Rob P

Carcharodons: Outer Dark Much much better than Red Tithe. I really enjoyed the first third whilst also wondering if we'd get a typical action focussed story. The stuff withe the Ashen Claws and continuation from Red Tithe were done well. It does develop into a rather typical bolter porn story and the big fights on the planet felt a bit like the climax was a little quick. However, the space stuff was much better and the conclusion leaves the story at a great point. 7/10

I don't think that there is anything remotely that intricate going on. Nice thinking though. Not quite the same but I do always look to see if traitors were of the chosen god's number is some manner (rarely, it turns out).

Ah, I forget to mention that pov changes a lot without page breaks which probably leads to the problem with not taking a breath. Weirdly until about 1/3 in the Space Sharks are hardly in it for their book. With just a smidge more development it could have been a Night Lords book instead. I still didn't quite get why they let the arbites women live early on. It didn't go anywhere. Felt like a Chekhov's gun that didn't go off. Yes, she had a role later but that came about later and didn't seem to associate with her intentional survival. Although, it did lead to the super dark epilogue

Red Tithe 5/10 It's ok, but not really my thing. Far too much action, a little too basic a story, and the Carcharodons didn't feel brutal enough. What I did like: the Night Lords were suitably pathetic. Pretty much presents them as my head canon. They're all sickos for the sake of it almost to performative parody and it makes them come across as a dull legion, but in a good way. I liked the interludes which provided tension as it kept me guessing how the interludes would conclude. A minor distraction was the progenitor of the Carcharodons but lots of hints dropped. As far as I can tell they're Raven Guard originally but maybe have some Night Lords and World Eater geneseed (and gear) through necessity. Also the narrator on the audiobook is not great in the sense that the main characters just don't lean into the setting. The main Carcharodon sounds a bit like Bruce from finding Nemo and the Night Lords dude needed an overconfident tone that wasn't there

Finished Cadian Blood. After the initial restarts, it managed to get my attention (basically from chapter 3/4 onwards). It's essentially a routine guard novel. I liked some of the stuff with the characterisation of the captain, inquisitor and commissar and the plot was ok. It would make a good entry novel. I felt some of the bits in it were jarring or difficult to pass through e.g. the prologue was pure exposition; most of the named characters weren't massively distinct and it felt like I was just having to keep a bunch of names in my head (tbf, same with nearly every BL novel! - I wish they just did short dramatis personae for every novel; I don't care if it's slightly spoilery, i'd rather know which characters need to be tabbed and which don't (for example The Wolftime had a massive dramatis personae and about 10 possibly 15 characters were important to the plot). I wanted a little more from the plot; maybe some twist or bleak moment that didn't really come. Just going back to the jarring bits, the involvement of the space marines was largely irrelevant and the plot around the villain just petered out - they didn't go anywhere! The pacing felt a little weird too; it felt like a series of vignettes stitched together. That being said, I did enjoy the writing. It was an easy read once I got into it; I put my difficulty reading into it down to having read character novels back to back to back and therefore I was already familiar with some of the involved parties, whilst here it was day one. I also liked the tropes of 40k that were imbedded into it and that it was entirely self contained. The ship battle stuff was pretty cool, as was the psyker stuff. Worth a read as an intro book alongside the likes of 15 Hours or Imperial Glory. Slightly more enjoyable than the last 3 I read that I gave 6/10 so 7/10 I guess.

Shows how subjective this series is. Horus Heresy has some of (imo) Abnett's best (Horus Rising , No Know Fear, Prospero Burns, Saturnine) and i'd put Unremembered Empire low/mid. Reasons: expectations re primarch meetup not met; Pharos meh, "my beautiful boy" (iron warrior dude), convergence of strands (waypoint novel), and, of it's time,it was peak frustration about the HH series stagnating. I'll have to reread as some of those things might not be as relevant now the series is done. It's interesting as someone who didn't like Abnett that this is an 8/10. Clearly what he did or didn't do here must avoid the Abnett stuff you dislike and must lack the Abnett stuff I like. Haha

On to Cadian Blood. I'm finding it very hard to get into. I've read or listened to chapter 1-2 three times. Will plod on and give thoughts at end

Finished The Wolftime and can't add a great deal to what has been said. Yep, first third is bogged down in action and reading speeds up once the meat of the question is asked: can offworlders be Space Wolves? I was a bit lost with the overarching story as I can't remember the contents of the first two books in the series. I felt Logan Grimnar was portrayed well. The prophetic fatalism seemed credible whilst also dumb. I felt that it is actually important for the Space Wolves that Russ doesn't return. Let the aeldari have the end times story. I'm sure not the point, but I liked the bit where an account of the Orks was thought too crazy to be true. It felt like the unreliable narrator accounts of things we get in the codexes. Overall 6/10

Just finished Bad Loon Rising but I'll leave it at that as we're strictly not allowed to discuss AoS. I'm very early on to The Wolftime. Good? Bad? Ugly? I quite like Gav Thorpes' Dark Angel novels but can generally find his style not to my taste so not sure what to expect and it's a bit long compared to the last 3 books that I've read.

Khârn: Eater of Worlds - 6/10 Continuing on with the character novellas ... - Good balance of internal and external conflict - Characters aren't super developed but they are distinctive and their motives are well explained - Good use of human characters as required - I liked the plot - May not be enough Khârn for some but he felt more like a plot device to me and the other characters and plot were enough to work with - Made World Eaters feel a little more explicable at this point compared to some of the presentation in the Siege of Terra series - allowed multiplicity of World Eaters rather than them just being bezerkers now - Puts a fairly satisfying spin on the reason that legions turned on each other after Heresy - Ending felt a little stilted - it resolved (for now) the big question posed by the novel - "What is the future for the World Eaters?" - It didn't feel like it resolved any micro-scale character arcs other than possibly Dreagher's arc - Right length - I wouldn't have wanted 400 pages of this - A bit too much descriptive action for my liking (but I like next to none) - Feels like it should have a sequel

People see what they want. There is a thread about lost primarchs in the Astartes sub-forum where people are convinced there are crumbs dropped to a future reveal when it's been said for years (since HH series started) that it's basically a tease for fans. Some utterly convinced that Imperial Fists took some of the lost primarch legionnaries based on a couple of sentences in a short story that don't say that. Can't blame people for wanting something exciting though. The most surprising thing about this novel is BL's once in a year ability to actually align a relevant novel with a miniature release!

Read Eidolon: The Auric Hammer. It's ok. I just wanted more character transition for Eidolon. Edit: I think Eidolon is an interesting element of the Emperor's Children and the cast-out-son angle gives him something interesting. There is also the fact that he's an actual commander of capable soldiers and, up to this novel, his exact relationship with Slaanesh was occluded. The resistance to Slaanesh along with his unspecified situation in 40k gave some opportunities for a novel approach and we do get something a bit different than ascension but I guess I wanted a little more. 6/10

I thought that might be the source. It's a logical narrative and definitely arguable but I don't see it provides any solid evidence that the UM and the IF were the beneficiaries.

Absolutely. Feels flat in comparison. Just a paint by numbers?

Swords of Calth - About half way in and just not interesting enough at the mo. Just listening to it to finished it