Roomsky

[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.

It depends what you're here for. Spear of the Emperor confirms that yes, 40k is still 40k, the Imperium is still horrible and at odds with itself, the galaxy is too big for any one figure to save it, and said one figures are not the centre of every story worth telling. It's the "you don't need to abandon the setting because of 8th edition" book. Your books are a fine list for someone who enjoys all the hype new additions and wants to follow something resembling a metanarrative.

Dawn of Fire Book 9 - Guy Haley It appears I was too kind to Hand of Abaddon. I forgave an underwhelming climax and Tenebrus doing the narrative equivalent of walking into a spike pit he already knew about because I assumed the more interesting Chaos Characters in Yheng and Harek would feature in the final entry. Unfortunately, they're nowhere to be found, nor is Rostov. Fabian would also have been appreciated. This series has largely been a parade of loosely-connected standalone novels, but they did have a unifying theme in fighting Chaos: Book 1: Vs Chaos Book 2: Vs Chaos Book 3: Ostensibly about Space Wolves and the Ork threat, but the longest battle scene is against Night Lords Book 4: Vs Chaos Book 5: Vs Other Imperials (and Chaos) Book 6: Vs Chaos Book 7: Vs Chaos Book 8: Vs Chaos Book 9: Vs Necrons (???) Beyond an unrelated Gellar Field failure (that only served as set-up for Dark Imperium,) Chaos is a non-entity in this book. No Rostov, no Yheng, no Harek, no Iron Magus, no Anathame reforged. I'm not entirely opposed to leaving these points open for future stories, but if that was the plan, Tenebrus needed a better resolution than shoving a stick into his own spokes. You can't even view the Haley books as the "core" of the series because of this; Throne of Light has a non-ending if you're only reading his books. If I had to guess, it would be that the last 2 books being what they are is due to the series being cut down from the original plan, but as-is this "finale" seems like the start of a new series more than anything - weirdly haphazard for Haley. I guess the Dawn of Fire was destroyed in this, the series really was about the ship this whole time. This could have worked as a finale, it certainly has no shortage of recurring characters, but it simply doesn't follow from the novels it's "concluding." If, for example, book 3 was really about the Orkish threat, book 5 had no Chaos agents, and book 6 was a defense against Tyranids or something, The Silent King wouldn't be so weirdly out of place. This is just a bizarro episode, and considering how loosely connected the series is already, that's saying something. Even as a reader who enjoyed how disconnected each book was, this was a letdown. Still better than Dark Imperium.