Roomsky

Some of you may be burnt out, but that's a sacrifice I'm willing to make. Iron Cage let's go! Caliban exploding let's go! Eskrador let's go! Other things, I imagine, Let's go!

The distributers clearly heard my complaint. It's called Final Deployment and now has a cover. Amazon.ca's other Updates: Carnage Unending - Dan Abnett - April The Green Tide - Ork book omnibus - March "Steve Lyons'" Death and Duty has a description now, it appears he's just the first listed author for a Guard anthology.

One one hand, Wraight and French are great picks to kick things off if this is indeed The Scouring. On the other hand, I'm surprised it isn't starting with Abnett, not merely because it's "his thing" but because he said explicitly that he'd love to write a lot about Terra right after the Emperor's enthronement and the political turmoil that follows. Maybe he's just got too much on the go. Also that Tempestus Scions book is still listed everywhere for next month but still doesn't have a cover or title.

Just starting chapter 12. It's fine, so far, nothing too special in terms of main plot. What I loved though was Messinius putting down a rebelling world that embraced the horrors of... democracy. No Chaos plot, no Genestealers, just the Imperium stamping out people trying to do good.

Grotsnik: Da Mad Dok - Denny Flowers "Is it possible to make a horror story from an ork POV?" is a question no one asked ever until the good Mr. Flowers began writing this book. Shockingly, against all odds, the answer is yes. This book is a real treat. Flowers' orks are another distinct brand of the faction, with it's own identity compared to Brooks and Crowley. His orks are a little better-spoken, and while there's not shortage of buffoonery, generally more serious as well. With that comes genuine individual personalities, in contrast to most ork POVs where they're essentially all the same character. Valtun is probably my favourite ork character ever, he's just different enough from his fellows (and exasperated enough by Grotsnik) to make you unironically root for him. Ikor is also a fantastic little grot, not ground-breaking but amusing and sympathetic-ish, and of course Grotsnik himself is an entertaining menace. Speaking of our title character, he's genuinely quite unsettling in this. In a culture of suicidally battle-hungry monsters, I can understand why they'd be creeped out by this guy. He's erratic, conniving, and sadistic towards his own kind in ways that sets him wholly apart from other orks. His unhinged obsession with his own genius is also off-putting, in a good way. While he's not the POV character, the book easily earns it's title, it's about Grotsnik ands his nature through-and-through. Dok's got some killer "mono"logues, in this. This is probably the lowest concentration of humans in an ork book we've yet received. Captain Wesker's portions were totally fine, nothing special beyond the twist, which took me far too long to figure out. My favourite part of the book is a double-edged sword. Much like our Mad Dok, the book feels a bit stitched together and clumsy at times, because it likes to answer "what do orks think about this?" "what would orks do in this situation?" "what is Grotsnik really thinking?" - often in ways that feel tailored to answering those questions, rather than preserving narrative integrity. I like why the book gets messy, because it's, without fail, interesting and fun. But messy it is. This might end up being book of the year if we don't get any surprises later on. It's not perfect, but even it's flaws are a great time. If you have any hunger for an ork-centric book, I rate this a Must Read. 8/10 seems fair.

That is probably "offal," which means blood and guts. Great review! I personally thought Outer Dark was a massive improvement from Red Tithe, so I'm very curious if this continues what I perceive as an upward trend. Though based on your comments about our protagonist's journeys, I'm a bit cynical now lol.

DemiNeon Genesis Evangelion Resurrecting this thread because the paperback's now out. I loved this! Forges of Mars may be a great introduction to the setting, but I consider this the definitive Mechanicus book (so far.) It's full of ritual and world building for its own corner of the galaxy and the Mechanicus at large. Sherax, Lyterix, Yuel, Rahn-Bo, the lead Skitarii, and Luren all view their cult and purpose very differently, and paint a wonderfully realized picture of Martian ambition, dogmatism, and the forces that make a tech priest choose one over the other. It's also nice to see the fleshiest and least dogmatic priest be the problematic one, for once. Sherax is our main character, and she gives me my favourite kind of Imperial book: a self-defeating journey to ruination. She defies dogma, she works for the good of her people above all, and she takes big risks. Contrast many books I find more frustrating, Sherax is punished for this at every turn, and ends the book having sacrificed her station and most of her crew for nothing. It is a journey to her embracing Mechanicus dogmatism, and all her failures are ironically only enabled because her crew possesses the loyalty and discipline she refused to entertain. It's all so... refreshing. And it's not just the red-robes that get a good showing. Knight Pilot Edgar is fantastic, and his were some of my favourite parts of the book (contrast something like the Knight segments in Titandeath, which bored me to tears.) His balance of bravery and self-pity, and his relationship with the equally well-drawn Vostroyans, should be looked at as a template for writing good secondary factions. His relationship with Zlata was intensely real, and I loved it. The book has several antagonist forces, but I'd say the Eldar are the main baddies here. While they ultimately lose, I think this is a great showing; they outplay the Imperials at every turn and only lose because of an unexpected 3rd party blindsiding them. And by "outplaying the Imperials," I don't mean the usual cheap "this was all just as planned" while only working in the background. This is open combat and they absolutely slaughter the humans. Beer's writing really works for me; his characters are full of humanity and he doesn't waste time on what I'd call obligatory battle sequences. What's more, he really puts effort into making his POVs have a thought process reflective of the world. When describing the size of something, the head Skitarii compares it to the skull of a baby. The normalization of the Imperial death cult is so rarely reflected in how characters think. Another great point is the disgust of the Mechanicus characters when encountering non-human machines. It's easy to forget that the human form is sacred to the Mechanicus and just generalize them as "machine = good," so I loved seeing it subverted here. Regarding the ending of the book being rushed - I'd say yes and no. Sherax's character journey is the book's main focus, and that resolves fine and believably; and as mentioned no time is wasted describing battles that have no bearing on the central plot. And while nothing too out there happens with the Dominion Genesis device, it's fate is the earned payoff to Sherax's character change. What I personally think got short-changed are the side characters (except Edgar, whose ending is excellent.) Rahn-Bo, Luren, Lyterix, and Yuel are all very well defined, but with a couple of exceptions they don't really go anywhere. Yuel especially I thought was underutilized - his desire to regain his status is clearly a driving motivator, and he was practically salivating when he saw the ship graveyard for all the materiel he could lay claim to, but once the conflict really begins he just kind of morphs into "reasonable ally." You'd think he'd have more complex feelings about returning from an unsanctioned expedition in abject failure. On the opposite end of things, the 3rd party that screws up the whole Eldar plan basically comes out of nowhere. I personally didn't have a problem with it, everyone in this book suffers from bad luck, but I can see why it would rankle others. Overall though, I loved this. 9/10. Check it out! (And read King of the Spoil, ya gits.)

Angels of Another Age was perfectly fine. YMMV on how much you enjoy French's Blood Angels. Fulgurite was boring. I like Narek as a spanner in the works; he really doesn't work as well as the sole protagonist. Ending is Kyme copying Abnett's copying ADB's homework. Fragments was surprisingly mid, and I usually eat up whatever Abnett puts out. I wanted this to be like that Gaunt's Ghosts short that functioned as the denouement to Anarch, but instead its just a servicable Silent Sisters story. Ex Libris is fine also, but ultimately just another Ahriman short. System Purge is dull and I skimmed it. At this point I was fairly disappointed. The stories were fine, but this isn't the Siege epilogue I had hoped for. Then GUY HALEY of all people comes in with the steel chair and heralds the best stories in the anthology. After the Dawn, the Darkness is Haley at his best, focussing on baseline humans instead of demigods. He renders a believable Terra post-disaster, and gives some actual closure to Katsuhiro, thank god. Why is the payoff to the baby in an anthology, though? Homebound is the best story here, exactly the depressed introspection I want in the wake of the Siege. It's beautifully written and a genuinely emotional capper to Wraight's White Scars. I'd argue this short is better than Warhawk, entire. Carrion Lord of the Imperium isn't anything new for ADB, which is fine, because ADB is great. It gives a better understanding for why Dio is such a :cuss:, and the depressed ire with space marines and primarchs is frankly well-deserved. More importantly, it firmly canonizes shirtless mourning custodes, which is a great service. It's not really the anthology I wanted until though last 3 stories. Those last 3 though, mmf, delish.

Fist of Demitrius - Bill King Well, that's more like it. For some, like Sotholar, I can see why it wouldn't be much of an improvement over Angel of Fire, but I personally found this a significant step-up from that first book, at least in terms of portraying Macharius and his crusade. Putting Lemuel close to him for the duration of the book just makes it work sooooo much better. We get discussion of strategy and tactics. We get politicking among Macharius' generals. We get a proper idea of what the Crusade looks like. We get to see stubbornness and pride bleeding out the sides of Macharius' perfect facade. We see his strenuous friendship with Drake in detail. We get more than a generic fictional military leader. I won't claim it's deep, that's not really King's style, but the title character is way more interesting and human than last time. I'm also so pleased that the Hephaestion equivalent in Sejanus is here this time, even if only for a few scenes. The informal general with no insecurity about his position is a wonderful contrast to the career social climbers who share his rank. And, as a bonus, a Dark Eldar POV! I gets a bit tired by about the 60% mark (the guy is really just a caricature of his faction) but it's welcome all the same. Dark Eldar work quite well as foils to Macharius and co. - they are after all a society of opportunists, and their leader's lack of respect both for and from those around him sharply contrasts Macharius' Alexander-style aura of authority and loyalty. King's prose remains laudable for its accessibility, unremarkable in its presentation, and occasionally frustrating for its simplicity (Describing the Webway as "spooky" in the narration sort of takes me out of it.) It's simple, workmanlike, and unchallenging. But it also disappears, for the most part, as you read, making it easier to focus on the substance of the book. To be clear, I don't think the lack of depth in King's writing is anything other than intentional - he writes very accessible series in a setting that often seems impenetrable from the outside. And, despite all that, he's quite good at hiding genuine humanity behind the simplicity. I'll say this against the series: a better book 2 hasn't given me any greater appreciation for book 1. Angel of Fire does have a handful of elements that I think it does better as a Guardsman book, but it really drops the ball in being about Macharius, both directly and indirectly. It's an origin story for how a tank crew became Macharius' bodyguards, which it does fine, but it fails to tell me anything meaningful about the man or his campaigns. I'm honestly tempted to say that if you're interested in this series, book 1 isn't even required reading. Lemuel, Anton, and Ivan organically demonstrate who they are from the get-go here, and Anton is significantly less annoying. Thank the Emperor this book isn't "the commander of a billion men is trapped alone behind enemy lines" again. The cast certainly shrinks towards the end, but it comes so late I don't begrudge it at all. The plotting in general is just a lot less trite to me in this one. 7.5/10? It didn't blow my socks off, but it was basically what I wanted out of the series. Easy recommend if you're curious and appreciate King's style.

I'm so glad other people are giving this a shot even after Annandale's two prior entries being piss. There's more to Mortarion than "I hate psykers and my dad" but even Wraight got too caught up on those elements. Annandale of all people really captures his "hardass for the people" elements, and makes it a pretty decent read to boot. It's one of my favourites in the series just because it does something the Heresy novels totally failed at.

Waiting for it to turn out Black Legion 3's been done for years but they're keeping it in the vault because they know how many people will stop paying attention to their new releases once they get it.

The Wolftime is widely hated, for various reasons. I actually think it's very good, some of Thorpe's best, after the first 150 pages. The good portion of the book has no unecessary fighting, is a fun deconstruction of the Space Wolf identity and exceptionalism, and includes basically all you'd want about their dislike of Guilliman and the primaris roll-out. Obviously, Russ doesn't come back, which was always an unreasonable expectation. To be clear, I think opening a book with 150 pages of awful bolter porn is, from a critical standpoint, unacceptable, but what can you do?

Amazon.ca says July release for Grotsnik. Hopefully it's accurate!

Ahriman Undying - John French I can see why a lot of people wouldn't vibe with this book, but I loved it. This won't change anyone's mind on the Ahriman series' quality (and would, in fact, be completely incomprehensible to a newcomer,) but if you enjoy French's brand of Tzeentchian spaghetti plots, he's outdone himself here. To Taste, because plenty of people are probably just going to just find it annoying? But it's a 9/10 for me, I devoured it in 2 days and wanted to read it again immediately afterwards to appreciate all the little details and pieces of foreshadowing.

I'll concede he's got a unique thing going on with Cawl, and that he's more interesting than Ferren (in that he's a 2/10 instead of a 1/10,) but a Haley Ultramarine is a Haley Ultramarine is a Haley Ultramarine. Him taking Ferren's place in DoF would have done nothing to improve that series from my POV. If anything I'd have liked more pagetime for Lucerne. I'll grant that choosing Ferren to headline a solo novel is baffling, but this doesn't strike me as anything other than the usual amount of thought BL puts into a release (which is to say none.) Anything short of a Sicarius novel would get the same response from me, personally.