Roomsky

Yeah ADB's one of the authors I always recommend be read rather than listened to, his quality of prose in an important element in what makes his books good. I thought the audiobook narrator was quite talented but I disliked how his character voices often skewed how a character was perceived. I also find positive comparisons to the Night Lords trilogy a great sign and am excited to get to this one eventually (boy I sure do love paperback delay.) If this continues the trend of Lord of the Night and ADB's trilogy, 40k Night Lords have one of the best legion hotstreaks in the stable (shame about their Heresy books, though.)

Roomsky's Beast Arises Revisit Part 5 Been a while hasn't it? I have a higher tolerance for uninterrupted Black Library than most but even I need to read other things on occasion. Anyway, we're back with this series, and even so close to the ending I'm still shocked at how consistently enjoyable it is. It's wild the fandom turned on it to the degree it has, it is significantly better than many books/series that receive routine praise. Memes/Shadow of Ullanor really did a number on this one. Watchers in Death - David Annandale This was soooo much better than I remembered. It's a fun, snappy book with no shortage of Terran politics. The Beast Must Die! was good as an action set piece book but I'm glad we're back into the series' broad-perspectives groove/many of the characters that book had no time for. The principle behind the Deathwatch makes sense; why would engaging the orks on their own terms work out? Better to be the scalpel if you can't be the bigger hammer. It being one of the catalysts for sectioning up the Inquisition works well, too. Yes, I know the old Deathwatch founding was better, but this isn't awful by any stretch - and as someone with no attachment to that old fluff it doesn't stick out (conceptually) at all. Also, we finally deal with the Attack Moon over Terra, and I appreciate they don't ignore how catastrophic exploding a moon in near-orbit would be for the cities below. "This is victory" says Koorland, as millions die in a holocaust of falling debris. 40k as :cuss:. The action doesn't overstay it's welcome, which makes this a hell of a lot easier to read than Hunt for Vulkan, and we even get Sisters of Silence before they were brought back in force with 8th edition. It's an easy read and ticks off boxes that make sense. Besides the book's pacing issues, you'd never guess at this stage this all wasn't the plan from the start. However Those are some serious pacing issues. This should've been 2 books. The amount of ground covered here is ridiculous and it turns some pretty huge plot points into wacky nonsense. Annandale has a habit of writing "in reverse," where he has somewhere he wants the plot and characters to end up, then he writes an excuse for how it happened. Not very organic or believable. In this book, the Deathwatch wear black because several chapters decide, independently, to wear black - because "fate" or something. He literally didn't have the time or inclination to write a proper justification and just gave the associated marines the script. It's never been more transparent. Then, later, the Silent Sisters are convinced to rejoin the Imperium because it's pointed out to them that the Emperor will die if Terra falls. Excuse me, do you expect me to believe none of them ever considered this? It's just rank stupidity to justify their absence before now. I get they probably didn't know how serious the threat of The Beast was - but that's not the argument made. The Deathwatch is formed because Annandale said so. The Silent Sisters return because Annandale said so. We skip Vulkan's funeral and the effect on morale that must have had. We skip a detailed account of Terra's recovery after half a moon rains down on it in chunks. Show me Koorland sweating about what just happened, he's the Lord Commander! I commend Annandale for making this book so readable despite how much of a mess it is. (A minor nitpick as well: I love that Haas came back for the Deathwatch's mission on the attack moon, but the idea she was needed to find what they came for seems a bit farfetched. Astartes have eidetic memories, and they both broke Haas out the first time and destroyed the necessary elements then - surely they could have just brought marines from that mission as their guides? Koorland respects baseline humans with grit, he could have just let Haas join them to give her a shot at revenge without needing to justify it tactically.) If only they'd had two books for all this content, instead of having a 2nd and 3rd invasion of Ullanor back to back. Hey, wait a minute- The Last Son of Dorn - David Guymer Ignoring the narrative pratfall the series makes next book, this is great, though not quite as great as I remembered. The Deathwatch's opening strikes in this book really sell the benefits of cross-legion spec ops better than Annandale's book ever did. Operations are coordinated, well-organized, and play to the strengths of using astartes as a scalpel - plus, a contrast to the more open warfare the series runs on is very appreciated. Seeing Mesring fly further off the deep end is fun, but like the previous book I wish we had more time to deal with the immediate fallout of Koorland shooting a High Lord in the face. The second battle on Ullanor is thankfully only about as long as it needs to be. The snapshots of the wider battle for scale are used to develop Thane further as a character and narratively prepare us for his taking charge in the next book. The ease at which the Deathwatch infiltrate the throne room is a subversion on their previous effectiveness; The Beast is once again one step ahead and is using the whole event as an opportunity to kill the Imperium's new commander. I appreciate the balls on the series, killing its apparent protagonist this late in the game, and revealing the situation is much worse than anyone had anticipated with there being 6 Beasts in total. On the other hand, it comes across as a bit… cartoonish at times. "You thought you killed The Beast? No, it was just one of 6 Prime-orks (ha-ha) and the one for the Goffs is an even BIGGER Beast than the other ones!!1!" This reveal may have worked better during the initial invasion in book 8, I think. I'm totally fine with big, out-there ideas, but they need to be paid off well. Even bad ideas can be saved if you work with them. But all this stuff, interesting though it is, is dealt with surprisingly easily next book because the series is ending now. Don't pull this stuff out at the eleventh hour just because you thought it was cool. But! This book is still pretty good. I'm a Guymer fan (usually) and his writing is as strong as ever. Love the development for Thane, love the effectiveness of the kill teams, love the balance of action, love that Koorland got to kill the commander of the orks that wiped out his brethren in book 1. I love that the orks, once again, seem to have a limited tolerance for space marine favouritism and actually kill the Imperial leader foolish enough to lead these attacks in-person. That it happened more than once at this point is wonderful. I'm not sure how Bohemond isn't bloody mist after what happens to him in this entry but I'll take what I can get. Next post is just going to be about Shadow of Ullanor and how it's the apotheosis on a bunch of narrative issues that really only become obvious when the series runs out of time. The post after that, on The Beheading, will be more positive and include a review of the series as a whole.

[This kills the roomsky]

So, I agree with literally everything written here, especially that men showing emotion and being unashamedly close should not be equated to homosexuality. Come on society, manly tears are awesome, bring it back. However, I would like to make one point regarding my assertion about the Heresy's romantic overtones: If all the men were instead women, and acted the exact same way, it would still be the gayest thing ever (affectionate.)

Outer Dark - I'm surprised, I found it to be a step up from Red Tithe in almost every way. Better atmosphere, stronger characters, and while the main antagonists didn't have a personality I thought the super-interesting Ashen Claws made up for it. Rannick was my favourite character from the first book so her having more to do was a pure positive. I also found MacNiven's prose had much more sauce the second time round. Titandeath - My opinion of it has certainly improved over the years, if for no other reason than Titan combat clearly isn't easy to write but Haley makes it quite easy to follow. I mostly just wish all the Knight titan stuff was cut out (I legitimately hated those sections) and replaced with more snippets of the wider Beta Garmon conflict. Regarding Solaria's lesbian polycule, my issue with it on release (though I've softened some since then) is that the Heresy is frankly saturated with male on male romantic overtones, but the only queer couples were lesbian ones. Considering the sheer length of the series, only having straight and lesbian couples can come across as fetishization by the all-male author stable rather than representation, or an organic exploration of sorority. On the other hand, pregnancy being acknowledged at all in a 40k book was certainly a step forward. In the grim darkness of the far future, people still have sex, though you wouldn't know it from 99% of BL output.

Pinch me, I must be dreaming. I think this is awesome news, but being an edition launch tie-in I really hope it's not the only one of its kind. Isstvan III is in dire need of a novel devoted to the general conflict as well.

Well it all comes back to taste, don't it? King didn't justify the narrow focus, to me. Berate me all you like dear Fraters, but King is no ADB. Lemuel is fine, in fact I was indeared to the middle sections of this story because Anton and Ivan were basically not present. He's out of his depth, and a very effective conduit for the story being told. Anton and Ivan are flat characters who run out of momentum by the end of book 2 - I needed more from them than the same characters they've been before, because by book 3 they're just canned interactions masquerading as people. The Undertaker? He's got one scene. This is assuming this is Leo's story, in which Macharius happens to feature. If that's the case, than the supporting cast was very ill-equipped to populate a trilogy. You know by now I don't need a character to have spotlight-focus or a POV for the book to effectively make them intriguing and awesome. I love Angron, The Red Angel, I love Sanguinius, the Great Angel, it would be great if there was another example to fit this pattern, a third angel. My dissatisfaction comes down to, in part, what I brought up in my Angel of Fire review. Alexandros is the template for a charismatic military leader, which every other charismatic military leader in Black Library steals from in equal quantity. It is not enough for me that he knows his men's names, almost never loses, is hungry for glory, and takes massive self-centred risks. I need the man that wears that coat and we never get to meet him. Sure, the Imperium ate him because he actually lived up to the legend, that's neat. But if that's the angle, I personally needed more of him subverting the human moments instead of being really awesome off-screen. Book 1 is him distantly being awesome and saving the hive with Lemuel. He rejects the daemon despite his hunger for glory, a strong enough start to this arc. Do I then get to see him hold together a bunch of warlords who no one man should be able to unite? Do I get to see him accomplish the impossibility of making this many worlds stable in his wake? Do I get to see him thwart the Byzantine plans within plans levied against him at every turn, and pulling a "Give unto Caesar" moment every time a Terran representative tries to trip him up? Not really, I get to see him wage an amusing campaign against Dark Eldar and thwart the Imperium's most predictable assassination attempt. I needed more interesting triumphs, or I needed a more vulnerable man. I don't think King succeeded in giving me either. Emperor damnit, I needed more Sejanus. If King wanted to subject me to a plodding campaign against Nurgle, I suppose he succeeded. I just would have rathered that time be devoted to something more interesting, like Macharius' conquest starting to eat itself after he died. A crime, I know.

Fall of Macharius - Bill King What's the opposite of a :cuss: sandwich? I never knew the answer until now, apparently it's a Fall of Macharius. The first few chapters of this book suck. Lemuel, Ivan, and Anton fight Nurgle zombies and have nothing interesting to say or think that they didn't say or think last book. The book gets good once Lemuel's in the hospital, but you could have just opened with that. Give him those fever dreams and say they was from fighting the corrupted and a more evocative image would have been painted in the reader's mind than the slog they were subjected to. Then we have an uninterrupted run of quality that lasts up until just before the climax. Macharius' end is coming, conspiracies hide in every corner, and no time is wasted on fight scenes or Anton being called an idiot for the 600th time. The middle 3/5ths of this book are quite good and are exactly the sort of thing I wanted from this series. Except for more Sejanus, who I don't think is even mentioned, but I can forgive that considering how fun this section was to read. Then comes the climax. There are good elements, I liked how quick and anticlimactic most of the deaths were, and considering the scale of what was going on it didn't waste any time. But uh, Macharius dies and the book ends, quite literally, a page later. The only excitement in those final pages comes from the dread that King is going to bungle the ending, which he doesn't in terms of events but does in terms of pacing or structure. It's as bad as Abnett's worst endings. An entire Imperial civil war erupts from Macharius' death and we don't see one iota of it. Macharius dies, his killer dies, Lemuel says "and then a civil war happened" and then the book ends. To Taste, I guess. It's an uneven finale to an uneven series. Fist of Demitrius is the only one I fully recommend, and even then I've read better guard books. Macharius and Alexander Why? Why do I keep reading Renault books before Macharius ones? The comparison does the latter no favours. (Not Alexander this time, but her equally great Theseus duology.) I have managed to curtail my frustration resultant from comparing Macharius to Alexander to some degree. But an issue remains: every change made to differentiate him from his inspiration just makes him less interesting. His generals vying for power before he dies is just so… standard. His death happening seconds after another cathartic victory is just so standard. Macharius isn't invincible, but he doesn't seem to have any human vulnerability either. He isn't forced to grapple with Alexander's enormous personal losses, or a powerless, immanent death far from the front lines. His Haephestion (and his Ptolemy, I guess) are barely present across the trilogy and he doesn't lose the most important person in his life to a pointless medical blunder. Once again, I find him flat by comparison, I didn't need his POV but I needed more of the man beneath the legend. Macharius' end only seems to happen because he's incapable of being anything but the legend - and if that was always the angle, it needed more attention, sooner. The incredibly interesting succession wars in the wake of his death getting no attention is just the nail in the coffin, for me.

Beer continuing to get novels is an absolute win. I love his take on all things technological so he should be a great fit for a Necron focus. As with any debut novel, I'm curious about the Night Lords book. If it's even half as good as any of its predecessors, it'll still be awesome. Space Wolves are a skip unless it looks like it's doing something interesting. Krakendoom doesn't meet this criteria, at a glance, and while I find Collins solid enough he's not an author that would make me check out a book just because his name's on it.

Oh, probably. I'm just being a :cuss: because despite it's central appearance in that one awesome piece of art, Black Library seems to have been mind-wiped regarding its existence.

Who? There's only one red angel, and his name is Angron.

I think it's long been established that all the Sanguinary Guard who accompany Sang onto the Vengeful Spirit get killed. I don't recall if Abnett actually wrote it that way, but the assumption for a while was that Azkaellon didn't get to go for whatever reason. Still silly we didn't get more of his on-the-ground POV in TEatD though, that's grade-A angst material.

Zephon is only frustrating because 1: Abnett can't write him for ship, and 2: Swallow completely bungled making interesting Blood Angels back in Fear to Tread. Exciting new characters? That book had none. It's no wonder nobody wants to write Azkaellon or Raldoron, the only compelling thing either has done since their introduction is Raldoron nonchalantly kicking Skraivok off a wall. Amit has had decent pagetime because he has a personality. But Wraight is Wraight. He can turn a boring character into an interesting one in the time it takes for us to blink. Azkaellon rehabilitation arc incoming?

As if a lack of overall quality can stop me! The wizard has been done in. The curtain has been pulled back. We cannot get the cat back into the bag. What reason is there not to write about The Scouring at this point? Mystique? Respect for canon? There is none left, the Heresy series killed that horse, turned it into glue, and ate it like a kindergartener. The fact is that the Siege either dropped the ball (Iron Warriors) or didn't resolve the a plotline in any capacity (Dark Angels) - I'll wade through the :cuss: if it means I get a few diamonds in the rough like in the Heresy. Also, I'm tired of dancing around Caliban's destruction. Someone write the bloody thing, already.

I see your pointed lack of reaction, Denny. We're on to you. As much as both so far have had, frankly, perfect endings, I would also love to see a capper to the series in a third book. Flowers does seem to be avoiding using Chaos as an antagonist in his novels, and considering he's such a rarity for doing so, I hope it keeps up. Being an ace pilot against one of the two races most associated with superior tech would be awesome. On the other hand, Flowers has proven anything he touches is golden. I imagine whatever he drops next will keep up that pattern, even if I get Shard withdrawal.