Articles tagged with: Books

I must confess I hadn't read anything about this trilogy before talking with Agramar one day about Warhammer 40k books (he is a living encyclopedia). And buff, I should have learned way before!

Jaq Draco is an Ordo Malleus Inquisitor, who has become a member of the inner circle (those with access to secrets and hidden twists).

Grimm is a squat, grunty, always complaining, but a good companion and mechanic.

Meh'lindi is a beautiful Callidus assasin, who has been chosen for a special treatment. Instead of using pholymorphine to just mutate into other humanoid forms, terrible surgery is done inside her to introduce special muscles and bones so that she can morph into a genestealer hybrid and infiltrate their cults.

Googol is an imperial navigator who likes poetry (and women), "driver" of Jaq in the warp.

Those four widely different characters, plus later on Lex, an Imperial Fists space marine captain, will start perfoming some imperial missions like killing a genestealer patriarch, but things will get interesting when Jaq finds about a über-secret plot with an unknown secret organization, regarding humanity's Emperor, Eldar, Chaos... And that's only the beginning.

 

I won't spoil anything because the beauty of this books is reading them without summaries/intros. Just believe me that if you could only read one Warhammer 40.000 book, it should be this one.

Ian Watson had lots of problems with the books because he chose to ignore Warhammer's main target (young people) and instead write adult, serious sci-fi novels. You have topics like sex, raping (mental, but anyway), violence, sacrifices... Not for children, but neither targeted for them.

The story unfolds so great and has quite a few good twists and revelations that it sucks you into reading more and more.

The best book I've read so far.

Posted on 2012-07-22

I've been playing a lot Diablo 3 lately (up to the point that now I need to slow down before I burnout my desire to keep playing), and although I really like the Diablo series, I don't think they have too deep lore/setting.

My friend Jorge just gifted me for my birthday the recently released Book of Cain, which extends Diablo 3 lore by representing all the notes that Deckard Cain wrote and gathered during his years of research.

The truth is that you cannot make something brilliant if it isn't. The book indeed extends the lore a lot, not only linking the three videogames, but also providing the base of all the scenarios you will visit in the games, alongside all the characters, monsters, demons...

It is nicely presented, as if it were an old book, with side notes, remarks and really well done hand drawings of places, characters, sigils and monsters (the best part).

Around 2/3 of the book are about the eras before the first Diablo videogame, with all the angels and demons presented and detailed, so you definitely extend the game lore by reading the book (and then probably replaying the games).

While not too deep, if you liked the games (specially Diablo 2 and 3) you will enjoy the Eternal Conflict tales.

Posted on 2012-06-11

Fifth book of the Ultramarines, once again Uriel Ventris will fight foes, but this time new ones. After being restored as an Ultramarine and captain of the fourth chapter, the misterous Tau race seem to be attacking Pavonis, an old known of Uriel (they saved the planet in the past, in the first book of the series).

The planet is also suffering severe imperial monitoring of all areas and activities, there is still civil unrest and povertry, and the balance of the planet seems still too fragile.

As in previous books, the pacing is nice, switching between multiple sub-plots that slowly progress towards a common junction and conclussion.

The Tau are portaited ok, but as it is a race I don't fancy much (aliens with Japanese looking mechs, meh) the book was not as engaging as others.

One problem in this book is an excess of humanization for some characters. We're talking a bout a millennium of war, death and destruction, an era where only the strong or the evil persist. Military forces are either almost brainwashed or fear-driven (Imperial guard + Comissars).
And then some characters are too human and think too much, when they should just do it "for the Emperor". If you read the book you will understand what I mean. It smells to much to be credible.

The battles are well narrated, has the usual plot changes, deceipts and surprises, but here Uriel acts just like a clever Space Marine captain instead of someone who went through a lot of "uncommon experiences" and terrible foes. You could change the names of characters or the SM chapter and nobody would notice.

It feels like the second Matrix movie. Not much plot, no story advancement... almost nothing except some spectacle with known characters (and not so much, as there are lots of secondary characters).

Posted on 2012-02-01

Third and last book about the Grey Knights forming the Omnibus (there is a fourth book which I'm currently reading), Alaric will face again the forces of chaos... but in a different way.

The book starts with the capture of the main character by chaos forces (Ultramarines Omnibus copy?) but this time, filling with gladiator-like chaos arenas where he will fight hellspawns and mutants.

And so it goes most of the book, which is a pity because could almost be any other non-grey knight character. It is just "remembered" here and there with small details, but quite hollow in general. Excepting two or three specific points, the whole book could have any other main character without anybody noticing it.
In fact this way of forced refering to previous books characters and enemies is done too much, as if the author was trying to force us to link with the past because the current one was too detached (and indeed it is).

The story (without spoilers) gets really really absurd, to some points that I doubt a Grey Knight would have gone.

Also, unlike in other books not part of this trilogy Grey Knights are usually treated not as powerfull as here... but in this book it is too extreme. Way too much easy killing of demons and monsters by an almost unarmed GK (no power armor, no halberd, just gladiator old weapons).

A big dissapointment. I just finished it to close the trilogy.

Posted on 2012-01-19

Second book of the trilogy/omnibus, sending the Grey Knights now to investigate a strange world that has appeared from nowhere and contains dangerous Dark Mechanicum tech-priests and other surprises.

Not bad story, albeith this one being more atipical (the Dark Mechanicum are not very detailed so the author decided some aspects for them).

Some plot parts are very predictable and the topic might not be as interesting as the previous book's one, but one thing I like is that all DK books seem to be settled in a specific "present" timeframe where Abaddon is coming out from the Eye of Terror so the whole universe is in a huge and delicate war with Chaos forces.

Too bad that the "background problems" not advance a bit :P

So, not a bad book but not as good as the first one, you will enjoy it if you like reading about the Adeptus Mechanicus.

Posted on 2011-12-02