Sandlemad

I agree with the majority of your dislikes here but this,

Definitely, things like the skorpekh destroyers for about 25% of their usual cost is more than solid. The devil of it will be getting copies now Forbidden Planet just aren't shipping to the EU anymore...

RE: that big thing that everyone has in spoiler tags:

You'd miss a lot. You could follow the plot, broadly, though there would still be significant elements that might not make sense. Some are minor "Abnett-isms" like a generally more sophisticated tech level than in other 40k fiction - there's quite a lot of psyker-tech and anti-psyker tech that doesn't appear elsewhere all that much - but also larger elements, like the importance of the Glaw dynasty, or the Cognitae, or the graels, or enuncia (though that shows up in his heresy novels too). You could probably work around this somewhat by reading summaries of the previous books or trawling through lexicanum. More significantly though the nuances of how the half dozen most prominent characters interact won't really be there for you. All three of Abnett's inquisition trilogies are very character-focused series and we're talking about multiple books' worth of changing relationships. Even in Penitent there's a persistent thread of how different Eisenhorn is with his comrades since the events of The Magos, which might not be apparent to someone who hasn't read it. It's not all that deep really but seeing e.g. Harlon Nayl and Patience Kys interact in Penitent without having read the previous books would not be the same.

It’s Abnett doing Dickens or, I think more to the point, doing Gormenghast. It does fade a bit about half way through Penitent but it’s so refreshing after what I found to be a sort of ugly sub-Whedon quippiness in the Ravenor books. Both are maybe examples of Abnett being more willing to switch it up in terms of style than other BL authors, even if it doesn’t always land.

Just finished this. Some stuff to mull over alright, what you might call galaxy-scale stuff in a way that we haven’t seen in the Eisenhorn/Ravenor books before, but what’s sticking with me most of all is how enjoyable the slightly baroque voice that Abnett adopted for Pariah and Penitent is.

I haven't read Mortis but overall I'd agree with mr_r_parker. The perpetuals are particular manifestation of small universe syndrome. They're supposed to be incredibly important but then in practice they come off as just a mediocre rehash of Highlander, you know? None of the weight of deep time stuff shines through. I get that all 40k is built on a weave of pastiche/theft of other ideas and properties but this has increasingly felt like seeing it in real time and not done in a terribly interesting fashion. As individual characters though, they're often enjoyable enough. I like Oll Persson in Know No Fear.

Brilliant stuff. The cool white and the gold are particularly nice.

It's a look alright. Has a certain 1950's Flash Gordon charm. Rather more dramatic than his custom warlord carapace.

Could be promising, in a sense. A lot of the usual outlets only get hype if a new release is focused around interminable lore details of primarchs or perpetuals or huge! shocking! revelations! If this is not that sort of book, so much the better.

It’s a prison for psykers built into the Tower of the Hegemon.

Looking forward to seeing what's done with the Ordo Sinister. It was a small thing but French wrote them well in that one short story while preserving their creepy air of mystery.

yup... though again I am concerned by those knee-to-crotch pistons and how they'll effect our ability to pose the Titan... but yeah, this thing has two beefy looking guns("Quad"-Plasma things by default? hope to see the Missile and Melta(?) weapons from the original art eventually), a heavy las turret in at least one knee(if not both?), plus what seems to be some kind of AA(?) turrets on top... plus who knows what else might be hiding in the gaps between the glimpses or on the back... though I imagine the lighter point defense weapons wont get reflected in rules since they aren't useful at AT's scale, it's nice future-proofing for any Future Epic revival, or even a 40/30K scale version. if this thing only has it's two arm weapons, they better be really hard hitting; though this thing also looks armored to the Warp and back, plus who knows how many Viod Shields, it might be more of a Tanky-Boy then a One-Shot-Killer/Glass-Cannon... or maybe it's both and will cost you a ton of points to field, because it earns its status as a God-Engine, even among its fellow kin. It looks like some sort of rapid fire rotating plasma weapon on the left arm and some sort of colossal energised gatling gun, which makes my mind immediately go to "brawler warlord's older brother" but then it's surely going to be even slower than a warlord so who knows.