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Dog_Meat posted:I only recently came back to SA after a long hiatus and I'm a little concerned that the bulk of my posts have been about a pulp book describing the anal rape of a demigod
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Jul 15, 2013 10:29
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Baron Bifford posted:The one where they somehow bound a daemon to an untouchable? Also the one where 2 assassins of different temples are siblings and behave like prepubescent children all the way through.
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Jul 15, 2013 13:01
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Nephilm posted:It's Graham McNeil; to say he's hit or miss is an understatement. Let's stop talking about demigod sexual torture and instead I ask, any good books in the last 5 months? berzerkmonkey fucked around with this message at 21:57 on Jul 15, 2013 |
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Jul 15, 2013 13:24
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Mikojan posted:Also the one where 2 assassins of different temples are siblings and behave like prepubescent children all the way through. the only thing I remember about that book is an Erversor assasin been given a gun to play with to keep him quiet. Like a baby being given a pacifier.
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Jul 15, 2013 13:40
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berzerkmonkey posted:Honestly, I'm not BL has released any books in the last five months, let alone good books... They're up to some weird poo poo - I don't know if they were told to reduce operating costs or what, but they've been doing a lot of overpriced reprints as of late, and that's about it. I know they released the second in the Macharius crusade and a new Imperial Guard, Baneblade. Mark of Calth comes out next month.
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Jul 15, 2013 14:12
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berzerkmonkey posted:Honestly, I'm not BL has released any books in the last five months, let alone good books... They're up to some weird poo poo - I don't know if they were told to reduce operating costs or what, but they've been doing a lot of overpriced reprints as of late, and that's about it. They pushed everything back somewhere between 3 months and a year. Mark of Calth was supposed to be March and instead is July, with them creating an ebook "Angron" for March instead, which was just a reprint of 3 Angron focused short stories. Unremembered Empire went from a projected June of this year to February of 2014. The Imperial Truth is in complete limbo. And that's just the Horus Heresy series. No idea why though. BL does its work in house so the stuff shaking ebook publishing lately wouldn't impact them.
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Jul 15, 2013 14:31
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And I can't say I have heard anything off ADB's twitter/Facebook regarding his position or Black Library itself. If anything they just seem very content in releasing digital short stories and digital anthologies.
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Jul 15, 2013 14:39
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Betrayer falls within the five month timeframe, and was pretty good. I've also recently finished Ahriman: Exile, and I thought it was a decent read. The perspective it offers on interacting with the warp as a psyker was a little novel, and if you care about Thousand Sons/Chaos Marines it has a interesting series of developments. E: The mass market paperback of Angel Exterminatus is supposed to be out soon, and I liked it too. It gives some character development to Perturabo and covers both the Iron Warriors and the Emperor's Children legion.
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Jul 15, 2013 15:23
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Arbite posted:Were the Thousand Sons the only Legion not renamed after they found their primarch? They seem to have gotten the name from the Emperor himself. I thought Magnus renamed them after fixing their mutation problem because there were only a thousand left.
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Jul 15, 2013 15:29
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Fried Chicken posted:They pushed everything back somewhere between 3 months and a year. Mark of Calth was supposed to be March and instead is July, with them creating an ebook "Angron" for March instead, which was just a reprint of 3 Angron focused short stories. Unremembered Empire went from a projected June of this year to February of 2014. The Imperial Truth is in complete limbo. And that's just the Horus Heresy series. I'm assuming it's a printing issue since I think the ebook for Imperial Truth already came out.
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Jul 15, 2013 15:29
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Pyrolocutus posted:
I was so pissed off when I inadvertedly brought the oversized version of Angel Exterminatus. It's why I have't brought Betrayer yet. Is Betrayer available in the standrd format yet?
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Jul 15, 2013 16:24
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Cream_Filling posted:I'm assuming it's a printing issue since I think the ebook for Imperial Truth already came out. Nope It isn't listed anywhere on the site. There is some speculation on fansites that it will be at the BL event in September, but nothing on the official site or amazon about it. Hilariously, there are book review sites that have it listed with the cover, but the reviews appear to be for a similarly titled book about the lives of Native Americans in Vancouver in the 1800s.
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Jul 15, 2013 16:41
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Can-O-Raid posted:Though that doesn't actually prove anything: there are psyker powers in 40K (in Dark Heresy specifically, as 'Biomancy') that let you change your physical appearance.
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Jul 15, 2013 17:52
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Arquinsiel posted:He was pretty dead when it was made. Normally you'd expect him to stop being actively psychic at that point. Tell that to the Emperor.
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Jul 15, 2013 22:32
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The Emperor is totally not dead guys, I mean, CMON 
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Jul 15, 2013 22:57
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He's just having a rest. He'll stand up any day now.
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Jul 15, 2013 23:04
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Dude's playin' the long con. Here, ranking of major players, going from least long con (left) to most long con (right): Most Astartes < Horus < Erebus < Alpharius/Omegon < Cabal < Emperor < Chaos EDIT: Cabal/Emperor is debatable. Part of me wants to say that the Emperor saw the 10-20k years on the golden throne coming, has planned for it, and as soon as he's not spending all his energy staving off chaos or whatever, he'll stop being a tiny cadaverous husk because he'll be able to to make himself look huge and great again, and finish off his plan. But the Cabal definitely saw the 10-20k years on the golden throne coming. So the question is whether the Emperor has some ace in the hole to defeat Chaos, or whether things are going exactly as the Cabal predicted (which would be fairly boring, and allow for no growth of story in the actual, non-heresy era 40k universe). Based on Alpharius' messing with the Cabal, I want to say their predictions aren't infallible. DirtyRobot fucked around with this message at 02:31 on Jul 16, 2013 |
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Jul 15, 2013 23:22
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DirtyRobot posted:Dude's playin' the long con. Are your arrows pointed the wrong way, or is Horus playing a con longer than virtually all the Warp? Is "dead as poo poo" a con?
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Jul 16, 2013 01:23
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Pyrolocutus posted:Are your arrows pointed the wrong way, or is Horus playing a con longer than virtually all the Warp? Is "dead as poo poo" a con? Wrong way.
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Jul 16, 2013 01:57
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Pyrolocutus posted:Are your arrows pointed the wrong way, or is Horus playing a con longer than virtually all the Warp? Is "dead as poo poo" a con? yeah, sorry, arrows are the wrong way.
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Jul 16, 2013 02:05
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I was just kinda razzing you  It'd be kind of funny if a shred of Horus's soul was still floating through the warp, going "Just as planned."
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Jul 16, 2013 05:39
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Pyrolocutus posted:I was just kinda razzing you Probably not, but there may be one going "no you shut the gently caress up dad."
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Jul 16, 2013 06:05
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My interpretation of the Cabal is that they are more or less full of poo poo. Other than the fact that one of their prophecies eventually comes to pass, there's no reason to really believe them at all. Their Acuity thing was accurate on the same level that Erebus showing the future state of the Imperium to Horus was accurate It's warped  until it means what they want it to mean, and the psyker that Alpharius brings with him to check on whether or not the vision is a trick dies.The idea that the Alpha Legion defecting to Horus is the only way to stop Chaos is too mind numbingly stupid to be true. I think the entire concept suffers from the number of times HH books turn on one or two incidents that might have made everything better. Like if Fulgrim doesn't pick up the daemon-sword (or doesn't bring it with him when he talks to Horus or the Eldar) or if Sejanus doesn't die just before Horus Rising or if the Emperor has a five minute chat with Horus or Magnus (or both) about the Golden Throne and the webway project. A lot of these things have already happened or are impractical to change, but if the Alpha Legion involves itself at one of a thousand moments against chaos, the situation only improves. "Erebus trips and falls down some stairs and Horus makes peace with the Interex" sounds a lot less risky than "hand the galaxy over over to fanatics and hope they kill all humanity before demons consume creation." Hell, they can pretend to play along for a year or so and then warn Ferrus, Vulkan and Corax before Istvaan and still have things end up better off. There's no way the course of action the Cabal suggests had a chance of working. Basically, I think they try to manipulate events so that humanity (which is a species they wish they had destroyed earlier) and chaos both lose, and then Alpharius and Omegon complicate the situation even more because that's what they do. They're still playing the long game. It's just a different game than the one they say they're playing.
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Jul 16, 2013 10:35
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Potooweet posted:My interpretation of the Cabal is that they are more or less full of poo poo. Other than the fact that one of their prophecies eventually comes to pass, there's no reason to really believe them at all. Their Acuity thing was accurate on the same level that Erebus showing the future state of the Imperium to Horus was accurate It's warped I think they only succeeded in turning Alpharius to their side to side with Horus. Omegon in one of the short stories seems to be subtly setting options available to him for if he needs to turn and burn Alpha Legion to remain loyal to the Emperor. Granted I guess we'll have to wait till post Heresy books to find out if its Alpha or Omega that survives or if it was just another marine who is "Alpharius"
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Jul 16, 2013 10:46
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I picked up the new Heresy book, Mark of Calth the other day and I was pleasantly surprised. It had to be the most consistently decent Heresy anthology there's been, for my money. There's only eight stories, two are pretty short and one is novella, all themed around the Battle of Calth's aftermath and the underground war that followed. Not gonna spoil anything particularly but I'll put it in tags anyway. The first story, The Shards of Erebus is probably one of the weaker ones, essentially being more of the 'Everybody Hates Erebus' stuff. A bit pointless overall, some neat development and backstory on Erebus himself and the other Word Bearer commanders, but nothing to write home about. The second, Calth That Was is a novella length story by Graham McNeil where he basically cribs the style and the characters of Know No Fear from Abnett. He pulls it off fine and it's a pretty engaging story, including an actual well written Word Bearer not written by ADB! But I'd say the success of this story is more down to Abnett than McNeil, as everything decent is just ripped from Know No Fear. Anthony Reynold's Dark Heart is laughable. You know how in Betrayer ADB's Word Bearers refer to the Battle for the Abyss Word Bearers as just being the morons they packed into a prototype ship to die 'gloriously'? Reynold's still doesn't realise his Word Bearers are basically the same. It's an origin story, essentially, about his Apostle character Marduk, and Marduk is so badass and evil and oh my god Kor Phaeron loves him, man what a cool character. Ugh. Now that there are actual well written Marine characters out there these guys feel so hollow. David Annandale's The Traveller is where the anthology really picks up, and this and all the stories that follow are quality stuff. A pretty simple story about a small underground colony trying to survive and the Navy survivor in their midst, it foreshadows the religous fervour of the current Imperium, telling the tale in microcosm of the Imperium's descent after the Heresy. A very well done atmospheric piece, that also cribs some things from Abnett, though everything does in this book to an extent. Next was A Deeper Darkness by Rob Sanders, which is a first person account of an Ultramarine a little too close to the quarry he hunts. It's basically a 40k retelling of Perseus and Medusa, but hints at the slightly more interesting direction BL's taken recently. The Underworld War by everyone's favourite ADB is a drat good story about a Gal Vorbak wandering the scorched surface of Calth, rejecting his daemon and questioning his own beliefs. As usual, ADB gives us some of the best Space Marine characterisation in the Black Library, though the short suffers from a twist that made it all a bit annoying and pointless for me. There ends up being more characterisation for Argel Tal, and he's not the main character of this story. Athame by John French marked him out as one to watch. A story told from the perspective of a Athame dagger that is forged on Earth and is passed from owner to owner til it comes to Calth, it's a really interesting take on events, told in a unique and compelling way. Lastly was Abnett's Unmarked, which continues the story of Ollanious Pious and his ragtag group as they journey through the Warp. Pretty much a 'lost' chapter of Know No Fear, it focuses on the overarching Heresy story of the Perpetuals like Pious and Grammaticus. Some interesting peeks at Pre-Imperium Earth too. This has sounded a bit like a marketing document but this is one of the most solid anthologies BL has put out in a long time.
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Jul 16, 2013 13:54
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Yeah Mark of Calth was pretty Solid, the Athame story was really loving cool.
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Jul 16, 2013 14:14
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hopterque posted:Yeah Mark of Calth was pretty Solid, the Athame story was really loving cool. I haven't finished all of it, but I agree that Athame and Unmarked were very good. The twist in Underworld War was well-executed and the conditional foreshadowing was clever, but it threw me for a big loop. This Marine is supposedly too weak to serve as a daemonhost, yet he's walking the surface of a severely irradiated world in preparation for telling his primarch to go gently caress himself. To his face. I get that daemons aren't generally (ever) impressed by sentimental behavior, but Argel Tal seemed to do just fine despite having plenty of that himself. On another note, I haven't seen this mentioned so far in the thread - I'm pretty sure this is mentioned in Horus' dream-tour of the Emperor's lab, though it might be the Word Bearers' (Thousand Sons? I can't loving remember). Anyway, there's an alternate story offered behind the creation of the Primarchs. Keeping the credibility of the in-universe source in mind, it's still an interesting bit of fluff and I'm curious as to whether it's expanded on anywhere else.
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Jul 16, 2013 16:39
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Vorenus posted:I haven't finished all of it, but I agree that Athame and Unmarked were very good. I think it's shown in First Heretic and False Gods. Considering the source, though, I don't think we're supposed to believe it, and it diminishes the characters that do.
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Jul 16, 2013 20:30
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Arquinsiel posted:He was pretty dead when it was made. Normally you'd expect him to stop being actively psychic at that point. Nah, it's not an illusion, it actively lets you sculpt your body permanently.
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Jul 17, 2013 04:32
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Can-O-Raid posted:Nah, it's not an illusion, it actively lets you sculpt your body permanently.
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Jul 17, 2013 04:52
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There's no consensus on what the Primarchs looked like because the Imperium is a gently caress huge place and they haven't been around for 10000 years, and even when they were around, they weren't usually keen on being immortalized in sculpture and such, given that such idolatry was against the imperial creed. And when it was done, details obviously changed based upon the perceptions of the artist in question. It's not that the primarchs literally shapeshifted, but that their depictions are a ten millenia old game of telephone, and the only place you'd get accurate representations is out of the archives of the original Legions and other repositories of knowledge that, to say the least, aren't open to the public. You can bet your rear end that if someone came upon a pict of the Emperor or a (loyalist) Primarch it'd be worth a fortune and end up in the vault of some collector or enshrined in a cathedral and very much away from the eyes of the plebs.
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Jul 17, 2013 05:16
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Like, say, the mask Chapter Master Dante wears, made from a cast of Sanguinius' face after his death, and thus known as "The Death Mask of Sanguinius"? To be fair though, the way things are going with 40K wargear everyone probably has one of those. His Inferno Pistol and Iron Halo are pretty much standard issue to anyone above Sergeant level these days.
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Jul 17, 2013 05:19
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Arquinsiel posted:Like, say, the mask Chapter Master Dante wears, made from a cast of Sanguinius' face after his death, and thus known as "The Death Mask of Sanguinius"? It's supposedly modeled on Sanguinius' face, but nobody knows for sure whether this is true or not or whether it's changed over the years due to damage and duplication. The codex itself doesn't actually say.
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Jul 17, 2013 05:25
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Potooweet posted:My interpretation of the Cabal is that they are more or less full of poo poo. Other than the fact that one of their prophecies eventually comes to pass, there's no reason to really believe them at all. Their Acuity thing was accurate on the same level that Erebus showing the future state of the Imperium to Horus was accurate It's warped
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Jul 17, 2013 08:06
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Nephilm posted:There's no consensus on what the Primarchs looked like because the Imperium is a gently caress huge place and they haven't been around for 10000 years, and even when they were around, they weren't usually keen on being immortalized in sculpture and such, given that such idolatry was against the imperial creed. And when it was done, details obviously changed based upon the perceptions of the artist in question. It's been a while since I read it, but when Horus is shown the glimpse of the dark future he sees the statues of the Emperor, Sanguinius, Dorn, etc and notices how the proportions are ludicrously oversized and heroic.
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Jul 17, 2013 08:13
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Dog_Meat posted:It's been a while since I read it, but when Horus is shown the glimpse of the dark future he sees the statues of the Emperor, Sanguinius, Dorn, etc and notices how the proportions are ludicrously oversized and heroic. I thought that was an inside joke about the heroic scale of the models? They do look pretty grotesque.
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Jul 17, 2013 08:26
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Dog_Meat posted:It's been a while since I read it, but when Horus is shown the glimpse of the dark future he sees the statues of the Emperor, Sanguinius, Dorn, etc and notices how the proportions are ludicrously oversized and heroic. lenoon posted:I thought that was an inside joke about the heroic scale of the models? They do look pretty grotesque. IIRC what he actually says is that the giant gothic-style statues are barely recognizable as his brothers due to certain traits, but don't actually look like them.
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Jul 17, 2013 10:13
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Baron Bifford posted:The Cabal proposed only two outcomes: victory for the Emperor or victory for Horus. Binary, no nuance. They should have split the former into "total victory for the Emperor" and "partial, pyrrhic victory for the Emperor". Are you saying the Cabal failed to consider a third option wherein the Emperor actually fully succeeds (i.e., what may have happened had they not convinced Alpha Legion to turn on the Emperor)? The Cabal's version of "victory" for the Emperor included him being a husk on the golden throne and 10-20k years of imperial stagnation. So it's not like what happened ended up being a third, middle-of-the-road option the Cabal didn't predict. Edit: the relevant quote "+This is what we have farseen. The Emperor will give his life to achieve victory. He will fall, at Terra, striking Horus down. This will be his destiny. See.+ The silver light shimmered. They saw the magnificence of the Golden Throne, and the holwing rictus of the wizened cadaver locked inside it." -- from the last few pages of Legion DirtyRobot fucked around with this message at 14:04 on Jul 17, 2013 |
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Jul 17, 2013 13:58
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I wanted to like Legion, but the part where a couple of Demigods from a race of super space-racists gave a second thought (or even a first thought...) to what a bunch of outcast Xenos had to say kind of soured it for me. VVV Yeah. In the world of 40k, it seemed like a cheap parlor trick that Alpharious/Omegron should have pasted them for even trying right then and there. VVV TheStampede fucked around with this message at 17:33 on Jul 17, 2013 |
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Jul 17, 2013 16:47
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It felt really stupid how they just believed a "vision" like that right away.
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Jul 17, 2013 17:21
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