Knockagh Posted April 21, 2018 Share Posted April 21, 2018 My man of the hour Gav Thorpe has his new work up for order. So I’ve ordered that scrummy red book up tight away. Be a while before I get to reading this bit I’m looking forward to it. Hopefully it will be better than the last Titan offering we had. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Manchu warlord Posted April 21, 2018 Share Posted April 21, 2018 On the cover of the book, there is a Heldrake right next to the titan's head. Every time I see it, I can't help but imagine the titan cocking its head to eat it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roomsky Posted April 21, 2018 Share Posted April 21, 2018 I hate to be the Negative Nancy, but even as someone who just gained a new appreciation for Thorpe's works, I have literally no interest in this. I can't imagine his dry, matter-of-fact prose working for anything related to the Mechanicum or their God Machines, the overly-complex religious soup they're mired in needs someone with denser prose. In fairness, I feel Andy Clark and David Annandale also have this problem, so it's yet another in the long line of such disappointments. Fingers crossed Sanders or (Emps preserve him) Farrer get a crack at such a book. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Manchu warlord Posted April 21, 2018 Share Posted April 21, 2018 I thought Gav Thorpe did a pretty good job on the HH audio drama "Honour to the Dead". The whole thing was very well composed actually, but I particularly liked the scenes of the Chaos titan. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Plasmablasts Posted April 21, 2018 Share Posted April 21, 2018 I wonder if this will break the pattern of Imperator titans never surviving the book...? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heliomanes Posted April 21, 2018 Share Posted April 21, 2018 Abnett's "Titanicus" might be my favourite book in the entire setting, and it keeps me getting back to Titan related novels, audio dramas and so on. Fingers crossed that this one will be the one to top it, and break the cycle of dashed hopes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Knockagh Posted April 21, 2018 Author Share Posted April 21, 2018 The mechanicus are a difficult subject to write in an interesting way. Dans Titanicus would be my favourite too by a long long way. As stated though Gav did a great job with honour to the dead. It was brilliant. Apparently this one takes place entirely on board the Titan, and I don’t know what to make of that! It definitely would be nice to see a the Titan surviving. It’s poor for war machines thousands of years old to get knocked out all the time. I think Gav has a better take on the subject though than Annandale who stated he pretty much based his thinking on Gundam robots fighting. Which is about as far removed from 40k as you can get. Gav has a great feeling for the depth of the culture in the 40k universe and its diversity. I have high hopes! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roomsky Posted April 21, 2018 Share Posted April 21, 2018 Oh right, Honour to the Dead. I guess I'm an outlier, but I basically despised that piece, so I'm somehow even less excited for this now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
caladancid Posted April 21, 2018 Share Posted April 21, 2018 I have learned something I did not know. Was quite confused by the use of Ve/Vis as pronouns, but after some googling that is a new way of writing pronouns without genders? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Knockagh Posted April 22, 2018 Author Share Posted April 22, 2018 Yes in an interview he did he stated this. It’s something I don’t really like much tbh. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
caladancid Posted April 22, 2018 Share Posted April 22, 2018 Yes in an interview he did he stated this. It’s something I don’t really like much tbh. Do you happen to have a link or remember where I can find the interview? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Knockagh Posted April 22, 2018 Author Share Posted April 22, 2018 It was an interview I referred to in the upcoming BL stuff thread. It’s on the podcast combat phase their 8th April show over on iTunes. He was mostly concerned over how the words would translate in audio. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Commissar Ibram Gaunt Posted April 23, 2018 Share Posted April 23, 2018 Thought about ordering the special edition. But might wait because I was slightly disappointed with the warlord novel. Though hopefully this is better. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JH79 Posted April 23, 2018 Share Posted April 23, 2018 It is interesting that Honour to the Dead seems to receive so much praise. The production & stock sound affects are mediocre at best, the story a bit meandering and it just didn't feel that grandiose to my ears. I'm a big fan of Gav's work, his TBA entries in my view, marked the high points of that series, but if it's Adeptus Mechanicus audio glory you're after then David Annandales The Binary Succession is about as good as it gets, easily BL's best Audio production of 2017 to boot! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WarriorFish Posted April 23, 2018 Share Posted April 23, 2018 No politics etc means just that. Please stay on the topic of the book, and within the B&C's rules. Thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
caladancid Posted April 23, 2018 Share Posted April 23, 2018 So far the novel is a grind, and honestly one of the bigger disappointments I have had from Black Library in a while. I am in the group that liked Honour to the Dead and so was looking forward to this book quite a bit. The best way I can think of to explain this book is that it seems like Mr. Thorpe decided to experiment with his writing, at the reader's expense. Clearly (from my earlier posts) I was unfamiliar with the use of genderless pronouns, given we are talking about Mechanicus it seems like it could work and make sense, but there is no other way to describe them here than jarring. And it isn't a side character they are used for. Maybe others who are more used to Ve/Verself, etc. wouldn't be as distracted so keep that in mind. The next problem is the intentional way Mr. Thorpe writes the communication between Mechanicus. He says on the podcast previously mentioned that he wanted to make it clear they weren't human and don't think the same way as humans. That much is clear, but it doesn't read well. The way he is writing them is akin to an author wanting to emphasize Astartes' inhuman voices by writing their lines in all caps. Yes, that does show the difference, no it isn't much fun to read. So I am quite disappointed. No, we still haven't found a successor to Titanicus. -edit. I have to add that I am also left wondering where the editor was in this whole mess? This might be unfair but I can't help think that because this is Gav Thorpe it was let into the wild without as much critique as maybe a novel by Andy Clark or Nick Horth or any newer author. I would think this novel is exactly where someone should have stepped in and asked if art was getting in the way of a good story. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JH79 Posted April 23, 2018 Share Posted April 23, 2018 No politics etc means just that. Please stay on the topic of the book, and within the B&C's rules. Thanks. Apologies & thanks for the polite reminder... didn't realise I'd crossed the line (Eisenhorn eat your heart out!) i'll refresh myself on the rules. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Knockagh Posted April 23, 2018 Author Share Posted April 23, 2018 No politics etc means just that. Please stay on the topic of the book, and within the B&C's rules. Thanks. Apologies & thanks for the polite reminder... didn't realise I'd crossed the line (Eisenhorn eat your heart out!) i'll refresh myself on the rules. Me too Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Manchu warlord Posted April 23, 2018 Share Posted April 23, 2018 ... Seiously, the face of Casus Belli is more daemonic than the heldrake. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heliomanes Posted May 1, 2018 Share Posted May 1, 2018 Thoughts? I'm halfway through. Seems better than "Warlord" so far, but a lot is riding on the book quite unsubtly setting up a "big reveal", since it feels more like a crime thriller set in an Imperator titan than anything else. So like much in that kind of genre, the quality of the whole will be reliant on how interesting the twist ends up being.Edit: Well, I read through the entire thing and I'm pretty unimpressed. The characters are ok, but pretty shallow, and some parts of life within the holds of an Imperator titan are pretty neat. Still, the story is incredibly dull. Everyone is who they appear to be or say they are in the very beginning, and the story does exactly what the blurb says. Traitors try to take over the titan, and are stopped. All traitors are mean, and all good guys are nice. The story sadly never develops from there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xisor Posted May 8, 2018 Share Posted May 8, 2018 Weird. I thought it was tremendous. Some extremely human characters (which for a Mechanicus story), some very unusual character developments, some excellent supporting cast and so forth. Perhaps I'm in the minority here, but I found it rich and interesting. World building, but with life and human interest. If it's pure gung-ho action you're after, sure, I can see why the book might not be for you. But otherwise: excellent. Similarly, if you're not for any sort of experimental literature that's Mechanicus focussed, I can see why you might not like it. Hell, you might be open to it *and* not like it (experiments don't always go to plan, as it were). But if you're curious, or like something a bit different (or a bit more slice-of-life), then it's great. ---- I leapt right from it into a re-listen of "The Binary Succession" (a glorious audio), and then straight into "The Voice of Mars". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heliomanes Posted May 8, 2018 Share Posted May 8, 2018 I guess we simply disagree fundamentally. Which is fine - and I'm happy for you that you found the experience enjoyable. I just found the story uninteresting and extremely black and white, and the world building ok at best. The characters are sadly just cardboard cutouts.The worst offender for me was the way it kept pretending that we were supposed to be surprised when the bad guys tried to take over the titan - after we had spent most of the book having this foreshadowed for us ad nauseam - felt insulting to the readers. "Oh, I'm a hyper intelligent cyborg running thousands of simultaneous battle simulations. I must continiually express just how baffled I am that the enemy appear to be targeting our support elements while drawing us further into their territory. I can't for the life of me see what this might entail." Sigh. At the very least take the threat of a trap of some kind seriously. Or just foreshadow it once or twice, not fourteen bloody times. Since they were so incredibly obvious about it I genuinelly expected a twist of some kind to keep me interested in the plot, but it never materialized.I love the "Of Mars"-trilogy and Titanicus, both of which do the world building infinitely better, with cultures and characters that are much more complex and endearing. The Binary Succession and Mechanicus are also much better stories, but little can compare to Abnett's "Titanicus".Maybe this was intended as a beginner's introduction to the Mechanicus and the Titans for newer readers? That could mitigate a lot of the factors that stand out as negative to me - since I inevitably end up comparing it to Abnett's more nuanced stories, characters and cultures. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brother Lunkhead Posted May 8, 2018 Share Posted May 8, 2018 Dan IS the Man with Titanicus, but Gav did an excellent job with Honour to the Dead So, I have high hopes for Imperator: Wrath of the Omnissiah. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Knockagh Posted May 8, 2018 Author Share Posted May 8, 2018 I’m only getting into it but loving it so far. Excellent characters and an intriguing plot. Will see how it goes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JH79 Posted May 9, 2018 Share Posted May 9, 2018 I really wanted to enjoy this book. Gav is usually my Jam, but Wrath of the Omnissiah is about as Grim Dark as 40k can get. To have certain characters very heavily influenced by real world nonsense was a shocking experience which completely pulled me out of the setting and blinded me to any other merit that could be given to the story being told. The nightmare reality of humanities dark rotting future, where the species is being assaulted on all galactic fronts by evil of every kind, is not where I go to be introduced to machines who are very specific about what gender pronoun is used to describe them This is the first time I was compelled to delete an audiobook from my iTunes library post listen, it hope it will be the last. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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