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Don't forget the Space Battle Of Britain
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Jun 16, 2021 14:16
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And the Space Somme. And Space Free French Liberation. And two different takes on the Space Monte Cassino.
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Jun 16, 2021 14:23
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Silly Newbie posted:I'm re-reading Gaunt's Ghosts after coming off of Godblight and I had a thought - anyone else ever theorycraft what the 40k universe would look like had it not been a British company and colored by their cultural experiences, feelings, and expectations? You don't need to. It already exists, it's called Battletech, it's got all the same story beats (far future, fallen human empire, lost technology etc) and it's kinda meh. 40k is a product of 1970's-80s England and the political/social climate there at the time. If you extract it from that you get something bland and formulaic. American's are too optimistic, even in our dystopian fiction there's always hope and a way out/
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Jun 16, 2021 14:37
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D-Pad posted:I really liked how each department has it's own family/clan structure and they raid each other for paper, resources, and women. The clan that is at the bottom of the trash tube that burns paper was awesome too. I absolutely love all the terran subculture poo poo we get glimpses of in the books. Yeah that poo poo was incredibly good
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Jun 16, 2021 14:45
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Finished my re-read of Titanicus. I had forgotten how much of a gut punch the ending to Cally's plotline is.  But at the same time the book feels like it has substory bloat. Outside of the main AdMech there's Zink that goes nowhere, Cally and Stef that ultimately goes nowhere, the toyshop vendor that goes nowhere. It makes you think Etta is going to get relevant but she gets pushed to the side midway through and really doesn't do anything. The only relevant really is Varco because he does something in the end. They're nicely done and all but feels like his editor could've told him to drop a couple of substories and focused more on Engine Warfare.
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Jun 16, 2021 14:56
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Bucnasti posted:You don't need to. It already exists, it's called Battletech, it's got all the same story beats (far future, fallen human empire, lost technology etc) and it's kinda meh. It's amazing to me how quickly Battletech abandoned it's setting. In the fourth book, a year and a half realtime into their publishing run, they've already unearthed the Helm Memory Core and the decline of technology stops forever. The 5th, 6th, and 8th books are the Warrior trilogy which reintroduces modern military strategy and pretty much does away with the whole "'mechs are ancestral heirlooms" concept in favor of modern military hardware production. The 9th, 10th, and 11th books introduce the Clans and all semblance of the original "feudal powers in a dark age of technology" concept is swept away, never to return. The first Battletech book came out in September of 1986, the last book of the Clan trilogy in September 1991. It only took them five years to completely upend the setting, and everything since then has been in a pretty much generic MilSF universe with none of the original setting's flavor. 
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Jun 16, 2021 14:57
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jng2058 posted:It's amazing to me how quickly Battletech abandoned it's setting. In the fourth book, a year and a half realtime into their publishing run, they've already unearthed the Helm Memory Core and the decline of technology stops forever. The 5th, 6th, and 8th books are the Warrior trilogy which reintroduces modern military strategy and pretty much does away with the whole "'mechs are ancestral heirlooms" concept in favor of modern military hardware production. The 9th, 10th, and 11th books introduce the Clans and all semblance of the original "feudal powers in a dark age of technology" concept is swept away, never to return. The first Battletech book came out in September of 1986, the last book of the Clan trilogy in September 1991. It only took them five years to completely upend the setting, and everything since then has been in a pretty much generic MilSF universe with none of the original setting's flavor. the Twilight Of The Clans subseries in the mid 90s is the high point of the series imo and early early battletech is SUPER dire. I tried to reread some of the first battletech novels for nostalgia reasons and they are SO bad. It's a series of ultimate mary sues and their special boy adventures, Grayson Carlyle, Hanse and Victor Davion, Justin Allard, etc.
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Jun 16, 2021 16:39
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hopterque posted:the Twilight Of The Clans subseries in the mid 90s is the high point of the series imo and early early battletech is SUPER dire. I tried to reread some of the first battletech novels for nostalgia reasons and they are SO bad. It's a series of ultimate mary sues and their special boy adventures, Grayson Carlyle, Hanse and Victor Davion, Justin Allard, etc. Oh no doubt. I'm not saying that they used the original setting particularly well, just that it's surprising that they blew it up so quickly!
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Jun 16, 2021 16:42
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BattleTech fiction is currently suffering from one of their longest running writers just ditching all pretense of being interested in US !ilitary history and being an open Neo-Confederate. The CGL response to this has been better than their response to most problems, in that they have said exactly nothing about it and didn't make it worse somehow.Arcsquad12 posted:And the Space Somme. And Space Telemark.
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Jun 16, 2021 17:36
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Arquinsiel posted:And Space Telemark. Which book does that apply to? Traitor General? I'm drawing a blank on comparisons to the Telemark raid.
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Jun 16, 2021 17:46
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Arcsquad12 posted:Which book does that apply to? Traitor General? I'm drawing a blank on comparisons to the Telemark raid.
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Jun 16, 2021 17:51
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Arcsquad12 posted:Which book does that apply to? Traitor General? I'm drawing a blank on comparisons to the Telemark raid. The siege of terra is almost word for word a retelling of Norways struggles against its ancestral enemies, the dastardly dane and sinister swede
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Jun 16, 2021 17:53
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Which WH40K book is the Soviet-Japanese war in space? If there isn't one, there should be one.
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Jun 16, 2021 18:39
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Anyone read Fire made Flesh? The premise sounds interesting enough, but I've not seen a word about it , here or elsewhere.
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Jun 16, 2021 18:45
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Arquinsiel posted:BattleTech fiction is currently suffering from one of their longest running writers just ditching all pretense of being interested in US !ilitary history and being an open Neo-Confederate. The CGL response to this has been better than their response to most problems, in that they have said exactly nothing about it and didn't make it worse somehow. Speaking of dubious authors I'm surprised given the subject matter and generally chuddish bent of milsci-fi authors that there isn't a proliferation of Nazis in the black library. We get homoerotic Inquisitorial triologies instead.
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Jun 16, 2021 18:46
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Arquinsiel posted:BattleTech fiction is currently suffering from one of their longest running writers just ditching all pretense of being interested in US !ilitary history and being an open Neo-Confederate. The CGL response to this has been better than their response to most problems, in that they have said exactly nothing about it and didn't make it worse somehow. Oh? Checked out of battletech for years, which one was that.
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Jun 16, 2021 18:55
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jng2058 posted:Oh no doubt. I'm not saying that they used the original setting particularly well, just that it's surprising that they blew it up so quickly! Yeah that's the nature of pen and paper gaming, when you're only revenue source is from selling books, you have to find reasons to make people buy more books and what better way to do that than to drastically change the setting. This was true for so many of the RPG franchises that started in the 80s and 90s. GW made the majority of their money in those days off of selling models, and you don't need to blow up the world to justify making a new box of tiny plastic space men so their IP had a lot more time to gel and grow more organically.
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Jun 16, 2021 19:05
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Deptfordx posted:Oh? Checked out of battletech for years, which one was that.
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Jun 16, 2021 19:22
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Arquinsiel posted:Guns of Tanith. Aerial insertion into a production facility to sabotage it that relied on blending in with the locals conducted with exiled local knowledge. Ah okay. I usually apply Guns of Tanith as "Guns of Naverone In Space" but that really only applies to the first battle rather than the second in the book.
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Jun 16, 2021 20:31
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Arquinsiel posted:Pardoe. In fact I'm so far out of the loop I don't even know who that is. Glad to hear it's not William H Keith Jr, as I've always had a soft spot for his Grey Death Legion books.
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Jun 16, 2021 20:38
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WHK Jr, from what I’ve been told, is a genuinely pleasant person who just enjoys cranking out books. I don’t always like his books, but they’re pretty sincere. gently caress the GDL, but hooray for the first series that I can recall that dares point out that Victor was a huge piece of poo poo who sucked at everything.
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Jun 16, 2021 21:13
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Deptfordx posted:Anyone read Fire made Flesh? I liked it. Nothing special but it was a good Necromunda story.
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Jun 16, 2021 23:25
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Aborder Prince is cool right? I'm really enjoying his narrations on YouTube Wish Luetin09 would narrate a few but his discussion and overviews of a couple are pretty good too. Prolly busy as hell with his ludicrous amount of lore videos
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Jun 17, 2021 02:32
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just picked up Xenos, excited to take the plunge
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Jun 17, 2021 04:46
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Ghislaine of YOSPOS posted:just picked up Xenos, excited to take the plunge Buckle up, you're in for a ride!
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Jun 17, 2021 04:59
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Arcsquad12 posted:Ah okay. I usually apply Guns of Tanith as "Guns of Naverone In Space" but that really only applies to the first battle rather than the second in the book.  I had forgotten about the opening.Deptfordx posted:In fact I'm so far out of the loop I don't even know who that is.
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Jun 17, 2021 05:50
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Been more of a PC battletech game player since the 90's than plugged into the boardgame ecosystem. Read a couple of battletech books in the past 20 years, but barely a handful.
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Jun 17, 2021 08:55
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Battletech novels always seemed real dire tbh
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Jun 17, 2021 16:22
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Improbable Lobster posted:Battletech novels always seemed real dire tbh Mostly they are. There are a couple of good ones...Wolves on the Border is excellent in fact...but for the most part they're pretty much trash, though occasionally entertaining trash.
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Jun 17, 2021 16:29
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Got around to finishing penitent. What a page turner. Book spoilers and questions.Did the book or the previous one talk about why ravenor decided to go in with like 3 underlings? I know it's not his style but shouldn't he have a fleet on standby to blow everything up instead of having to call in his eldar pals? I just realized practically the entire book is an elaborate plot to get eisenhorn and ravenor to cooperate.
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Jun 17, 2021 16:33
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Polgas posted:Got around to finishing penitent. What a page turner. Ravenor is disgraced, it's a surprise he wasn't executed*. He could be argued to be the Penitent in the title (though I guess it's a multi-meaning title, though I'd say the Pariah was Eisenhorn, a subversion of the story being about an actual Pariah). He can't call on much, it would have taken a lot of politicking just to be allowed to go out into the field with whatever he had, and the assumption then would be that he is being given a chance to die in the name of the Emperor, not that he gets to take an army with him. Check out the short story, Perihelion, if you haven't, it's collected in Magos. *Ravenor never did much wrong, and the ending of Ravenor Rogue was a bit...rushed. But he did make the mistake of wholeheartedly confessing, and that's just a big no-no. It's like he was never actually listening. Brendan Rodgers fucked around with this message at 17:05 on Jun 17, 2021 |
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Jun 17, 2021 16:44
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jng2058 posted:Mostly they are. There are a couple of good ones...Wolves on the Border is excellent in fact...but for the most part they're pretty much trash, though occasionally entertaining trash. Far Country is just 
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Jun 17, 2021 16:52
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Ravenor also has a huge soft spot for Eisenhorn. My take has always been that he doesn't do anything like calling in a fleet because he wants to talk to Eisenhorn. He's still hoping that there's a good reason for all of this and that Eisenhorn isn't a completely irredeemable heretic villain, just an... excessively radical rogue Inquisitor.
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Jun 19, 2021 17:51
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Preechr posted:WHK Jr, from what I’ve been told, is a genuinely pleasant person who just enjoys cranking out books. I don’t always like his books, but they’re pretty sincere. Keith and his late brother also wrote a huge chunk of the early Traveller material. They had to start using pseudonyms or whole issues of the Journal of the Traveller's Aid Society would be by them. They also notably did a huge portion of the FASA Traveller supplements, https://wiki.travellerrpg.com/William_H._Keith,_Jr. https://wiki.travellerrpg.com/J._Andrew_Keith They did a lot of art too, many of Traveller's iconic ships are their designs. https://www.google.com/search?q=tra...CAEQBA&biw=1619 RIP JAK.
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Jun 19, 2021 18:30
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The Sabbat War anthology is outstanding. Easily the best anthology of the three (??) so far.
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Jun 20, 2021 09:18
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Is there another Volpone Blueblood story that completely wastes its potential?
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Jun 20, 2021 18:03
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Ever since I found this thread I've been maintaining a spreadsheet to keep track of all the recommendations, moving each book to a separate tab when I've completed it. I currently have 81 books on the "To Read" tab! I try to read the ones related to the Horus Heresy in order, but as they keep writing more it's difficult to keep track of where new ones fit in. I think I'll have to do some sort of grand re-ordering but I'm not looking forward to it.
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Jun 20, 2021 18:18
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Dick Trauma posted:Ever since I found this thread I've been maintaining a spreadsheet to keep track of all the recommendations, moving each book to a separate tab when I've completed it. I currently have 81 books on the "To Read" tab! I've been doing the same with a Google docs file, I'd love to see your sheet Here's mine: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1hzC8gT7fFCZwscmT4DcJDPV31IEjkvkcCdNesqL00aQ/edit?usp=drivesdk I am aware there are some terrible books on here, mostly horus heresy related.
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Jun 20, 2021 20:37
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kanonvandekempen posted:I've been doing the same with a Google docs file, I'd love to see your sheet https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/101jfEEO6ibqHJK7yzDULddtgkAQO3jNSUevmw0Oe61s/edit?usp=sharing
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Jun 20, 2021 21:53
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Dick Trauma posted:Ever since I found this thread I've been maintaining a spreadsheet to keep track of all the recommendations, moving each book to a separate tab when I've completed it. I currently have 81 books on the "To Read" tab! I posted a new Horus heresy book chart a couple of weeks ago in the thread that breaks down all the various plotlines and books.
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Jun 20, 2021 22:07
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