Roomsky

If you're taking fantasy suggestions for your backlog, Rowland, then I must suggest my absolute favourite dark "fantasy" series: R. Scott Bakker's Second Apocalypse. It's not just dark and gritty! It's black and sticky! It's like 40k but not written by cowards! It evolves Tolkien's tropes instead of just imitating them! Be transported to a fantasy Middle East and say "God, I hate it here!"

Ward's novels are apparently really good! I wouldn't write them off because of his codex sins; entirely different beast.

Can't comment on Sun Eaters, but I feel there is a point where this particular brand of grimdarkness is inevitably going to fall back into being 40k, which in turn falls back into being Herbert/Moorcock/Wolfe etc. etc. etc. I try to just embrace the fun of spotting the similarities. The Locked Tomb is, as a good friend once described it, "40k for lesbians." That said, despite Muir's prose stumbling a bit in the first book, The Locked Tomb is ultimately a lot deeper than any 40k fiction from the past 20 years, and goes places GW is too cowardly to let their novels explore. Highly recommended.

It's great. McNeill really did seem to be the only one who remembered the human cost needed to be something other than a B-Plot, for a while.

The novel sees a ghost ship bearing down on Bjorn’s homeworld carrying an ancient foe, and with heretics from the traitorous Death Guard set to bring poxes and poisons to Fenris, the ancient warrior rises to its defence. This will either be boring as sin or a much-needed look into what it's like to be the only loyalist Heresy survivor circa 40k that isn't a primarch or a mishmash of different brains. Weird how little this element is ever touched on - Bjorn's always "he's really old" and not often "this guy walked with the Emperor."

Chiming in: Dropsite Massacre - Does this add much to the original heresy series? Yes, if you're already familiar with the book's huge cast. It reads like a missing puzzle piece; it feels like Isstvan V is finally covered in full, but it very much reads as something written with hindsight for the series as a whole. There's a lot of "what was this guy doing at Isstvan V?" without establishing them for new readers. It's a good read within that context, though. Eidolon - I enjoyed him in the hersy books but wasn't sure about this one Non-essential, but fun in a bolter-porny sort of way. ECs are all self-obsessed so it doesn't devolve into being bland, impersonal violence. Ghazghul - I like orks but just couldn't get into Brutal Kunnin, is this more of the same? Ghazghkull's Character Series book is usually regarded as much better than Brooks' writing, though it also dials back a lot of the comedy. If you want Orks well-written and taken mostly seriously, it's great. Infinite and divine - I really like Trazyn as a character but no very little about Necrons. Based on the internet's reaction, it's worth the read and an easy starting place with Necrons. I'm a little lukewarm on it and prefer Twice-Dead King. Tomb World Not great, probably the worst Necron-focused novel out ATM. Don't write off the author for it though, The King of the Spoil and Dominion Genesis are both very good. Voidscarred The only honest-to-god romance in the Black Library catalogue. It's also Elf Yaoi. Read it if you think you'd enjoy that. Might make you want to play Corsairs. Elemental Council The best Tau book, bar none. Highly recommended.

This re-release is the first one I don't better than the original. Galaxy in Flames' original art is actually kinda decent, and this one captures neither the grit nor the scale of the book's contents.

Can it be? Raldoron is finally getting a personality? They said it wouldn't be done. They said it couldn't be done. Cautiously optimistic for this, even with Haley not being my favourite. Man's probably the least interesting first captain among the first-founding chapters, and he really shouldn't be. Edit: His head is very small.

Horus Rising (Director's Cut) parts 1, 2, and 3 would be absolutely shameless. I'd buy it. (Heresy'd still have been better if 1 author tackled the whole thing.)

The Ork sections were lots of fun - especially impressive because Brooks has written more Orks than anjyone else at this point, but they didnèt feel stale here. I just thought the two protagonists had a very compelling energy to them. Mixed with decent Eldar focus being (weirdly) so much rarer than good Ork focus these days, it just gave me the experience of "yes, yes, very amusing. But do hurry back to the meat of the story." Which, I'll concede, could have been intentional on Brooks' part to build tension.

Well, it's certainly no Twice-Dead King.

Some fresh paperback listings from Amazon: October 20 - Apostle, Dropsite Massacre, Master of Rites November 17 - Deathrider, Ghost Legion December 15 - Ashes of the Imperium, Ghazghkull Thraka: Warlord of Warlords, Chem Dog

Tombworld – Jonathan D. Beer Is there anything more frustrating than a story that’s less than the sum of its parts? I enjoy Beer’s writing style, but this reads like an enthusiastic first draft. It’s the sort of solid base that should still be coming back to the author with a laundry list of notes before even approaching the printing stage. Very disappointing. This book has several problems, but the main one is its protagonist. Triarch Praetorian Khemet is a fine character to feature in this story, but as its protagonist she's boring as sin. Her goal is to act in accordance with her station. Her personality is that she is humourless and motivated solely by duty. This is simply not enough to carry a story, especially when Praetorians are so physically powerful. About 50 pages at the start of the book are devoted to her backstory, all of which adds zero complexity to her as an individual. She floats through the book making intelligent judgments, restraining herself from killing the idiots she’s surrounded by, and defeating whoever she’s fighting with ease. I do want inhuman xenos in my 40k fiction, but when you’re writing the inhuman as a protagonist, it’s important to retain at least one relatable human element while making the rest of their personality alien. Khemet doesn’t have that element. She has a place in the story being told, she just shouldn’t be the centre of it. Every other main character is more interesting than Khemet. Hekasun, whom every other Necron ostensibly works for in this story, has zero redeeming qualities, but I still think he’d have been a better protagonist. He, at least, is motivated by trying to reclaim what he’s owed, and the indignity of having to claw his way back into his own fiefdom. Kamoteph is probably the most interesting Necron here, being a bit eccentric and just as competent as Khemet, if in a less cautious manner. Ahnuret too is fun – so much attention is usually given to the Flayer Virus that it’s a nice contrast to see a Necron instead descending into the Destroyer mentality (and by doing so, suddenly becoming very bad at her job.) Meanwhile, on the human side, we get Arbitrator Sinos. I like Sinos quite a bit. She’s nothing terribly special as a character, but she shares the protagonist role with Khemet for the middle ~100 pages of the book, so has the benefit of contrast with the uninteresting metal skeleton. Her portions, unfortunately, suffer from another narrative misstep: she’s investigating something we already know the answer to. “Who could it be?” she asks, beside the suspiciously Necron-shaped adjacent chapters. I think the intent here was to make the reader wonder if Sinos will discover Necron involvement in time for it to make a difference. But so many words are spent on the actual dead-end investigating that it just comes across as wheel-spinning. So, the first third is character building for a flat character. The second third is investigating a mystery we already know the answer to. Is the final third better? I think so, but it’s still, ultimately, a war the Necrons have no chance of losing. So, I’m not saying I wanted the Necrons to lose in their own book. However. An internal conflict for the Necrons is that Khemet knows how dangerous humans can be, and opts for a slow but assured strategy for victory. Hekasun, arrogant brat that he is, chafes against this and, combined with a miscalculation by Kamoteph, blows their figurative load early and turns the fight for the planet into an actual war. There are no meaningful consequences to this turn of events. The Necrons walk onto the surface, annihilate any and all resistance, none of the Necron POVs face any real threat from the humans, and then Khemet kills the 7 Deathwatch marines who show up in an attempt to help. Now, the story’s actual climax is a purely internal affair for the Necrons (and it’s quite good.) But Hekasun loses nothing for his impatience. I’m not asking for any major defeat here, but losing even one resource that otherwise would have been spared would've been enough. If you’re going to devote so much time to Khemet saying “don’t take unnecessary risks,” then there should be a consequence to ignoring that, because otherwise it just makes Khemet annoyingly over-cautious, on top of being boring. Again, if Khemet were a supporting character, this dynamic would have been fine, as it would balance out the incredibly overpowered nature of Praetorians with the flaw of excessive caution. I won’t detail the actual climax beyond reiterating that I think it’s very good, probably the best part of the story. It’s a good ending to what is, on paper, a good story. Everything leading up to it is just mishandled. A better version of this book would probably still have that same climax, and it would have hit even better. What else did I like? Well, I like Beer’s writing style. I like all the supporting characters, and despite Sinos and the Deathwatch all having “shoot the shaggy dog” stories, I enjoyed reading about them as people. I like the elements of Necron culture Beer drew attention to: the aforementioned Destroyer cult, Khemet’s complete indifference to the Necrontyr lower classes having their personalities erased, and the supreme importance of heirarchy in their society. As mentioned, Hekasun is a useless idiot, but he wears the crown and thus it is seen as morally correct to do his bidding. Individualism is a sin if you’re not nobility to the Necrons, and that theme is a good contrast against the Necron protagonists of other books. The action, while flaccid, never carries on too long just to be more “exciting”, and it is nice to see a defiant final action by humanity end in abject failure for once. But that just makes the flaws more frustrating. King of the Spoil and Dominion Genesis are both great. This book has great elements, but the narrative style is schizophrenic, and vast swathes of pages are devoted to things we already know don’t matter. This is what good editors are supposed to send back for a redo. Backing up my suspicion this book was barely edited: the Cryptek called Ptah is agender when they’re first introduced, but is then referred to as a man when they next appear. Editors? Hello? Anyone in there? Ultimately, unless you’re a die hard for Necrons, this book isn’t worth the frustration. Go read Twice-Dead King or The Infinite and the Divine instead. Hopefully this is just a mis-step and Beer’s next book is back up to his usual quality.

Perhaps this wave of reprints is Black Library's inept way of giving the fanbase the "not secondary market hell" we've been asking for. Not how I'd have done it, but that's Black Library for you.

I've just started into it, good so far. I like Beer's writing and the premise diferentiates itself from other Necron works pretty quickly. Will make or contribute to a thread when I'm done.