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Ugh, I was afraid of that. Helsreach is what made me want to read more about the Salamanders, but I'm not really excited about picking up anything by Nick Kyme. Too bad about the White Scars, though. They seem pretty interesting, even with the whole Space Mongols thing.
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Aug 16, 2012 00:31
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Savage Scars by Andy Hoare deals with a White Scars chapter. It's the third book in the Rogue Trader series, but haven't gotten to it yet. The first two books, Rogue Star and Star of Damocles, are alright. Nothing great, but neat finally getting to read something on fighting with the Tau.
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Aug 16, 2012 04:07
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I really enjoyed Rogue Star and Star of Damocles. I had no idea there was a third book. Thanks.
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Aug 16, 2012 11:49
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I bought the Kal Jerico special edition book off Black Library, primarily just to get my hands on the final graphic novel storyline that they never actually bothered reprinting in a collection or anything but then I started reading the first novel and it's not that bad actually. Surprisingly good writing and dialogue that feels very casual. The only slight annoyance is that out of seven females encountered so far, five of them have been described as either buxom, ample bosomed or voluptuous.  Speaking of which, with how much BL seems to be pushing into the ebook market I am somewhat surprised they haven't started dabbling with digital comics and just outright republish their Warhammer Monthly backlogs or something in the lines of that. Cooked Auto fucked around with this message at 14:52 on Aug 16, 2012 |
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Aug 16, 2012 14:41
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Rapey Joe Stalin posted:I really enjoyed Rogue Star and Star of Damocles. I had no idea there was a third book. Thanks. Either I was remembering the first two books through rose-tinted glasses, or his writing has taken a steep nosedive. Savage Scars is painfully badly written. Edit: I cannot get my head around just how incompetent this book is. It feels like it is aimed at a reading age of ten, and the characters have less depth than a saucer. Worst of all the author frequently bloats his descriptions out to twenty+ words where half a dozen would suffice. This is because he insists on reintroducing characters as if you'd never met them before, in painful detail. Or putting overly long descriptions of something else in the middle of a sentence describing an action. And his dialogue is just simply abominable. Lovely Joe Stalin fucked around with this message at 08:29 on Aug 17, 2012 |
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Aug 16, 2012 14:55
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I just started Know No Fear and I have a question. How did the traitor legions hide what happened on Isstvan from the rest of the Imperium? Like how could multiple legions be wiped out and the Ultramarines still have no idea anything's wrong? Nobody sent a single distress call or "oops we're hosed" message? Wasn't it the Emperor who ordered the Word Bearers to Isstvan in the first place, or am I remembering that wrong?
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Aug 18, 2012 17:19
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FTL communications is handled entirely by psykers in 40k. Guess what the Emperor hated back in them days? That's right.
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Aug 18, 2012 17:25
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Wesley Walker posted:I just started Know No Fear and I have a question. Interstellar communication is always slow and unreliable in 40k. It's a part of the setting. Especially since most of it has to travel through the warp, which is the home realm of the Heresy's sponsors, the dark gods of the warp. I believe one or two of the other Heresy books describe the narrow escape of Corax with the survivors of the Raven Guard, who then goes to the Emperor to tell him what happened. So word did get out. The Emperor actually was quite positive on psykers, since he was in fact the greatest human psyker. The hatred and fear of psykers really comes later as humanity backslides into fear and ignorance, the Emperor on his Golden Throne is less able to guide the development of psykers or protect humanity from the horrors of the warp, and the as the dark gods gain strength. OXBALLS DOT COM fucked around with this message at 17:36 on Aug 18, 2012 |
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Aug 18, 2012 17:33
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Yes but Magnus and the Thousand Sons and Prospero and all that. For literally doing this.
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Aug 18, 2012 18:04
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Arquinsiel posted:Yes but Magnus and the Thousand Sons and Prospero and all that. For literally doing this. That's because they'd just held the Councill of Nikea, in which it was determined that warp-based sorcery was bad, but Imperial-owned psykers were okay. Magnus grudgingly complied, even though warp sorcery was kind of his thing. Then, heyo, just when thing were getting crazy, Dad gets a message from him using the same method they'd just all agreed was BAD. Dad's anger issues meant that Magnus got a face full of Russ instead of a thank-you note. I think the reason the news of the massacre didn't travel was just because the loyalists were too jacked up and the eeevil legions weren't going to spread the word. And Ultramar's a long way from Terra. Weak, I know, but this isn't the most coherent fluff ever written.
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Aug 18, 2012 19:07
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Horus was the Warmaster, having an excellent grip on imperial communications through conventional methods granted by his position, and through his patrons' control of the warp. The entire conspiracy relied on loyalists being blind to their machinations until they could deal that single crippling strike, after all. Basically, only couriers were reliable; while the Emperor felt the use of virus bombs on Istvaan, it was the Einsenstein that revealed just what had happened, and likewise they had no idea about what a catastrophic loss the loyalists suffered there until Corax himself made it back to report.
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Aug 18, 2012 19:46
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Degenerate Star posted:That's because they'd just held the Councill of Nikea, in which it was determined that warp-based sorcery was bad, but Imperial-owned psykers were okay. Magnus grudgingly complied, even though warp sorcery was kind of his thing. Then, heyo, just when thing were getting crazy, Dad gets a message from him using the same method they'd just all agreed was BAD. Dad's anger issues meant that Magnus got a face full of Russ instead of a thank-you note. TBH the details of the Heresy were never meant to be explained, it was just a big mythic event to cause the "fall" necessary for a post-apocalyptic feel.
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Aug 19, 2012 03:54
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Degenerate Star posted:That's because they'd just held the Councill of Nikea, in which it was determined that warp-based sorcery was bad, but Imperial-owned psykers were okay. Magnus grudgingly complied, even though warp sorcery was kind of his thing. Then, heyo, just when thing were getting crazy, Dad gets a message from him using the same method they'd just all agreed was BAD. Dad's anger issues meant that Magnus got a face full of Russ instead of a thank-you note. There was also the whole sundering of Terra's Webway Gate that got his pop good and pissed.
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Aug 19, 2012 06:50
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Arquinsiel posted:TBH the details of the Heresy were never meant to be explained, it was just a big mythic event to cause the "fall" necessary for a post-apocalyptic feel. Considering that they've got a whole series of Heresy books out now, it would've been nice if they could've written up an outline or something before setting the authors loose on it. That's just not the GW way, though.
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Aug 19, 2012 07:22
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They actually do have meetings of the HH writers.
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Aug 19, 2012 08:02
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TheLawinator posted:They actually do have meetings of the HH writers. Yeah, and you still screwups like Magnus showing up on Terra after the Istvaan dropsite massacre.
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Aug 19, 2012 09:10
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Arbite posted:Yeah, and you still screwups like Magnus showing up on Terra after the Istvaan dropsite massacre. Isn't that just as much on the editorial staff?
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Aug 19, 2012 18:55
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There's a pretty good chance it's the same editorial staff who allow the rulebooks to go out in the state they do. If so, I'm amazed the novels even make sense individually.
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Aug 20, 2012 00:51
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Basically there are massive warp storms and interference that coincide with the beginning of the Heresy, seeing as how Horus has allied himself with the gods of the Warp and whatnot. This inhibits communications and travel, which were already far from instant. It's not like Istvaan was kept a secret for decades or anything.
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Aug 20, 2012 14:50
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I finished reading Helsreach recently and, while I enjoyed it, I came out of the end really disliking the Black Templars. All of them except Jurisian, basically. But on the other hand I absolutely loved his Night Lord characters because they seem closer to humanity despite being a mob of murderes and rapists. I suppose this is a good thing.
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Aug 20, 2012 19:27
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The Night Lords characters are tortured each in their own way. The Templars are just religious fanatics.
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Aug 20, 2012 19:48
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I want a book with Andrej as the protagonist.
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Aug 20, 2012 20:33
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Rapey Joe Stalin posted:The Night Lords characters are tortured each in their own way. The Templars are just religious fanatics. And there is a 10,000 year gap between "species" of Marines. All of the HH era Marines (Night Lords included) are more "human" than their 40K era counterparts. Dogma, conditioning, and flaws in geneseed have created a creature pretty far removed from humanity. ADB also highlights this in The Emperor's Gift where Hyperion mentions that he has no way of determining whether or not Annika is attractive, while Bjorn the Fellhanded, who was around in the time of the Emperor, seems to be able to do so with no problem.
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Aug 21, 2012 14:02
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If he could find ladies attractive, maybe that would make him more vulnerable to Slaanesh. Grey Knights have that whole chaste warrior-monk thing going on anyway.
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Aug 21, 2012 14:34
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berzerkmonkey posted:And there is a 10,000 year gap between "species" of Marines. All of the HH era Marines (Night Lords included) are more "human" than their 40K era counterparts. Dogma, conditioning, and flaws in geneseed have created a creature pretty far removed from humanity. It has a lot to do with the recruitment process, also. Remember that wolves scour the battlefields of Fenris to get recruits, while Taros and co. were already teenage rapists and murderers when they got inducted into the Night Lords. Most codex chapters go for boys just entering puberty, and in the case of ultra-fanatic chapters like the Templars or the Grey Knigths, they do a lot more conditioning in order to purge the humanity off the recruits. But in general, yes, HH marines tended to be more human, the apparent ideal of the Emperor being that they shouldn't become too distant from humanity as they'd eventually perform a more administrative role in his Imperium.
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Aug 21, 2012 16:59
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Arbite posted:Yeah, and you still screwups like Magnus showing up on Terra after the Istvaan dropsite massacre. You sure about that? I reread a thousand sons again recently and while my memory is pretty awful, I remember Magnus tries to reach Horus first while he is in the temple at davin being first seduced. Only a week or a handful of weeks go by before he reaches for the emperor. The Emperor set the wolves onto Magnus to bring him back to terra for a stern talking to primarily because magnus had caused irreparable damage to the human forged entrance to the webway wrecking one of a kind machines that not even the emperor himself would be able to fix, and allowing all the daemons in the vicinity a doorway right into the basement of the imperial palace. Human use of the webway was supposed to be the Emperor's crowning glory, even more so than the astronomican or the primarchs themselves. One thing I think got lost in the prospero burns/ a thousand sons saga was originally the Emperor sends the wolves, but it is Horus who convinces Russ that the sons are too dangerous to be left alive and that he should kill Mangus, Russ refuses to do it, until the sons start becoming possessed and mutating on the battlefield. That was in the collected visions artwork books that as well as having some amazing artwork, laid out the full heresy from start to finish. That's not to say there aren't inconsistencies between the novels, they're pretty poor at continuity, and I don't think the black library bothers with proof readers either as every book has spelling errors, typos, words missing, and words repeated. Hyperion cannot determine attractiveness of a human female as his previous life was mind wiped. He has no point of reference for feelings of attraction as he doesn't remember what it used to feel like. Whereas the other guy old and senile as he is will remember his life as a warrior on Fenris. Why can't I remember useful stuff, rather than being full of this rubbish. 
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Aug 22, 2012 01:24
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I'm pretty sure the chronology is: 1. Erebus tries to turn Horus, Magnus interrupts. 2. Magnus realizes that Horus is being turned by the ruinous powers. 3. Magnus picks the exactly wrong time to send his message, and the psychic push needed to get it through fucks up the human webway. 4. The Emperor doesn't get the message, and sends the Wolves to sanction Magnus. 5. Horus calls on the other legions to aid him in suppressing the "revolt" on Istvaan, with the rest of the Imperium none the wiser. Magnus appearing after the dropsite massacre makes no sense, since there's not much time for the whole sanctioning thing between the massacre and the Eisenstein showing arriving in the Terran system. rocket_Magnet posted:Hyperion cannot determine attractiveness of a human female as his previous life was mind wiped. He has no point of reference for feelings of attraction as he doesn't remember what it used to feel like. Whereas the other guy old and senile as he is will remember his life as a warrior on Fenris. Why can't I remember useful stuff, rather than being full of this rubbish. Bowden touched on this theme in his Night Lords books, too. Basically, being a Space Marine sounds cool until you realize how incredibly sad it is to have your humanity stripped away. Few of the other authors ever approach that, despite how fertile that ground is for grimdarkness.
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Aug 22, 2012 02:21
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I think, also, that it's weakly implied that the difference between using regular psyker powers and sorcery is that one uses individual psychic potential channeled through certain specific paths, while the other involves bargaining with or otherwise harnessing the power of minor warp entities to amplify that power. Or maybe it's just a subtler line.rocket_Magnet posted:Why can't I remember useful stuff, rather than being full of this rubbish. You're not the only one who wonders this.
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Aug 22, 2012 03:43
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Ambiguatron posted:Bowden touched on this theme in his Night Lords books, too. Basically, being a Space Marine sounds cool until you realize how incredibly sad it is to have your humanity stripped away. Few of the other authors ever approach that, despite how fertile that ground is for grimdarkness. I think this is where the love for ADB comes from. Most people write marines or even other imperials like they're some kind of paradigm of humanity but ADB seems to be able to humanise everything. There's a example of this in the last Night Lords book where Talos talks about his dog or the vox exchange between the soldiers at the end of Cadian Blood. Just little touches like that really draw out the grimdark instead of using over complicated plot lines or unnecessary twists leading to everyone dying or something. I don't really know anyone who writes it better.
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Aug 22, 2012 05:49
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rocket_Magnet posted:You sure about that? I reread a thousand sons again recently and while my memory is pretty awful, I remember Magnus tries to reach Horus first while he is in the temple at davin being first seduced. Only a week or a handful of weeks go by before he reaches for the emperor... Ambiguatron posted:I'm pretty sure the chronology is: You are both exactly right, that is the correct chronology as presented in False Gods, A Thousand Sons, and all previous sources. What I was talking was in The Outcast Dead, they have the reaction to the Dropsite Massacre, and then Magnus arrives on Terra. Hence my saying it was a screwup. Like I said earlier in the thread, having Magnus' act not only be misguided but also a useless waste could have added to the tragedy of the Thousand Son's fall, but the fact they contradicted themselves so badly in the process is just stupid.
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Aug 22, 2012 08:51
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Basically what can go wrong does go wrong in the 40k universe.
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Aug 22, 2012 11:52
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The Outcast Dead is a terrible book and you should just forget it exists.
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Aug 22, 2012 13:45
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Nephilm posted:The XXXXXX is a terrible book and you should just forget it exists. Should be the next thread title
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Aug 23, 2012 06:12
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Thulsa Doom posted:3. Magnus picks the exactly wrong time to send his message, and the psychic push needed to get it through fucks up the human webway.
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Aug 25, 2012 12:36
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Baron Bifford posted:Has this event been novelized yet? I wonder why Magnus used sorcery and not astropathy to contact the Emperor. If I remember correctly, it's described in A Thousand Sons. Magnus, due to the distance and urgency of his message uses sorcery instead of just psychic communication to ensure that the message of Horus' betrayal reaches the Emperor. Instead of going through the proper and safe channels which were slower and full of interference, Magnus pretty much uses brute force to break all the seals, releasing a bunch of daemons as well, to ensure a face to face conversation.
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Aug 25, 2012 12:56
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Interesting. Was the Emperor within the Webway when Magnus contacted him? Is that why he had to breach the Webway? And not just land on Terra and walk through the front door of the palace?
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Aug 25, 2012 14:47
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I'm reading through a copy of A Thousand Sons now (the writing style is not very good). It seems Magnus wanted to take a shortcut or something?
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Aug 25, 2012 14:50
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Since the message was so vital and needed to get to the Emperor fast, Magnus basically did astral projection to deliver it in person. So he had his soul travel through the warp, taking advantage of the webway he had discovered earlier, and eventually found a connection to terra itself. He pushed through, aided by a "massive and powerful warp presence" and broke through the barrier to stand before the Emperor. Turns out the barrier he broke through was the heavily-shielded human entrance to the webway the Emperor had been working on. Daddy wasn't pleased.
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Aug 25, 2012 18:05
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Also, he was immediately suspicious because Magnus shouldn't be powerful enough to breach the webway unaided. The "massive and powerful warp presence" made Magnus look like he was the one who had been corrupted by daemons, not Horus. Also, warp travel is extremely slow and unreliable.
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Aug 25, 2012 18:31
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The human entrance? Hmmm. Why can't humans use the existing entrances like the Eldar?
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Aug 25, 2012 21:35
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