Warhammer: After 18 years, finally an end

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Cooked Auto: Aug 4, 2007

Arquinsiel posted:

The Darkblade comics are pretty solid, and I'd actually rate them higher than the novelisations that came later. Other than that they were mostly disjointed messes. I think Deff Skwadron might still be available occasionally, but I haven't seen it in a while.

Yeah I recall seeing Deff Skwadron having a limited re-release a while ago but otherwise BL has been really quiet about their comics/graphic novels which I still think is a bit dull.

# ? Dec 10, 2014 14:04

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# ? Jun 4, 2024 04:01

berzerkmonkey: Jul 23, 2003

I (finally) finished The Return of Nagash - excellent book. Having read The End Times: Nagash fluff book, Return suffers a bit from not being able to put everything into a single novel, but it was a drat good read.

This is my first Josh Reynolds book, but based on his style, I'd easily put him on the shelf with ADB and Abnett as one of the better GW/BL writers. He's got a very easygoing style, and, like ADB and Abnett, isn't afraid to inject a little humor into his writing. I'm definitely looking forward to his other books now.

Next up though is The End Times: Glottkin fluff - I hope it's as good as the Nagash fluff book.

# ? Dec 11, 2014 20:09

berzerkmonkey: Jul 23, 2003

Crossposting from the Coupons thread:

Amazon is having a 25% off promotion today only - use code BOOKDEAL25 at checkout.

Only applies to "real" books (no e-books.) As far as I can tell, you can only use the coupon for one book, and only once per account.

I picked up The Horus Heresy: Visions of Heresy for $34, which is more than 50% off GW retail. :rock:

# ? Dec 12, 2014 16:12

Waroduce: Aug 5, 2008

I have a friend who reads alot of hard scifi. We were chillin this weekend and I had Helsreach layin around and she read the warham40k intro text and asked for a recommendation. What should I give her?

Thinking Horus Rising or Eisenhorn....not sure since she has 0 background at all

# ? Dec 15, 2014 18:49

Fellblade: Apr 28, 2009

Waroduce posted:

I have a friend who reads alot of hard scifi. We were chillin this weekend and I had Helsreach layin around and she read the warham40k intro text and asked for a recommendation. What should I give her?

Thinking Horus Rising or Eisenhorn....not sure since she has 0 background at all

Thread title says it all.

# ? Dec 15, 2014 18:52

Khizan: Jul 30, 2013

Eisenhorn, definitely. Easily the best entry point and probably the overall best series in the BL.

# ? Dec 15, 2014 19:38

lite_sleepr: Jun 3, 2003

When you say 'hard scifi' are you referring to stuff like Asamov and Heinlein? If so, I can't imagine anyone reading real scifi being able to palate 40K bolter porn.

# ? Dec 15, 2014 19:38

Abyss: Oct 29, 2011

Finished Eisenhorn this weekend and really enjoyed it. Continuing on with the Ravenor omnibus and then Pariah. In the meantime I'm working on the Sword of Justice/Vengeance books as well as the Graphic Novel "Bloodquest :the eye of terror trilogy." I'm actually amazed at how many libraries carry these books and what I'm able to get through interlibrary loan, but trying to find them at a decent price to buy is like treasure hunting. The Eisenhorn omnibus paperback that I had on loan had a retail price of $13.99, but I couldn't find anything online for less than $70. I think I'm going to have to hit up some discount bookstores to find some of the omnibuses at a decent price.

# ? Dec 15, 2014 20:14

Fried Chicken: Jan 9, 2011; Don't fry me, I'm no chicken!

PRESIDENT GOKU posted:

When you say 'hard scifi' are you referring to stuff like Asamov and Heinlein? If so, I can't imagine anyone reading real scifi being able to palate 40K bolter porn.

Neither of those is remotely hard scifi. Magic psychic powers and ftl are pretty much the exact opposite of hard scifi.

# ? Dec 15, 2014 23:18

orphean: Apr 27, 2007; beep boop bitches
my monads are fully functional

The point is debatable. A lot of hard sci-fi does have certain fantastical elements to them (i.e.; Ben Bova's Grand Tour, Solaris, Rendevous with Rama, etc.) My personal rule of thumb is that hard sci fi can have one such fantastical thing while the rest is as plausible and realistic as possible.

# ? Dec 15, 2014 23:21

Improbable Lobster: Jan 6, 2012; "From each according to his ability" said Ares. It sounded like a quotation.; Buglord

Hard sci fi is a bullshit term IMHO

# ? Dec 15, 2014 23:25

orphean: Apr 27, 2007; beep boop bitches
my monads are fully functional

I dunno, I think it's a useful label to do a sort of rough grouping. If a book is described as 'hard sci fi' you know its not going to be Star Wars space opera.

I do think trying to nail down the labels to The One True Definition is a task that leads to madness.

# ? Dec 15, 2014 23:30

lite_sleepr: Jun 3, 2003

Fried Chicken posted:

Neither of those is remotely hard scifi. Magic psychic powers and ftl are pretty much the exact opposite of hard scifi.

Fried Chicken posted:

Neither of those is remotely hard scifi. Magic psychic powers and ftl are pretty much the exact opposite of hard scifi.

I don't think hard scifi means what you think it does. Hard scifi as in science fiction based on real science and how you could have FTL travel if based on real physics. Think Contact by Carl Sagan. That's hard science fiction, and if his GF reads hard scifi like he said, then 40K bolter porn seems to be nothing that she'd like.

lite_sleepr fucked around with this message at 00:48 on Dec 16, 2014

# ? Dec 16, 2014 00:19

Khizan: Jul 30, 2013

Some people like more than one kind of book?

I mean, she read the intro text and said she was interested, and it pretty much tells you exactly what you are in for.

quote:

It is the 41st Millennium. For more than a hundred centuries The Emperor has sat immobile on the Golden Throne of Earth. He is the Master of Mankind by the will of the gods, and master of a million worlds by the might of his inexhaustible armies. He is a rotting carcass writhing invisibly with power from the Dark Age of Technology. He is the Carrion Lord of the Imperium for whom a thousand souls are sacrificed every day, so that he may never truly die.

Yet even in his deathless state, the Emperor continues his eternal vigilance. Mighty battlefleets cross the daemon-infested miasma of the Warp, the only route between distant stars, their way lit by the Astronomican, the psychic manifestation of the Emperor's will. Vast armies give battle in his name on uncounted worlds. Greatest amongst his soldiers are the Adeptus Astartes, the Space Marines, bio-engineered super-warriors. Their comrades in arms are legion: the Imperial Guard and countless planetary defence forces, the ever vigilant Inquisition and the tech-priests of the Adeptus Mechanicus to name only a few. But for all their multitudes, they are barely enough to hold off the ever-present threat from aliens, heretics, mutants - and worse.

To be a man in such times is to be one amongst untold billions. It is to live in the cruelest and most bloody regime imaginable. These are the tales of those times. Forget the power of technology and science, for so much has been forgotten, never to be re-learned. Forget the promise of progress and understanding, for in the grim dark future there is only war. There is no peace amongst the stars, only an eternity of carnage and slaughter, and the laughter of thirsting gods.

I can't really picture her reading this and thinking she's getting Contact out of it, y'know?

# ? Dec 16, 2014 00:51

OXBALLS DOT COM: Sep 11, 2005; by FactsAreUseless; Young Orc

quote:

Forget the power of technology and science, for so much has been forgotten, never to be re-learned. Forget the promise of progress and understanding, for in the grim dark future there is only war.

I mean it's right there in the mission statement.

# ? Dec 16, 2014 01:22

Fried Chicken: Jan 9, 2011; Don't fry me, I'm no chicken!

PRESIDENT GOKU posted:

I don't think hard scifi means what you think it does. Hard scifi as in science fiction based on real science and how you could have FTL travel if based on real physics. Think Contact by Carl Sagan. That's hard science fiction, and if his GF reads hard scifi like he said, then 40K bolter porn seems to be nothing that she'd like.

Well since it doesn't mean what I think it means please explain how the Mule's mind control or the redhead sex magic from Heinlein is hard scifi

# ? Dec 16, 2014 02:02

OXBALLS DOT COM: Sep 11, 2005; by FactsAreUseless; Young Orc

Put sci-fi hardness on a sliding scale, problem solved. If you need limits the theoretical "hardest" sci-fi book can be assigned as the book "Physics: Principles and Applications" by John Reiss et. al. (this is technically not perfectly hard since there are still some assumptions in basic Newtonian physics).

# ? Dec 16, 2014 03:26

lite_sleepr: Jun 3, 2003

Fried Chicken posted:

Well since it doesn't mean what I think it means please explain how the Mule's mind control or the redhead sex magic from Heinlein is hard scifi

I don't know what that means but in case you were wondering people can write more than one type of book! Take the moon is a harsh mistress for example, that is filled with a whole bunch of hard science fictionAnd it is credited with being heinleins magnum opus.

# ? Dec 16, 2014 04:06

Kylaer: Aug 4, 2007; I'm SURE walking around in a respirator at all times in an (even more) OPEN BIDENing society is definitely not a recipe for disaster and anyone that's not cool with getting harassed by CHUDs are cave dwellers. I've got good brain!

Arquinsiel posted:

It is such a loving shame that it ruled out being able to enter Doc Eldar

Aw man. I haven't been online much in the past couple of weeks and missed this, but when I saw the link I thought of this too. But welp.

On the upside, I do have a brand-new Doc Eldar story for those of you who are interested.

quote:

Let me tell you a little story about the most terrifying boss I've ever had. When I say terrifying, I don't mean the distant, impersonal sense of terror that you might expect to feel for someone much further up the chain of command; it's true that I had a vague fear of the shipmaster, the Monsignor Jeremias, but that's only natural when someone has the power to end your career - or worse - at a whim. But Jeremias never struck fear into me face-to-face, since I spent the whole of my time on his ship without encountering him in person. No, I was scared of my immediate superior, the chief surgeon of the ship - both because he paired consumate surgical skill with hideous cruelty, and because he wasn't human. Why a xeno would want to serve as surgeon on a rogue trader's ship, I do not know, but he did. His name was a polysyllabic tangle, which I was consistently unable to reproduce. I called him Doc Eldar.

I woke up feeling sick that day. Nothing concrete, just nausea and a vague pain in the middle of my abdomen. I tried to ignore it, doing my best to convince myself that it was just something I had eaten, but that explanation didn't stand up; the last night's dinner hadn't been anything unusual, and I trusted the ship's food supplies, more than I trusted those in port or even planetside, outside of a high-class eatery. The Monsignor demanded much from his crew, but with the outlandish profits his adventures routinely produced, even the lowest menials in cargo decks got to eat as much as they wanted. Granted, their food was mostly nutrient broth from the ship's microbial bio-reactors, or variously textured blocks of the same material, but nobody went hungry.

In the top echelon of the enlisted crew, which was the mess rating I was assigned, the food was genuinely good - we had bread with every meal which was never more than a couple of days old, and whenever we were in port over an agri-world we received real meat and fresh produce. One time, we spent eleven days in orbit over a farming colony, waiting for another ship to meet us and crossload some cargo, and I think until that point I'd never eaten so well for such a long span in my life. Even in deep space, we got greens from the hydroponics groves fairly often, and when we did eat nutrient blocks, at least they were served prepared as if they were real food.

I'm digressing about food, I know. It doesn't have anything to do with the story I said I'd tell. But I'd rather think about food than about what happened later.

Breakfast that morning got skipped - no, I'm not going into details about it, although I'm sure I would have enjoyed it if my stomach had been settled enough to make the attempt. I went straight to the hospital and set to my usual task of checking equipment and making sure our portable supplies were ready to go at an instant's notice.

Doc Eldar was staring at me from the moment I entered the trauma suite. It was a foregone conclusion that he'd be there when I arrived - as far as I knew, the only times he left the surgery sector were to respond to an emergency scene or on the personal summons of the Monsignor. "You appear to be uncomfortable," he said. There wasn't any inflection in his voice, but to be the target of that unblinking gaze made me break out in a cold sweat. As far as I could tell, there was one thing that the xeno truly loved, and that was committing surgery on a patient aware enough to scream.

"I'm fine," I replied, wishing above all else that I could mean it.

"You are not. You will see."

He was right.

There weren't very many cases brought in that morning, and what did come in was simple, nothing taking more than a few minutes. The most memorable one was a cargo handler who had lacerated the inside of his forearm deeply enough to nick the radial artery; a medic team brought him in with the bleeding controlled by a pressure bandage, and the xeno promptly unwrapped the wound and spread it open with a pair of mini-retractors, so that he could suture the artery back together as it pulsed and spurted. He had the vessel closed within four of the patient's adrenaline-rapid heartbeats, but by that point the man had already passed out at the sight of droplets of his blood flying to more than a meter above the operating table.

"There is a meeting scheduled for the senior officers," the xeno informed me as I was cleaning up after that patient had been wheeled away. "Jeremias has expressed concern that we are not setting a proper example of morality to the crew, and has prepared a seminar for us."

The Monsignor Jeremias, I probably don't need to remind you, had on more than one occasion commited acts of deep-space piracy out of boredom. It's a reflection of how accustomed I was to his madness that I took the xeno's new statement in stride. "What time will that be?" I asked. The pain in my abdomen had worsened throughout the morning, a suspicion of what it was was solidifying in my mind, and the thought of the xeno being occupied by a lecture from the Monsignor offered me an unexpected ray of hope that I could get someone else to fix the problem.

"Twenty minutes from now. The itinerary says it will last four and a half hours. During that time, Dr. Deiq will be the active surgeon for all less-than-critical cases."

Dr. Deiq was a longstanding member of the ship's medical staff, a man in late middle age with wirey salt-and-pepper hair and a beard to match. During Dr. Bisko's tenure as chief surgeon, he'd been one of the secondary trauma specialists; since Doc Eldar now operated solo on every trauma of any significance, Dr. Deiq mostly handled urgent and semi-urgent non-traumatic cases. It took real effort to keep from breaking into a grin - he would be able to fix me up in a matter of fifteen or twenty minutes, while the xeno was none the wiser.

"I have thought of a rearrangement that might benefit the scene box," the xeno said. "Look at this." He was standing next to the equipment bench that held the rectangular box, made of orange polymer, that was my constant companion on any response runs we made outside of the hospital complex.

I crossed the room to stand beside him and peer into the box, which appeared to be unchanged from how I had last stocked it. "Have you already made the rearrangement?"

"Yes. Instead of six trauma-gauge venous lines in the top layer, there should be four, with another four in the layer below."

Now that he'd mentioned it, I could see what he'd moved. It was a miniscule change - I would say negligible, but few things were negligible in the eyes of the xeno. I had just started to wonder why he had made a point of it.

Then I felt something pressing against my abdomen, just off the spur of the right pelvic brim. In the time it took me to glance down, the pressure was gone again, with only a ripple of the xeno's sleeve to show what he had done - and no sooner was the pressure gone than a jolt of pain shot through my guts, making me wince despite myself.

"You have appendicitis," the xeno said, "you cannot deny it to yourself now. That diagnostic test is older than your species' ascent into space, but no less valid for that reason. You are not in danger yet. Your surgery can wait until after the Monsignor's seminar has finished."

With nothing more said than that, he left the room, and I found my eyes glued to the clock on the wall. I made it a whole three and a half minutes before I could bear waiting no longer, and hustled out the door at the fastest pace I could manage without making a scene. The acute surgery triage clinic was a level up and several hallways away, just a couple of minutes for someone in a desperate hurry - which I was.

The triage nurse knew me - most people in the ship's hospital did, as the xeno's assistant if not by name. Some of them treated me like a leper, tainted by association with the vile nonhuman I worked under, and I can't say that I really blamed them. Sometimes I had to wonder if my soul was forfeit due to my actions, particularly when I helped Doc Eldar complete a particularly horrific work of surgery...or in the middle of a sleep-cycle, when the memories of such events woke me in the dark.

This nurse, luckily, was part of the other end of the spectrum, the ones who viewed me with pity instead of blame. They were the ones who knew that someone surely would have ended up being the chief surgeon's assistant, and if it hadn't fallen on me, it might have been them.

"What's wrong?" she asked, getting straight to business as I neared the desk.

"I've got appendicitis. The xeno diagnosed me. He's in an officers' meeting right now, and if I don't get it taken out before he's done, he'll do it himself."

"Golden Throne!" Putting on a mask of sympathy was part of any medical provider's job, but from her tone, those words were the real thing - she sounded nearly as horrified as I was. Doc Eldar's reputation had spread far and wide, and everyone had heard the stories of how he operated. "Dr. Deiq's fixing a hernia right now, there's a gall bladder waiting but void take it, he can keep waiting a little longer. Get into the prep room, we'll have you on a table within a half-hour."

Words cannot describe the relief I felt as I changed into the sterile paper surgical suit; this was one designed for abdominal procedures, so the entire square over the abdomen could be peeled away for surgical exposure. It was far from the most comfortable thing I'd worn, but all I could think of was that it meant I wouldn't have to go under the xeno's knife.

The door to the OR was just ahead of me, and I was struck by a flash of terror at the thought of seeing Doc Eldar when it slid open. I wouldn't have put it past him to be waiting for me, officers' meeting or not. But as it opened to reveal the surgical suite, the xeno was nowhere to be seen. Instead, I laid eyes on what I'd most been looking forward to: the room's seerna.

The anesthetist-servitor was built into a stanchion at the head of the operating table; its base flesh had once been a man, I could tell from the shape of what remained of its face, but now its arms were frameworks of steel, wound through with ventilator hoses and fluid lines; its fingers were tipped with bio-auspex monitors, and a set of bellows - currently still, with no patient to breathe for - nested in its abdominal cavity.

A scrub nurse and an assistant servitor were laying out the last of the surgical tools on the back table - compared to the xeno's absolute reliance on his personal knife as sole cutting instrument, seeing nearly a dozen packets containing various shapes and styles of scalpel blade struck me for a moment as unusual. But I didn't spare any time thinking about scalpels - the operating table was right there, and all I had to do was lay down.

The table was very narrow, and covered in a pad made of high-friction sticky rubber, to prevent me from sliding around during the case, so it took me a moment to settle comfortably onto it. The table's arm rests rose into position, straight out from each shoulder, and the seerna guided my arms into position.

"This is Dr. Sawettan," the organic machine said, relaying the words of its anesthesiologist overseer from another room. "Are there any questions you'd like answered before you go to sleep?"

As it spoke, the servitor fastened a monitoring pod against the inside of my upper arm; I felt a faint sting as it sent its thread-thin probe burrowing through my skin and into the artery, to measure pressure and oxygen content. Another sting as the seerna accessed a vein at my elbow - not truly painful, of course, since the lines used in surgeries like these were only a fraction of the size that Doc Eldar considered the absolute minimum for access.

"No, sir, I'm ready to get this done."

"Alright, Dr. Deiq should be finished with his case in the next five minutes, we'll go ahead and get you to sleep," Sawettan replied.

The servitor brought a mask down to cover my nose and mouth. The anesthetic gas had a bitterness to it, more taste than smell, but I inhaled it greedily, anxious to be asleep. Anxious to be done.

I don't remember the exact moment of falling asleep, of course. Nor do I remember exactly when I woke up - it was a gradual process, senses returning one by one. At first I could hear - the low rumble of the room's air ducts, the rustle of surgical gowns as the OR team shifted their feet, the faint beeping of the seerna's vitals display. Then I could feel - the rough paper gown against my skin, the resilience of the table beneath me, and a continuing discomfort in my guts. Sight came last - I was awake for at least a couple of minutes, I think, before I realized that my eyes were still closed.

When I opened them, I found myself staring into another pair of eyes. Eyes too large, the pupils huge and the irises almost as pale as the surrounding sclera.

Doc Eldar's eyes.

Barely ten centimeters from mine.

"I heard that you were about to undergo surgery," he said. "I ordered that it be delayed until I could arrive to perform it."

"And you've done it, right?" My heart was pounding in a way I'd otherwise only experienced at the end of a race.

"No. I will perform it now."

I screamed.

Being the xeno's assistant had made me the audience to all manner of screaming. Some people were remarkably lucid as they screamed, proclaiming they didn't need Doc Eldar's help and would rather have someone, anyone, else fixing their wounds. Others couldn't manage words at all, just noises of pain and terror. Mine was somewhere in between, a melding together of various obscenities as I struggled to an upright position on the table.

Doc Eldar straightened as I rose, but didn't step away. And even in my fear, I wasn't so far out of my wits that I considered laying hands on him to make him move, so I ended up stuck, seated on the edge of the table but with no room to go anywhere.

"There is a list of crew who are sufficiently important that no-one save myself is allowed to operate on them," the xeno said placidly. "I hope it makes you proud to know that you are the only person on it who is not a senior officer."

"I have every confidence that Dr. Deiq would be perfectly capable of removing my appendix safely and effectively," I replied, speaking slowly as I picked my words with utmost care. I knew I couldn't convince Doc Eldar to let anyone else operate on me, but I had to try. I had to.

"Do you know that Dr. Deiq had a patient who required four days in intensive care after what should have been an uncomplicated appendectomy? An otherwise healthy woman, and she came close to dying of sepsis because he failed to secure the stump adequately."

"When did this happen?" Dr. Deiq, from everything I'd heard, had a fine reputation, it seemed out of character to have made a mistake like that.

"Sixteen years ago. I read the reports."

I felt myself start to slump in defeat. There would be no last-second reprieve. The xeno was staring at me with that hideous intensity that usually heralded the appearance of his knife.

"I can have the surgery completed in eighteen to twenty seconds," he said. His knife appeared in his hand.

I stared at that edge. From what I'd seen him do with it, it was sharper than any scalpel that had ever been used in the hospital complex. You'd think that something that sharp would be less painful - but from its effects on his patients, that logic was far from the truth.

Eighteen to twenty seconds. Eighteen to twenty seconds of horrible agony. I would live, I had no doubt of that. All of Doc Eldar's patients survived. But, Throne help me, it would almost be better to die. I knew that for those eighteen to twenty seconds, I'd be wishing I was dead. And he just stood there, knife poised in his right hand, waiting.

With all the courage I could muster, I said "Alright."

His hand blurred - his left hand, holding something that glittered silver-bright, as he leaned to reach behind me - I felt a sting in the skin over my spine, and an instant later a sensation as if someone had plucked a string running from the base of my skull down to my tailbone -

And from the diaphragm down, I went numb. I toppled backwards as I lost control of the muscles in my hips, and the xeno caught me by my shoulders and maneuvered me onto the table before I could hit the floor. As soon as I was flat on my back, I saw his knife dart towards my skin. I swear, I could hear the sound it made as he performed the cut.

But I felt nothing.

The xeno fished into my abdomen with his fingers and came out with the swollen, angry-looking appendix, tied it off with a pair of heavy threads, then neatly severed it away. I let my head fall against the table again as suture appeared in his hands and he began closing the incision. I couldn't believe it. This was unheard of. Doc Eldar was operating...with anesthetic.

Moments later, the xeno shifted to stand beside my head. He pressed one finger against my neck, checking the pulse. "Your blood pressure is thirty-two points below normal," he informed me. "You are likely to experience dizziness and nausea. These are known side effects of spinal anesthetics and will persist until it wears off, approximately twenty seconds from now. I do not have any spinal drugs with a shorter action time."

All I felt was relief. Nothing else mattered except that I hadn't felt the surgery. "Why did you do the spinal?" I asked. It was so out of character, perhaps it heralded a change of heart for the xeno. Or perhaps in Jeremias' meeting, he'd been told to change his practice - that seemed possible.

"The Monsignor lectured us today on the importance of temperance and avoiding gluttony. You had already given me so much fear, extracting any more would have been conduct unbecoming an officer."

# ? Dec 18, 2014 12:36

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

Oh Doc Eldar you scamp! :allears:

# ? Dec 18, 2014 16:55

Sandweed: Sep 7, 2006; All your friends are me.

"Sixteen years ago. I read the reports."

Brilliant, loving amazing.

# ? Dec 18, 2014 17:47

VanSandman: Feb 16, 2011; SWAP.AVI EXCHANGER

God I love these.

# ? Dec 18, 2014 22:14

SavTargaryen: Sep 11, 2011

I had skipped out on reading them until this last one, but finally caved, read it, then went back and read the others. These are really good, dude. Keep it up!

# ? Dec 18, 2014 23:44

Kylaer: Aug 4, 2007; I'm SURE walking around in a respirator at all times in an (even more) OPEN BIDENing society is definitely not a recipe for disaster and anyone that's not cool with getting harassed by CHUDs are cave dwellers. I've got good brain!

Thank you all for your encouragement, I love feedback on my work. If you have any specific suggestions for how I may improve my writing, I'd be happy to hear those as well.

What I'm starting to do as I write these is use them as a window onto everyday life in the 40K setting, that's why I included the food tangent.

Right now, I have another story written that's essentially ready to post, another that is written but that I don't want to post yet, and I've got a couple of ideas for further stories to write. Honestly, the idea of Deathwatch shenanigans as was mentioned a page ago is really tempting, but it will be hard to square against some already-written content. And I've got another idea I've been chewing on for a long time that plays straight with an even more absurd premise. But I'm also interested in any ideas or suggestions any of you might have, if there's a scene or idea you want me to focus on.

# ? Dec 19, 2014 01:25

pentyne: Nov 7, 2012

Mange Mite posted:

Put sci-fi hardness on a sliding scale, problem solved. If you need limits the theoretical "hardest" sci-fi book can be assigned as the book "Physics: Principles and Applications" by John Reiss et. al. (this is technically not perfectly hard since there are still some assumptions in basic Newtonian physics).

Sci-Fi hardness scale is probably measured in how hard the author jerked off over their physics books while writing the story.

Good "hard sci-fi" is when an author will create basically magic technology to fulfill a certain purpose, and create really strict rules for it and stick to them for the entirety of the story. The best "hard" sci-fi I've ever read is by Alastair Reynolds, an ex-astronomer, who really loves creating his own future tech and making up techno-poo poo up but treats it really seriously in the context of his books. He's pretty much only got one major "story" in him he repeats for most of his series but his original Revelation Space trilogy was pretty great.

# ? Dec 19, 2014 03:19

Frankly: Jan 7, 2013

Oh man, first Doc Eldar story I've read now I'm looking to find the others. Great story! That final line :allears:

# ? Dec 19, 2014 03:36

mllaneza: Apr 28, 2007; Veteran, Bermuda Triangle Expeditionary Force, 1993-1952

Kylaer posted:

Right now, I have another story written that's essentially ready to post, another that is written but that I don't want to post yet, and I've got a couple of ideas for further stories to write. Honestly, the idea of Deathwatch shenanigans as was mentioned a page ago is really tempting, but it will be hard to square against some already-written content. And I've got another idea I've been chewing on for a long time that plays straight with an even more absurd premise. But I'm also interested in any ideas or suggestions any of you might have, if there's a scene or idea you want me to focus on.

That's quite good. If you want to go for the Black Library, how about a case where the Rogue Trader butts heads with an Inquisitor backed up by a Deathwatch kill team over the xenon on his staff. Or don't enter, that'll improve my chances.

# ? Dec 19, 2014 03:44

Wax Dynasty: Jan 1, 2013; This postseason, I've really enjoyed bringing back the three-inning save.; Hell Gem

No joke or hyperbole, your Doc Eldar stories are better written, more interesting and a more creative use of the setting than at least half the stuff BL publishes currently.

# ? Dec 19, 2014 03:58

Bang3r: Oct 26, 2005; killed me.
tore me to pieces.
threw every piece into a fire.; Fun Shoe

I'm just about finished rereading the entire ghosts series again and god drat it gently caress I want new content, there's nothing else (length wise I suppose) apart from the eisenhorn/ravenor series is there?

# ? Dec 19, 2014 06:49

Azran: Sep 3, 2012; And what should one do to be remembered?

Night Lords? The trio of novels (and one novella) that go from The First Heretic to Betrayer?

# ? Dec 19, 2014 07:03

Waroduce: Aug 5, 2008

I like Helsreach and whatever the follow up is, but thats like 1.5 books

Soul Drinkers or whoever are like a 4-5 book series

Ahriman has two books out

The Space Wolf omnibuses

Grey Knight Omnibus

Comedy option: Word Bearers Trilogy

# ? Dec 19, 2014 13:30

Mechafunkzilla: Sep 11, 2006; If you want a vision of the future...

Bang3r posted:

I'm just about finished rereading the entire ghosts series again and god drat it gently caress I want new content, there's nothing else (length wise I suppose) apart from the eisenhorn/ravenor series is there?

Horus Heresy is like 30 books, a lot of them readable.

# ? Dec 19, 2014 15:12

Lincoln`s Wax: May 1, 2000; My other, other car is a centipede filled with vaginas.

There's Cain if you want something lighter.

# ? Dec 19, 2014 15:18

Waroduce: Aug 5, 2008

Lincoln`s Wax posted:

There's Cain if you want something lighter.

I really liked the first 2-3 but after that I found them very formulaic and a drag to read imo

# ? Dec 19, 2014 15:22

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

The Gotrek and Felix books are about similar length overall I think. Fantasy though, so not necessarily what you're looking for.

# ? Dec 19, 2014 15:41

Lincoln`s Wax: May 1, 2000; My other, other car is a centipede filled with vaginas.

Waroduce posted:

I really liked the first 2-3 but after that I found them very formulaic and a drag to read imo

Yeah, I don't think I could read them all in a row, I'll usually keep I'm running through while reading other stuff, just for laughs.

Something I'd really kill to see is Cain somehow finding himself forced to tag along with Trazyn on one of his quests to liberate some weird artifact. The two of them together would be amazing.

# ? Dec 19, 2014 16:32

SRM: Jul 10, 2009; ~*FeElIn' AweS0mE*~

Waroduce posted:

I really liked the first 2-3 but after that I found them very formulaic and a drag to read imo

The first omnibus is real fun but yeah, I've actually reread Cain books only to find at the halfway point I'd already read that one.

# ? Dec 19, 2014 16:59

HerpicleOmnicron5: May 31, 2013; How did this smug dummkopf ever make general?

I've just read Eisenhorn, and it was quite good, although I have noticed that all of the stories end in horrible anticlimax with little payoff, though the journey up to that point is always superb. The last one in particular was great, but I feel it was maybe too much of a dick to literally everybody but five characters. That's just Warhammer though, I suppose.

# ? Dec 19, 2014 23:38

Waroduce: Aug 5, 2008

Abnett also has an issue tieing things together and ending

# ? Dec 20, 2014 01:25

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# ? Jun 4, 2024 04:01

Azran: Sep 3, 2012; And what should one do to be remembered?

HerpicleOmnicron5 posted:

I've just read Eisenhorn, and it was quite good, although I have noticed that all of the stories end in horrible anticlimax with little payoff, though the journey up to that point is always superb. The last one in particular was great, but I feel it was maybe too much of a dick to literally everybody but five characters. That's just Warhammer though, I suppose.

I liked the "death spiral" of Eisenhorn's group. It goes hand in hand with how he ends up as a character.
Personally, the biggest "oh gently caress you" I had with Eisenhorn was when he just killed a character "off-camera" at the beginning of the second book.

# ? Dec 20, 2014 01:35

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