it works well as part of the trilogy, and was suitably epic - even if, as you say, most of it was a running series of battles.

 

Happy, nonetheless!

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  • 2 weeks later...

Wait.

 

Full stop.

 

Guardsman Hawke is back?

I need more information:  how prominently does this Hero of the Imperium feature, and in which of this trilogy's novels does he show up?

I had literally zero interest in this series, but now my interest is piqued!

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Well.

 

The Hrud threat level has certainly escalated from "Whatsa Hurd?" to "OH DEAR GOD GET TO THE LIFEBOATS WE'RE FINDING A NEW PLANET". Although I suppose this also cements that Hrud will never show up on TT due to being hilariously overpowered.

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Well.

 

The Hrud threat level has certainly escalated from "Whatsa Hurd?" to "OH DEAR GOD GET TO THE LIFEBOATS WE'RE FINDING A NEW PLANET". Although I suppose this also cements that Hrud will never show up on TT due to being hilariously overpowered.

 

Yeah, interesting though that they're seen as being so utterly volatile. Nice way to write them out!

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Seriously?

 

The book is atrocious.

 

A space marine dies because someone stabs him through his heart, singular. A more complete list of egregious factors availaboe on the New BL Releases thread in News & Rumours.

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Seriously?

 

The book is atrocious.

 

A space marine dies because someone stabs him through his heart, singular. A more complete list of egregious factors availaboe on the New BL Releases thread in News & Rumours.

 

It was interesting reading those - and might be good to port those here too for a better discussion of them. 

 

Agree with most of the points you raised - although I enjoyed it for what it was, irrespective of there being errors - just because it's fiction and enjoyable!

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I struggled to enjoy it, to be honest. Aside from the errors, watching characters I genuinely liked get derailed and.. what's the word. Not quite flanderized, but... if a good character has depth, can we say that they got flattened?

 

That and the sheer predictability and mood swinginess really irritated me.

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Yeah, I can certainly agree on that front - it's almost as if you wanted a lot longer to deal with the other characters and their own sub-plots, rather than where in places it felt rushed or ignored. The strength of the first two was building that up - and it felt as though a lot of that depth was lost, absolutely.

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Seriously?

 

The book is atrocious.

 

A space marine dies because someone stabs him through his heart, singular. A more complete list of egregious factors availaboe on the New BL Releases thread in News & Rumours.

Got a link for that page? Can't find it.

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Surprised no-one has mentioned that in book 2

we discover that one of the female characters is a clone of a male character that ended up developing as female instead making them Intersex. For a universe that generally gets a lot of flack for basic diversity problems being one of the few representations of an Intersex person in fiction and one who is presented as a strong positive unique character that others care about even though some of the most horrific things in the trilogy happen to her that is a very big deal indeed.



That said however

her final fate and that of the Eldar Farseer do fit the old standard trope of the Bad End for the diverse character (especially common with Lesbian and Transgender characters) while some male character feels bad about it and shows they care, so it would have been much more impressive if actually she was one of the survivors.



As for inconsistencies that's not just the Authors fault it's also the job of the Editors to catch.

It's also worth pointing out that

the book doesn't fully resolve all the threats so another book is quite plausible



All that said i really quite enjoyed it.
Though (massive spoiler here)

i felt especially cheated that Telok survived in that final twist while Linya was entirely killed in her self-sacrifice attempt to destroy him, when he is a pretty run-of-the-mill villain even if enjoyable and she is as i pointed out a very big deal just being in the books let alone a character i really liked.

 

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I dunno. I think you guys are looking for too much in these novels. The characters are always cardstock, whether male or female. I don't really see the fates of the two you mentioned as having anything to do with gender, so much as the role that type of character almost always plays in a 40K story.

 

And no matter what happens in a 40K novel, it's important to understand that there is only war. Which means things will be resolved through fighting, the warrior characters are going to be the focal point of the resolution and characters will die. For the deaths of those two characters there were three other female characters who lived. In a story that killed off a good number of its male characters too.

 

And the endings are rarely happy because that's not grimdark. If you were looking for heroism and sacrifice to ultimately prevail and evil to be defeated, you may be in the wrong license. 

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When you say female characters, do you mean female 'characters'? I totally believe three female 'characters' survive for every female character that dies, but not that three female characters survive for every one that dies.

 

*Puts up riot shield*

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Again, I think you're in the wrong license if you're looking for characters, lol

 

This is the universe where Angryon is the Daemon Primarch of the Chaos God of Being Angry, Mortarion is the Daemon Prince of the Chaos God of Death and Decay and he carries a scythe and wears a hooded robe, and the primarch of the Dark Angels is named Lionel Johnson.

 

 

Can't expect there to be serious character studies, and it's especially silly to expect gender roles to be explored in a universe where sex is so taboo the closest we get is the hint where one character finds another in a third's sleeping quarters, and a girl gives another girl an especially friendly hug.

 

It's like complaining there aren't enough strong female characters in World War 2 movies. 

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Again, I think you're in the wrong license if you're looking for characters, lol

 

This is the universe where Angryon is the Daemon Primarch of the Chaos God of Being Angry, Mortarion is the Daemon Prince of the Chaos God of Death and Decay and he carries a scythe and wears a hooded robe, and the primarch of the Dark Angels is named Lionel Johnson.

 

 

Can't expect there to be serious character studies, and it's especially silly to expect gender roles to be explored in a universe where sex is so taboo the closest we get is the hint where one character finds another in a third's sleeping quarters, and a girl gives another girl an especially friendly hug.

 

It's like complaining there aren't enough strong female characters in World War 2 movies. 

 

Eeeeeexcept both of those characters are psychologically deep. Angron isn't merely angry, his problems are the deep rooted manifestations of him being the only Primarch who didn't conquer his homeworld and didn't die with his brothers like he wanted to, his body is covered in victory ropes but he never even got the victory rope that mattered. Mortarion was, in the just recent Daemonology, explored in his fear of psykers and his inability to understand Daemonkind.

 

You're confusing subtly with good characterization, the concepts are not hand in hand, or rather simply because a character isn't subtle in one area does not mean he isn't in another.

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Eeeeeexcept both of those characters are psychologically deep.

Heh.

 

I think we can abandon this here, lol.

 

 

Well, really there's no way to say this without sounding snarky, but I have trouble taking your word on what should and should not have character studies in it if you refuse to study characters.

 

Or that sex has never been touched on when books like Fulgrim and the Reflection Crack'd had loads of sexual content, or that you think Khorne is merely the god of being angry or that Nurgle is simply the god of death and decay with nothing else to him. It give's the vague impression you haven't actually read most of the background material and are horribly misinformed.

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Actually while i pointed out certain outcomes are trope-y for certain types of characters representation in literature i don't think these characters are lacking nor the outcome unreasonable.

In fact, the female characters who died died in acts of heroism with extreme consequences many orders of magnitude higher than what the average 40k heroic character dies for. Primarchs have died for less.

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  • 4 months later...

I'm glad someone else spotted Tanna's magic Arm? or was he to burn as a Mutant for starting the series with 3 arms? why didn't someone mention this earlier in the series?

 

it was quite pivitol that he lost his arm (and chainsword chained to it) as that was what lead to the Tindolossi getting trapped on the Maglev train as it went off the rails. Tanna shoved the blade through the floor decking whilst the arm was stuck in it throat.

 

Later on he caught the Black sword and ...... fighting with his chainsword in one hand, and the black sword in the other.....

 

All the talk of Wraiths, vampires and data scapes seemed the book was a mash up of an old Dungeons and Dragons book meets the Matrix. I was hoping for something on par with the HH book Mechanicum.

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