Are there any good harlequin novels?

[dice4thedicegod]

I enjoyed The masque of Vyle (harlequins meet Poe’s masque of the red death)... are there any others that fraters can recommend?

[Arendious]

Well, 'Their Hearts Broke Before Cadia Did' gets checked out a lot from the local library...

 

Oh, uhm... You meant the Aeldari...

[sitnam]

There are a couple of Harlequin audio dramas, and the space clowns are VERY prominent in the Fabius Bile books

[Bobss]

I would recommend the Bile trilogy, obviously, because it is the best thing Black Library have ever published in my opinion, but I guess it's really down to what type of Harlequins you like. If it's the perfect, untouchable, smug killer-clowns who could tie Slaanesh's sagging boobs in knots if they ever felt like it, then I don't know, but if you want a mysterious dance troupe with their fingers in everyone's pies who gradually chip away at causality for their own ends then I would recommend that

 

Come for the Harlequins. Stay for Arrian Zorzi. Simple

Edited April 13, 2021 by Bobss

[dice4thedicegod]

Thanks guys. I’ve read the Bile novels and remembered the ‘Quins, though they are more shadowy antagonists and behind the scenes puppeteers than main protagonists.

 

I don’t normally do audio dramas but maybe I’ll make an exception this time :)

[DarkChaplain]

There's two dramas in Heirs of the Laughing God, A Deadly Wit and Death's Mercy.

 

I never got far into the first, but that had more to do with not finding the right moment in my day to focus - as somebody who loves audio dramas, and always did, I've had a hard time with them in recent years. I had to resort to relistening to stuff, including German productions of Sherlock Holmes stories. Fewer sound effects, I suppose. Come to think of it, the difficulties started coming up when BL decided to move away from narrators in most dramas, and try to convey all information through either dialogue or - more commonly - sound effects. I do better with heavy dialogue, because that's what I tune in for in the first place.

 

What I do recall is that the Harlequins in A Deadly Wit were well-voiced, with one character being overly witty which put him a little at odds with another. It should be great fun if you can listen to the entire thing without infuriating amounts of interruptions or drifting thoughts.

 

Harlequins also play a big role in Atlas Infernal, which I have had sitting on the shelf for an eternity yet couldn't get far into due to how dense Sanders likes his prose. It bogged me down too much at the time, and I haven't gotten back around to it (no surprise, considering it predates shiny trade paperbacks with great reading comfort).

 

I believe there was an important recurring Harlequin character in Haley's Valedor, which should be a fantastic read for any Eldar fan, I suppose. It can be found in print as part of the recent Great Devourer omnibus, which also includes the prequel novella (optional read).

 

Honestly though, Harlequins are rarely featured, and usually more as unknowable antagonists. I don't think there are many authors who really get them to a degree that makes them work on their own in the fiction. Gav would be one, as one of the major Eldar authors (who has been too busy to write Phoenix Lords 3, I suppose). The other? That'd be Josh Reynolds, he's got the wit and cynicism for it. However, he's since parted ways with BL/GW, leaving a big hole in the author roster....

[Scribe]

Loved em in the Bile series.

 

Is there Kill Team lists for them? I may have to dig mine out.