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Warhawk by Chris Wraight


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It may not just be Amazon who have supplies.  Galaxy Books (Sydney, Oz) just put up the preview covers for September releases and Warhawk was among them, as was the PB edition of Indomitus and a AoS anthology.  Will be interesting if the HB comes out before the LE.

 

edit: just went to their website and Warhawk HB is listed as in stock :wacko.: so I placed an order.  Now to see if/when it turns up or I get a whoops sorry email in short order.:sweat:

THANKS FOR THE TIP!  I’ve just placed an order for a uk delivery … lets see if it happens!

 

hang in there … mine just arrived so yours will get there eventually (pending the will of the shipping gods of winds & water).  Now to get stuck in…

 

 

Initial thoughts?

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Only just starting but first three or so chapters are mainly introducing and setting up the characters who (I assume) will carry the story in this book.  Interesting takes on the thought processes of both Mortarion and Dorn and their motivations.

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Skimmed through a copy I acquired via the Dark/New/True Mechanicum last night, and I can't wait to properly read my hardback once it arrives. Some of the scenes that I was a little iffy about from the spoilers are written beautifully. ADB's got some bangers coming up with book #7 and of course Black Legion #3, but this might be the book where Chris Wraight finally overtakes ADB in my mind

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Skimmed through a copy I acquired via the Dark/New/True Mechanicum last night, and I can't wait to properly read my hardback once it arrives. Some of the scenes that I was a little iffy about from the spoilers are written beautifully. ADB's got some bangers coming up with book #7 and of course Black Legion #3, but this might be the book where Chris Wraight finally overtakes ADB in my mind

It must be available somewhere, as that's a retail copy with ebook licence....

 

Where is it being sold for download already?

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Skimmed through a copy I acquired via the Dark/New/True Mechanicum last night, and I can't wait to properly read my hardback once it arrives. Some of the scenes that I was a little iffy about from the spoilers are written beautifully. ADB's got some bangers coming up with book #7 and of course Black Legion #3, but this might be the book where Chris Wraight finally overtakes ADB in my mind

It must be available somewhere, as that's a retail copy with ebook licence....

 

Where is it being sold for download already?

 

 

People often make wanna-be retail copies, sometimes even from ocr/scans. They copy-paste the generic ebook license details from other ebook and just edit the ISBN, etc to match the book.

 

You can often easily tell by the artwork (if it's included), most of the time it's clear as a day it's a scanned art work from a physical book. In the past there used to be dedicated groups doing this kind of work and they couldn't resist adding their "trademark", such as their logos/their art work, Libris Custodes, Liberatus, etc.

Edited by theSpirea
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Yeah, even just glancing at /tg, it's pretty clear that the ebook in circulation is an OCR'd print copy, not even cleaned up. OCR is fast (as in, OCRing an existing scan - the scan itself is anything but), that's for sure, but it's not exactly known for its accuracy. For example, you'll have stuff like lowecase-L and uppercase-I being swapped in a lot of places, usually, or punctuation missing / wrongly interpreted. lowercase-D's also often turn into c1 or cl instead. And as soon as italics get introduced, oh boy, it gets ugly.

 

Honestly, I cannot even see the point of going through the process of scanning the bloody book at this point, when retailers are "leaking" it and the publisher would be forced to announce an official release within the coming weeks. It's an insane amount of work, scanning every page of a hardcover book. It'd make sense for stuff like the limited edition shorts like from The Talon of Horus, which STILL hasn't been republished - and I have no shame in admitting that I read The Wonderworker after searching for it online, sometime around the release of Black Legion - or like in the early days of Heresy limited novellas with 2+ years exclusivity to the format. But releasing a scanned copy of the book at best a few weeks ahead of the general release, and then as per usual plastering "branding" into the ebook? That's just... an ego play, innit?

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BL's ebooks have been structured the same way for years. The page with ISBN etc is also the same between excerpts and full releases. It's honestly no difficulty to change the few parameters that differ between books (ISBN, publishing history / first publishing date and potentially dedication), and those kinds of people usually take pride in being close to retail quality (or even better, sometimes). Not like that'd hold true with scanned artwork, uncropped or photoshop'd to account for low contrast or the likes, let alone watermarking, though.

 

Personally, I open up my BL ebooks before converting them to the kindle-compatible format, simply to strip out all the sodding ads they put in front and back, or the excerpts - you wouldn't believe how much space that saves, it's simply bloat - and the file structure is extremely formulaic. Used to be way worse, though, especially in the beginning. There are still things now that they could condense, like css-stylesheets, and their table of contents grouping is another thing I tend to edit before moving the book over onto the tablet, but they've become so consistent in styling and organizing, it'd be terribly easy to imitate, especially when you got an excerpt to base it on - as generally, they just edit the cover image with the disclaimer and take out chapters two onwards, and stuff like dramatis personae, but leave the general structure intact.

 

No rocket science, really. I'm more confused by the time investment involved in scanning and OCR'ing in a vain attempt to chase after e-fame than the actual editing itself.

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As interesting (and amusing) as this is...

 

Is it good? :biggrin.:

 

Very. It feels like Saturnine in terms of scope and scale but imo it is even better due to Wraight being able to dig into and portray what makes each character and faction and scenario and setting really tick. Even small details, like the cameos of Sanguinius or the Blood Angels are fantastically well done and nail their beliefs and modus operandi much better than entire books dedicated to them earlier in the series. Once I've read the thing wholesale, in my hands, next month, I want to write up a mega-list of things I loved and that I feel Wraight has nailed. Here's one though:

 

Sort of spoiler:

Sigismund becoming the Emperor's Champion is one of my most highly anticipated scenes in Warhams, and I've always had a very particular opinion in how it should be portrayed. This isn't some masterful stroke of tactical genius by daddy Dorn in which Sigismund holds the breach of the Inner Palace or a key district or something - this is, quite simply, about Sigismund cutting through the traitors, taking heads and spitting defiance in their faces. All is lost, or all is going to be lost, and Sigismund is here butchering every traitor champion he can get his hands on, in single combat, while everyone watches. It's like Now Is The Hour type stuff. Wraight really leans into this and there are some frighteningly good passages between Dorn and his son, and it straight up highlights the differences between (the) Imperial Fist vs. (the) Black Templar. It's written to the same standard as the Black Legion scenes were, which is peak 40K in my eyes. It's also worth mentioning that the Emperor power-up bollocks is toned down to its minimum here. There are definitely elements of it, especially in regards to the Black Sword, but Wraight really goes out of his way to emphasis that Sigismund turning into a lawnmower is much more of a mental transformation than a physical or a psychic one
Edited by Bobss
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