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Hello all, I have been lurking this thread for a little bit as I have read a few 40K books here and there and am interested in the setting. The wall of titles is a bit daunting though! Off the top of my head I have read Horus Rising, IG omnibus, Gaunt’s Ghosts 1-3 and some Sabbat anthology, Sandy Mitchell (Dark Heresy 1+2), pretty sure there was an Ultramarines novel somewhere in there too. But not a regular reader of the universe. So probably just scratching the surface. I will read Eisenhorn and then come back, but before I do, I did notice the current 40K Humble Bundle has a lot of titles that are recommended in posts here - would any of those in particular be essential reading? No real faction allegiance at the moment (I do have the collected Night Lords trilogy by ADB on the way from eBay though, as it seems to be a fan favourite). (Edit: a shameful snipe)
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Apr 17, 2021 10:37
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Other than the Night Lords book which you've already bought, I think the only really standout book in the current Humble Bundle is Black Legion. Maybe Lords of Silence is good as it's Chris Wraight who is generally excellent, but I've not read that one.
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Apr 17, 2021 10:50
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Lords of Silence is brilliant
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Apr 17, 2021 14:07
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HerpicleOmnicron5 posted:Lords of Silence is brilliant Yes it is. Also, Alpharius is a smug prick isn’t he
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Apr 17, 2021 14:10
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What else would you expect from the head of the space KGB who is also a demigod?
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Apr 17, 2021 14:12
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wiegieman posted:A setting detail I really liked from the new post-rift books is how Cawl's Mechanicus faction goes out of their way to make things sleek and presentable. They don't go in for bulky augmetics (unless they're like Cawl himself and are old as balls and have abandoned their failing bodies completely) and huge soot belching machines, everything is in the human form factor and hums along quietly. They want to look like they're living in the future, not its ruins. Yeah, I get that people are mad it's not the horrible regressive grimdark that they love, but Cawl really channels Arkhan Land, and I appreciate that kind of general philosophy of "Well if the Omnissiah didn't want us to make things better why would he have made us so smart?" I mean Cawl is loving around with AI and stuff, but as far as I'm concerned, tech heresy is no heresy at all. Inspector_666 fucked around with this message at 16:13 on Apr 17, 2021 |
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Apr 17, 2021 16:11
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Inspector_666 posted:I mean Cawl is loving around with AI and stuff, but as far as I'm concerned, tech heresy is no heresy at all. Everyone always says this, right up until they go to start your washing machine and end up with your soul sacrificed you to She-Who-Thirsts?
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Apr 17, 2021 16:49
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Hereteks did nothing wrong
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Apr 17, 2021 17:00
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Schadenboner posted:Everyone always says this, right up until they go to start your washing machine and end up with your soul sacrificed you to She-Who-Thirsts? Hey, AIs don't fall to chaos. That's only squishy, weak flesh.
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Apr 17, 2021 17:05
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Inspector_666 posted:Well if the Omnissiah didn't want us to make things better why would he have made us so smart? hell yeah brother 
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Apr 17, 2021 17:13
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Inspector_666 posted:Hey, AIs don't fall to chaos. That's only squishy, weak flesh. It could be argued that the AI itself isn't what fell, but alongside the "Chaos scrapcode" we see pop up from time to time including the Gaunt books, there is also this Castigator Titan from the DAoT, controlled by a full unshackled AI inside it which is perhaps complex enough to have a "soul" for Chaos to feed off: quote:"By the Fell Gods and the destiny of warp, by the death of the False Emperor and the dying of the stars, we bring to you, Warmaster Abaddon, Beloved of Chaos, Despised of Man, this tribute. For now these last days are the final fires burning, the black flames that consume a galaxy, the storms of the warp that drown out life, the End Times and the dawn of a galaxy of Chaos. We swear fealty to the Gods of Chaos and their herald, Abaddon the Despoiler, with this tribute that it might strike fear into the followers of the Corpse-Emperor and that through it they may see the true face of death..." Also, guess which Primarchs are the leetest hackermans in the EoT and know everyones IP address? quote:Warpsmiths often oversee the implementation of Scrapcode, who in turn have learned this art from the teachings of the Daemon Primarchs Mortarion and Perturabo. It is a language used by hereteks of the Dark Mechanicum to converse and commune with the Chaos Gods and their manifestations. Brendan Rodgers fucked around with this message at 17:20 on Apr 17, 2021 |
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Apr 17, 2021 17:14
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Inspector_666 posted:Hey, AIs don't fall to chaos. That's only squishy, weak flesh. They do. The fall of the Eldar caused the war with the Men of Iron when they all went crazy from Slaanesh's birth scream. Most AI that's stable is stable for the same reason that warp-resistant humans are: they believe in something.
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Apr 17, 2021 17:18
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Miguel Prado posted:Yo that Alpharius book is good! Mike Brooks is drat near top tier He really is. He's a new author in general not just BL. 5-10 more years and he will be at ADB/Abnett/Wraight level I really believe. If you haven't read Rites of Passage yet you really should. It's his best book.
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Apr 17, 2021 17:33
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D-Pad posted:He really is. He's a new author in general not just BL. 5-10 more years and he will be at ADB/Abnett/Wraight level I really believe. Ditto to the max. I ordered Alpharius because it's him, I've never read a primarchs book.
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Apr 17, 2021 17:53
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wiegieman posted:They do. The fall of the Eldar caused the war with the Men of Iron when they all went crazy from Slaanesh's birth scream. DAD LOST MY IPOD posted:hell yeah brother Extremely 
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Apr 17, 2021 18:38
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Inspector_666 posted:Hey, AIs don't fall to chaos. That's only squishy, weak flesh. One of the bad Grey Knights books had an AI that managed an STC that churned out Titans fall to chaos, after the protagonist convinced it to, so he could kill it with grey knight anti-daemon bullshit.
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Apr 17, 2021 18:46
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Preechr posted:One of the bad Grey Knights books had an AI that managed an STC that churned out Titans fall to chaos, after the protagonist convinced it to, so he could kill it with grey knight anti-daemon bullshit. I mean thats a pro tier move tbh.
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Apr 17, 2021 18:52
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TBF the difference between a machine spirit and an AI is who it listens to. In the Iron Hands trilogy Kardan Stronos communes with the machine spirit of a mechanicus base in a very cool scene and it's very obviously an AI from the dark age that happens to be content running its building and then it hitches a ride inside of Stronos' augmetics/brain
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Apr 17, 2021 19:17
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Most ships basically have AI, they just like being a ship and doing ship things so they don't really care.
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Apr 17, 2021 20:43
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Arquinsiel posted:Where does this happen? Usually they suggest that the fall happened way earlier, although that might just be individual Eldar being arrogant shits. The Fall ended the Dark Age and began the Age of Strife, when the warp storms it generated began the Long Night where no-one could easily travel through the warp (rougly M25.) The Men of Iron also rebelled and attacked humanity at this time; that they are related is an inference.
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Apr 17, 2021 21:05
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wiegieman posted:The Fall ended the Dark Age and began the Age of Strife, when the warp storms it generated began the Long Night where no-one could easily travel through the warp (rougly M25.) The Men of Iron also rebelled and attacked humanity at this time; that they are related is an inference. My understanding is that the warp storms (and also the rise in human psychic activity) that caused the Age of Strife and Long Night actually were triggered by the nascent pre-birth formation of Slaanesh within the warp—the gathering shadow presaging its birth. The actual Fall of the Eldar, the birth of Slaanesh and the formation of the Eye of Terror acted like an explosion that blew out those warp storms and created the conditions necessary for the Crusade and the Imperium. The Emperor began planning Unification shortly after Slaanesh emerged.
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Apr 17, 2021 21:20
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DAD LOST MY IPOD posted:My understanding is that the warp storms (and also the rise in human psychic activity) that caused the Age of Strife and Long Night actually were triggered by the nascent pre-birth formation of Slaanesh within the warp—the gathering shadow presaging its birth. The actual Fall of the Eldar, the birth of Slaanesh and the formation of the Eye of Terror acted like an explosion that blew out those warp storms and created the conditions necessary for the Crusade and the Imperium. The Emperor began planning Unification shortly after Slaanesh emerged. This is my understanding as well, but yeah it's not always clear in the lore
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Apr 18, 2021 07:59
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peanut- posted:Other than the Night Lords book which you've already bought, I think the only really standout book in the current Humble Bundle is Black Legion. Thanks for the recs! Nurgle’s whole thing grosses me out but Lords of Silence seems pretty popular, so I will add it to the list.
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Apr 18, 2021 13:59
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D-Pad posted:This is my understanding as well, but yeah it's not always clear in the lore Due to time weirdness it's not super clear but the age of strife and the fall of the eldar basically happened concurrently, another factor that fed into this is that the age of strife is when psykers started appear in humans and the whole untrained psyker thing started doing it what it always does.
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Apr 18, 2021 17:28
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No new preorders other than print-on-demand books until at least May sometime, womp womp I was excited about the new LE Sisters set coming out next weekend
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Apr 18, 2021 18:14
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Sphyrnidae posted:Thanks for the recs! Nurgle’s whole thing grosses me out but Lords of Silence seems pretty popular, so I will add it to the list. Any and all writings by Chris Wraight is a must read, in my opinion he is the best author BL's got by a wide margin.
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Apr 19, 2021 16:43
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He's also mentioned on twitter that more Warhammer Crime books are in the works. Which is nice.
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Apr 20, 2021 14:31
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I am rereading Saturnine and did Abnett write this at the same time as Penitent? Because it seems like he maybe put all his writing chops into Penitent and maybe that's why I feel Saturnine is the weakest of all the Siege novels.
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Apr 20, 2021 15:02
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Cooked Auto posted:He's also mentioned on twitter that more Warhammer Crime books are in the works. Which is nice. HYPE FOR MORE CRIME.
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Apr 20, 2021 15:35
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Biplane posted:I am rereading Saturnine and did Abnett write this at the same time as Penitent? Because it seems like he maybe put all his writing chops into Penitent and maybe that's why I feel Saturnine is the weakest of all the Siege novels. uh... I don't think too many people will agree with you on Saturnine being the worst Siege novel. Just the part with Camba Diaz holding the bridge is often mentioned as one of the greatest sequences in a Warhammer book.
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Apr 20, 2021 15:40
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Yeah Saturnine is imo the best Abnett’s prose has ever been. You can take issue with the nature of the plot (it’s sort of the ultimate middle child book, coming as it does after the fall of Lion’s Gate but before the breach of the Palace wall) or the revelations, but the writing itself is unimpeachable. also I think there are arguments for rating it below the best abnett books, largely because of the aforementioned plot issues, but it’s absolutely head and shoulders above the first three siege of terra books, none of which are ever better than mediocre
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Apr 20, 2021 15:48
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IMO Abnett is at his worst when given bridging or mid-series books. The writing is still good, individual scenes are great but it ends up feeling a bit formless.
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Apr 20, 2021 15:59
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Gravitas Shortfall posted:IMO Abnett is at his worst when given bridging or mid-series books. The writing is still good, individual scenes are great but it ends up feeling a bit formless. The problem with Saturnine is that it’s a book that doesn’t map onto any of the well-known events of the Siege, which means that Abnett had to come up with something for the book to be about. Otherwise it’s just “and then more stuff happened.” He did his best with the Saturnine assault, but without an anchoring event, the book was a bit unmoored. I think he recognized that and did something very cool when writing it, which was to highlight individual acts of incredible heroism and tragedy amidst the chaos of the siege—moments that would be lost if they had to compete against an iconic moment like the retaking of Lion’s Gate or the breach of the Ultimate Wall. camba diaz on the bridge, the khan’s charge at Colossi Gate, the various Army regiments at Eternity Gate, the last stand of Olly Piers, these moments were incredible. the actual descriptions, dialogue, ie the prose itself in saturnine is top notch.
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Apr 20, 2021 17:08
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DAD LOST MY IPOD posted:...the last stand of Olly Piers... I somehow doubt he's actually, finally dead
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Apr 20, 2021 18:18
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Honestly it's the prose itself I didn't like. I recognize that I'm in the minority here though, but do we know if he wrote those books at the same time? Because Penitent was wildly better in my opinion, and it makes sense to me that he would spend more effort on it, than on Saturnine, seeing as it's his own series kinda.
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Apr 20, 2021 18:34
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How readable is Saturnine if you skip the first books of the Siege and go right to it? I've bounced off the first book of the series a couple times now.
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Apr 20, 2021 18:47
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Honestly all of the siege books have been mediocre to bad, saturnine being the best of them. ^You can read summaries of the previous books on the internet
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Apr 20, 2021 21:31
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Gravitas Shortfall posted:I somehow doubt he's actually, finally dead Different guy.
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Apr 20, 2021 22:19
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Arbite posted:Different guy. The real guy is in the next book.
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Apr 20, 2021 22:41
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Khizan posted:How readable is Saturnine if you skip the first books of the Siege and go right to it? I've bounced off the first book of the series a couple times now. I skipped everything in the HH series after like the first five and I really enjoyed Saturnine. I've got a good grounding in the general lore of the setting (although I did have to hit 40k wiki about the immortal regular human people), but it's got enough of that good Abnett "explain via context" that I didn't have much trouble.
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Apr 21, 2021 03:25
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