cheywood

Loved this pretty much all the way through, from first sentence to last. I don’t know if it’s Abnett’s Magnum Opus, but it certainly deserves to be in the discussion. It’s vivid and dark and entertaining even in its glacial pace. I feel like I understand the Imperium so much better now while at the same time enjoying a depiction of a highly specific and unique culture. This is a book I’d wanted for a long time and, after so many authors tried and failed to do the concept justice, one I’d largely given up hope of seeing.

That’s a typo. They’re talking about the sequel, Twomb World.

The BL app is absolutely unusable, the worst digital reading app I think I’ve ever seen. That said all the new releases are available on kindle and other digital storefronts, which offer a much better experience.

The premise doesn’t excite me, but Haley’s usually in good form when he’s writing Blood Angels. I trust it’ll be a decent yarn.

I’ve never wanted anything more.

It’s pretty crazy, this app would have been woefully lacking even 15 years ago. Now it’s honestly embarrassing. Whoever developed it should probably just quit and do something else.

The black library app is atrocious. I’d call it downright useless. One of the worst products GW has released. There is no chapter selection screen or keyword search, there’s no options to adjust anything other than typeface, font size and brightness (which you can obviously already adjust on your device). There’s no point in using it when virtually every other e-reader/app has these features and many more. I can’t for the life of me see how it was approved as ready, the people who designed it must have never read a book in their lives, only heard of them while watching tv. World Ablaze on the other hand is quite a fun anthology. Halfway through and I’ve quite liked both Flowers and Haley’s shorts.

Only about a 10th of the way through, but I am absolutely loving it. Could easily see it being my favorite BL novel of all time. It’s sprawling and filled with world building yes, but it also feels like a clear through line is being established narratively. It’s definitely more complex than the vast majority of 40k fiction, but anyone who’s read Game of Thrones (or any overstuffed fantasy/sf series) could pretty easily follow this. It’s nothing like Pariah or The End and the Death where you’re left trying to parse sentences or figure out what in the world is happening to the main characters. The prose is accessible and measured, with some unique but perfectly intelligible dialogue styles to represent the difference between various cultures. It feels like if Necropolis or Titanicus grew up from something fixated on war to something fixated on culture and people. Didn’t think we’d ever really get something like this from BL.

To me Dark Imperium is what made Haley as popular as he is now. People liked him before, but that tie-in started him off as one of the primary writers of fiction in the new edition. However it’s also been 9 years so maybe my memory’s off. I don’t really think of Thorpe as that popular/prominent. He’s prolific and well known for sure, but it feels like his books always have a lukewarm reception.

Aren’t these new edition tie-ins usually commissioned on short notice and written by less popular authors? Makes sense they’re choosing someone like Reid who seems to be pretty prolific and happy to work with the studio to coordinate her writing with whatever new release they’re doing. I don’t think she’s written a single novel that isn’t clearly connected to a specific miniature, usually a recent release.

Quite liked this read. One of the better debuts we’ve had in recent years. The prose is good, the characters rich and the perspective interesting. It truly treats the Krieg as different from the Imperium’s other forces, something I think Lyons doesn’t quite know how to do in his recent novels. I love that it’s a perspective on what happens after a disaster in wartime, and its deeply cynical take on the Imperium resonates with me. It’s a little funny too, which is nice. Above all I think it has a lot of pathos in it for such a dark and dismal story. I cried a couple times. There are some signs it’s a first novel - weird pacing, unnecessary chapters, some lack of descriptive clarity in action scenes. Very excited to see James write more for BL. 8.5 out of 10.

Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in.

At this point the most exciting thing to come out of the week is that hint the community team posted on IG or FB about Spears 2, which probably means absolutely nothing. Hopefully the next couple days at least include new books being announced. My crazy idea is that, instead of a Rynn’s World LE no one needs, they should be commissioning that third Deathwatch novel Parker’s mentioned, if he’s even still writing at this point.

Nothing wrong with the book, but you might want to go check the Necromancy thread.

This gets a big ‘who cares?’ from me. Special editions of 15 year old books that weren’t particularly popular when they came out? Black Library really has lost the plot.